PERSPECTIVE: OUR FAILED IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT POLICIES LOOK JUST AS DUMB, SHORT-SIGHTED, & CRUEL FROM THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BORDER!

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Looking at deportation from south of the border, I saw our own flawed attitudes about migration more clearly

February 25, 2019

While reporting on deported Mexicans in that country’s capital, I saw the human cost of our failure to develop a thoughtful immigration policy.

By

By Tyrone Beason

Times staff reporter

MEXICO CITY — For the thousands of Mexicans who’ve been deported from the United States and who’ve chosen to rebuild their lives in this massive capital city, America represents “el otro lado,” Spanish for “the other side.”

On our side of the U.S./Mexico border, from Florida to Washington state, these repatriated Mexicans left behind jobs, loved ones and community ties.

On our side, they experienced the chaos and coldness of America’s immigration and deportation system, one that has shown little interest in broken families and the loss of economic viability, or the relative unsafety and cultural hostility toward migrants of all kinds that deported people face after returning to their native country.

Earlier this month, two of my Times colleagues and I traveled here, to the other side of America’s border crisis, to learn about life after deportation. The stories we heard, the hardships we came to understand and the grass roots efforts we learned about will all be presented soon in a special package in The Times.

But before I write about that, I wanted to write about the strange context in which we did our reporting.

There we were covering the real-life experience of being kicked out of the United States, during the same week that our president declared a state of emergency to prevent an imaginary army of Mexican and Central American migrants from barging in.

The way President Donald Trump describes it, we are at war with craven invaders who don’t want to play by America’s immigration rules.

From the vantage point of Mexico City, though, it seemed as if America had plunged deeper into a war with itself, in part because it can’t come up with sensible rules for a nation that has been built and sustained by immigrants and migrant workers — both free and captive.

People who live and work in the United States without legal documents do represent a special category of migrant, and they certainly know the risks.

But as I sat and listened to returnees in Mexico City — who had migrated to the United States with their families when they were minors, or who started their own families while on American soil in the years before being deported — the trauma of deportation and the complexity of the rebuilding process seemed more real.

We are good at sending people “back where they came from” for the crime of being here without papers and sometimes for committing other offenses that result in being considered unfit for legal residency. What we are not so good at is considering the possible injustice of forcing people back into countries that may not be equipped to reintegrate them, that may not even want to welcome them home, and that for all intents and purposes may not feel like “home” anymore.

Mexico City — a teetering metropolis that sits at an elevation of 7,300 feet and that’s more than 20 million people strong — is a hard place to navigate even for those who were born here and never left. It’s especially challenging for those who left years ago in search of a better life in America and now find themselves back here and needing to start over, in a city dealing with issues like poverty and corruption.

We met repatriated Mexicans who spoke like homies from around the way, who shook my hand with the soul-brother salute, who talked about the United States as if they had been born wrapped in red, white and blue, who are proudly making it work in the land of their ancestors while also displaying the spirit of their adoptive motherland up north.

In deportation cases, the decision can seem pretty cut-and-dry: Should they stay or should they go?

On the ground in the beautiful cacophony that is Mexico City, the overcrowded and smoggy incubator of dreams big and small, everything was a blur and there were nothing but gray areas.

It’s so easy in our society to portray immigrants who carry proper documentation as “good” and those who don’t have those documents as “bad,” but when our government behaves as if it doesn’t care about the aftereffects of the decision to expel someone from our soil — which seems to be the case right now — it is our character that’s in question.

Trump’s wall is not the only story. And immigration isn’t our only crisis.

We have a responsibility to be careful about who we let into this country, to be sure. But we also have to find a way to more humanely manage the detention, departure and reintegration of those we send away — to see them as human beings even when they have violated the integrity of our borders.

We can act as if the fate of undocumented migrants isn’t our problem, that they shouldn’t have come here under those circumstances in the first place.

But if we deal with the original sin of entering the United States illegally in such a clinical way, we will be committing the equal sin of heartlessness when humanity is due.

Justice is never truly blind.

Because of that, as we think about deportation, we should view this tough journey with our eyes wide open.

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Callous treatment of those who might once have thought of our country as “home” is never a good idea. Not fully considering the human and political consequences of our own actions is the height of arrogance. It says to the world “who cares about others and what they think — we can do as we please because we’re the biggest and richest bullies on the block.”

Under Trump, the U.S. is faltering on most foreign policy fronts, unnecessarily alienating our potential friends and allies and “sucking up” to the worst and most dangerous strongmen in the world while getting little of verifiable value in return (notably, one of the worst among them, Putin, helped install Trump in his current position).

No country remains “on the top of the heap” forever. And, as our power and influence begin to wane under Trump’s erratic and incompetent hand, we might someday soon find that we need all the friends we can get, even outside our border, to maintain and regain our position and prestige in the world. Just ask the Brits about the perils of “going it alone” — or letting national policies be driven by irrational and self-defeating nativist sentiment.

PWS

02-26-19

 

COMMUNITIES ACROSS THE U.S. STEW AS TRUMP USES MS-13 “BOGEYMAN” TO WHIP UP WHITE NATIONALIST RAGE AGAINST ALL LATINOS! –Yeganeh Torbati Reports For Reuters News (Video)!

http://www.reuters.tv/v/wfz/2018/02/01/trump-s-focus-on-ms-13-gang-deepens-immigration-impasse

Yeganeh Torbati reports for Reuters News. Click the above link to play video!

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As Yeganeh’s report notes, nobody disputes the Trump Administration’s claim that the MS-13 are “Bad Guys” who should be removed from the U.S. Although you wouldn’t know it from the Trump Administration’s self-congratulatory rhetoric, every Administration going back to that of President Ronald Reagan has made a concerted effort to remove gang members. They were a particular priority of the Obama Administration’s criminal alien removal program.

Unlike Trump, Sessions, and most of those “spouting off the rhetoric,” I have been involved in gang removal efforts from both the law enforcement and the judicial perspectives. I actually came face to face with gang members and entered final orders removing them from the United States at several levels during my Government career. And, unlike some final orders of removal, I know that these were actually carried out.

Not surprisingly, though, a few of the deportees managed to reenter the U.S. again. No “wall” is likely to stop determined international gangs from getting their members back into the U.S. if they really want to. Just like “show deportations” didn’t significantly hamper or eradicate Italian Mafia-type organized crime gangs, the “Maras” are unlikely to fold their tents and disappear quietly into the night just because of “get tough” speeches by American politicos and some well-publicized deportations. Most Maras are actually pretty good at running operations from abroad, as well as from prisons, both here and in the Northern Triangle.

I have observed, however, that the Trump Administration’s anti-gang program is likely to be relatively ineffective for a number of reasons. First, by terrorizing Latino communities with DHS arrests and removals of law-abiding non-criminals, they make it difficult or impossible for victims, most of whom are members of the Latino community, and some of whom are undocumented or come from “mixed families,” to report gang-related crimes and activities to the police. Thus, these folks are “easy marks” for the gangs.

Second, for the same reason, many community members are reluctant to come forward and be witnesses against gang members for fear of their own deportation or that the police will not protect them from retaliation.

Third, by consistently “dissing” and devaluing the contributions of the many law-abiding members of the Latino community, this Administration makes it easier for gang recruiters to point to the “empowerment” and “respect” that gangs claim to offer.

Fourth, by “manipulating the law” to deny legal protections to many of those who courageously resist gang recruitment (I just “blogged” an egregious example from the 9th Circuit this week), the Administration sends a strong “you might as well join” message to young people in the U.S. and who are returned to the Northern Triangle. The message that our Government places no value on their lives is not lost on these kids.

Finally, by failing to concentrate on the root causes of gangs in the Northern Triangle, and instead consistently “over-selling” the law enforcement benefits of deportation, the Administration guarantees an almost endless regime of violence and disorder in the Northern Triangle and a steady stream of would-be refugees flowing north.

The only effective gang-eradication programs that I’m aware of involve local authorities, often from the Latino community, gaining the trust of the young people in the community and “reinforcing” Latino role models, some originally from undocumented backgrounds, as offering viable alternatives to gangs. Slowly, through education and community based activities that show the value, respect, and positive recognition that can be gained by avoiding gangs and having the courage to stand up against them, we can, over time, drastically reduce, and perhaps eventually eliminate the destructive role gangs in America.

But, the continuing White Nationalist, anti-Hispanic “blathering” of Trump, Sessions, Homan, and the other GOP “hard liners” is likely to be counterproductive. And, “traditional” law enforcement methods of arrest, imprisonment, and deportation have been shown, by themselves, to be ineffective in solving the long-term problems of gangs in both America and the Northern Triangle. Of course we should continue to arrest and deport known gang members. But, we shouldn’t expect that, without some community-based solutions and more thoughtful approaches to the problems caused by deportations in the Northern Triangle, deportations will solve our problem. They won’t!

PWS

02-01-18

 

ANOTHER SETBACK FOR TRUMP ADMINISTRATION AS U.S. JUDGE IN DETROIT BLOCKS IRAQI DEPORTATIONS!

https://patch.com/michigan/detroit/u-s-iraqi-deportation-hold-until-court-review-detroit-judge

AP reports:

“DETROIT, MI — A federal judge Tuesday halted the deportation of 1,400 Iraqi nationals, including many Christians fearing persecution, while courts review the orders to remove them from the U.S. Judge Mark Goldsmith issued a 24-page opinion asserting jurisdiction in the case over the objection of the Justice Department, which argued U.S. district judges do not have jurisdiction.

“This Court concludes that to enforce the Congressional mandate that district courts lack jurisdiction — despite the compelling context of this case — would expose Petitioners to the substantiated risk of death, torture, or other grave persecution before their legal claims can be tested in a court,” Goldsmith wrote in a 24-page opinion.

Goldsmith earlier blocked the deportations while he considered whether he had jurisdiction over the case. (For more local news, click here to sign up for real-time news alerts and newsletters from Detroit Patch, click here to find your local Michigan Patch. Also, like us on Facebook, and if you have an iPhone, click here to get the free Patch iPhone app.)

Many of the Iraqis, including 114 rounded up in the Detroit area last month who are mostly Christians, fear attacks over their religion if returned to Iraq. The government says they face deportation because they committed crimes in the U.S.

Goldsmith earlier extended a ruling suspending the deportation of the 114 while he considered jurisdiction to all Iraqi nationals in the U.S.

The U.S. government said 1,400 Iraqis are under deportation orders nationwide, though most are not in custody. Some have been under orders for years because they committed crimes in the U.S. But legal action over deportations took on new urgency because Iraq has agreed to accept them.

The American Civil Liberties Union said a suspension is necessary so Iraqi nationals can go to immigration court and argue that their lives would be in jeopardy if returned to their native country. Without some intervention, the ACLU contends that people could be deported before their case is called.

Goldsmith scheduled a Wednesday hearing to discuss several matters in the case, including a request from the Iraqis for a preliminary injunction barring the deportations.”

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Seems like these folks should have their cases reviewed by a U.S. Immigration Judge based on current conditions in Iraq.

PWS

07-12-17

WHEN DEPORTATION MEANS DEATH! — ADOPTION + LONG RESIDENCE FAIL TO SAVE SOME LIVES!

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/02/world/asia/south-korea-adoptions-phillip-clay-adam-crapser.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

“SEOUL, South Korea — Phillip Clay was adopted at 8 into an American family in Philadelphia.

Twenty-nine years later, in 2012, after numerous arrests and a struggle with drug addiction, he was deported back to his birth country, South Korea. He could not speak the local language, did not know a single person and did not receive appropriate care for mental health problems, which included bipolar disorder and alcohol and substance abuse.

On May 21, Mr. Clay ended his life, jumping from the 14th floor of an apartment building north of Seoul. He was 42.

To advocates of the rights of international adoptees, the suicide was a wrenching reminder of a problem the United States urgently needed to address: adoptees from abroad who never obtained American citizenship. The Adoptee Rights Campaign, an advocacy group, estimates that 35,000 adult adoptees in the United States may lack citizenship, which was not granted automatically in the adoption process before 2000.

Mr. Clay is believed to be just one of dozens of people, legally adopted as children into American families, who either have been deported to the birth countries they left decades ago or face deportation after being convicted of crimes as adults. Some did not even know they were not American citizens until they were ordered to leave.”

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Read the complete story at the link.

Sure, they aren’t the most sympathetic individuals. But, folks like this are products of our society, and they don’t deserve a death sentence.

PWS

07-02-17

 

A HUMAN LIFE IS A TERRIBLE THING TO WASTE! — BUT, THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT OUR CURRENT PROGRAM OF DEPORTATIONS TO GUATEMALA IS DOING!

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/22/opinion/guatemala-immigrants.html?em_pos=large&emc=edit_ty_20170622&nl=opinion-today&nlid=79213886&ref=headline&te=1

Anita Isaacs writes in this NY Times op-ed:

“On a recent Wednesday, 75 Guatemalans disembarked from one of three charter flights, all full of deportees from the United States, scheduled that day. The group was led into a hangar, where authorities gave them a perfunctory welcome: a hello, a snack and bus fare to wherever they were headed.

The Guatemalan government’s relationship to the deportees ended there. Considering them a burden, even an embarrassment, the Guatemalan state and society are unable and unwilling to assist the thousands of migrants being sent back home.

Reintegrating them is no doubt a challenge. But so is doing nothing. And Guatemala and the United States have far more to gain by harnessing the economic, social and political capital these migrants bring back with them.

One reason Guatemala doesn’t do much with deportees is the widespread belief that they won’t stay for long.

On a recent visit to the country, I heard businessmen, public officials and community activists insist that Donald Trump and his wall would not intimidate aspiring migrants. But migrants aren’t wasting time, either. As a community leader told me, “Everyone is saying that they better rush now before Mr. Trump finishes his wall.”

In fact, many Guatemalans want the migrants to go back. Their return spells an end to remittances that constitute about 10 percent of the country’s gross domestic product. And returning migrants are flooding an already depressed job sector, where three-quarters of the labor force works off the books.

Not surprisingly, returning migrants aren’t particularly liked. Guatemalans figure they were sent home for breaking the law; those with tattoos are ostracized, assumed to belong to a violent street gang. Employers won’t hire them, and passers-by glance away.

Of course, such treatment becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Denying migrants the assistance to reintegrate economically and socially will just make the country’s problems worse.

Marginalized individuals often join street gangs in a search to belong, and drug gangs and human traffickers recruit returning migrants. They know how to get across the border; many have lived in communities where gangs and organized crime fester; and they are the Guatemalans most familiar with the United States.

While it’s true that some migrants will head back north, many have no interest. One man I know, whose remittances were used to set up a T-shirt factory that employs his 10 children in his village, is heading home for good. Older returnees, especially those who have squirreled away enough money to survive, no longer feel pulled toward the United States.

Categorizing all deportees as criminals is equally misleading. Whereas a minority are felons, many more committed misdemeanors, and the majority are guilty only of crossing the border illegally and working without a permit.

Indeed, many migrants represent an untapped resource. Most left their countries as unskilled peasants, yet through resourcefulness and hard work in the United States they acquired a diverse set of professional skills and rose through the ranks.

During my visit, I encountered bricklayers and carpenters who undertook sophisticated home renovation projects, professional landscapers who worked on golf courses, a leather craftsman who oversaw a briefcase-making business and a young sushi chef who spoke fluent English and even rudimentary Japanese. They are eager to put their skills to work in Guatemala, either by opening their own businesses or by finding a private-sector partner.

For starters, the government should provide credit and, for those in the construction and tourism industries, ease cumbersome certification requirements so that they can ply their trade immediately. It could also develop a returnee-specific “linked in” program, where returning migrants would advertise their skills, connected to an effort to match them with businesses committed to diversifying and modernizing the Guatemalan economy.

Inasmuch as the migrants could help stabilize the Central American region, the United States could also benefit from the skills of deportees. The Alliance for Prosperity, which the American government has provided funds for, aims to curb migration by alleviating poverty, lawlessness and violence. Among other things, it fosters international, public and private investments in education, health care and vocational training — goals that skilled returning migrants can help achieve.”

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Our short-sighted policies, unwillingness to invest wisely in the futures of foreign countries (beyond military and law enforcement aid), and apparent inability to look for different approaches (beyond just arrest, detain, and deport, arrest, detain, and deport) virtually guarantees a continuation of the cycle of illegal entries, reentries, and expensive, resource intensive immigration enforcement. Walls, fences, more detention centers, more DHS agents, and, yes, even more U.S. Immigration Judges are not going to solve this problem.

PWS

06-22-17

PBS: Under Trump/ Kelly Regime, DHS Agents Go For “Low Hanging Fruit” — Non-Criminals With Final Orders Deported After Routine Check-Ins With DHS — Policy Cruel, Unnecessary, Legal!

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/trump-old-deportation-orders-get-new-life/

PBS reports:

“LOS ANGELES — For years, immigrants facing deportation have been allowed to stay in the U.S. provided they show up for regular check-ins with federal deportation agents and stay out of trouble. After a brief meeting, they’re usually told to return months later to check in again.

Now, in cases spanning from Michigan to California, some of these immigrants are being told their time here is up.

Immigrants who already have deportation orders and were allowed to stay in the country under the prior administration have become a target under President Donald Trump’s new immigration policies, with some getting arrested on the spot during check-ins with officers. Such arrests have dismayed family members and sent chills through immigrant communities.

In other instances, immigrants have been fitted with ankle-monitoring bracelets. Others have been released much like they were during President Barack Obama’s administration in what immigration attorneys say appears to be a random series of decisions based more on detention space than public safety.

“Everywhere, people going in to report are just absolutely terrified,” said Stacy Tolchin, a Los Angeles immigration attorney.

Agents still consider requests to delay deportations at immigrants’ regularly scheduled check-ins if, for example, someone has a medical condition, said David Marin, who oversees enforcement and removal operations for Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Los Angeles. But decisions are made on an individual basis, and efforts are being stepped up to procure travel documents from foreign countries to send people back home.

“They still have the ability to file a stay, but again, we’re looking at it in a different light,” Marin said. “There has to be an end game here.”

RELATED RESOURCE: Millions targeted for possible deportation under Trump rules

Immigration and Customs Enforcement said it is tracking nearly 970,000 immigrants with deportation orders. The majority — 82 percent — have no criminal record, the agency said. ICE declined to say how many must regularly report to authorities or are tracked by ankle monitors, and it is unclear how many are being arrested.

Trump boosted immigration arrests by 38 percent in the early days of his administration, but deportations fell from a year ago as activity on the U.S.-Mexico border slowed.

For authorities keen on showing they’re beefing up immigration enforcement, immigrants who already have deportation orders are seen as an easy target. They can be removed from the country more quickly than newly arrested immigrants, whose cases can drag on for years in immigration court proceedings and appeals.

“I just assume they figure this is an easy removal. All we have to do is deport this person, and that adds to our numbers of people who are out of the United States,” said Heather Prendergast, chair of the American Immigration Lawyers Association’s National Immigration and Customs Enforcement Liaison Committee.

Many immigrants with old deportation orders have lived in the United States for years and set down roots here despite having no legal status, which deportation agents were known to weigh to decide who was a priority for removal.”

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Read the complete report at the link.

Our zany immigration laws encourage arbitrary enforcement. And Trump, Kelly, & Sessions revel in the chance to undo the modest attempts at rationality and humanity that Obama injected into the system and demonstrate their fake “toughness” through arbitrary actions directed at vulnerable populations who have actually become part of our society.

History will judge harshly those who pick on the downtrodden for their own cheap political ends and the satisfaction of abusing power over others. That’s why it is important to make a clear record of the immoral behavior of those in power.

For example, President Woodrow Wilson is finally being held accountable for his grotesque racism. Some of the early Jesuits of Georgetown Univeristy are just now being exposed for violating their sacred mission by selling African Americans literally “down the river”  — splitting families in the process — to insure financial stability for Georgetown University. We are also coming to grips with the symbolic racism represented by many Confederate memorials, erected less to honor those who died in war than to symbolize continuing oppression of African Americans and glorify the systematic denial in the pre-1965 South of rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.

PWS

06-10-17

 

LA TIMES: Immigration Courts Not Only “Broken Piece” Of Trump’s Removal Regime — DHS Can’t Keep Up With Removals Even Now! — “Haste Makes Waste” Rush To Hire More Agents Likely To Dilute Standards, Threaten National Security!” — New IG Report Blasts Current Practices!

http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-ice-oig-20170420-story.html

Joseph Tanfani reports:

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, hampered by poor organization and an overworked staff, will have trouble keeping up with the Trump administration’s plans to ramp up deportations of people in the country illegally, government inspectors have concluded.

ICE has “overwhelming caseloads,” its records are “likely inaccurate” and its deportation policies and procedures “are outdated and unclear,” said a report released Thursday by the inspector general of the Homeland Security Department.

“ICE is almost certainly not deporting all the aliens who could be deported and will likely not be able to keep up with the growing number of deportable aliens,” the 19-page report concludes.

The harsh assessment is the latest dash of cold reality for Trump, who was swept into Washington promising vastly tougher enforcement of immigration laws, including more removals, thousands more Border Patrol agents and deportation officers, and construction of a formidable wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.

U.S. Kids Rally At White House Against Trump’s Deportation Agenda — “Don’t make us orphans in our own country!”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/immigrant-kids-white-house-protest_us_58f0069ee4b0da2ff85f9183?r9b&ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009

Michael McAuliffe reports in HuffPost:

“WASHINGTON — American children whose parents are undocumented immigrants brought a heartrending plea to the White House and President Donald Trump on Thursday: Don’t make us orphans in our own country.

The kids, among dozens who were organized by the group We Belong Together, fear that Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration could deport their parents, even if they haven’t run afoul of the law in any other way.

Deportations dramatically increased during the Obama administration, but the focus was on immigrants who had committed serious crimes. The Trump administration’s orders stepping up enforcement include just about anyone.

Those undocumented immigrants often have American children. And they are afraid.

“I live with the fear of being separated from my mother every day,” said Leah, an 11-year-old from Miami whose mother is a domestic worker facing a deportation order.

“It is like when somebody you care about can die at any moment,” she added, standing outside the White House, accompanied by activists and other kids.  “Why can’t I just enjoy being a kid? I cannot sleep or do my homework. All I can think about is my mother being taken away from me. I am so worried about my life.”

A mom of two children who is in hiding narrowly avoided likely deportation in February, when she sought sanctuary in a Denver chuch. Jeanette Vizguerra, who has reported to Immigration and Customs Enforcement regularly for 20 years while she sought a visa to escape violence in Mexico, fled a hearing on her case when her advocates noticed a squad of police apparently ready to arrest her.

“My mom has been going through the struggle of getting threatened and us getting scared by ICE,” said her son, Roberto, 10.

I think it’s not fair for children to be living in fear or for parents not to be able to be with their children,” said her daughter, Luna, 12.

While those children and others all spoke of the worry they have of their own government, they also declared they would not relent in their bids to keep their families and other kids’ families whole.

“I want to tell Mr. Trump that he is a bully, and no matter how mean he is, and no matter how hard he tries, he will never break out spirit,” Leah said. “We are not afraid of you.”

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What kind of country makes “orphans of their own children?” What kind of national values do these “instill fear” programs represent? Whatever happened to the positive national values set forth by FDR and JFK?

Way back before there were Presidents, an inspirational leader once said:

“Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God.”

Luke 18:16

Not a bad thing to think about on Good Friday and over Easter weekend.

Sadly, some of today’s leaders seem to have shifted the message to “let me make the little children suffer.” Wonder what He would have thought about that?

PWS

04-14-17