"The Voice of the New Due Process Army" ————– Musings on Events in U.S. Immigration Court, Immigration Law, Sports, and Other Random Topics by Retired United States Immigration Judge (Arlington, Virginia) and former Chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals Paul Wickham Schmidt. To see my complete professional bio, just click on the link below.
Anna Marie Gallagher, Esquire Executive Director CLINIC PHOTO: CLINIC website
Executive Director Opening Plenary Remarks CLINIC Convening 2023
May 17, 2023
Good afternoon, dear friends. My name is Anna Gallagher and I have the honor of leading CLINIC as executive director. It is such a pleasure to be here with you all as we officially begin our first in-person Convening since 2019.
Looking out at the sea of faces in front of me, I am filled with gratitude to finally be able to come together to engage with one another, to listen, learn and gather strength for the work ahead in support of our immigrant brothers and sisters.
Even just being in your presence I feel a sense of renewed hope and energy. I am so looking forward to the next few days, and I am certain that you will be reignited to take on the important work ahead.
In a moment I will welcome our wonderful panel of Affiliate experts, but right now I want to take a moment to recognize this moment we’re facing and my hopes for this year’s CLINIC Convening.
You all, of all people, know that immigrant communities are facing truly unprecedented challenges – and I do not use that word, unprecedented, lightly.
With the lifting of Title 42, and the camps of men, women and children along the border desperate to find welcome on the other side; the proposed USCIS fee increases which threaten to put immigration benefits out of reach for many; the newly announced delays for foreign-born religious workers and special immigrant juveniles; and, perhaps above all, our warming planet and the outbreaks of violence which force many more people to migrate around the world – these are extremely challenging times for migrants in our country and around the world.
Several months ago, the New York Times featured an op-ed that has stuck with me, entitled, “The Rich World Has a Shockingly High Tolerance for Cruelty.”
It was about how rich nations are more willing than ever to let migrants languish at their borders in sub-human conditions rather than create safe pathways for migration or address the conditions causing people to flee.
It was about how the promises that nations made after World War II to respect the dignity and rights of those who are fleeing have been eroded and now, on a practical level, forgotten.
When I read this article, in my mind I was transported back to the time I spent in North Africa several years ago, working with migrants as a representative of Jesuit Refugee Services.
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I interviewed migrants who had traveled for 18 months or more to try and find safety in these countries bordering Europe. I got to know some of the migrants, who called me “grandma” – a term of endearment, as my hair was grey.
While I was talking to some of them, they showed me their hands, which were scarred with wounds. When I asked them what happened, they said their hands were repeatedly pierced while climbing barbed wire to get through to safety.
Hearing this, my heart broke – as it has many times over the years.
The idea that we are using barbed wire to keep out our fellow human beings is inconceivable, yet true. Our immigrant brothers and sisters stand at our gates, begging for our aid, and we build barbed wire fences that pierce their hands.
Many wealthy nations are founded on a concept of all human beings being equal in dignity, but we do not act like it.
As we gather in Arizona, I know we are all mindful that these kinds of camps that the op-ed author is speaking of are just several hours away on the border. We also know that immigrant communities’ dignity is denied not only in these camps, but all over the country in the various places we’ve come from.
We must be clear, this is not an “other side of the world problem,” it is our problem. It affects all of us, in our integrity as people of faith and conscience, and as a reflection of our society.
And yet today, as I recall that New York Times op-ed, and the sense of frustration and despair I felt while reading it, I feel a surge of hope.
I want you to look around the room. Look at your neighbor to your left and right. YOU are the hope that fills my heart, and YOU are the hope that reignites me in our work.
As we gather here today, I am in a room full of people who DO act like all human beings are equal. Those who spend their precious time – often too much of their time, working long hours – trying to advance the truth that every person is precious, valuable, and deserving of a safe and dignified life.
That’s why being in your presence gives me such hope. I am reminded that the CLINIC network is full of holy people.
That is why our gathering here together, and throughout this week, is so powerful: we are, to borrow the words of Bishop Seitz of El Paso, working to be a “creative counterexample” to the culture of fear and hostility, to be a network that is slowly creating a new culture of solidarity and hospitality.
At CLINIC, we also are bolstered by our faith that we do not do this hard work alone. The spirit of God is inspiring us and pushing us forward, giving us strength and magnifying our efforts, especially when we are overwhelmed by the need in front of us.
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Our faith also acts as a mirror for us, forcing us to keep evaluating whether we are truly reflecting the gospel truth of God’s concern for all people.
To maintain this faith, and to maintain the energy to be this creative counterexample, we need one another. Our network is sustained through the support, advice, and solidarity we demonstrate to one another.
Throughout the next few days, we will take the time to step back, to reflect on our work and learn and share new strategies, information, and tips for the very practical day-to-day work of supporting immigrant clients and communities.
We know that this practical work – the forms, the bureaucracy, the nitty-gritty details – changes and saves lives. So how well we can do it matters, which is why we gather to learn and grow.
We also gather to enjoy one another – to laugh, share stories, and reconnect with beloved colleagues and friends.
So I also hope that over the next few days you will have some fun!
Thank you for coming here to CLINIC Convening and for your dedication to this work. I am so honored to be alongside all of you this week, and all days.
Now, I am pleased to introduce our panelists for our opening plenary, Preparing for the Lifting of Title 42: Key Insights from our Network. When we decided on “reunited and reignited” for our theme this year, we knew we wanted to do something different for our opening conversation.
This “Network Fireside Chat” will be an opportunity to highlight the work done by our network throughout the United States. During this conversation, you’ll hear how Affiliates in three distinct geographical regions are rising to meet the needs of our immigrant and refugee brothers and sisters – especially during this increased time of uncertainty.
From the Border region, Joel Enriquez-Cazarez will share about the work of Jewish Family Service of San Diego.
As a transit city, Carolina Rivera will share how Catholic Charities of Dallas assists our immigrant brothers and sisters.
And Yer Vang from Catholic Charities Archdiocese of Dubuque will give an interior city perspective of welcome.
Now please join me in welcoming our keynote panelists to the stage…
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Thanks, my friend, for a lifetime of service to due process, fundamental fairness, and social justice, and for speaking out as the “powers that be” and the “powers that wannabe” go into cowardly retreat and hide in fear from the needs and rights of humanity!
The Biden administration fell into the trap of letting its opponents define the terms of the debate. . . . .
Arranging care for asylum seekers would have been necessary even with a better metric. However, managing the humanitarian flow would have been easier if the Biden administration had allowed those seeking asylum to apply in an orderly, timed fashion at a lawful port of entry.. . . .
. . . .
Members of Congress and others who oppose the Biden administration’s parole program raised no objections to the Trump administration dismantling the U.S. refugee program. They also have not advocated for any other legal way for people escaping oppressive governments to enter America. Without paths to enter lawfully, it is inevitable that more people will cross into the U.S. illegally.
. . . .
Critics of the increase in CBP encounters argue, without much evidence, that individuals would not come to America if U.S. immigration policy were harsher—in other words, if Biden were more like Trump.
Despite what his supporters assert, Trump’s policies did not reduce illegal immigration or discourage people from applying for asylum. Pending asylum cases rose by nearly 300 percent between FY 2016 and FY 2020 (from 163,451 to 614,751), according to Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. Apprehensions at the southwest border (a proxy for illegal entry) rose more than 100 percent between FY 2016 and FY 2019 (from 408,870 to 851,508). Apprehensions fell for several months at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, but by August and September 2020, apprehensions returned to the approximate level of illegal entry for the same months in FY 2019.
Providing individuals with legal ways to work or seek protection in America is the only viable way to reduce illegal immigration. Treating people humanely is not a sign of weakness. Allowing for orderly entry is a smart policy consistent with America’s best tradition as a nation of immigrants and refugees.
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I highly recommend reading Stuart’s complete article at the link. Members of the so-called “mainstream media,” whose stories often do not accurately reflect the legal right to apply for asylum at the border, which has been shamefully ignored and/or abridged by both Trump and Biden, would also do well to read Stuart’s accurate description of our needlessly screwed up administration of refugee and asylum laws. Most media articles also fail to accurately distinguish between those (often vainly) seeking just to exercise their legal right to apply for asylum at the border and other individuals who might irregularly cross the border.
The real, oft-ignored, problem here is that the Trump Administration dismantled the legal refugee programs established by the Refugee Act of 1980. Then, they unlawfully “repealed” asylum law at the border. Worse yet, Congress and bad GOP appointed Federal Judges let them get away with this outrageously illegal and highly counterproductive conduct (at least to date).
By the time the Biden Administration took office, the real “solvable” part of the problem at the Southern Border was well defined by experts: The US Government’s intentional violation of laws protecting refugees and legal asylum seekers and guaranteeing the latter fair and timely assessment and adjudication of their claims.
The Biden Administration could and should have “hit the ground running” with an aggressive program (and defense thereof) of restoration of the rule of law for refugees, who could and should have been processed in larger numbers outside the U.S. in Latin America and the Caribbean, combined with a restoration of the rule of law for asylum seekers at the, border, led by a reformed EOIR and USCIS Asylum Office, both staffed with true asylum experts!
Instead, the Biden Administration, after an “initial burst” of promising yet highly ineffective rhetoric (see, e.g., “reforms” of gender-based asylum), gave immigration, human rights, and the interconnected problem of racial justice, low priority. Instead of seeking and employing dynamic, progressive, problem-solving leaders, with new and creative ideas, they relied largely on “bureaucratic retreads” who showed little interest in or affinity for taking the bold, often courageous, actions necessary to address the festering humanitarian crisis at the border!
Too many of these individuals seemed to accept the false GOP nativist proposition that elimination or unduly restrictive applications of asylum law were the best way to “deter” unlawful entries, and that we didn’t want to “encourage” refugees from Latin America or the Caribbean by recognizing the legitimacy of their claims and/or running robust, realistically large “overseas” refugee programs for them.
Moving refugees and asylum seekers into an orderly, functioning, legal process at or away from the border would also allow CBP to focus resources on individuals who are not seeking legal refugee in the U.S. Because of the inaccurate and misleading statistics used to “count” border activity, as accurately described by Stuart in his full article, we actually have little idea how large a “cohort” of individual border arrivals legal asylum seekers represent.
“Mixing apples and oranges” certainly plays directly into the hands of GOP restrictionist/nativists who love to lump them all together under the dehumanizing and intentionally demeaning “false rubric” of “illegals.”There is nothing “illegal” about appearing at the U.S. border and asking for refuge under our domestic laws and international conventions to which we are party!
What is “illegal” is our Government suspending legal processing for asylum, and also, even for those chosen under largely arbitrary criteria for processing, delivering a badly flawed biased process that is neither fair nor timely. Also, mixing those merely seeking a chance to state their legal case for asylum with those seeking entry for other purposes certainly “dilutes” the enforcement resources and effectiveness of CBP in preventing “real” unlawful entries.
Instead, the Biden Administration settled into an inept “Miller Lite” posture of utilizing modified and supposedly “humanized” versions of Trump’s illegal policies. As pointed out by Stuart, the Biden Administration also failed miserably to anticipate and establish a Federally-led and funded program for humane resettlement of asylum seekers.
This played right into the hands of White Nationalist GOP pols like Abbott, DeSantis, Ducey, Paxton, Cruz, Cassidy, Vance, Biggs, McCarthy, Jordan, et.al. At the same time, in one of the dumbest moves in recent political history, they left Democratic leaders in locations victimized by the GOP “bussing stunts” in the lurch and without support, thereby driving an entirely unnecessary “wedge” and “stress point” into the “Democratic coalition.”
There might be no “easy and perfect” solution for managing refugee situations. Refugees and other types of “forced migrants’ have been with us since the beginning of human history. They will continue to exist long after the current crop of nativist politicos and “deterrence-only-focused” bureaucrats are gone.
Yet, with all this historical knowledge, the so-called “Western Democracies” failed miserably in protecting refugees from Hitler’s planned genocide in the years leading up to and including WWII. The 1951 UN Convention and later Protocol were supposedly “never again” responses to that deadly failure.
Yet, today, politicians and leaders who should know better seem determined to ignore the lessons of history and recreate the moral and humanitarian failures of the past. One can only hope that the NDPA and the “new generations” can get by the failures of today and treat refugees fairly, humanely, and in recognition of the substantial benefits that most bring to those nations fortunate enough to be “receiving” countries. The future of our world may depend on it!
Kathleen Guthrie Woods American Journalist & Writer San Francisco, CA PHOTO: GoodreadsHon. Dana Leigh (“NanaDana”) Marks U.S. Immigration Judge (Ret.) San Francisco Immigration Court Past President, National Association of Immigration Judges; “Founding Mother of U.S. Asylum Law”
By the time she retired from San Francisco’s Immigration Court on December 31, 2021, Judge Dana Leigh Marks* had built an inspiring reputation as a leader, mentor, and advocate. She is known for her fierce advocacy for the court. She is known for her compassion and fairmindedness. She is known for her intelligence and wit, having coined oft-repeated, appropriate zingers that help people better understand the challenges of immigration court, including “Immigration judges do death penalty cases in a traffic court setting” and “Immigration is more complicated than tax law. How do I know this? Because there is no TurboTax for immigration law.”
Talking with her former colleagues—many of whom are now also her friends—is an uplifting experience. They speak of a woman who broke through barriers, applied the law fairly and compassionately, fought hard fights, and inspired others to join her. “She’s the GOAT of immigration judges!” declares Francisco Ugarte, Manager of the Immigration Defense Unit of San Francisco’s Public Defender’s Office.
Who is Judge Marks, and how did she positively influence and impact so many lives?
. . . .
Judge Marks also thrived in this arena because she saw beyond the expectation that her role was solely to facilitate deportations; she saw the humanity inherent in the proceedings. “Every story is individual,” she says, and every person deserves to be heard.
. . . .
“She showed us all how to be fierce advocates for justice—for what is true and right and just—without crossing over lines,” says Judge King. Jamil adds Judge Marks’s “tireless” work for the union and “giving a professional, female voice to immigration judges” to her list of accomplishments. “When she started, she was one of few women. After her, all these really amazing women came to the bench,” says Shugall, women Judge Marks mentored and encouraged to apply for the bench. That roster includes Judges Jamil, King, Miriam Hayward, Stockton, Webber, and Laura Ramirez. “She helped start that trajectory,” says Shugall.
“She helped create an inspiring model for how courts can be,” says Ugarte, and Judge Webber states, simply, “She inspires people all the time.”
“While she has had some limelight in her career, the vast majority of her work has been thankless,” says Judge King. “She perseveres solely because she believes it is important to make a difference wherever you can.”
*Today Judge Marks is known as “NanaDana,” a title that celebrates her role as caretaker for her granddaughter and helps people correctly pronounce her name (“dan-uh,” not “day-nuh”).
Kathleen Guthrie Woods is a long-time contributor to San Francisco Attorney magazine. She first interviewed Judge Marks, then-president of NAIJ, for “Understanding the Crisis in Our Immigration Courts” (Spring 2015).
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Every judge, lawyer, and law student in America, and particularly AG Garland and his lieutenants, should read Kathleen’s interview with Judge Marks (full version at link) about what “American judging” should, and could, be — all the way up to the Supremes!
Dana, my friend and colleague, your inspiring career is yet more evidence of the “then-available” talent who could have led long-overdue change at EOIR and the BIA. Like you, much of that talent has moved on to our Round Table, and we’re stuck with the dysfunctional mess at EOIR. But, others are arising in your image to fight for justice, sanity, and humanity from “the retail level on up” in our Federal Courts.
I will always think of you as the “Founding Mother of US Asylum Law” because of your stellar advocacy in Cardoza-Fonseca and your unending, unapologetic, and highly vocal commitment to due process, independent thinking, and judicial excellence.
As you probably remember, I was in Court for your OA in Cardoza-Fonseca, sitting at the SG’s table as you won the day for your client. My “client,” INS, “lost” that day. But, American justice, due process, and human rights won!
As it was for you and those many you inspired, “realizing the promise of Cardoza-Fonseca” became the “guiding light” of my subsequent judicial career at EOIR, on both the appellate and trial benches. Despite the more than quarter-century since Cardoza, the battle to make judges at all levels actually follow its dictates, and perhaps more importantly, its generous humanitarian spirit, is far from won!
Congrats on your new position as “NanaDana.” 😎 I always look forward to working with you and our amazing Round Table colleagues to give due process and fundamental fairness an unyielding voice before courts throughout America, and to continue the unending fight for best judicial practices in a life-determining system that has “lost its way” as millions needlessly suffer!”
We “Knightesses and Knights of our Round Table” 🛡⚔️ will “never let the bastards grind us down!” You continue to inspire all of us in our never ending quest for justice for the most vulnerable individuals among us!
“NanaDana’s” fierce fighting spirit continues to inspire our Round Table of Former Immigration Judges to new heights in the never-ending pursuit of “due process and fundamental fairness for all!” (Ironically, the latter was actually EOIR’s long-abandoned “vision!” )
Hon.Romano L. Mazoli (1932-2022) U.S Congressman (D-KY; 1971-95) PHOTO: therecord.com
I personally knew Congressman Mazzoli (D-KY), and worked with him and his staff on the Immigration Reform & Control Act of 1986 (“IRCA”), as I did with Senator Alan Simpson (R-WY) and his staff on the Senate side. At that time I was the Deputy General Counsel and later Acting General Counsel of the “Legacy INS.”
Shortly before I left INS for private practice, in 1987, Congressman Mazzoli invited me to his hometown of Louisville to speak on immigration reform. I was presented with a ceramic “Big Balloon,” representing the City of Louisville, to memorialize that occasion.
We kept up for a time after I went into private practice. He was friendly with Harris Miller who worked with me at Fragomen during my stint as DC Managing Partner. Harris, who recently, sadly, died at 71, had worked for Ron and the Democrats on the House Judiciary staff. I remember Harris, his wife Deborah, Ron, his wife Helen, my wife Cathy, and me having dinner at the Occidental Restaurant in DC shortly after he left Congress and just before I left Fragomen to become the BIA Chair in 1995. Ron supported my application.
At that time, Ron was putting together plans to teach at his alma mater U. of Louisville Law. I believe Harris and I might have offered him some “syllabus pointers,” although, in actuality, he hardly needed any help from us given his decades of experience in Congress.
Eventually, we lost touch. But I still have fond memories of Ron, Harris, and a time when the immigration debate, although always spirited and contentious, was more civilized and empirically based.
Here’s a lengthy obit on Ron from The NY Times, forwarded by my friend Nolan Rappaport.
Ron was a gentleman and a dedicated public servant who did everything he could to make the system work for the common good — part of the “lost art of governing effectively.” A life well lived. Rest In Peace, Ron.
IN MEMORIAM: Hon. David Crosland, Judge, Former Legacy INS Acting Commissioner & General Counsel, Civil Rights Activist, Private Practitioner, Professor, Dies At 85
Hon. David Crosland American Jurist, Senior Executive, Lawyer, Teacher 1937 – 2022 PHOTO: Alabama Law
By Paul Wickham Schmidt
Courtside Exclusive
August 1, 2022
Alexandria, VA.Along with many others, I am saddened to learn of the death, over the weekend, of my former “boss” and judicial colleague, Judge David Crosland of the Baltimore Immigration Court. He was 85.
First and foremost, David was a dedicated public servant. A graduate of Auburn University and the University of Alabama School of Law, David served in the Civil Rights Division of the US Department of Justice during the tense and dangerous days of the 1960s. That was a time when speaking out for justice for African Americans in the South could be a life-threatening proposition.
Among many difficult and meaningful assignments, he helped prosecute Klansmen in Mississippi and also was assigned to prosecutions arising out of racially motivated police and National Guard killings in Detroit in 1967-68. After leaving the DOJ, he became the Director of the Atlanta Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.
At Auburn, David had studied Agriculture. He sometimes liked to regale Immigration Court interns with tales of his “days on the farm” during summers in college!
I first met Dave in 1977, when Judge Griffin Bell appointed him to be the General Counsel of the “Legacy INS.” Shortly thereafter, David selected me to be his Deputy General Counsel, thus initiating my career as a Government manager and executive. During the second half of the Carter Administration, Dave was the Acting Commissioner of Immigration, and I was the Acting General Counsel.
In those days, my hair was actually longer than Dave’s, a situation that would become reversed in later years as our respective careers progressed. Indeed, during his “ponytail and gold earring days” in private practice, I reminded him of the times in “GENCO” where he used to encourage me to “get a haircut.”
We went through lots of exciting times together including the Iranian Hostage Crisis, litigation involving Haitian asylum seekers, Nazi War Criminal prosecutions, the Mariel Boatlift, the creation of the Asylum Offices, and the beginnings of a major restructuring of the INS nationwide legal program that eventually brought all lawyers under the direct supervisory control of the General Counsel.
Following the 1980 election, Dave went into private practice and became a partner in Ober, Kaler, Grimes & Shriver and then Crosland, Strand, Freeman & Mayock. He rejoined Government in 1997, when Attorney General Janet Reno appointed him as an Immigration Judge in Otey Mesa, CA. He later became an Assistant Chief Immigration Judge for several courts, as well as a Temporary Member of the BIA.
Our paths crossed again when we both served on the bench at the Arlington Immigration Court, roughly between 2009 and 2014. Then, David returned to Baltimore to be closer to his son and his residence in Maryland. He also served at various times as an Adjunct Professor of Law at GW Law and UDC Law.
David was a “character,” for sure. He had his own way of doing things that wasn’t always “strictly by the book.” But, he cared about the job and the people, was kind to the staff, and kept at it years after most of his contemporaries, including me, had retired.
One of the most moving tributes to David is from a member of court administrative staff who worked with him for years:
We just learned that Judge Crosland passed away this weekend at the grand age of 85 years. No funeral requested by him as his last wishes. Please keep him and his family in prayer. He was an amazing man, had a brilliant career and he was a genuinely kind person, hardworking to the end. Judge Crosland was very good to me, and he would walk me to my car after the long work days that turned into nights. Always a true gentleman, he would make me his famous lemon ice box pie! God bless Judge Crosland.
My time with Dave at the “Legacy INS” will always be with me as one of the most exciting, sometimes frustrating, but highly rewarding and formative parts of my career. Rest In Peace ☮️ my friend and colleague. You will be missed.
Why So Many Children of Immigrants Rise to the Top
July 11, 2022
By Peter Coy
Peter Coy writes about economics for Opinion.
The lack of a shared set of facts about immigration makes it easy for accusatory and often false messages to echo loudly in the run-up to the midterm elections. J.D. Vance, a leading Republican candidate for Ohio’s open Senate seat, claimed in a recent advertisement that “Joe Biden’s open border is killing Ohioans, with more illegal drugs and more Democrat voters pouring into this country.” Representative Paul Gosar of Arizona has described immigration as “full scale invasion.” Tucker Carlson of Fox News told a guest on his show in 2017: “Go to Lowell, Mass., or Lewiston, Maine, or any place where large numbers of immigrants have been moved into a poor community, and it hasn’t become richer. It’s become poorer. That’s real.”
A new book, “Streets of Gold: America’s Untold Story of Immigrant Success,” by two economists, Ran Abramitzky of Stanford and Leah Boustan of Princeton, should undercut some of the fearmongering. They linked census records to pull together what they call “the first set of truly big data about immigration.”
Using the data set, Mr. Abramitzky and Ms. Boustan were able to compare the income trajectories of immigrants’ children with those of people whose parents were born in the United States. The economists found that on average, the children of immigrants were exceptionally good at moving up the economic ladder.
Immigrants and their children are assimilating into the United States as quickly now as in the past, the economists found. That’s in line with recent research into the effects of immigration. While “first-generation immigrants are more costly to governments than are the native-born,” according to a 2017 report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, the “second generation are among the strongest fiscal and economic contributors in the U.S.”
Second-generation-immigrant success stories have long been a part of America’s history. Looking at census records from 1880, the researchers found that men whose fathers were low-income immigrants made more money as adults than the sons of low-income men born in the United States. (They focused on sons because it was harder to track women from one census to the next, since so many adopted their husbands’ names at marriage.) Because of privacy restrictions, they had access to individual data only through the 1940 census. They used other sources for subsequent years.
Mr. Abramitzky and Ms. Boustan observed the same pattern a century later. Children born around 1980 to men from Mexico, India, Brazil and almost every other country outearned the children of U.S.-born men.
“America really does have golden streets that allow immigrants to quickly make more than they could have earned at home,” they write. But, they add, “moving up the economic ladder in America — and catching up to the U.S.-born — takes time.”
Once Mr. Abramitzky and Ms. Boustan found abundant evidence of second-generation immigrants’ upward mobility, they tried to figure out why those children did so well.
They arrived at two answers. First, the children had an easy time outdoing parents whose careers were inhibited by poor language skills or a lack of professional credentials. The classic example is an immigrant doctor who winds up driving a cab in the United States.
Second, immigrants tended to settle in parts of the country experiencing strong job growth. That gave them an edge over native-born Americans who were firmly rooted in places with faltering economies. Immigrants are good at doing something difficult: leaving behind relatives, friends and the familiarity of home in search of prosperity. The economists found that native-born Americans who do what immigrants do — move toward opportunity — have children who are just as upwardly mobile as the children of immigrants.
The changing geography of immigration
European immigrants
flocked to factory jobs in
the Midwest …
Germans, Italians
and Irish people
followed millions of
U.S.-born Americans
to the West Coast.
Each dot represents
10 people
… and largely avoided the faltering economy of the rural South during the Jim Crow era.
Many Asian
immigrants joined
family members who
were already in the
United States in the
1970s and 80s.
Recent immigrants
followed job opportunities
to urban areas.
Latino immigrants
drove population growth
in the Southwest.
About 125,000 Cubans
landed in Florida during the Mariel boatlift.
Sources: Ran Abramitzky, Leah Boustan
Looking at maps of where immigrants have settled at different points in time, it’s clear that those regions were also areas of productivity and economic growth. In 1910, European immigrants went to work in the factories of the Midwest and New England. In 1980, immigrants from elsewhere in the Americas filled jobs in rapidly growing parts of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California and Florida.
If immigrants are so upwardly mobile, why doesn’t it seem that way? One reason is that there are more newcomers than there have been in decades and most haven’t had time yet to get ahead. The share of foreign-born people in the United States is back to the levels of the first two decades of the 20th century.
Share of the U.S. population that was born abroad
1850
1870
1890
1910
1930
1950
1970
1990
2010
0
5
10
15%
Ireland
Mexico
Germany
Canada
Africa
Middle East
Americas
Europe
Asia
Other
1921 Congress creates country-based immigration quotas.
1965 Congress rolls back quotas.
Sources: Ran Abramitzky, Leah Boustan
Another reason is that most immigrants are arriving well below native-born Americans socioeconomically. They are more likely, Mr. Abramitzky and Ms. Boustan found, than immigrants of the past to come from countries that are significantly poorer than the United States, including El Salvador, India and Vietnam. But it’s those immigrants who start at the bottom who ascend the most. In contrast, affluent, educated immigrants tend to be the least upwardly mobile, simply because they’re already at or near the top.
Mr. Abramitzky and Ms. Boustan dispute the argument that immigrants frequently take jobs from native-born Americans. Less skilled immigrants gravitate toward jobs for which there is relatively little competition from native-born Americans, such as picking crops, while highly skilled immigrants often create more jobs for native-born Americans by starting businesses and inventing things, they write.
The research of Mr. Abramitzky and Ms. Boustan has made headlines before, but in their new book they broaden and deepen the narrative with excerpts from diaries and oral histories of immigrants. Signe Tornbloom, 18, a daughter of hardscrabble Swedish farmers, immigrated alone in 1916 after receiving a letter that said, more or less: “Well, you’d better come over here. Everything is much better than it is at home.”
The notion that immigrants have become a permanent underclass, isolated from the American mainstream, is popular among immigration restrictionists — as well as among some pro-immigration groups that say immigrants need more help to break out of poverty. The truth is that today’s immigrants are advancing just as swiftly as those of the past. “The American dream,” Mr. Abramitzky said in an interview, “is just as alive now as it was a century ago.”
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Check out the full article and some really nifty graphics at the link.
Family Pictures Nolan Rappaport Opinion Writer The HillYael Schacher Historian Deputy Director Refugees InternationalHon. Paul Wickham Schmidt U.S. Immigration Judge (Ret.) Adjunct Professor, Georgetown Law Blogger, immigrationcourtside.com.
Biden’s ‘Summit of the Americas’ commitments on immigration more show than substance
Nolan Rappaport, opinion contributor
Former President Bill Clinton established the Summit of the Americas in 1994, to bring all of the countries in the Western Hemisphere — except Cuba — together for discussions on trade, immigration, and democracy. President Joe Biden hosted the event this year.
The participants recorded their immigration agreements in the Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Protection. It represents a regional partnership to address historic migration flows affecting most of the countries in the region.
The declaration was signed by 20 countries in the region that are committed to protecting the safety and dignity of all migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers, and respecting their human rights and fundamental freedoms. They intend to cooperate to facilitate safe, orderly, humane, and regular migration, consistent with national legislation, the principle of non-refoulement, and their respective obligations under international law.
But will they keep their commitments?
The last line in the declaration acknowledges that its commitments are not legally binding.
Yael Schacher, deputy director of Refugees International, says, “summits have traditionally been a parade of promises that are never fulfilled.”
According to Georgetown Law immigration professor, Paul Schmidt, the declaration is just “more empty rhetoric.”
Highlights
International financial assistance may be needed by the countries the migrants come from and the countries that host large numbers of them after they have left their own countries.
A fact sheet summarizes financial contribution commitments. For instance, the United States commits to making a contribution of an additional $25 million to the Global Concessional Financing Facility, which assists Latin American countries with programs for providing refuge to displaced migrant and refugee populations.
The United States also commits to contributing $314 million in additional funding for humanitarian and development assistance for refugees and other vulnerable migrants.
The United States will establish a $65 million pilot program to support U.S. farmers hiring temporary agricultural workers under the H-2A program.
And the United States commits to expanding its efforts to address the root causes of irregular migration throughout the hemisphere. The Biden administration previously had proposed allocating $4 billion to Central America over four years, including $860.6 million in fiscal 2022.
Nolan Rappaport was detailed to the House Judiciary Committee as an Executive Branch Immigration Law Expert for three years. He subsequently served as an immigration counsel for the Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims for four years. Prior to working on the Judiciary Committee, he wrote decisions for the Board of Immigration Appeals for 20 years. Follow him at https://www.blogger.com/blog/posts/2306123393080132994
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Head on over to The Hill to read Nolan’s full article. Internet “hits” help keep him in business!
Always a pleasure to be quoted along with my friend and super-scholar Yael Schacher — a trained historian/archivist in possession of what’s left of the “Schmidt archives!” (Yael stopped me several boxes into my project of using them to fuel our back-yard fire pit. But, Yael’s timely intervention still helped me fulfill my “promise upon retirement” to Cathy to get my boxes of papers out of the attic, basement, and garage. Also, after recently serving as an executor for my cousin, I’m sure our children will be grateful.)
Ran Abramitzky Professor of Economics and the Senior Associate Dean of the Social Sciences at Stanford University PHOTO: Stanford.eduProfessor Leah Pratt Boustan Economist Princeton University PHOTO: Princeton WebsiteMichael Luca Lee J. Styslinger III Associate Professor of Business Administration Harvard Business School PHOTO: has.edu
The reality is that immigration debates are often driven more by feelings than facts. And there is often disagreement about basic facts — such as how immigration has evolved over time, how successful immigrants become once they enter the United States and how they affect the communities they enter. The problem is, in part, a lack of accessible empirical evidence on the topic.
Enter “Streets of Gold: America’s Untold Story of Immigrant Success,” a book by economic historians Ran Abramitzky and Leah Boustan that seeks to set the record straight, using an economics tool kit and a treasure trove of data. Their mission is twofold. First, to offer a data-driven account of the history of American immigration. Second, to provide guidance into what research suggests about the design of immigration policy.
The book reflects an ongoing renaissance in the field of economic history fueled by technological advances — an increase in digitized records, new techniques to analyze them and the launch of platforms such as Ancestry — that are breathing new life into a range of long-standing questions about immigration. Abramitzky and Boustan are masters of this craft, and they creatively leverage the evolving data landscape to deepen our understanding of the past and present.
In contrast with the rags-to-riches mythology, a more systematic look at the data shows that low-income immigrants do not tend to catch up to nonimmigrant income levels in their lifetimes. Instead, financially successful immigrants tend to come from more privileged backgrounds. To name a few: the authors point out that the father of Tesla chief executive Elon Musk “co-owned an emerald mine.” EBay founder Pierre Omidyar’s “father is a surgeon who worked at Johns Hopkins University,” and his “mother has a PhD in linguistics.” Google co-founder Sergey Brin’s “father is a professor of mathematics,” and his “mother is a NASA scientist.” Looking at how many companies have been led by high-skilled immigrants, I wonder how much more innovation we are missing out on by not further opening our doors to the world’s talent. Yet these are hardly tales of huddled masses.
The case that lower-income and lower-education immigrants also meet with success rests on assessing not only the fates of immigrants themselves but also those of their children and their children’s children. As it turns out, Abramitzky and Boustan write, “children of poor immigrants from nearly every country in the world make it to the middle of the income distribution.” Immigrants from mainland China, Hong Kong and India do especially well.
The book debunks myths that immigrants dramatically increase crime and displace U.S.-born workers. Much of this work focuses on natural experiments in which sudden shocks to immigration levels have allowed for a better understanding of cause and effect. For instance, the authors point to the 1980 Mariel boatlift, which brought an influx of Cuban immigrants to the United States, especially to Miami, virtually overnight. The surge of low-income immigrants did not lead to large spikes in unemployment for U.S.-born workers. Low-skill immigrants have a history of taking jobs that would otherwise be unfilled or filled by machines. As companies around America were rushing to automate operations, the influx of Cuban immigrants to the Miami area slowed this process, and jobs went to people rather than to machines. Compared with the rest of the country, businesses in high-immigration areas have access to more workers and hence less incentive to invest in further automation.
This has implications for today’s immigration debates: The United States is expected to face a dramatic labor market shortage as baby boomers retire and lower birthrates over time result in fewer young people to replace them. Increased immigration is one approach to avoiding the crunch. Notably, the other way to avert this crisis is through further automation, enabled by rapid advances in artificial intelligence. Immigration policy will help shape the extent to which the economy relies on people vs. machines in the decades to come.
Immigration is, of course, about more than economic activity. Part of its beauty is the cultural richness and diversity that it brings. A multicultural society is greater than the sum of its parts. Miami is exciting not because of assimilation but because of the culture that its diverse population has created. It’s a city where you can find croquettes and Cuban coffees as easily as pizza and burgers. There is a rich history of immigrants bringing new cuisines, which are then adopted and adapted throughout the United States, a journey that can be seen in the evolution of Italian American food.
Drawing on the research, Abramitzky and Boustan weigh in on a number of hot-button policy issues: For instance, should the United States focus on encouraging high-education immigration? They conclude that “policies designed to deter less-educated immigrants from entering the United States are misguided.” Discussing the border wall, they argue that “no one wins from the border fencing policies.” And on the 1.5 million undocumented immigrants who arrived as children, they make a full-throated argument in favor of “providing work permits and a path to citizenship,” noting that “the barriers that undocumented children face are stumbling blocks of our own making.” On this last point, it is hard to disagree. Our treatment of undocumented children is a stain on our nation.
In the end, the authors offer an optimistic message: “Immigration contributes to a flourishing American society.” In a rapidly evolving world, Abramitzky and Boustan urge us to take “the long view, acknowledging that upward mobility takes time, and is sometimes measured at the pace of generations, rather than years.”
Read the complete review at the link. It contains Luca’s own family immigration story.
The research highlighted by this book clearly refutes the many negative myths about migrants upon which the Trump GOP’s “campaign of hate and misinformation” is based.
But, unfortunately, I wouldn’t expect truth about immigration — no matter how compelling and well-documented — to change many minds on the far right. As Luca says: “The reality is that immigration debates are often driven more by feelings than facts.” Sadly, hate, fear, racism, resentment, and intolerance are “powerful feelings.”
It’s going to take a combination of political power, courage and talent to exercise it boldly, education, and better values from the upcoming generations of younger Americans to overcome White Nationalism and its pernicious effects. I have to hope that there is time for the “long view” and our “better angels” to win the future.
Associate Provost/Co-Director of the Immigration Clinic/Professor of the Practice Laila L. Hlass Tulane Law
Laila, my friend, everywhere I look you’re making news! Here’s Dan Kowalski @ LexisNexis on Layla’s well-deserved Lisa Brodyaga Award from the National Immigration Project:
Laila was a “guest lecturer” in my Refugee Law and Policy class during her time as a Fellow at the CALS Asylum Clinic at Georgetown Law. Since then, I have “returned the favor” by traveling to Tulane Law, both virtually and in person, to speak to Laila’s class and other immigration events. Laila has been recognized for “putting Tulane Law on the map” for innovative practical scholarship in immigration and international human rights and excellence in clinical teaching. No wonder she carries a “string of titles” at Tulane Law!
Laila is also one of many exciting examples of how clinical immigration and human rights professors have not only moved into the “academic mainstream” at major American law schools, but have been recognized as leaders and innovators by the larger academic communities in which they serve. Immigration law teaching has come a long way since the late INS General Counsel Charlie Gordon’s Immigration Law Class at Georgetown was the “only game in town.” (Historical trivia note: My good friend the late BIA Judge Lauri Filppu and I “aced” Charlie’s class in 1974, thus “besting” our then-supervisor at the BIA. That could have been a “career limiting” move. But, we both ended up on the “Schmidt Board” in the 1990s.)
Many congrats, Laila, on an already amazing career with even more achievements and recognition in your future. Thanks for being such a brilliant, inspiring, and dynamic role model for the New Due Process Army!
What follows is an excerpt from my book which will be published on Oct. 12. (I also published an excerpt this week in the Times magazine.) The book is a meditation on the 1965 Immigration Act, which I argue is the starting point of the multiethnic society we live in today.
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On Oct. 3, 1965, President Lyndon Johnson stood in front of the Statue of Liberty and said something that would be proved wrong: “This bill that we sign today is not a revolutionary bill. It does not affect the lives of millions. It will not reshape the structure of our daily lives.” He was referring to the Hart-Celler Immigration Act, a landmark piece of legislation that lifted restrictive quotas on immigration from Asia, Africa and southern and Eastern Europe.
Its opponents at the time it was finally passed described apocalyptic scenarios in which the United States and its white population would be overrun by a horde of foreigners. Johnson, for his part, assured the public that the easing of restrictions would have only a mild effect on the demographics of the country. Most people, he believed, would stay in their home countries.
Over the next five decades, the Hart-Celler Act would bring tens of millions of immigrants from Asia, southern and Eastern Europe, and Africa. No single piece of legislation has shaped the demographic and economic history of this country in quite the same way.
Sam Bernsen 1919 – 2020 Immigration Official, Law Partner, Educator, Mentor
A LEGAL GIANT PASSES: SAM BERNSEN (1919 – 2020) — Public Servant, Law Partner, Teacher, Scholar, Mentor, Humanitarian, Advocate For Due Process — He Helped Change The Face Of America For The Better!
By Paul Wickham Schmidt
Courtside Exclusive
July 30, 2020.I’d seen his name on briefs and old court cases (See, e.g., Vaccaro v. Bernsen, 267 F.2d 265 (5th Cir. 1959)). But, the first time I met Sam Bernsen was in January 1976, when I reported for work at the “Legacy” Immigration & Naturalization (“INS”) Office of General Counsel at the Chester Arthur Building in a rather run-down neighborhood within walking distance of the U.S. Capitol.
That building was perhaps a suitably shabby tribute to the “stepchild” status of INS within the hierarchy of the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”). The carpet was shopworn, elevators slow, and the corridors dim as a result of the Ford Administration’s “Whip Inflation Now” (“WIN”) austerity program that had removed every other fluorescent lightbulb from the fixtures.
The office was a far cry from today’s Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) massive legal operations: Just Sam, then the General Counsel, his Deputy, Ralph Farb, and two other “General Attorneys,” Stuart Shelby and Janice Podolny. Stu, Janice, and I actually shared an office with three desks (but only two telephones).
And it was always “Sam” not “Samuel.” Sam was his legal name, and he was very proud of it. Perhaps he connected it with “Uncle Sam.”
In any event, one of his “pet peeves” was when unknowing folks addressed him as “Samuel” in memos or on legal documents. I remember him vigorously “blacking out” the offending “uel” with his pen. His other pet peeve was when the server put parmesan cheese on his daily lunchtime bowl of minestrone soup at theGAO cafeteria!
Remarkably, I had gotten the job without personal interview by Sam. I attributed this to recommendations by Sam’s good friend and my first mentor Maury Roberts, then Chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”), and another friend of Sam’s, Leon Ullman, then Deputy Assistant Attorney General at the DOJ Office of Legal Counsel.
Working for Sam was like having a personal daily seminar in American immigration law from a really great professor. Sam had done it all. And, he took the time to explain everything to those working with him.
During his teens, Sam started at the very bottom of the Civil Service system as an “assistant messenger” with the U.S. Attorney in New York and then the INS on Ellis Island. According to Sam, he never he never made “full messenger.” But, he did rise to the top of the ranks of Civil Servants as General Counsel.
In between, Sam was an immigration inspector, chair of a board of special inquiry (the predecessor to today’s Immigration Courts), chief adjudicator, Assistant Commissioner for Adjudications, and District Director in New Orleans as well as serving in the Army during World War II and later as a Major in the Air Force Reserve. He knew the policies and the stories behind every regulation and operating instruction, as well as the history of all the immigration statutes from the 1924 Act on.
America’s immigrant heritage that Sam observed at Ellis Island and in his childhood neighborhood in Brooklyn greatly influenced his life. The 1975 movie “Hester Street,” about Jewish immigrants in New York in the early 20th century, was one Sam’s and his wife Betty’s favorites.
Sam loved providing clear, concise, practical, understandable legal advice to the INS Commissioner (then General Leonard Chapman, Jr., former Commandant of the Marine Corps) andvarious “operating divisions” of the INS in what was then known as the Central Office (“CO”). It likely came from his experience as a field officer who had to make decisions based on what came out of the CO. Gen. Chapman had Sam on “constant call” for legal advice.
Although Sam’s background was “old school up through the ranks,” he had a “new school” attitude and vision about the future of immigration law. Like his friend Maury Roberts at the BIA, Sam pioneered the use of the “Attorney General’s Honors Program” (of which I was a product) to bring a “new generation” of younger attorneys into the INS. That was later expanded by his immediate successors as General Counsel, David Crosland (Carter Administration) and Maurice C. “Mike” Inman, Jr. (Reagan Administration).
Sam had progressive views on using court decisions and common sense to make the immigration laws function better and easier to administer for everyone, at least in some small ways. One of the things we worked on was the “INS Efficiency Act,” originally introduced by Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) in 1979 and eventually incorporated into the “Immigration & Nationality Act Amendments of 1981,” enacted into law by P.L. 97-116 (Dec. 29, 1981).
This made a number of “common sense” fixes that Sam had noted over the years both by studying appellate court decisions and from answering recurring questions from INS operating divisions and DOJ litigation divisions handling our cases. It harkens back to a bygone time when public service in immigration was about “doing the right thing” and “promoting the common good” rather than advancing restrictionist ideological agendas.
My all-time favorite project with Sam was the July 1976 legal opinion approving and recommending the use of “prosecutorial discretion” by INS enforcement officials. This provided a sound legal basis for the INS’s “deferred action” program. Later, it formed part of the basis for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (“DACA”) program that has so greatly benefitted both America and deserving young people while, at least for a short time, helping to bring some badly needed rationality, humanity, uniformity, and proper prioritization of resources to an all too often scattershot and out of control DHS enforcement program.
Although written by me, that opinion reflects the “essence of Sam” — enforcement with rationality, humanity, prudence, fairness, attention to the views of courts, and standards to prevent arbitrariness. A full copy of that 1976 memorandum is linked below. My initials are at the bottom of the last page.
In light of all the nonsense making the rounds today, our conclusion is worth keeping in mind:
The power of various officers of the Executive Branch to exercise prosecutorial discretion is inherent and does not depend on express statutory authorization. . . . [T]he Service’s attempts to set forth some standards for the exercise of prosecutorial discretion are particularly appropriate.
My time in the General Counsel’s Office with Sam was all too short. He retired in 1977. At the time, he had 38 years of Federal service, but was only 57-years-old, with several more distinguished careers in front of him.
Sam went on to become one of the “founding partners” and managing partner of the Washington, D.C. Office of the powerhouse national immigration firm Fragomen, Del Rey, & Bernsen, now the international law firm known as “Fragomen.” He also became a noted educator in the field, lecturing and writing for the American Immigration Lawyers Association (“AILA”) and serving as an Adjunct Professor of Law at Catholic University and American University. I hired some of his former students in various capacities in some of my “future incarnations.”
Along the way, Sam tried to “recruit” me for his firm. But, I wasn’t quite ready to make the jump. Later, however, we did “reunite” for a short “transition period” when I succeeded him as the managing partner of Fragomen DC in 1993.
What I remember most about Sam from our stint in private practice was how loyal his clients were and how much they trusted him with their fate and future. One of his greatest joys was working with students, young professionals, and student advisors on issues relating to F-1, J-1, and H-1 non-immigrant visas. We also did some projects relating to the interpretation of statutes and regulations that we had a role in drafting and enacting back in the General Counsel days. His clients and the Government officials he dealt with regarded Sam with reverence, as both the “ultimate authority” and the “total straight shooter,” a somewhat unusual combination for a lawyer in private practice.
Sam and I kept in touch for many years at AILA Conferences and other educational events, even after I rejoined Government in 1995 as Chair of the BIA. Sam was an avid tennis player, and from time to time I would run into folks who had met him in courts of both the tennis and legal variety. Indeed, Sam kindly served as the “featured speaker,” at my investiture as an Immigration Judge at the Arlington Immigration Court in June 2003.
Along with folks like Maury Roberts, Ralph Farb, Charlie Gordon, Irv Applemen, and Louisa Wilson, Sam was one of my mentors and one of the all-time greats of American law. He represented a constructive, scholarly, and humane view of public service that has all but disappeared from the scene. Yet, he also saw into the future and was able to “reinvent himself” in new and dynamic ways after leaving public service. I had to do some of the sameand always looked to Sam as a role model.
Sam’s decisions, opinions, scholarship, and humanity helped shape generations of American immigration law. His work both in and out of Government changed the lives of thousands of immigrants for the better and helped build our nation into the diverse country it is today. His many students and those he mentored over the years, like me, continued his legacy and formed the forerunner of the “New Due Process Army.”
America and the world are richer and better because of Sam’s life and contributions. Sam knew the law, perhaps better than any other, and he used it to further humane goals whenever possible. Would that we had more role models like Sam in positions of responsibility and authority today! Sam, thanks for everything, and may you rest in peace after a “life very well lived!”
Here is a link to our 1976 legal opinion on prosecutorial discretion:
But they were willing to do whatever it took. Going back to Guatemala was simply not an option, they said. Monterroso explained that in October, their family was forced to flee after a gang threatened to murder the children if they didn’t pay an exorbitant bribe, five months’ worth of profits from their tiny juice stall. The family hid for a day and a half in their house and then sneaked away before dawn. “There is nobody that can protect us there,” Monterroso said. “We have seen in the other cases, they kill the people and kill their children.” Her voice caught. “The first thing is to have security for them,” she said of her kids, “that nothing bad happens to them.”
All told, more than 159,000 migrants filed for asylum in the U.S. in fiscal year 2018, a 274% increase over 2008. Meanwhile, the total number of apprehensions along the southern border has decreased substantially—nearly 70% since fiscal year 2000. President Donald Trump has labeled the southern border a national crisis. He refused to sign any bill funding the federal government that did not include money for construction of a wall along the frontier, triggering the longest shutdown in American history, and when Democrats refused to budge, he threatened to formally invoke emergency powers. The President says the barrier, which was the centerpiece of his election campaign, is needed to thwart a dangerous “invasion” of undocumented foreigners.
But the situation on the southern border, however the political battle in Washington plays out, will continue to frustrate this U.S. President, and likely his successors too, and not just because of continuing caravans making their way to the desert southwest. Months of reporting by TIME correspondents around the world reveal a stubborn reality: we are living today in a global society increasingly roiled by challenges that can be neither defined nor contained by physical barriers. That goes for climate change, terrorism, pandemics, nascent technologies and cyber-attacks. It also applies to one of the most significant global developments of the past quarter-century: the unprecedented explosion of global migration.
. . . .
They abandoned their homes for different reasons: tens of millions went in search of better jobs or better education or medical care, and tens of millions more had no choice. More than 5.6 million fled the war in Syria, and a million more were Rohingya, chased from their villages in Myanmar. Hundreds of thousands fled their neighborhoods in Central America and villages in sub-Saharan Africa, driven by poverty and violence. Others were displaced by catastrophic weather linked to climate change.
Taken one at a time, each is an individual, a mixture of strengths and weaknesses, hope and despair. But collectively, they represent something greater than the sum of their parts. The forces that pushed them from their homes have combined with a series of global factors that pulled them abroad: the long peace that followed the Cold War in the developed world, the accompanying expansion of international travel, liberalized policies for refugees and the relative wealth of developed countries, especially in Europe and the U.S., the No. 1 destination for migrants. The force is tidal and has not been reversed by walls, by separating children from their parents or by deploying troops. Were the world’s total population of international migrants in 2018 gathered from the places where they have sought new lives and placed under one flag, they would be its fifth largest country.
The mass movement of people has changed the world both for better and for worse. Migrants tend to be productive. Though worldwide they make up about 3% of the population, in 2015 they generated about 9% of global GDP, according to the U.N. Much of that money is wired home—$480 billion in 2017, also according to the U.N.—where the cash has immense impact. Some will pay for the passage of the next migrant, and the smartphone he or she will keep close at hand. The technology not only makes the journey more efficient and safer—smugglers identify their clients by photos on instant-messaging—but, upon arrival, allows those who left to keep in constant contact with those who remain behind, across oceans and time zones.
Yet attention of late is mostly focused on the impact on host countries. There, national leaders have grappled with a powerful irony: the ways in which they react to new migrants—tactically, politically, culturally—shape them as much as the migrants themselves do. In some countries, migrants have been welcomed by crowds at train stations. In others, images of migrants moving in miles-long caravans through Central America or spilling out of boats on Mediterranean shores were wielded to persuade native-born citizens to lock down borders, narrow social safety nets and jettison long-standing humanitarian commitments to those in need.
. . . .
The U.S., though founded by Europeans fleeing persecution, now largely reflects the will of its Chief Executive: subverting decades of asylum law and imposing a policy that separated migrant toddlers from their parents and placed children behind cyclone fencing. Trump floated the possibility of revoking birthright citizenship, characterized migrants as “stone cold criminals” and ordered 5,800 active-duty U.S. troops to reinforce the southern border. Italy refused to allow ships carrying rescued migrants to dock at its ports. Hungary passed laws to criminalize the act of helping undocumented people. Anti-immigrant leaders saw their political power grow in the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Sweden, Germany, Finland, Italy and Hungary, and migration continued to be a factor in the Brexit debate in the U.K.
These political reactions fail to grapple with a hard truth: in the long run, new migration is nearly always a boon to host countries. In acting as entrepreneurs and innovators, and by providing inexpensive labor, immigrants overwhelmingly repay in long-term economic contributions what they use in short-term social services, studies show. But to maximize that future good, governments must act -rationally to establish humane policies and adequately fund an immigration system equipped to handle an influx of newcomers.
. . . .
But protocols and treaties can, at best, hope to respond to the human emotions and hard realities that drive migration. No wall, sheriff or headscarf law would have prevented Monterroso and Calderón, or Yaquelin and Albertina Contreras, or Sami Baladi and Mirey Darwich from leaving their homes. Migrants will continue to flee bombs, look for better-paying jobs and accept extraordinary risks as the price of providing a better life for their children.
The question now is whether the world can come to define the enormous population of international migrants as an opportunity. No matter when that happens, Eman Albadawi, a teacher from Syria who arrived in Anröchte, Germany, in 2015, will continue to make a habit of reading German-language children’s books to her three Syrian-born kids at night. Their German is better than hers, and they make fun of her pronunciation, but she doesn’t mind. She is proud of them. At a time when anti-immigrant rhetoric is on the rise, she tells them, “We must be brave, but we must also be successful and strong.” —With reporting by Aryn Baker/Anröchte, Germany; Melissa Chan, Julia Lull, Gina Martinez, Thea Traff/New York; Ioan Grillo/Tijuana; Abby Vesoulis/Murfreesboro, Tenn.; and Vivienne Walt/Paris •
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I strongly encourage everyone to read Haley’s outstanding article at the link. It is one of the best and most easily understandable explanations of a complex phenomenon that I have seen recently. As I always say, “lots of moving parts.” But Haley and her colleagues have distilled the fundamental truths concealed by this complexity. Congrats and appreciation to Haley and everyone who worked on this masterpiece!
Haley debunks and eviscerates the restrictionist, racist “fear and loathing” baloney that Trump and his White Nationalist gang peddle. The simple truth always has been and continues to be that America needs more immigration.
The only real question is whether we are going to be smart and funnel it into expanded legal and humanitarian channels or dumb like Trump and push the inevitable migration into an extra-legal system. The latter best serves neither our country nor the humans pushed into an underground existence where they can be exploited and are artificially prevented from achieving their full potential for themselves and for us. Right now, we have a mix skewed toward forcing far, far too many good folks to use the extra-legal system.
We’ll only be able to improve the situation by pushing the mix toward the legal and the humanitarian, rather than the extra-legal. That’s why it’s virtually impossible to have a rational immigration debate with folks like Trump who start with the racist-inspired fiction that migrants are a “threat” who can be deterred, punished, and diminished.
Contrary to Trump and the White Nationalists, the real immigration problems facing America are 1) how can we best integrate the millions of law-abiding and productive undocumented individuals already residing here into our society, and 2) how can we most fairly and efficiently insure that in the future individuals like them can be properly screened and come to our country through expanded humanitarian and legal channels. Until we resolve these, American will continue to founder with immigration and fail to maximize its many benefits. That’s bad for us, for migrants, and for the future of our nation.
As a reminder, in the context of Congressional negotiations on border security, I recently put together a list of “practical fixes” to the immigration system which would address border security, humanitarian relief, and improved compliance with Constitutional Due process without major legislative changes — mostly “tweaks” and other common sense amendments that would make outsized improvements and certainly would be an improvement on squandering $5.7 billion and getting nothing but a largely symbolic “instant white elephant” border wall in return. So, here it is again in all its hypothetical glory: “THE SMARTS ACT OF 2019:
SECURITY, MIGRATION ASSISTANCE RENEWAL, & TECHNICAL SYSTEMS ACT (“SMARTS ACT”) OF 2019
Federal Employees
Restart the Government
Retroactive pay raise
Enhanced Border Security
Fund half of “Trump’s Wall”
Triple the number of USCIS Asylum Officers
Double the number of U.S. Immigration Judges and Court Staff
Additional Port of Entry (“POE”) Inspectors
Improvements in POE infrastructure, technology, and technology between POEs
Additional Intelligence, Anti-Smuggling, and Undercover Agents for DHS
Anything else that both parties agree upon
Humanitarian Assistance
Road to citizenship for a Dreamers & TPSers
Prohibit family separation
Funding for alternatives to detention
Grants to NGOs for assisting arriving asylum applicants with temporary housing and resettlement issues
Require re-establishment of U.S. Refugee Program in the Northern Triangle
Asylum Process
Require Asylum Offices to consider in the first instance all asylum applications including those generated by the “credible fear” process as well as all so-called “defensive applications”
Immigration Court Improvements
Grants and requirements that DHS & EOIR work with NGOs and the private bar with a goal of achieving 100% representation of asylum applicants
Money to expand and encourage the training and certification of more non-attorneys as “accredited representatives” to represent asylum seekers pro bono before the Asylum Offices and the Immigration Courts on behalf of approved NGOs
Vacate Matter of A-B-and reinstate Matter of A-R-C-G-as the rule for domestic violence asylum applications
Vacate Matter of Castro-Tum and reinstate Matter of Avetisyan to allow Immigration Judges to control dockets by administratively closing certain “low priority” cases
Eliminate Attorney General’s authority to interfere in Immigration Court proceedings through “certification”
Re-establish weighing of interests of both parties consistent with Due Process as the standard for Immigration Court continuances
Bar AG & EOIR Director from promulgating substantive or procedural rules for Immigration Courts — grant authority to BIA to promulgate procedural rules for Immigration Courts
Authorize Immigration Courts to consider all Constitutional issues in proceedings
Authorize DHS to appeal rulings of the BIA to Circuit Courts of Appeal
Require EOIR to implement the statutory contempt authority of Immigration Judges, applicable equally to all parties before the courts, within 180 days
Bar “performance quotas” and “performance work plans” for Immigration Judges and BIA Members
Authorize the Immigration Court to set bonds in all cases coming within their jurisdiction
Fund and require EOIR to implement a nationwide electronic filing system within one year
Eliminate the annual 4,000 numerical cap on grants of “cancellation of removal” based on “exceptional and extremely unusual hardship”
Require the Asylum Office to adjudicate cancellation of removal applications with renewal in Immigration Court for those denied
Require EOIR to establish a credible, transparent judicial discipline and continued tenure system within one year that must include: opportunity for participation by the complainant (whether Government or private) and the Immigration Judge; representation permitted for both parties; peer input; public input; DHS input; referral to an impartial decision maker for final decision; a transparent and consistent system of sanctions incorporating principles of rehabilitation and progressive discipline; appeal rights to the MSPB
International Cooperation
Fund and require efforts to work with the UNHCR, Mexico, and other countries in the Hemisphere to improve asylum systems and encourage asylum seekers to exercise options besides the U.S.
Fund efforts to improve conditions and the rule of law in the Northern Triangle
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No, it wouldn’t solve all problems overnight. But, everything beyond “Trump’s Wall” would make a substantial improvement over our current situation that would benefit enforcement, border security, human rights, Due Process, humanitarian assistance, and America. Not a bad “deal” in my view!
“In a White House meeting with members of Congress this week, President Trump is said to have suggested that the United States accepts too many immigrants from “shithole countries” in Africa and too few from countries like Norway.
Those comments, relayed to NPR by people in attendance at the meeting, set off an immediate firestorm, in part because Trump appeared to be favoring the revival of a discriminatory immigration policy abolished by the U.S. Congress more than 50 years ago.
From 1924 to 1965, the United States allocated immigrant visas on the basis of a candidate’s national origin. People coming from Northern and Western European countries were heavily favored over those from countries like those Trump now derides. More than 50,000 immigrant visas were reserved for Germany each year. The United Kingdom had the next biggest share, with about 34,000.
Ireland, with 28,000 slots, and Norway, with 6,400, had the highest quotas as a share of their population. Each country in Asia, meanwhile, had a quota of just 100, while Africans wishing to move to America had to compete for one of just 1,200 visas set aside for the entire continent.
The blatantly discriminatory quota policy was enacted on the basis of recommendations from a congressional commission set up in 1907 to determine who precisely was coming to the United States, which countries they were coming from and what capacities they were bringing with them. Under the leadership of Republican Sen. William Dillingham of Vermont, the commission prepared a report consisting of more than 40 volumes distinguishing desirable ethnicities from those the commission considered less desirable.
“Dictionary of Races or Peoples”
In a “Dictionary of Races or Peoples,” the commission reported that Slavic people demonstrated “fanaticism in religion, carelessness as to the business virtues of punctuality and often honesty.” Southern Italians were found to be “excitable, impulsive, highly imaginative” but also “impracticable.” Foreshadowing Trump’s own assessment, the commission concluded that Scandinavians represented “the purest type.”
The main sponsor of the 1924 law enacting the national origins quotas was Rep. Albert Johnson, R-Wash., chairman of the House Committee on Immigration. Among Johnson’s immigration advisers were John Trevor, the founder of the far-right American Coalition of Patriotic Societies, and Madison Grant, an amateur eugenicist whose writings gave racism a veneer of intellectual legitimacy. In his 1916 book The Passing of the Great Race, Grant separated the human species into Caucasoids, Mongoloids and Negroids, and argued that Caucasoids and Negroids needed to be separated.
President Harry S. Truman fought against a national origin quota system, saying it “discriminates, deliberately and intentionally, against many peoples of the world.”
Time Life Pictures/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
The national origin quota system remained in effect for more than 40 years, despite increasing opposition from moderates and liberals. Minor adjustments were made under the 1952 McCarran-Walter Act, which passed over the vigorous objections of President Harry S. Truman.
In a fiery veto message, Truman argued that the national origin quota policy “discriminates, deliberately and intentionally, against many peoples of the world.” After Congress dismissed his criticism and overrode his veto, Truman ordered the establishment of a presidential Commission on Immigration and Naturalization.
In its report, the commission concluded that U.S. immigration policy marginalized “the non-white people of the world who constitute between two-thirds and three-fourths of the world’s population.” The report was titled Whom We Shall Welcome, referring to a speech President George Washington delivered to a group of Irish immigrants in 1783.
“The bosom of America is open to receive not only the Opulent and respectable Stranger,” Washington famously said in that speech, “but the oppressed and persecuted of all Nations and Religions, whom we shall welcome to a participation of all our rights and privileges, if by decency and propriety of conduct they appear to merit the enjoyment.”
That promise was broken by the enslavement of Africans brought to America in chains, but it set forth the ideal by which U.S. immigration policy was to be judged in the 1950s.
. . . .
Support for Johnson’s immigration reform, however, gained momentum after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Vice President Hubert Humphrey, who had pushed for the abolition of national-origin quotas during the 1950s as a U.S. senator, tied the promotion of immigration reform to the civil rights movement, then at its peak.
“We have removed all elements of second-class citizenship from our laws by the Civil Rights Act,” he said. “We must in 1965 remove all elements in our immigration law which suggest there are second-class people.”
Phenomenon of “chain migration”
With a huge Democratic majority elected the year before, the immigration reform finally passed both houses of Congress in September 1965. Conservatives, led by Ohio’s Feighan, however, had insisted on a key change in the legislation, giving immigrant candidates with relatives already in the United States priority over those with “advantageous” skills and education, as the Johnson administration had originally proposed.
That change, which eventually led to the phenomenon of “chain migration” denounced by Trump, was seen as a way to preserve the existing ethnic profile of the U.S. population and discourage the immigration of Asians and Africans who had fewer family ties in the country.
The key reform, however, was achieved. The new law did away with immigration quotas based on national origin.
“This system violated the basic principle of American democracy, the principle that values and rewards each man on the basis of his merit as a man,” Johnson declared as he signed the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty. “It has been un-American in the highest sense. Today, with my signature, this system is abolished.”
For some, the 50th anniversary of the signing of the 1965 legislation, in October 2015, was an occasion for celebration. Muzaffar Chishti, an immigrant from India and a senior lawyer at the Migration Policy Institute, observed at the time that the law sent a message to the rest of the world that “America is not just a place for certain privileged nationalities. We are truly the first universal nation.”
“That may have been the promise of the Founding Fathers, but it took a long time to realize it.”
In the years since 1965, America has become a truly multicultural nation. But with a U.S. president once again saying that immigrants from some countries are superior to immigrants from other countries, the question is whether America will keep its founders’ promise in the years ahead.
Tom Gjelten’s book on how the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act changed the United States is A Nation of Nations: A Great American Immigration Story.”
Those of us who are committed to a diverse, vibrant America and the promise for the future that robust legal immigration brings should resist and speak out forcibly against the Trump GOP’s toxic plan to restore racism to U.S. immigration policy. We should also “out” horrid GOP politicians like Cotton, Perdue, and Goodlatte who use euphemisms and bogus restrictionist stats to stoke fear and promote a blatantly racist immigration agenda. They even lied about what “really happened” in the “Oval Office meeting” to promote their vile anti-immigrant views. Don’t let them get away with it!
“Matter of L-, 1 I&N Dec. 1 (BIA 1940), was issued on August 29, 1940, the day before the Board of Immigration Appeals came into existence.2 Some background about the Board’s early history is required to explain this. From 1922 until 1940, a five-member Board of Review existed within the Department of Labor to review all immigration cases. The Board of Review had no decision- making authority of its own; it could only recommend action to the Secretary of Labor. In 1933, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) was formed within the Department of Labor,3 and from 1933 until 1939 the Board of Review made its recommendations to the Commissioner of Immigration and Naturalization.4″
In INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca, its landmark 1987 decision establishing that the burden of proving a “well-founded fear of persecution” is significantly less than fifty percent, the Supreme Court relied on the following scholarly example: “Let us…presume that it is known that in applicant’s country of origin every tenth adult male person is either put to death or sent to some remote labor camp… In such a case it would be only too apparent that anyone who managed to escape from the country would have ‘well-founded fear of being persecuted’ on his eventual return.”2 While the Court’s decision predates the “pattern or practice” regulation by more than three years, the example it relies on (which predates the regulation by 24 years) presents a classic “pattern or practice” scenario. The hypotheti- cal establishes (1) a group, i.e., all adult males in a particular country; and (2) information establishing systemic persecution of one in ten members of such group. all members of the group therefore have a well-founded without the need to explain their individual circumstances.”
“Racism was codified in this country’s original natu- ralization law. The Naturalization Act of 1790 limited the right to naturalize to “free white persons.” Following the Civil War, the Act of July 14, 1870, added “aliens of African nativity” and “aliens of African descent” to those eligible to naturalize. However, all others considered “non-white” continued to be barred from obtaining United States citizenship. In 1922, the Supreme Court denied Takao Ozawa, a Japanese immigrant who had lived in the U.S. for 20 years, the right to become a naturalized citizen because he “clearly” was “not Caucasian.” In interpreting the term “free white persons,” the Court found that “the framers did not have in mind the brown or yellow races of Asia.”1 In United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind,2 the Supreme Court reached the same conclusion regarding an “upper-caste Hindu” who claimed a lineage classi ed as “Aryan” or “Caucasian.” The Court determined that “Aryan” related to “linguistic, and not at all with physical, characteristics,” and concluded that the term “free white persons” as understood by the common man, would not include those of Hindu ancestry.3 It was not until passage of the McCarran-Walter Act in 1952 that the naturalization law was amended to read that “[t]he right of a person to become a naturalized citizen shall not be denied or abridged because of race or sex…”4
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Read all three of Judge Chase’s outstanding histories and get some “instant perspective” on how we got to where we are today as a nation of immigrants. There was no shortage of hypocracy. And, I submit that in the course of history some of today’s politicians advocating restrictive racially and religiously charged immigration policies are going to look just as distasteful, arrogant, prejudiced, and ignorant as some of the judges, lawmakers, and government officials described in these articles.
PWS
06-19-17
UPDATE
Judge Chase has reminded me that there is a fourth part to this collection:
“U.S. asylum policy is a product of the tension between the public sentiments of compassion and fear. In the words of a former Deputy UN High Commissioner: “The public will not allow governments to be generous if it believes they have lost control.” 1 Although asylum can be traced back at least to the Old Testament, for all practical purposes, U.S. asylum policy began on the eve of World War II.”
