THE GIBSON REPORT — 02-14-21💝 — Compiled By Elizabeth Gibson, Esquire, NY Legal Assistance Group — Mandatory E-Filing @ EOIR Starts & Lots Of Other “Interesting Stuff!”  — CMS Study Shows How Garland Is Ignoring the “Low Hanging Fruit” On His Out of Control EOIR Backlog! ☹️

Elizabeth Gibson
Elizabeth Gibson
Attorney, NY Legal Assistance Group
Publisher of “The Gibson Report”

PRACTICE ALERTS

 

Mandatory E-Filing with EOIR Is Now in Effect

Efiling is not permitted for cases with a preexisting paper file, but all new cases moving forward require efiling with ECAS.

Once a case is fully ECAS, you do not need to serve ICE separately. However, you still need to submit a certificate of service that lists ECAS as the means of service. eService/mail can still be used on paper files. eService is the only method of filing for PD requests.

Also, EOIR apparently has not come up with a system for filing motions to substitute counsel in ECAS. The system physically will not let you file a new primary E-28 if there already is an attorney, and you cannot file a motion without an E-28. The workaround so far has been to file a non-primary E-28 and then to ask the court to change it to primary. Hopefully, EOIR will fix this soon.

 

Updated Legal Assistant Directories for NYC (attached)

 

NEWS

 

U.S. to try house arrest for immigrants as alternative to detention

Reuters: The Biden administration will place hundreds of migrants caught at the U.S.-Mexico border on house arrest in the coming weeks as it seeks cheaper alternatives to immigration detention, according to a notice to lawmakers and a U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official. A 120-day pilot program will be launched in Houston and Baltimore, with 100-200 single adults enrolled in each location, according to the notice, which was sent by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and reviewed by Reuters. See also Immigrant Rights Organizations Call on Biden to Stop Expansion of Surveillance and End the Immigration Detention System as a Whole.

 

The Continuing Impact of The Pandemic on Immigration Court Case Completions

TRAC: As of the end of January 2022, the pace of Immigration Court work continues to lag as a result of the pandemic. There have been not only fewer case completions, but the average time required to dispose of each case has doubled since before the pandemic began.

 

Nationwide Labor Pause Planned In ‘Day Without Immigrants’ Protest

LAA Weekly: Valentine’s Day has been strategically selected for the “Day Without Immigrants” protest, as it is a day where an abundance of consumer spending occurs, through labor that is often carried out by immigrants.

 

Quick Fix to Help Overwhelmed Border Officials Has Left Migrants in Limbo

NYT: These migrants were instructed to register with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement within 60 days to complete the process the border officials started. But in some parts of the country, local ICE offices were overwhelmed and unable to give them appointments. So the Haitian family and other new arrivals have spent months trying in vain to check in with ICE and initiate their court cases.

 

US citizenship agency reverts to welcoming mission statement

AP: The new statement unveiled Wednesday by Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Ur Jaddou is symbolic but somewhat restores previous language after the agency removed a reference in 2018 to the U.S. being a “nation of immigrants.”

 

Salvadoran Denied Naturalization Over Pot Dispensary Job

Law360: A Washington federal judge has ruled that a Salvadoran citizen’s U.S. naturalization application was properly denied because of her admission that she distributes marijuana as co-owner of a state-licensed dispensary.

 

EOIR Apologizes After Asking Atty To Delete Tweets

Law360: The U.S. Department of Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review apologized on Tuesday to an attorney after asking her to delete tweets about immigration court hearings for people enrolled in the controversial “Remain in Mexico” program.

 

Undocumented parents have weathered a pandemic with no safety net

WaPo: A patchwork of federal aid kept many families afloat during the pandemic, but families with undocumented parents did not qualify for most of it, including unemployment insurance, the stimulus payments, Medicaid and food stamps.

 

LITIGATION/CASELAW/RULES/MEMOS

 

AO issues NOID for Afghan Who Worked for U.S.

Boston AO: A NOID from the asylum office stated that an individual who worked for the U.S. government as a mechanic had not demonstrated a fear of future persecution based on his imputed political opinion. The AO held there was insufficient evidence the Taliban was or would become aware of his imputed political option. The AO also stated the Taliban does not have the capability to persecute all former employees of the U.S. and the applicant had not demonstrated similarly situated people were being targeted. Counsel has submitted a detailed rebuttal with testimony from a US military official, and the applicant’s mother was granted asylum by a different officer.

 

District Court Vacates Two Trump Administration Asylum EAD Rules

AILA: A federal district court vacated the final rules “Removal of 30-day Processing Provision for Asylum Applicant-Related Form I-765 Employment Authorization Applications” and “Asylum Application, Interview, and Employment Authorization for Applicants.” (AsylumWorks v. Mayorkas, 2/7/22)

 

Lawsuit against the BIA Levels the Legal Playing Field for Immigrant Advocates

NYLAG: Under the settlement, the Board will be required to place nearly all its opinions into an online reading room, accessible to all in perpetuity, ensuring that immigration advocates will have access to these opinions within six months of when they are issued. The Board also must post its decisions dating back to 2017 as well as some from 2016. Posting will begin in October 2022 and will be phased in over several years.

 

2nd Circ. Says BIA Undercuts Precedent In Asylum Case

Law360: The Second Circuit on Wednesday granted a Nigerian man’s petition for review of a Board of Immigration Appeals order that denied him asylum, finding that the agency made several legal and procedural errors and did not adequately explain its reasons.

 

3rd Circ. Says Nigerian Paroled Into US Wasn’t ‘Admitted’

Law360: The federal government properly charged a Nigerian man as inadmissible to the U.S. rather than removable, because his entry to the country on parole constituted an arrival despite his previous admission, the Third Circuit ruled Friday.

 

CA6 on U Visa Waitlisting: Barrios Garcia v. DHS

Lexis: We hold that § 706(1) allows the federal courts to command USCIS to hasten an unduly delayed “bona fide” determination, which is a mandatory decision under 8 U.S.C. § 1184(p)(6) and the BFD process. We hold, however, that the federal courts cannot invoke 5 U.S.C. § 706(1) to force USCIS to speed up an unduly delayed pre-waitlist work-authorization adjudication, which is a nonmandatory agency action under 8 U.S.C. § 1184(p)(6) and the BFD process. We hold that Plaintiffs have sufficiently pleaded that USCIS has unreasonably delayed the principal petitioners’ placement on the U-visa waitlist.

 

9th Circ. Finds Part Of Immigration Law Unconstitutional

Law360: The Ninth Circuit invalidated the subsection of a law that makes it a crime to encourage unlawful immigration, ruling Thursday it is overbroad and covers speech that is protected by the First Amendment.

 

9th Circ. Rejects Mexican Kidnapping Victim’s Protection Bid

Law360: The Board of Immigration Appeals need only to consider the possibility — not the reasonableness — of an immigrant’s safe relocation back to their home region when weighing protections under the Convention Against Torture, the Ninth Circuit ruled Wednesday.

 

USCIS, Immigrants Get Approval To Bar Juvenile Policy In NJ

Law360: A New Jersey federal judge signed off Wednesday on a class action settlement that would prevent the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services from refusing to place young immigrants on the path to a green card based on Garden State family court findings.

 

Foreign Spouses May Work With Feds’ Approval At Border

Law360: U.S. Customs and Border Protection is marking the entry records of certain foreign executives’ spouses to show that they are immediately eligible to work in the U.S. without going through the monthslong process of obtaining a work permit.

 

EOIR to Close Fishkill Immigration Court

AILA: EOIR will close the Fishkill Immigration Court due to the closure of the Downstate Correctional Facility in which the court is located. Holding hearings at the location will cease at close of business on February 17, 2022. Pending cases at time of closure will transfer to Ulster Immigration Court.

 

EOIR Clarifies Alternative Filing Locations

AILA: EOIR updated its Operation Status website with information clarifying that alternate filing locations are designated for the purpose of filing emergency motions and explaining how it will treat other filings if a court is closed.

 

USCIS Issues Updated Policy Guidance Addressing VAWA Petitions

AILA: USCIS updated policy guidance addressing VAWA petitions, specifically changing the interpretation of the requirement for shared residence. The guidance also affects use of INA 204(a)(2), implements the decisions in Da Silva v. Attorney General and Arguijo v. United States, and more.

 

DHS and VA Launch New Online Resources for Noncitizen Service Members, Veterans, and Their Families

AILA: DHS, in partnership with the Department of Veterans Affairs and Defense, launched an online center to consolidate resources for noncitizen service members, veterans, and their families, including a request form for current or former service members seeking return to the U.S. after deportation.

 

USCIS Updates Policy Guidance on VAWA Self-Petitions

USCIS: We are updating our interpretation of the requirement for shared residence to occur during the qualifying spousal or parent-child relationship. Instead, the self-petitioner must demonstrate that they are residing or have resided with the abuser at any time in the past.

We are also implementing nationwide the decisions in Da Silva v. Attorney General, 948 F.3d 629 (3rd Cir. 2020), and Arguijo v. United States, 991 F.3d 736 (7th Cir. 2021). Da Silva v. Attorney General held that when evaluating the good moral character requirement, an act or conviction is “connected to” the battery or extreme cruelty when it has “a causal or logical relationship.” Arguijo v. USCIS allows stepchildren and stepparents to continue to be eligible for VAWA self-petitions even if the parent and stepparent divorced.

 

RESOURCES

 

 

EVENTS

 

 

ImmProf

 

Monday, February 14, 2022

Sunday, February 13, 2022

Saturday, February 12, 2022

Friday, February 11, 2022

Thursday, February 10, 2022

Wednesday, February 9, 2022

Tuesday, February 8, 2022

Monday, February 7, 2022

 

 

 

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After two plus decades of largely wasted time, effort, and resources, EOIR finally moves into the era of E-Filing! 

Elizabeth notes one of the “initial workarounds” for motions to substitute counsel. While early glitches are to be expected in any system, this one seems odd because: 1) the system has supposedly been extensively “beta tested;” and 2) motions to substitute counsel have to be one of the most common motions filed at EOIR (particularly with cases often taking many years to complete with the ever-growing 1.6 million case backlog.)

I’d be interested in getting any “practitioner feedback” on how this system (applicable only to newly filed NTAs) is working out for them. You can just put in the “comments box” for this post.

Speaking of backlog, this excellent recent study and analysis from CMS (under “Friday Feb. 11” above) certainly suggests that the majority of the “aged cases” being “warehoused” by Garland’s EOIR relate to law-abiding long-term residents who are already firmly grounded in our society and should be prime candidates for “non-priority” status and removal from the dockets. 

Undocumented immigrants contribute to every aspect of the nation’s life.16 During the COVID-19 pandemic, the case for legalization has become increasingly evident to the public and policymakers due, in part, to the fact that a remarkable 74 percent of the nation’s 7.3 million undocumented workers meet DHS’s definition of essential workers (Kerwin and Warren 2020). As the nation ages and its population over age 65 exceeds that under age 15 (Chamie 2021), the need for immigrant workers will only increase. US fertility rates fell for five consecutive years prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the US birth rate decreased by four percent in 2020 (Barroso 2021).17

Legalization programs benefit the larger society: they “raise wages, increase consumption, create jobs, and generate additional tax revenue” (Hinojosa-Ojeda 2012, 191).18 One study has estimated that broad immigration reform legislation, including a legalization program and a flexible, rights-respecting, legal immigration system, would add $1.5 trillion to the US gross domestic product over 10 years (ibid., 176). Another study found that a legalization program would increase the productivity, earnings, and taxes paid by the legalized, resulting in increased contributions to the Social Security (SS) program, which would more than offset the SS benefits that they would receive (Kugler, Lynch and Oakford 2013).

Indeed, the data in the CMS study confirms what many of us have suspected for a long time: That deportation of many of the individuals now occupying the Immigration Court’s mind-boggling docket backlog actually would be a counterproductive “net loss” for the U.S.!

So, why are Garland and Mayorkas letting the backlog fester and ooze disorder and injustice? ☠️ Rather than using largely self-created backlogs to support more “enforcement gimmicks” purporting to lead to the forced removal of many productive members of our society, EOIR is long overdue for some form of the “Chen Markowitz Plan” in anticipation of the types of ameliorative legislation outlined in the CMS study.  

Ready to Stay: A Comprehensive Analysis of the US Foreign-Born Populations Eligible for Special Legal Status Programs and for Legalization under Pending Bills by Donald Kerwin, José Pacas, Robert Warren

https://immigrationcourtside.com/2021/02/04/its-not-rocket-science-%f0%9f%9a%80-greg-chen-professor-peter-markowitz-can-cut-the-immigration-court-backlog-in-half-immediately-with-no-additional-resources-and/

Donald M. Kerwin
Donald M. Kerwin
Executive Director
Center for Migration Studies — He and his friends at CMS have some great ideas on immigration and human rights backed by some of the best scholarship around! Why are Garland, Mayorkas, and others “tuning them out” while they continue to bungle immigration policy, degrade human rights, and undermine our legal system?

Garland’s disgraceful failure to put a “Progressive A-Team” in charge at EOIR continues to drag down our entire justice system.

Note that Sessions and Barr had no trouble and no hesitation installing their “Miller Time” restrictionist team at DOJ and EOIR despite almost universal outrage and protests from human rights advocates, immigration experts, and some legislators! 

Why do Dems keep appointing AG’s who are too “tone deaf,” clueless, and timid to fully “leverage” the almost unlimited potential of reforming EOIR to be a font of due process, best practices, and scholarly,  efficient judging?

Why do Dems prefer the equal and racial justice “disaster zone” that they have helped to create, aided, and abetted over the past two decades of abject failure and disorder at EOIR?

There is a reason why Chair Lofgren and others on the Hill are pushing for Article I! But, that in no way diminishes or excuses the failure of Garland to make available due process and best practices reforms at EOIR, including a major shakeup of “Trump holdover” judges and managers who aren’t up to the job of running a system “laser-focused” on due process and fundamental fairness!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

02-15-22

NEW FROM CMS: Accessible Citizenship Is A Huge Win – Win For The U.S. & The Citizens — Trump Regime Works Overtime To Create A Lose – Lose!

Donald M. Kerwin
Donald M. Kerwin
Executive Director
Center for Migration Studies
Robert Warren
Robert Warren
Senior Visiting Fellow
Center For Migration Studies
View this email in your browser
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The Center for Migration Studies Releases New Report on the Benefits of Citizenship and the Barriers to Naturalization

 

The well-being and contributions of immigrants increase as they advance toward citizenship, but new impediments to permanent residence and naturalization deny access to citizenship.

New York, NY — The Center for Migration Studies of New York (CMS) today released a report finding that the well-being of immigrants and their contributions to the United States increase as they advance to more permanent and secure immigration statuses, culminating in naturalization. The report finds that naturalized citizens match or exceed the native-born by key metrics, including: college degrees (35% vs. 29%); percent employed (96% vs. 95%); and average personal income ($45,600 vs. $40,600).

The report – authored by CMS Executive Director Donald Kerwin and CMS Senior Visiting Fellow Robert Warren – argues that the administration’s “America first” ideology obscures a far-reaching set of policies that significantly impede the ability of immigrants to “move forward” on the path to naturalization, to their own detriment and the detriment of their families and communities.

“The report finds that policy makers should encourage naturalization rather than making it unnecessarily difficult,” said Warren. “Another important finding is that the US legal immigration system currently produces the same percentage of high skilled workers as the native-born population.”

The report documents the Trump administration’s policies that seek to prevent undocumented persons from gaining status, divest documented persons of status, cut legal admissions and immigration by decree, create new barriers to permanent residence and naturalization, and make citizenship a less valuable and less secure status.

It finds that at least 5.2 million current US citizens – 4.5 million children and 730,000 adults – who are living with at least one undocumented parent, obtained US citizenship by birth.  It concludes that current immigration enforcement priorities effectively deny the full rights and benefits of citizenship to the US citizen children of undocumented parents, and it warns that eliminating birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented parents would create a permanent underclass of US-born denizens.

“US citizenship represents the principle marker of full membership and equality under the law in our constitutional democracy,” said Kerwin. “Yet this administration has adopted policies to make naturalization far less accessible and to make citizenship a less secure and valuable status for some disfavored citizens.”

The report is now available at: https://cmsny.org/publications/citizenship-kerwin-warren/

MEDIA CONTACT

Emma Winters

(212) 337-3080 x. 7012

ewinters@cmsny.org

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Making losers out of everyone is a specialty of the Trump Regime’s “myth-based” White Nationalist agenda. “Malicious incompetence” in action!

PWS

12-13-19

CMS RESEARCH DOCUMENTS TRUMP’S “MALICIOUS INCOMPETENCE” — “Mass Deportation Strategy” Is As Stupid As It Is Cruel — Removing Most Of Those Already Here Without Documents Would Have A Huge NEGATIVE Impact On America!

Donald M. Kerwin
Donald M. Kerwin
Executive Director
Center for Migration Studies
CMS RESEARCH DOCUMENTS TRUMP’S “MALICIOUS INCOMPETENCE” — “Mass Deportation Strategy” Is As Stupid As It Is Cruel — Removing Most Of Those Already Here Without Documents Would Have A Huge NEGATIVE Impact On America!
The New York Times reported that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will soon begin conducting a large-scale enforcement action aimed at those with final removal orders, but that “might detain immigrants who happened to be on the scene, even though they were not targets of the raids.” The Center for Migration Studies (CMS) opposes mass deportations because of the immense cost to families, communities, and the US economy.

According to data from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University, “the vast majority (58%) of individuals in ICE custody June 30 [2018] had no criminal record. An even larger proportion—four out of five—either had no record, or had only committed a minor offense such as a traffic violation.” CMS recommends deprioritizing the arrest and removal of long-term residents, persons with US family members, and those without criminal records or with only minor offenses. Here are two of CMS’s recent reports about the effects of deportation.

Mass Deportations Would Impoverish US Families and Create Immense Social Costs

In this paper for the Journal on Migration and Human Security, Donald Kerwin and Robert Warren offer a demographic analysis of the potential impact on US families and children of large-scale deportation of US undocumented residents. Here are some of the key findings:

  • Removing undocumented residents from mixed-status households would reduce median household income from $41,300 to $22,000, a drop of $19,300, or 47 percent, which would plunge millions of US families into poverty.
  • If just one-third of the US-born children of deported undocumented residents remained in the United States following a mass deportation program, which is a very low estimate, the cost of raising those children through their minority would total $118 billion.
  • 2.9 million undocumented residents were 14 years old or younger when they were brought to the United States.
  • About 1.2 million, or 23 percent, of the 5.3 million households that have undocumented residents have mortgages.

READ THE REPORT.

Communities in Crisis: Interior Removals and Their Human Consequences

With the Kino Border Initiative (KBI) and the Office of Justice and Ecology (OJE) of the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States, CMS studied both the quantitative and qualitative effects of deportation and surveyed 133 deportees, as well as interviewed 20 family members and other persons affected by deportation. Here are some key findings:

  • More than half (56 percent) of those surveyed first entered the country as minors (below age 18), and 21 percent below age 10.
  • Twenty-six percent had been US homeowners.
  • Respondents identified a range of close family members who depended on them financially prior to their deportation, including their mothers (72 percent), fathers (57 percent), and siblings (26 percent). Seventy-eight percent had US citizen children.
  • Roughly one-fourth of survey respondents reported spending no time in criminal custody and 22.6 percent spent a week or less prior to their deportation. However, 17.3 percent spent more than one year.

“My 14-year-old son wants to take on his dad’s responsibilities. Now he wants to go to work with his uncles. He asked them for work, but he doesn’t have the physical ability or age to work in construction, which was his dad’s occupation,” said a mother of three US citizen children and wife of detained immigrant who was interviewed for the report.

READ THE REPORT.DESCARGAR EL REPORTE [ESPAÑOL].

 

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Copyright © 2019 Center for Migration Studies, New York, All rights reserved.

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Notwithstanding Trump & his White Nationalist propagandists, facts still matter in the immigration debate. Download and read these CMS reports at the above links  and find out the truth about Trump’s “maliciously incompetent” immigration and human rights policies.

PWS

07-12-19

KERWIN & WARREN @ CMS: No, We Don’t Need To Spend More Money On “Designed To Fail” Border Enforcement — What We Need Is A Smarter, More Competent, Less Corrupt Government!

https://cmsny.org/publications/essay-kerwin-warren-051619/

The Trump administration came into office at a time when illegal border crossings from Mexico had been reduced to one-fourth from their historic highs and the US undocumented population had been falling for a decade. At present, the administration enjoys the largest immigration enforcement budget in US history, but in fiscal year (FY) 2019 the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is on track to apprehend the highest numbers of border crossers in more than a decade. In both March and April, the Border Patrol recorded more than 100,000 apprehensions at the US-Mexico border. Its border enforcement strategies are failing on their own terms and, until the United States reassesses its overall immigration and refugee policies, further enforcement funding would be throwing good money after bad.

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) needs increased staffing and better infrastructure at certain ports of entry (POEs), where large quantities of illegal narcotics enter the country and illegal firearms and drug proceeds leave it. It may also need to expand its capacity to respond in real time to changed migration patterns. However, lack of resources does not explain the administration’s failures. Rather, it is its failure to respond adequately to the conditions driving Central American and (increasingly) Venezuelan migrants, to provide legal pathways to protection for those fleeing violence and other impossible conditions, and to create a strong, well-resourced US asylum system.[1]

Historically Unprecedented Immigration Enforcement Spending

In 1990, the total appropriation to the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) — for both immigration enforcement and adjudication of applications — was $1.2 billion. By 2018, the enacted budgets of the two DHS immigration enforcement agencies, CBP and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), equaled a combined $23.8 billion (DHS 2019, 21, 27). This figure does not include the significant immigration enforcement responsibilities and expenditures of: (1) US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), which primarily adjudicates immigration applications; (2) the Department of State (DOS), the Department of Justice (DOJ), and other federal agencies; (3) the federal criminal justice system, which prosecutes and adjudicates a high volume of illegal entry and re-entry offenses (TRAC 2017, 2018); and (4) the many states and localities officially delegated by ICE to enforce US immigration laws through programs like 287(g) (ICE 2018). While enforcement expenditures have increased, investments in the USCIS Asylum Corps and the Immigration Court system have lagged badly behind, leading to massive case backlogs and long delays in adjudicating cases (Kerwin 2018).

The president’s budget for 2020 would increase combined CBP and ICE funding to $30.2 billion (DHS 2019, 21, 27). Moreover, the Trump administration has set “operational control” — defined as “the prevention of all unlawful entries”[2] — as its overarching border enforcement goal and metric. Because unattainable, this goal positions the administration to argue that border enforcement resources — however much they are increased — do not suffice, and to respond to its own failures by insisting on additional enforcement funding and ever more divisive and cruel enforcement tactics, like separating children from their parents.

According to a study by the Migration Policy Institute, the funding and staffing levels of CBP and ICE exceed the combined levels of the four major DOJ law enforcement agencies (Meissner et al. 2013). These two agencies also receive many times more in funding than the three main US labor standards and workplace protection entities and all the state labor standards agencies combined.

The Changed Composition of Border Crossers, the Diminishing US Unauthorized Population, and the Border Wall

On February 15, 2019, the President declared a national emergency at the US-Mexico border which, if it withstands legal scrutiny, will allow the administration to redirect an estimated $8 billion appropriated for other purposes, primarily from the Department of Defense, to extending the wall at the US-Mexico border. The proposed increases follow years of dramatically reduced arrivals across the border that have transformed the US undocumented population.

Apprehensions at the border — which include multiple entries of the same person — dropped from more than 1.6 million in 2000 to about 300,000 in 2017 even though the size of the Border Patrol more than doubled, from 9,200 in 2000 to 19,400 in 2017 (CBP 2017a,b). Between 2010 and 2017, the total undocumented population fell from 11,725,000 to 10,665,000, spurred by a 1.3 million decrease in the number of Mexican undocumented residents (Warren 2019).  Moreover, since 2010 the number of persons that illegally crossed has been roughly one-half of the number that entered legally and overstayed their visas, undermining the case for a border wall (ibid.).

Beginning in FY 2014 and continuing through FY 2019, immense numbers of unaccompanied children and families, primarily from the Northern Triangle states of Central America, have been driven to the United States, Mexico, and elsewhere by some of the world’s highest homicide rates, rampant extortion and conscription by gangs, criminal impunity, and intense poverty (Labrador and Renwick 2018). The number of migrants from Venezuela — a country in economic free fall and with very high rates of violent crime — has also increased sharply in recent years. Honduras, Venezuela, El Salvador, and Guatemala rank among the nations with world’s highest intentional homicide rates at 1st, 2nd, 5th, and 6th respectively (World Atlas 2018).  Many of these migrants have sought asylum in the United States, but mostly they are seeking protection wherever they can find it. They do not try to evade detection, but present themselves to Border Patrol agents or to CBP officials at POEs. CBP adds them to its “apprehension” statistics, as if they were criminals, but they have the legal right to seek asylum under both domestic and international law.

Enforcement-Only Approaches Are Counterproductive

Notwithstanding its extraordinary border enforcement budget, the Trump administration has presided over the highest numbers of border crossers in a decade. After peaking in 2000 and with the exception of a slight surge in FY 2014, arrests at the US-Mexico border were at or below 400,000 between 2011 and 2018.  Over the first six months of FY 2019, however, Border Patrol apprehensions spiked to more than 361,000 (CBP 2019). Additional enforcement funding will do nothing to address the humanitarian crises compelling hundreds of thousands of persons to seek protection for themselves and their children, however slim the odds of finding it.

Human smugglers should not be viewed as a cause of this crisis, but as a symptom of bad policies. Some smugglers commit unspeakable acts. Others do not and enjoy the trust of members of migrant-sending communities. In any event, migrants mostly understand the risks of migrating and do not make decisions based solely on what smuggling facilitators tell them. Dr. Gabriella Sanchez, Migrant Smuggling Research Fellow at the European University Institute, reports that potential migrants “gather as much information as they can from friends, family members, clergy, media, and smugglers themselves, and make their decisions based on what they learn.”  Moreover, they are not cavalier about their children’s safety. They are willing to subject themselves to greater risks than they would others, particularly their loved ones (Slack and Martinez 2018).

By all accounts, the administration’s policies have been a boon to smugglers. The administration has failed to provide legal avenues for the truly desperate to reach protection, both persons fleeing violence and formerly deported persons seeking to return to their US families.[3] Instead, it has erected new barriers to the US asylum system, separated parents from their children at the border, enacted unsustainable and cruel “zero tolerance” criminal prosecution policies for asylum seekers and other border crossers, and terminated the Central American Minors (CAM) program which allowed El Salvadoran, Guatemalan, and Honduran children to undergo refugee screening in their own countries and, if approved, to join their legally present parents living in United States as refugees or parolees. At a time of record numbers of refugees worldwide, it has limited refugee admissions to the lowest number in the history of the US Refugee Assistance Program and sought to eviscerate the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program, which allows designated national groups who cannot safely return home to remain in the United States.

These actions have been accompanied by the President’s threats to end foreign aid to Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras for “doing nothing” to stop migration to the United States, his repeated promises to enact ever “tougher” enforcement policies, and by his poisonous anti-immigrant rhetoric. With no legal options to migrate, little hope that conditions will improve in their home communities, and assurance (by the US president) that US policies will become more severe — most recently through threats to charge fees to apply for asylum, to deny bond and work authorization to asylum seekers, or to accelerate court hearings — large numbers have chosen not to wait at home (Wasem 2019). More border enforcement funding will do nothing to change this dynamic.

Conclusion

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported that in 2017 there were 68.5 million forcibly displaced persons, including 25.4 million refugees (UNHCR 2018); that developing regions hosted 85 percent of them; and that increasing numbers of asylum seekers were fleeing Northern Central America and Venezuela (UNHCR 2018, 7, 40). These trends have grown more acute in the interim. On December 17, 2018, UN member states — albeit not the United States — affirmed the Global Compact on Refugees (GCR), which seeks to support communities in developing states that host refugees, promote refugee self-reliance, expand their legal access to third countries, and allow for their safe and dignified return home (UNGA 2019, § 7). Not all of the migrants from the Northern Triangle states of Central America, Venezuela, or other global hotspots meet the narrow refugee definition, but very high percentages of them have been forced from their homes by unsafe and untenable conditions.

The United States would be well served by the kind of holistic strategy and commitments promoted by the GCR. The nation’s current enforcement-only approach will not improve conditions so that refugees and others at risk can stay or return home. Nor will it support their safe resettlement in other communities, afford them fair and timely asylum hearings, or allow them to reach safety through legal channels. It will make this humanitarian crisis worse, and do nothing to stop desperate people from crossing borders.


[1] Although not the subject of this essay, many scholars and lawyers have also reported on the immense population of deportees from the United States that plan to return to their US families (Kerwin, Alulema, and Nicholson 2018) despite the risk of prosecution, detention, and removal. One study concluded that US immigration enforcement programs will inevitably fail “when placed against the powerful pull of family and home” (Martinez, Slack, and Martinez-Schuldt 2018).

[2] Border Security and Immigration Enforcement Improvements, Exec. Order No. 13767, 82 Fed. Reg. 8793 (Jan. 25, 2017).

[3] Of course, in any large-scale migrant flow, there will be persons with different intentions and motivations, making screening a necessity.

References

CBP (US Customs and Border Protection). 2017a. “ Southwest Border Sectors: Total Illegal Alien Apprehensions by Fiscal Year (Oct. 1st through Sept. 30th).” Washington, DC: CBP. https://www.cbp.gov/sites/default/files/assets/documents/2017-Dec/BP%20Southwest%20Border%20Sector%20Apps%20FY1960%20-%20FY2017.pdf.

———. 2017b. “US Border Patrol Fiscal Year Staffing Statistics (FY 1992 – FY 2017).” Washington, DC: CBP. https://www.cbp.gov/document/stats/us-border-patrol-fiscal-year-staffing-statistics-fy-1992-fy-2017.

———. 2019. “US Border Patrol Southwest Border Apprehensions FY 2019.” Washington, DC: CBP. https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/sw-border-migration.

DHS (US Department of Homeland Security). 2019. FY 2020 Budget in Brief. Washington, DC: DHS. https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/19_0318_MGMT_FY-2020-Budget-In-Brief.pdf.

ICE (US Immigration and Customs Enforcement). 2018. “Delegation of Immigration Authority Section 287(g) Immigration and Nationality Act.” Washington, DC: ICE. https://www.ice.gov/287g.

Kerwin, Donald. 2018. “From IIRIRA to Trump: Connecting the Dots to the Current US Immigration Policy Crisis.”  Journal on Migration and Human Security 6(3): 192-204. https://doi.org/10.1177/2331502418786718.

Kerwin, Donald, Daniela Alulema, and Mike Nicholson. 2018. “Communities in Crisis: Interior Removals and their Human Consequences.” Journal on Migration and Human Security 6(4): 226-42. https://doi.org/10.1177/2331502418820066.

Labrador, Rocio Cara, and Danielle Renwick. 2018. “Central America’s Violent Northern Triangle.” Backgrounder. New York: Council on Foreign Relations. https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/central-americas-violent-northern-triangle.

Martinez, Daniel E., Jeremy Slack, and Ricardo D. Martinez-Schuldt. 2018. “Repeat Migration in the Age of the ‘Unauthorized Permanent Resident’: A Quantitative Assessment of Migration Intentions Postdeportation.” International Migration Review52(4): 1186-217. https://doi.org/10.1177/0197918318767921.

Meissner, Doris, Donald Kerwin, Muzaffar Chishti, and Claire Bergeron. 2013. “Immigration Enforcement in the United States: the Rise of a Formidable Machinery.” Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute. https://www.migrationpolicy.org/research/immigration-enforcement-united-states-rise-formidable-machinery.

Slack, Jeremy, and Daniel E. Martinez. 2018. “What Makes a Good Human Smuggler?  The Differences between Satisfaction with and Recommendations of Coyotes on the US-Mexico Border.” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 676(1): 152-73.  https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716217750562.

TRAC (Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. 2017. “Criminal Immigration Prosecutions Down 14% in FY 2017.” Syracuse, NY: TRAC. http://trac.syr.edu/tracreports/crim/494/.

———. 2018. “Stepped Up Illegal-Entry Prosecutions Reduce Those for Other Crimes.” Syracuse NY: TRAC. https://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/524/.

UNGA (United National General Assembly). 2018. Report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees: Part II Global Compact on Refugees. UN Doc. A/73/12 (Part II). New York, NY: United Nations. https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/5b3295167.pdf.

UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees). 2018. Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2017. Geneva: UNHCR. https://www.unhcr.org/5b27be547.pdf.

Warren, Robert. 2019. “US Undocumented Population Continued to Fall from 2016 to 2017 and Visa Overstays Significantly Exceeded Illegal Crossings for the Seventh Consecutive Year.” Journal on Migration and Human Security 6(1): 1-4. https://doi.org/10.1177/2331502419830339.

Wasem, Ruth Ellen. 2019. “To solve the US ‘crisis at the border,’ look to its cause.” The Hill, April 4. https://thehill.com/opinion/immigration/436725-to-solve-the-us-crisis-at-the-border-look-to-its-cause.

World Atlas.  2018. “Murder Rate by Country.”  https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/murder-rates-by-country.html.

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PWS

05-18-19

KERWIN & WARREN: AMERICA’S CURRENT OUTDATED & ENFORCEMENT CENTERED IMMIGRATION SYSTEM HAS FAILED, & IT’S GETTING WORSE — WHY NOT DEVELOP A NEW SYSTEM THAT REFLECTS THE VALUE OF ALL TYPES OF IMMIGRANTS & BETTER REFLECTS OUR BEST NATIONAL VALUES?

http://immigrationimpact.com/2017/06/27/immigration-system-in-line-values/

Guillermo Cantor writes in Immigration Impact:

Over the past two decades, much of the immigration policy debate has focused on issues related to immigration enforcement. In fact, many argue that “enforcement first”—the notion that we must adequately enforce the laws on the books before considering broader immigration reforms—has de facto become the nation’s singular immigration policy. This preoccupation with enforcement has come at the expense of consideration of other key components of a robust immigration system. Specifically, policymakers have failed to directly and adequately address some of the most fundamental questions, including what the legal immigration system should look like, what principles should guide admissions moving forward, and how to intentionally and strategically tie immigration policy to other domestic policies.

In an effort to refocus the debate, a recent article by Donald Kerwin and Robert Warren offers a range of ideas that address some structural issues concerning the legal immigration system. Arguing that the U.S. immigration system does not reflect the values and interests that it is supposed to serve, the authors propose a series of recommendations to reform the system and deliver on its promises.

After examining nearly a century’s worth of presidential signing statements of seminal immigration legislation, the authors identify a list of basic principles that, at least in theory, guide the U.S. immigration and refugee system. These include, but are not limited to, the belief that: families should be preserved; admission policies should not be based on national origin, race, or privilege; fairness and due process are essential in admission and removal decisions; individuals fleeing persecution and violence should be provided with a safe haven; immigrants embody the U.S. value of self-sufficiency, hard work, and drive to succeed; fair, orderly, and secure migration sustains the rule of law; and criminals and security threats defy U.S. ideals and, therefore, should not be admitted or allowed to remain.

If we accept as fact the premise that these principles should guide our immigration and refugee laws and policies, it becomes evident that such laws and policies—and their implementation—often fall short of serving the aforementioned objectives. In recent years, for example, mass deportations have led to large-scale family separation; backlogs in the family-based immigration system have kept numerous families apart for years; the routine detention and expedited removal of asylum seekers have been used to deter other asylum seekers from coming to the border; highly skilled immigrants often cannot work in their fields due to credentialing barriers; and the widespread use of summary removal procedures in the deportation of noncitizens has signaled a dramatic departure from fundamental principles of fairness and due process. And these are just a few examples.”

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Read the entire very worthwhile article at the link.

OK, let’s say we have around 11 million undocumented individuals here today. At least 10 million of them are basically law abiding working folks who are contributing to our economy and our society. Most have at least some US citizen children or other relatives. Many pay taxes, and all of them would if they were in legal status and we made it easy for them to do so. It’s reasonable to assume that nearly all of them entered over the past 40 years. Folks who came prior to that are likely to have legalized, gone home, or died.

So, we could easily have admitted at least 250,000 additional individuals each year under our legal immigration system and we’d be right where we are today.  Except, we wouldn’t have spent as much money on immigration enforcement, detention, removal, and divisive legal battles in the courts.

PWS

06-29-17