🗽DISSENTING OPINION: TRADING AWAY REFUGEE RIGHTS & DUE PROCESS FOR LONG OVERDUE DREAMER PROTECTIONS IS “NOT OK!”
By Paul Wickham Schmidt
Courtside Exclusive
Dec. 6, 2022
I dissent.
I was outraged when I read in this morning’s Washington Post about the horrible “Sinema/Tillis misnamed immigration compromise” (actually a “sellout”) being negotiated during the lame duck session of Congress. In short, that proposal apparently would trade long overdue protection for “Dreamers” for the rights and lives of refugees and asylum seekers.
Incredibly, in the face of U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan’s findings that the intentional illegal use of Title 42 had resulted in countless clear violations of the legal rights of asylum seekers, subjecting them to a litany of horrors and abuses that he described as “dire harm,” these legislators would extend those abuses for an indefinite period! That’s notwithstanding evidence not only of the irreparable harm that Title 42 has caused, but also the rather obvious fact that once we “normalize” those abuses, they will never end.
There will always be another fabricated reason for extending the Title 42 charade. Indeed, once we start mischaracterizing abuse as “law,” we can’t even call it “abuse” and hold the abusers accountable! That’s all part of the dehumanizing or “Dred Scottification” process!
Additionally, in the place of a functioning working asylum and refugee system, the proposal would eventually substitute so called “processing centers” and “expedited procedures” to railroad asylum seekers out of the country without due process. And, it wouldn’t address the total dysfunction and denial of due process in our Immigration “Courts” by enacting another long overdue provision: the “Lofgren Article I Immigration court bill!” What a farce!
Let’s be clear about what’s happening here! The legal and human rights of refugees and asylum seekers are not “ours” to trade away for relief for another deserving group that has long been irrationally denied! “Processing centers” are a euphemism for “immigration prisons” — part of the “New American Gulag.” “Expedited processing” is a euphemism for “railroading.” Both detention and artificially expediting dockets have been proven to be ineffective and unjust, over and over. Yet, here we go again!
My outrage turned to shock and dismay when I learned that some erstwhile defenders of due process, human rights, and racial justice for asylum seekers (incredibly) thought that this type of immoral compromise was a “good idea!” Not me!
Restrictionist/nativist Dems masquerading as “moderates” are a huge problem. They play right into the GOP’s hands.
When committing crimes against humanity or giving away refugees’ rights becomes a “strategy,” “option,” or “bargaining chip,” we’re lost as a nation. And, that’s exactly where we’re heading with horrible, immoral proposals like this.
Human rights and due process are non-negotiable! And, I guarantee that extending Title 42, building additional Gulag (rather than making the existing legal asylum and refugee systems work), and railroading asylum seekers will empower smugglers and lead to further growth of our underground population.
Human migration won’t be stopped by ineffective and immoral “deterrence.” And, although many hate the idea, refugees basically “self-select” and are driven by forces beyond our immediate control.
Refugees are, by definition, folks who can’t return! So, there is no reason to believe that true refugees (of which there are many) are going to be “deterred.” They might be “incentivized” to seek refuge in particular, relatively safe, places; but, nobody seems interested in a “carrot” approach — even though the “stick approach” has failed and continues to do so!
Look at the folks who continue to die in vessels in the Mediterranean even though they are fully aware that they are unwanted and that the EU will stop at no cruelty to keep them out.
And, examine the wealth of documentation that folks forced to “remain in Mexico” — and apply under what we know to be a corrupt and inadequate system — are systematically abused and exploited.
This time, we’re not just “pushing the St. Louis out to sea.” We’re torpedoing her and watching the passengers drown. And Dems are a huge part of the problem!
Other (soon to be former) progressive Democrats might choose to “go along to get along” with heaping additional abuses on largely defenseless refugees and asylum seekers. But, not me! I dissent!
🇺🇸Due Process Forever!
PWS
11-06-22
I join your dissent! Recent history proves that provisions imposing harsh border enforcement have constantly been included gratuitously in legislation intended to improve our refugee and due process protections. Ostensibly, this is meant to make these long needed laws more palatable to anti-immigrant forces, and theoretically, to encourage bi-partisan support. The reality is: these trade offs never work. In the almost 50 years I have been in this field, protections are easily dissembled, while enforcement efforts take priority. The DACA path and refugee protections at our border serve different purposes and fulfill different obligations – they should not be subject to trade.
Totally true, Lory! Thanks!
DPF,
P
Title 42 has gone from a a very transparently fabricated “emergency health measure” supposedly to deal with COVID to a permanent border closure and arbitrary border removal provision. Now, it has disingenuously become the “norm.” So much so that Dems now parrot the White Nationalists’ total BS that getting rid of of Title 42 and returning to what had been “normal” processing for the previous four decades is an impossible and insurmountable task that requires all sorts of unachievable preconditions and more unnecessary infusions of resources to be met. (Nobody ever thinks of substituting better qualified personnel and expert leadership, not just throwing more failures and harebrained “gimmicks” into the breach).
Unless Dems grow some backbone and develop some integrity, Title 42 will never be repealed. The prisons that will have to be constructed and the personnel dedicated to running the deportation railroad will never completely materialize. The Immigration Court backlogs will continue to grow under Garland’s inept (non) leadership. And, because, as we can see right now, Title 42 doesn’t actually prevent unauthorized crossings, but in fact encourages them, the number will almost certainly remain “unacceptably” high.
Then both GOP and Dems will claim that we need even more drastic border enforcement nonsense and radical curtailments of due process before we can even “think” about reinstitution of asylum. Once the asylum system disappears, it will never be reinstated. And if Dems are this spineless right now, they certainly won’t get any braver as the GOP takes over in the House and they start “running for their lives” from 2024.
Also related, is the dishonest way the Biden Administration has approached refugee processing. Rather than showing competence, courage, and revitalizing the established system (destroyed by Trump) which puts folks on the path to green cards and eventual citizenship, their programs for Afghanistan, Ukraine, and Venezuela have basically replicated the pre-1980 “mass humanitarian parole” approach that is selectively available (largely on an ad hoc basis) and leaves folks “in limbo” unless and until Congress specifically acts to provide a path to legalization. (Not to mention the unnecessary bureaucracy dedicated to “extending” parole and “renewing” work authorizations in the interim). Each of the latter presents an opportunity for restrictionists to further “trade off” granting benefits to those already here in return for greater restrictions and reduced rights for those who might come in the future.
DPF!
P