🇺🇸🗽⚖️ ANDY J. SEMOTIUK @ FORBES: A 5-MINUTE “PLAIN ENGLISH” READ (OR LISTEN)  WITH TRUTH & CLARITY ABOUT ASYLUM & IMMIGRATION POLICY — “In short, national leaders must prioritize bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform and give it enough focus, time and effort for it to be achieved. There is just no other way!”

 

Andy J. Semotiuk
Andy J. Semotiuk,
Esquire
Attorney & Writer
PHOTO: Linkedin

https://www-forbes-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.forbes.com/sites/andyjsemotiuk/2023/11/16/the-best-way-forward-on-immigration-reform-in-america/amp/

Three principles are at the core of Andy’s article:

. . . .

International Obligations and Refugee Protection

Key international obligations regarding refugees also play a crucial role in shaping the discourse. The United States, as a signatory to the 1967 Protocol to the United Nations Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, is bound by several obligations, including:

  1. Non-refoulement: Prohibiting the return of refugees to countries where they would face persecution or harm based on their race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group.
  2. Access to asylum procedures: Ensuring a fair and accessible process for individuals to seek asylum and present their claims for protection.
  3. Non-discrimination: Preventing discrimination against refugees based on factors such as nationality or place of entry.

. . . .

*************** 

Read the complete article at the link!

I think that the U.S. is in violation of all three of these essential, mandatory legal obligations. 

Gimmicks like Title 42, “Remain in Mexico,” coercive detention, “CBP One,” and artificial roadblocks for those applying between ports of entry have violated and continue to violate our “non-refoulment” obligation.

These provisions, along with conducting interviews in detention settings, improperly limiting access to representation, and “expedited dockets” to limit the ability to prepare and present claims are examples of violations of our obligation to provide “fair access” to our asylum system.

And, by intentionally designing our system to discourage and deny applicants of color from the Western Hemisphere, Africa, and Muslim nations, and imposing illegal higher burdens on those not applying at ports of entry, we clearly are violating the “non-discrimination” requirement.

The GOP answer is simply to double down on the violations and abrogate our domestic and international obligations. While the Biden Administration at least nominally acknowledges these obligations, their actions and policies, some actually carried over or borrowed from the Trump Administration, blatantly undermine these principles of protection. 

Indeed, the whole “movement” by both parties to use the refugee/asylum system for “rejection and deterrence” rather than “enhanced protection” is a “bipartisan legal and moral travesty!”

What if our “number one priority” was what it should be: Establish a world-class, expert, efficient, robust, generous system that is driven by, and true to, these three governing obligations?

Only after achieving that can we discuss and achieve “border security” in a realistic and effective manner! And, it couldn’t possibly be more expensive, in both fiscal terms and human lives cost, than decades of costly failed deterrence gimmicks and schemes! It’s a case of badly screwed up priorities aggravated by political cowardice! 

Institutionalized cruelty, deterrence, and unlawful behavior by our Government has failed to create order at the border and has demonstrably destroyed or diminished human lives. Why not give adherence to laws and to humanitarian values and principles a chance?🤯

We can diminish ourselves as a nation, but it won’t stop human migration!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

11-25-23

🇺🇸🗽💡THE VIEW FROM MAINE IS CLEARER! — Dan Kolbert Of Portland “Gets” What Politicos Of Both Parties Don’t — Migration Happens, Embrace It, Don’t Fear It!😎🇺🇸

View of Linekin Bay, Maine
View of Linekin Bay, Maine

https://www.pressherald.com/2023/07/14/maine-voices-no-walls-are-high-enough-to-keep-out-people-desperate-for-a-safe-place/

Dan Kolbert in the Portland Press Herald:

MAINE VOICES Posted Yesterday at 4:00 AM

INCREASE FONT SIZE

Maine Voices: No walls are high enough to keep out people desperate for a safe place

Instead of wasting precious time trying to shut today’s refugees out, we can prepare for them in a way that could benefit all of us.

BY DAN KOLBERTSPECIAL TO THE PRESS HERALD

Maine Expo
A young girl jumps rope inside the Portland Expo, home to several hundred asylum seekers. Much of the world’s population will be on the move, trying to survive, as sea levels and temperatures rise. Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dan Kolbert has lived in Portland’s West End since 1988. He is a building contractor and an author.

In Central America, where corn was first cultivated over millennia and is still the home of many important seed bases, a drought is entering its second decade. It is possible that agriculture will soon be impossible there, along with many parts of Africa and Asia. Rising sea levels will mean many low-lying islands will disappear, and coastal cities will be forced to retreat or be swamped.

All of this means that much of the world’s population will be on the move, searching for a way to survive. Estimates top 1 billion people by mid-century. Here in Portland, we are already seeing previously unimaginable levels of immigration, with hundreds of recent arrivals sleeping in a sports arena, and housing shortages and rising rents forcing many new and established Mainers into the many homeless encampments dotting the city. And we are just getting started.

There are no walls high enough to keep out people desperate for a safe place for them and their families. So we can either spend the precious time that remains on a futile, and cruel, effort to keep people out, or we can prepare for them in a humane way that could have enormous benefits for all of us, new and old Mainers alike.

The first step is housing, and plenty of it. Multi-family housing in Maine has undergone a sea change in recent years. We can build healthy, functional housing with very low heating and cooling loads for much less than all the mediocre, drafty single-family houses we currently build. Greater Portland is home to much of the most expensive real estate in the state, but imagine if we could have planned development surrounding some other cities, like Bangor or Lewiston. Or even smaller population centers like Skowhegan, Farmington or Rumford. We are a sparsely populated state with an aging population – immigrant families could revitalize many parts of the state. In addition to the workforce we desperately need, they would bring children to boost shrinking school enrollments, new cultures and foods, and new outlooks. And of course it would be a big boost to the economies of parts of the state that haven’t always shared in the boom.

Next is finding work for people. We have already seen many immigrants going into health care, and our aging U.S.-born population will only need more services. Some Africans have taken up farming, helping revitalize that economy. In southern Maine, Central Americans are increasingly showing up in construction, where a 20-year-long labor shortage has created enormous demand. And many people show up with important professional skills, needing only some help with language and certifications to resume careers as doctors, engineers, teachers, administrators, etc. Of course we need to reform the work rules, to allow people to find employment much sooner.

It was disappointing to read of the events in Unity. Imagine using this existing, underutilized infrastructure for temporary housing! How many of these new arrivals might see central Maine as a safe, friendly place to establish their new lives?

I am a new Mainer myself, having only lived here for 35 of my 59 years, but my kids can trace their lineage in Maine and Quebec for over 300 years on their mother’s side. As the son of a refugee from the Nazis, I am perhaps more sympathetic to the plight of today’s refugees than others are, but I hope that we can see this as an opportunity to invest in our state, and to demonstrate basic humanity toward people who just want to live.

***************

You can listen to the audio version at the link!

Dan definitely has the right idea! Seems like whats needed is 1) leadership, 2) organization to match people and skills to local needs, and 3) some seed money” to get an affordable housing program going.

Haley Sweetland Edwards
Haley Sweatband Edwards
Nation Editor
Time Magazine
PHOTO: Pulitzer

Dan’s clear vision reminds me of a prescient article by author and Time Nation Editor Haley Sweetland Edwards that I featured in Courtside in Jan 2019. https://immigrationcourtside.com/2019/01/27/inconvenient-truth-haley-sweetland-edwards-time-tells-what-trump-miller-cotton-sessions-their-white-nationalist-gang-dont-want-you-to-know-human-migration-is-a-powerful-force-as-old/

Haley said:

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.

The unmitigated human rights and racial justice disasters of the Trump years and the troubling difficulty the Biden Administration has had getting beyond that debacle reinforce the accuracy and inevitability of what Haley and Dan are saying.

The future will belong to those nations that learn how to welcome migrants, treat them humanely, screen and accept many of them in a timely, orderly, minimally bureaucratic manner, and utilize their energy, determination, ingenuity, and life skills to build a better future for all.

The open question is whether the U.S. will be among those successful future powers. Or, will the cruel, unrealistic, racially-driven, restrictionist nativism of the GOP right drive us to continue to waste inordinate resources fruitlessly trying to deny, deter, and prevent the inevitable, thus ultimately forcing us down to second or even third tier status. TBD.

In the meantime, here’s another great article from the PPH about how Mainers have led the fight to protect individual rights and freedoms while advancing American progressive values in contravention of the authoritarian neo-fascism sweeping over some so-called “red” states.

Maine has tacked left as nation lurches right in culture wars

Embracing the state motto – ‘I lead’ – Maine lawmakers led in a different direction, safeguarding and expanding access to abortion and gender-affirming care.

Read the full article here!

 https://www.pressherald.com/2023/07/09/maine-has-tacked-left-as-nation-lurches-right-in-culture-wars/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Daily+Headlines%3A++RSS%3AITEM%3ATITLE&utm_campaign=PH+Daily+Headlines+ND+-+NO+SECTIONS

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-15-23

MOHSIN HAMID @ NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC: Migration Is Human History, & We Are All Migrants — Opposition To Migration Is Opposition To Human Progress: “Accepting our reality as a migratory species will not be easy. New art, new stories, and new ways of being will be needed. But the potential is great. A better world is possible, a more just and inclusive world, better for us and for our grandchildren, with better food and better music and less violence too!

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2019/08/we-all-are-migrants-in-the-21st-century/

Mohsin Hamid
Mohsin Hamid
Novelist

Ours is a migratory species. Humans have always moved. Our ancestors did, and not linearly, like an army advancing out of Africa in a series of bold thrusts, but circuitously, sometimes in one direction, then in another, borne along by currents both without and within. Our contemporaries are moving—above all from the countryside to the cities of Asia and Africa. And our descendants will move too. They will move as the climate changes, as sea levels rise, as wars are fought, as one mode of economic activity dies out and gives way to another.

The power of our technology, its impact on our planet, is growing. Consequently the pace of change is accelerating, giving rise to new stresses, and our nimble species will use movement as part of its response to these stresses, as our great-grandmothers and great-grandfathers did, as we are designed to do.

And yet we are told that such movement is unprecedented, that it represents a crisis, a flood, a disaster. We are told that there are two kinds of humans, natives and migrants, and that these must struggle for supremacy.

We are told not only that movement through geographies can be stopped but that movement through time can be too, that we can return to the past, to a better past.

We are told not only that movement through geographies can be stopped but that movement through time can be too, that we can return to the past, to a better past, when our country, our race, our religion was truly great. All we must accept is division. The division of humanity into natives and migrants. A vision of a world of walls and barriers, and of the guards and weapons and surveillance required to enforce those barriers. A world where privacy dies, and dignity and equality alongside it, and where humans must pretend to be static, unmoving, moored to the land on which they currently stand and to a time like the time of their childhood—or of their ancestors’ childhoods—an imaginary time, in which standing still is only an imaginary possibility.

Such are the dreams of a species defeated by nostalgia, at war with itself, with its migratory nature and the nature of its relationship to time, screaming in denial of the constant movement that is human life.

Perhaps thinking of us all as migrants offers us a way out of this looming dystopia. If we are all migrants, then possibly there is a kinship between the suffering of the woman who has never lived in another town and yet has come to feel foreign on her own street and the suffering of the man who has left his town and will never see it again. Maybe transience is our mutual enemy, not in the sense that the passage of time can be defeated but rather in the sense that we all suffer from the losses time inflicts.

A greater degree of compassion for ourselves might then become possible, and out of it, a greater degree of compassion for others. We might muster more courage as we swim through time, rather than giving in to fear. We might collectively be able to be brave enough to recognize that our individual endings are not the ending of everything and that beauty and hope remain possible even once we are gone.

Accepting our reality as a migratory species will not be easy. New art, new stories, and new ways of being will be needed. But the potential is great. A better world is possible, a more just and inclusive world, better for us and for our grandchildren, with better food and better music and less violence too.

The city nearest you was, two centuries ago, almost unimaginably different from that city today. Two centuries in the future it is likely to be at least as different again. Few citizens of almost any city now would prefer to live in their city of two centuries ago. We should have the confidence to imagine that the same will be true of the citizens of the world’s cities two centuries hence.

pastedGraphic.png

A species of migrants at last comfortable being a species of migrants. That, for me, is a destination worth wandering to. It is the central challenge and opportunity every migrant offers us: to see in him, in her, the reality of ourselves.

Mohsin Hamid is the author of four novels —Moth Smoke, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia, and Exit West—and a book of essays, Discontent and Its Civilizations. His writing has been translated into 40 languages, featured on best-seller lists, and adapted for the screen.

************************************

Life is change!

As I often say, we can diminish ourselves as a nation (and, under Trump are doing just that, at an alarming rate), but it won’t stop human migration.

Just think what might happen if we spent the same amount of time, effort, and money on addressing and solving migration issues that we now do on cruel, inept, and ineffective efforts to stop migration. “Malicious incompetence” will never be effective policy.

PWS

07-21-19

WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM: GOOD NEWS: Migration Is Good For The World, Sending & Receiving Countries Benefit, & The Oft-Repeated Myths Of Fiscal Burdens & Wage Depression For “Host Countries” Are False — BAD NEWS: Countries With Nationalistic Leaders Who Are “Invested In The Myths” Are Unlikely To Realize The Full Potential Of Migration

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/global-compact-opposition-migration-development-by-mahmoud-mohieldin-and-dilip-ratha-2019-02

On December 19, 2018, the United Nations General Assembly voted to adopt the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, with 152 votes in favor, five votes against, and 12 abstentions. Supporters hailed the Compact as a step toward more humane and orderly management of migration, yet opposition remains formidable.

The Compact is not a legally binding treaty, nor does it guarantee new rights for migrants. In fact, the Compact’s 23 objectives were drafted on the basis of two years of inclusive discussions and six rounds of negotiations, focused specifically on creating a framework for international cooperation that would not interfere excessively in countries’ domestic affairs.

Because of misunderstandings about the Compact, it is worth taking a closer look at the migration challenge – and the vast benefits that a well-managed system can bring to host countries and home countries alike.

Migration is motivated, first and foremost, by lack of economic opportunities at home. With the average income level in high-income countries more than 70 times higher than in low-income countries, it is not surprising that many in the developing world feel compelled to try their luck elsewhere.

This trend is reinforced by demographic shifts. As high-income countries face population aging, many lower-income countries have burgeoning working-age and youth populations. Technological disruption is also putting pressure on labor markets. Moreover, climate change, as indicated by a recent World Bank report, will accelerate the trend, by driving an estimated 140 million people from their homes in the coming decades.

But, contrary to popular belief, nearly half of all migrants do not move from developing to developed countries. Rather, they migrate among developing countries, often within the same neighborhood.

Moreover, return migration is increasing, a fact that is often overlooked, often because migrants were denied entry into the labor market or their work contracts ended. For example, the number of newly registered South Asian workers in the Gulf states declined significantly – by anywhere from 12% to 41% – over the last two years. Between 2011 and 2017, the number of potential returnees in Europe – asylum-seekers whose applications were rejected or who were found to be undocumented – increased fourfold, reaching 5.5 million. Over the same period, the number of potential returnees in the United States more than doubled, to over three million. Return migration from Saudi Arabia and South Africa has increased as well.

Those migrants who remain in their host countries make substantial contributions. Although the world’s estimated 266 million migrants comprise only about 3.4% of the global population, they contribute more that 9% of GDP.

To achieve this, migrants must overcome high barriers to economic success. For example, unskilled workers, especially those from poor countries, often pay very high fees – which can exceed an entire year’s income for a migrant worker in some destination countries – to unscrupulous labor agents to find employment outside their own countries. That is why the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) include a target to reduce recruitment costs.

Migration also delivers major economic benefits to home countries. While migrants spend most of their wages in their host countries – boosting demand there – they also tend to send money to support families back home. Such remittances have been known to exceed official development assistance. Last year, remittances to low- and middle-income countries increased by 11%, reaching $528 billion, exceeding those countries’ inflows of foreign direct investment.

Globally, the largest recipient of remittances is India ($80 billion), followed by China, the Philippines, Mexico, and Egypt. As a share of GDP, the largest recipients were Tonga, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Nepal. The increase in remittances during 2018 was due to improvement in the labor market in the US and the recovery of flows from Russia and the Gulf States.

But the potential of remittances to support sustainable development is not being met. A major obstacle is the high cost of transferring money.

Migrants sending money home pay, on average, 7% of the total of the transfer itself, owing to weak competition in the market for remittance services – a result of stringent regulations intended to combat financial crimes like money laundering – as well as reliance on inefficient technology. Achieving the SDG target of reducing transfer costs below 3% – which would support progress toward the target of increasing the total volume of remittances – will require countries to address these weaknesses.

We are closely monitoring these often-overlooked ways that migration can support development, owing to their links to SDG indicators. But recent research busts other migration myths as well, showing, for example, that migrants neither impose a significant fiscal burden on host countries nor depress wages for lower-skill native workers.

Migration flows are increasing – a trend that is set to continue. Fragmented migration policies shaped by popular myths cannot manage this process effectively, much less seize the opportunities to spur development that migration creates. Only a coordinated approach, as envisioned in the Global Compact, can do that.

INCONVENIENT TRUTH: HALEY SWEETLAND EDWARDS @ TIME TELLS WHAT TRUMP, MILLER, COTTON, SESSIONS, & THEIR WHITE NATIONALIST GANG DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW: Human Migration Is A Powerful Force As Old As Human History; It’s A Plus For Receiving Nations; It Won’t Be Stopped By Walls, Jails, Racist Laws, Or Any Other Restrictionist Nonsense; But, It Can Be Intelligently Controlled, Channeled, Harnessed, & Used For The Benefit Of The U.S. & The Good Of The Migrants! — “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.”

http://time.com/longform/migrants/

Haley Sweetland Edwards writes in Time Magazine:

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:

https://wp.me/p8eeJm-3E3

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!

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PWS

01-27-19

 

 

NYT: MASHA GESSEN: “Immigrants Shouldn’t Have to Be ‘Talented’ to Be Welcome”

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/06/opinion/daca-immigrants-economic-contributions.html?&moduleDetail=section-news-1&action=click&contentCollection=Opinion®ion=Footer&module=MoreInSection&version=WhatsNext&contentID=WhatsNext&pgtype=article

Gessen writes:

“But what’s wrong with the decision to discontinue DACA is that people — not workers — will be deported. Lives — not careers — will be shattered. The problem is that it’s inhumane. As long as politicians consider it necessary to qualify the victims as “hardworking” or “talented,” they fail to stand up to the administration’s fundamentally hateful immigration agenda.

The reform package backed by Mr. Trump last month also claims to pursue economic aims. Neither Democrats nor Republicans — nor critics in the news media — have taken issue with this underlying premise: They have largely argued that the package proposes the wrong means for reaching economic ends. The plan would limit immigration to the young, highly educated and highly qualified. It would effectively stop immigrants from being able to bring family members to the United States. If an immigrant is but a cog in the economic machine, then what do parents, grown children and siblings matter? The logic is dehumanizing but hardly new or unique to the Republican Party. Mr. Sanders’s campaign plank argued for preserving family-based visas in the following terms: “Family is integral to a worker’s pursuit of happiness and economic productivity.”

Mr. Sanders’s platform made the barest mention of refugees. Mrs. Clinton’s published program made none. Mr. Trump, of course, wanted to drastically reduce the already small number of refugees that the United States accepts.

Refugees don’t fall into the economic logic of immigration. The argument for accepting refugees is not that they are good — for the economy, or for the country’s ability to meet its international obligations, or even because they are good people — but that America is good. This is where the sleight of hand of turning stories of immigrant success into the story of America becomes dangerous. It’s not immigrants’ economic contribution that makes America proud; it’s its adherence to the words inscribed inside the base of the Statue of Liberty: “Give me your tired, your poor/your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” — from the Emma Lazarus poem that the White House adviser Stephen Miller waved away last month during a news conference on immigration reform.

The controversy following Mr. Miller’s comments focused on the poem. But the argument for refugees is less poetic than it is pragmatic. As Arendt wrote in that essay, “the outlawing of the Jewish people in Europe has been followed closely by the outlawing of most European nations.” This was just a first step, Arendt wrote: “The comity of European peoples went to pieces when, and because, it allowed its weakest member to be excluded and persecuted.”

If immigration is debated only in terms of whether it benefits the economy, politicians begin to divide people into two categories: “valuable” and “illegal.” When countries make people illegal, the world comes apart. When we agree to talk about people as cogs, we lose our humanity.”

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Read the complete op-ed at the link.

I generally agree with Gessen: we should save as many lives as possible, at least of folks who are not coming to harm us. We have approximately 11 million individuals living outside the law now; the results have been overwhelmingly a boon both for our country and the individuals. This suggests that we could and should have been admitting hundreds of thousands of additional legal immigrants annually. Yes, there probably is an outer limit. But, we’re nowhere near it, and haven’t seriously and realistically discussed it during my lifetime.

Leaving aside refugees and others in immediate danger, the market influences the flow to a much greater extent than most critics will admit. If there are no jobs and no opportunities, individuals who have a choice will stop coming or go elsewhere. Indeed, I noticed that during recession, some who were already here departed voluntarily, believing that with money they had made in the US, and dwindling opportunities here, they would be better off somewhere else. Moreover, by no means does everyone want to come to the US.

A normalized immigration system would allow us to do better screening of prospective immigrants. Also, if there were reasonable waiting lists for immigration, most individuals would choose to come within the system, rather than outside it. But, when legal immigration is an impossibility, or waiting lists stretch out for a decade for more, the incentive for legal immigration evaporates.

More legal immigration coming through a regularized system would also allow for better security screening, more effective border control, and a much more focused and efficient use of immigration enforcement  resources. There would be a better chance that those coming outside the system would actually be “bad guys” whom we should remove, rather than construction workers, maids, gardeners, refugees of various types, and family members whose apprehension and removal does not serve the national interest.

We  actually have a much more “robust”and expansive immigration system in reality than “on paper.” But, with our overly restrictive legal immigration laws, we have blown our chance to regulate and regularize the inevitable flow of migrants. More restrictions and more arbitrary enforcement in the false name of “rule of law” will not give us control. But, it will be expensive, dehumanizing, and ultimately against our real national interests.

Yes, immigration restrictionists don’t want to face up to the truth about migration. They will continue to push their false and alarmist narratives. But, at some point, the rest of us will do better to act on humane and realistic principles, rather than on fear and loathing.

PWS

09-07-17