"The Voice of the New Due Process Army" âââââ Musings on Events in U.S. Immigration Court, Immigration Law, Sports, Music, Politics, and Other Random Topics by Retired United States Immigration Judge (Arlington, Virginia) and former Chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals PAUL WICKHAM SCHMIDT and DR. ALICIA TRICHE, expert brief writer, practical scholar, emeritus Editor-in-Chief of The Green Card (FBA), and 2022 Federal Bar Association Immigration Section Lawyer of the Year. She is a/k/a âDelta Ondine,â a blues-based alt-rock singer-songwriter, who performs regularly in Memphis, where she hosts her own Blues Brunch series, and will soon be recording her first full, professional album. Stay tuned! đś To see our complete professional bios, just click on the link below.
“In 1968, a British Conservative politician, Enoch Powell, made what became known as his âRivers of Bloodâ speech. In it, he sounded an alarm about what he imagined to be an unchecked immigrant invasion of the United Kingdom, at a time when the countryâs immigrant population had only grown from 5 to 6% in the previous decade.
Crime was low, less than one homicide per 100,000 residents, a tenth the rate of the US. Quoting a constituent, he foresaw the day when âthe black man will have the whip hand over the white manâ. In subsequent decades, immigration slowly inched upwards, but the scenario Powell envisioned failed to materialize.
Half a century later, we Americans live in a Powellesque moment in which politiciansâ hysterical rhetoric surrounding immigration is completely at odds with the facts. President Trump, giving his own Rivers of Blood speech on Tuesday, painted a grim picture of a wave of hardened criminal immigrants, exploiting diversity visas and âchain migrationâ, running around the country murdering people left and right.
In reality, illegal immigration to the US is down, not up. Trump would like to take credit for this with his tough talk about walls, rapists, and âbad hombresâ from Mexico, but the number of unauthorized immigrants in the country has been falling for the past decade, due not to xenophobic bluster but the Great Recession.
Net migration from Mexico is currently negative: more Mexicans are leaving the US than coming in, and have been doing so since the end of the Bush administration. In coming decades, most new immigrants to the US will not be from Latin America at all, but from China and India.
Violent crime, too, is down, way down: FBI statistics show violent crimes are just half of what they were in the early 90s. Trump would have you believe that immigrants are responsible for âtremendous amounts of crimeâ, but research shows immigrants commit less crime than native-born Americans.
Yet to convince us the opposite is true, Trump and the attorney general, Jeff Sessions, have zeroed in on one group in particular, Mara Salvatrucha or MS-13, a gang Iâve researched in El Salvador. MS-13 makes for a picture-perfect boogeyman given its reputation for violence and scary face tattoos, and misreported origins in Central America.
In fact, it started in Los Angeles in the 1980s, was originally made up of adolescent stoners who listened to heavy metal, and only grew into a much larger and more vicious, officially designated âtransnational gangâ thanks to mass criminal deportations by the Clinton administration to poor countries that were ill-equipped to deal with the influx.
It canât really be described accurately as a single gang but is rather a network of gangs with little centralized authority and a franchised name, whose street value only increases with each press conference by Trump and Sessions. And for all the hype, MS-13 is a relatively small player here. Its estimated US membership has remained constant for the past decade at around 10,000, or less than 1% of the 1.4 million gang members in the US: far smaller than the Crips, Bloods, Latin Kings, or Aryan Brotherhood.
Even the face tattoo image is out of date; MS cliques have been discouraging members from getting them after belatedly realizing it makes them easy to identify by police.
As for the origins of this nonexistent immigrant crime wave, Trump blames âchain migrationâ, the more menacing nativist buzzword for family reunification, the principle on which our immigration laws are founded.
âChain migrationâ is actually a conservative idea: the Immigration and Nationality Act, which was passed in 1965, was sold to immigration restrictionists as a law which would preserve mostly white immigration while doing away with the overtly racist, eugenics-inspired quota laws it replaced. Because by 1965, most immigrants to the US were from Europe, it was assumed that giving preference to family members of current immigrants would restrict immigration from other parts of the world.
The opposite happened, with immigration surging from Asia and Latin America, not coincidentally many countries with histories of US military intervention: Korea, Vietnam, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Iraq. Yet family reunification has remained the cornerstone of immigration policy, with broad conservative support, for decades.
After all, it is a policy which upholds the family as a unit. Families, conservatives argued, were preferable to single men. They encourage stable employment, homeownership, participation in the community, and provide a source of private, non-state welfare for needy relatives. Families are what keeps people out of trouble, the kind Trump imagines immigrants are getting into, and which may actually happen if he succeeds in taking away this base of support.
It wouldnât be the first time US immigration policy had the opposite of its intended effect, from Johnsonâs 1965 immigration law to Clintonâs criminal deportations. Similarly, Trumpâs recent decision to revoke TPS protection for over 200,000 legal immigrants from Haiti and El Salvador will only increase the number of unauthorized immigrants and lead to more unauthorized immigration in the future: mass deportations mean a loss of cash remittances from those immigrants to countries whose economies are heavily dependent on them, which will only worsen unemployment and send more migrants north.
Breaking up families also creates the conditions of insecurity under which predatory gangs thrive. In Central America, deportations from the US give gangs a new vulnerable population to recruit from. In the US, the loss of family networks and raids which push migrants into the shadows give them a new vulnerable population to extort. There arenât many beneficiaries of Trumpâs immigration policy, but thereâs at least one: MS-13 couldnât have asked for a better president than Trump.”
**************************************
Pretty much what I’ve been saying all along! With their toxic mixture of ignorance, arrogance, incompetence, bias, White Nationalism, and racism, Trump, Sessions, Miller, and their sycophantic followers have been destroying American communities, weakening and dissolving American society, and empowering our enemies, foreign and domestic! Other than that, they’re a great bunch of guys.
The only folks happier than MS-13 about the Trump/Sessions regime and their “sell-out” of America and American values are Vladi Putin and his Oligarchs.
“MADISON – Amid all the defeats and disasters Democrats have suffered in Wisconsin, thereâs one spot on the map that gets brighter for them all the time.
The capital city and its suburbs comprise one of Americaâs premier âblueâ bastions.
Dane Countyâs liberal tilt is nothing new.
But obscured by the Democratic Partyâs statewide losses since 2010 is the rapid, relentless growth of its voting power.
Fueled by a tech boomlet, Dane is adding people at a faster rate than any county its size between Minnesota and Massachusetts.  Between 2015 and 2016, it accounted for almost 80% of Wisconsinâs net population growth and is now home to more than 530,000 people.
âIt is just stunning what has happened,â said economic consultant and former university administrator David J. Ward, describing a physical transformation that includes an apartment-building spree in downtown Madison as well as Epic Systemsâ giant tech campus in suburban Verona, a new-economy wonderland where more than 9,000 employees (many in their 20s) work in a chain of whimsical buildings planted in old farm fields.
Whatâs going on in Dane County is gradually altering the electoral math in Wisconsin. Dane has been growing about four points more Democratic with each presidential contest since 1980, while adding thousands more voters every year. As a result, it packs an ever stronger political punch. Democrats won the countyâs presidential vote by a margin of roughly 20,000 votes in 1984, 50,000 votes in 1996, 90,000 votes in 2004 and almost 150,000 votes in 2016.
Mobilized against a lightning-rod Republican governor (Scott Walker) and president (Donald Trump), these voters are poised to turn out in droves for the mid-term elections this fall. Organized political groups and informal political networks proliferate here, some with deep roots, some triggered by the stateâs labor and recall fights, some sparked by Bernie Sandersâ presidential run last year, some spurred by Trumpâs election.
âIâve never seen this level of political activity,â said Democrat Mark Pocan, who represents Madison and the surrounding area in Congress.
Part of an ongoing series: Wisconsin in the age of Trump.
Craig Gilbert of the Journal Sentinel is on a fellowship established through Marquette University Law School’s Lubar Center for Public Policy Research and Civic Education. The fellowship is aimed at providing support for journalism projects on issues of civic importance. All the work is done under the direction of Journal Sentinel editors.
 âRight now, as (county) clerk, I have to assume crazy turnout,â said Scott McDonell, who orders the election ballots for Dane County. âBecause people are so intense about wanting to send a message.â
Dane is the embodiment of some of the Democratic Partyâs rosiest national trend lines: a growing appeal to the young and college-educated and a growing dominance in prosperous metropolitan areas.
But Dane also points to the double-edged nature of that appeal. A parade of GOP victories in 2010, the 2012 recall fight, 2014 and 2016 shows that this areaâs rising clout guarantees nothing for Democrats when itâs offset by deep losses in small towns and northern blue-collar battlegrounds like Green Bay and Wausau. In 2016, Dane delivered a bigger vote margin for Hillary Clinton than it did for Barack Obama, but Clinton lost the state thanks to her (and her partyâs) epic collapse in rural counties.
These two dynamics â Dane getting bigger and bluer, northern Wisconsin getting redder â are at the heart of the battle for Wisconsin.
Some strategists in both parties believe the two are at least partly connected; that Democratsâ increasing reliance on Madison (and Milwaukee, the partyâs other anchor) makes it harder for them to compete for more conservative blue-collar and rural voters.
When Madison Mayor Paul Soglin joined the vast Democratic field for governor last month, Walker immediately played the âMadisonâ card.
âThe last thing we need is more Madison in our lives,â said Walker on Twitter, saying âbusinesses have left and murders have gone up.â
Democrats scoffed at Walkerâs grim portrayal of the city and accused him of beating up on a place that embodies the economic success he covets for the state.
The episode set off a round of feuding over whether Madison is a damaging symbol for Democrats because of its left-wing image or an increasingly attractive one because of its economic vigor.
âWeâre obviously doing something right and a lot better than the way (Walker) is doing it for the rest of the state. And itâs not because weâre the home of the state university and itâs not because of state government, because he has spent the better part of the last seven years strangling them,â said Soglin in an interview, arguing that his city represents a growth model of investing in education and quality of life and âcreating a great place where people want to be.â (He contrasted it to the use of massive subsidies to bring FoxConn to Wisconsin).
Dane County Executive Joe Parisi, who also bristled at Walkerâs tweet, pointed to the stateâs new ad campaign to draw millennials from Chicago, noting the Madison area is the one place in Wisconsin attracting that age group in significant numbers. (Many of Epicâs employees settle in downtown Madison and take a dedicated bus every day to the Verona campus.)
âGuess where millennials want to live? In communities that are tolerant, that invest in quality of life, that care about their environment, that provide recreational opportunities for them, a thriving downtown â everything Dane County has. Weâve worked on that,â Parisi said.
In a statement for this story, Walker political spokesman Brian Reisinger said that contrary to what his opponents say, the governor isnât anti-Madison.
âThe governor believes there are good people in Madison, like everywhere else in Wisconsin. But that doesnât change the harm of a liberal governing philosophy that pits those hard-working families against their best interests. The governor enjoys a Badger game as much as anyone â the point is, Madison would be much better off if it had lower taxes and a better business environment, like the rest of Wisconsin does under his leadership.â
âIt was liberal Madison politicians who gave us big budget deficits, massive tax increases, and record job loss,â Reisinger said.
But if the story of Madison figures in the campaign debate this year, the conversation could be awkward for both sides.
Walker is faced with the inconvenient fact that Wisconsinâs fastest-growing county is a place Republicans love to put down and where his party could hardly be less popular. Â National studies and stories in recent years have singled out Madison as an emerging technology hub for health care, life sciences, even gaming â much of the growth rooted in the University of Wisconsin and its myriad research centers. Madison routinely makes âbest citiesâ lists. Nonstop flights to San Francisco are starting this summer, a sign of its tech growth. Dane has added far more private-sector jobs than any other Wisconsin county since Walker took office. And in a state where more people are moving out than moving in, it has experienced a net in-migration of more than 20,000 since 2010. No other county in the state is close.
You could argue that the tech-fueled expansion in greater Madison is the stateâs brightest economic story, and Epic, the health care software firm that has been adding almost 1,000 employees annually, its brightest business story. But Walker, an aggressive cheerleader for Wisconsinâs economy, has not mentioned either in his eight “state of the state” speeches.
Meanwhile, this areaâs prosperity creates its own âmessagingâ challenge for Democrats, who are painfully aware that âMadisonâ comes with baggage for some Wisconsinites, whether they see it as a symbol of government or left-wing politics or intellectual elitism or urban culture.
âItâs all of that combined, which in my mind is why itâs so powerful. Itâs whatever part of it irks people,â said UW-Madison political scientist Kathy Cramer, who chronicled perceptions of the stateâs capital in her book, âThe Politics of Resentment,â about rural attitudes toward cities and their effect on politics.
Economics may be adding another wrinkle to this dynamic. Cramer said that Madisonâs relative prosperity has the potential to provoke either âprideâ or âresentmentâ elsewhere in the state.
Zach Brandon, a Democrat and head of the Greater Madison Chamber of Commerce, laments Madison-bashing, but said, âMadison, too, has to make sure itâs telling a story that doesnât separate us from the rest of Wisconsin.â
Thanks to Trumpâs election, Walkerâs victories and even the attention Cramerâs book has received here and nationally, voters and activists here seem more sensitive than ever to their cultural and political distance from some parts of the state and how that can influence elections.
âYou get up in these others parts (of) Wisconsin and they donât like Madison people,â said Ronald Stucki, a Democratic voter in Dane County, who was interviewed as he spoke to a party volunteer canvassing in the city last month.
Some Madison progressives said they hoped Democrats don’t nominate someone from Madison against Walker because they feared it would make it harder to win votes elsewhere. The partyâs very crowded field includes several Madison candidates, and the Democratic U.S. senator on the 2018 ballot, Tammy Baldwin, is from Madison.
(The actual history of Madison Democrats in big statewide races isnât a bad one at all: Â winners include Baldwin for Senate in 2012, Russ Feingold for Senate in 1992, 1998 and 2004, and Jim Doyle for governor in 2002 and 2006; losers include Feingold for Senate in 2010 and 2016 and Mary Burke for governor in 2014.)
There is no way to really measure whether, or how much, the Democratic Partyâs growing reliance on Madison and Milwaukee has contributed to the partyâs struggles elsewhere in the state. Both trends are part of a growing partisan divide nationally between cities and small towns and between college grads and blue-collar voters.
In private conversations, GOP strategists differ over how to view the inexorable growth in Daneâs voting power. Some say it puts Democrats in a political box, dragging them further to left and out of touch with âaverageâ voters. They also note that itâs little use to Democrats in legislative races since that vote is so concentrated geographically.
But some in the GOP are troubled by the trend lines. While many rural Republican counties are losing population, the bluest part of the state is growing the fastest â and still getting bluer. Even the burgeoning suburbs outside Madison have shifted sharply Democratic.
For many years, the Republican answer to Dane was Waukesha County, the big, ultra-red, high-turnout suburban county west of Milwaukee. But Dane has been adding more jobs and more voters than Waukesha County for many years. Since 2010, it has added five times as many people as Waukesha County. In fact, Daneâs combination of size, one-party dominance, growth and extreme turnout has few analogs anywhere in the U.S. And while Wisconsin’s rural voters have a history of swinging, the unflagging expansion of the Democrat vote around Madison is the most enduring trend anywhere on the Wisconsin political map.
What does that mean for elections beyond 2018?
Craig Gilbert talks about his Lubar Fellowship analyzing Wisconsin in the age of Trump. Mike De Sisti, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Here is how pollster Charles Franklin of the Marquette Law School quantified Daneâs trajectory: based on a nearly 40-year trend line in presidential voting, the Democratic Partyâs winning margin in Dane County is growing by more than 15,000 votes every four years. Thatâs bigger than the winning margin in two of the stateâs past five presidential contests.
Here is another way to measure it:
Back in 1980, Dane County accounted for 7% of the statewide vote and gave Democrats a 17-point advantage. When you multiply those two numbers together, it means Dane boosted the partyâs statewide performance by a little more than one point. Its âvalueâ to Democrats has quintupled since then. In 2016, Dane accounted for more than 10% of the statewide vote and voted Democratic by almost 50 points. Multiply those numbers together, and it means Dane boosted the partyâs statewide performance by 5 points.
In their Wisconsin victories, Walker and Trump overcame this trend by making their own deep inroads elsewhere. But as long as it keeps getting bluer and growing faster, Dane County may become harder for Republicans to neutralize.
Craig Gilbert is reporting an ongoing series on the shifting political landscape in Wisconsin after the state helped propel Donald Trump to the White House.
A view of new apartments and construction along E. Washington Ave. in Madison. Fueled by a tech boomlet, Dane is adding people at a faster rate than any county its size between Minnesota and Massachusetts. Between 2015 and 2016, it accounted for almost 80% percent of Wisconsinâs net population growthand is now home to more than 530,000 people. As its population grows, Dane County’s voting power also growing. Michael Sears / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel”
**********************************
Energizing, registering, and “getting out the vote” are critically important. The “will of the real majority” across the country is what the GOP really fears! And, that’s what didn’t prevail in 2016! That’s why the GOP is so dedicated to voter suppression and gerrymandering! And skewing the census data against ethnic minorities and Democrat-leaning jurisdictions is high on the Trump/Sessions “suppression of democracy” agenda.
Here’s a sense of “deja vu.” When I was at U.W. Law School in the early 1970s, now Madison (and Dem Governor hopeful) Mayor Paul Soglin was one of my classmates. He actually sat in front of me in Environmental Law, although he seldom actually made a physical appearance. That’s probably because he was busy being the “Boy Wonder” progressive City Councilman who eventually ousted Madison’s arch-conservative GOP Mayor and became the “Boy Mayor” while Cathy and I were still living on Madison’s East Side.
After being out of office for a while, he made a “comeback” and is now Mayor of “MAD-CITY” again! Not a “Boy Wonder” any more. But, still “stirring up the pot.”
“State of the Union on Tuesday night, âone that admits people who are skilled, who want to work, who will contribute to our society, and who will love and respect our country.â
The president and his allies claim such an immigration policy would promote cohesion and unity among Americans âand finally bring our immigration system into the 21st century.â Far from forward-facing, however, the presidentâs policies evoke the beginning of the 20th century, when war abroad and opportunity at home brought waves of immigrants to the United States, from Italians, Polish, and Russians to Chinese and Japanese. Their arrival sparked a backlash from those who feared what these newcomers might mean for white supremacy and the privileged position of white, Anglo-Saxon Americans. Those fears coalesced into a movement for âAmerican homogeneity,â and a drive to achieve it by closing off Americaâs borders to all but a select group of immigrants. This culminated in 1924 with the Johnson-Reed Act, which sharply restricted immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe and all but banned it from much of Asia.
Members of the Trump administration have praised the Johnson-Reed Act for its severe restrictions on who could enter the country, and the actâs history helps illuminate what exactly Trump means when he says he wants to put âAmerica first.â
The cohesion Trump espouses isnât national or ideological. It is racial. The fight over immigration isnât between two camps who value the contributions of immigrants and simply quibble over the mix and composition of entrants to the United States. It is between a camp that values immigrants and seeks to protect the broader American tradition of inclusion, and one that rejects this openness in favor of a darker legacy of exclusion. And in the current moment, it is the restrictionists who are the loudest and most influential voices, and their concerns are driving the terms of the debate.
At the heart of the nativist idea is a fear of foreign influence, that some force originating abroad threatens to undermine the bonds that hold America together. What critics condemned as âKnow Nothing-ismâ in the 19th century, adherents called Americanism. âThe grand work of the American party,â said one nativist journal in 1855, âis the principle of nationality ⌠we must do something to protect and vindicate it. If we do not, it will be destroyed.â
In the first decades of the 20th century, the defense of âthe principle of nationalityâ took several forms. At the level of mass politics, it meant a retooled and reinvigorated Ku Klux Klan with a membership in the millions, whose new incarnation was as committed to anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic, and anti-Semitic politics as it was to its traditional anti-black racism. In Behind the Mask of Chivalry: The Making of the Second Ku Klux Klan, historian Nancy MacLean notes how Georgia Klan leader William Joseph Simmons warned his followers that they were, in his words, âbeing crowded out by a âmongrel population ⌠organized into Ghettos and Communistic groups ⌠and uplifting a red flag as their insignia of war.â Likewise, Klan leaders and publications blasted Catholic immigrants as âEuropean riff-raffâ and âslaves of ignorance and viceâ who threatened to degrade the country at the same time that they allegedly undermined native-born white workers. When, in 1923 and 1924, Congress was debating the Johnson-Reed Act, the Klan organized a letter-writing campaign to help secure its passage, turning its rhetoric into political action.
At the elite level, it meant the growth of an intellectual case for nativism, one built on a foundation of eugenics and ârace science.â Prominent scholars like Madison Grant (The Passing of the Great Race) and Lothrop Stoddard (The Rising Tide of Color Against White World Supremacy) penned books and delivered lectures across the country, warning of a world in which âNordic superiorityâ was supplanted by those of so-called inferior stock. âWhat is the greatest danger which threatens the American republic today?â asked eugenicist Henry Fairfield Osborn in the preface to Grantâs book. âI would certainly reply: The gradual dying out among our people of those hereditary traits through which the principles of our religious, political and social foundations were laid down and their insidious replacement by traits of less noble character.â The aim of the nativists was to preserve those traits and admit for entry only those immigrants who could fully and easily assimilate into them.
. . . .
It is true that there are some more moderate restrictionists in the mix, for whom the drive to reduce legal immigration is driven by concern and prudenceâconcern over immigrationâs impact on wage and employment, especially among the countryâs working-class citizens, and prudence regarding our ability to assimilate and absorb new arrivals.
The facts do not support these misgivings. Low-skilled immigration does more to bolster prospects for working-class Americansâproviding complementary employment to construction and farm laborâthan it does to lower wages. Likewise, immigrants to the United States have shown a remarkable capacity for assimilation, quickly integrating themselves into the fabric of American life by building homes, businesses, and families. To the extent that native-born workers need protection, itâs best provided by stronger unions and more generous support from the government.
But those moderate voices arenât setting the agenda. Instead, itâs the hardliners who have used their initiative to inject nativism into mainstream politics and channel, in attenuated form, the attitudes that produced the 1924 law. President Trump, for example, ties Hispanic immigrants to crime and disorder, blaming their presence for gang violence. He attributes terror attacks committed by Muslim immigrants to the âvisa lottery and chain migrationâ that supposedly allows them unfettered access to American targets. And in a recent meeting with Democratic and Republican lawmakers, Trump disparaged Haiti and various African nations as âshitholesâ (or âshithousesâ) whose immigrants should be turned away from the country in favor of those from European countries, like Norway. Itâs unclear if Trump is aware of Rep. Albert Johnson, who spearheaded the 1924 immigration law. But in his racial ranking of immigrants, the president echoed the congressmanâs sentiments. âThe day of unalloyed welcome to all peoples, the day of indiscriminate acceptance of all races, has definitely ended,â proclaimed Johnson on the passage of the bill that bore his name.
The president isnât alone in his views. Before joining the Trump administration, former White House adviser Stephen Bannon openly opposed nonwhite immigration on the grounds that it threatened the integrity of Western nations. And while Bannon has been exiled from Trumpâs orbit, that legacy lives on. Stephen Miller, who is now the driving force behind immigration policy in the Trump administration, is a notorious hardliner who has echoed Bannonâs views, bemoaning the number of foreign-born people in the United States.
Miller is the former communications director for and protĂŠgĂŠ of Jeff Sessions, who as Alabamaâs senator praised the Johnson-Reed Act and its restrictions on foreign-born Americans. âWhen the numbers reached about this high in 1924, the president and Congress changed the policy, and it slowed down immigration significantly,â Sessions said in a 2015 interview with Bannon. âWe then assimilated through the 1965 and created really the solid middle class of America, with assimilated immigrants, and it was good for America.â
As attorney general, Sessions has leaned in to these views. âWhat good does it do to bring in somebody whoâs illiterate in their own country, has no skills, and is going to struggle in our country and not be successful?â said Sessions during a recent interview on Fox News. âThat is not what a good nation should do, and we need to get away from it.â Rep. Steve King of Iowa, a staunch defender of Trump, is especially blunt in his defense of hardline immigration policies. âAssimilation, not diversity, is our American strength,â he said on Twitter last year.
Assimilation in those middle decades of the 20th century was built, to a considerable extent, on racial exclusion. It was assimilation into whiteness, one which bolstered and preserved the racial status quo. Thereâs no return to the America of that era, but one could slow the nationâs demographic transition. The White House proposals for immigration reform seem designed to do just that. According to an analysis from the Cato Institute, President Trumpâs framework for immigration would slash entries by 44 percent, excluding almost 22 million people from the United States over the next 50 years. And in an analysis tied to the âSecuring Americaâs Future Actââa House-produced bill which hews closely to what the president wantsâthe Center for Global Development finds that white immigrants would be twice as likely to attain entry into the United States than black and Hispanic ones, while a majority of Muslim and Catholic immigrants would be barred from the country. Couple these measures with voter suppression, a biased census, apportionment by citizenship, extreme gerrymandering, and the existing dominance of rural counties in national politics, and you can essentially rig the system for the preservation of white racial hegemony.
Immigration policy is inextricably tied to our nationâs self-identity. What we choose to do reflects the traditions we seek to uphold. In the 1920s, most Americans wanted a more homogenous country, and they chose accordingly. Forty years later, in the midst of the civil rights revolution and a powerful ethos of inclusion, Americans reversed course, opening our borders to millions of people from across the globe. In this moment, we have two options. We can once again take the path that wants to keep âAmerica for Americans,â and which inevitably casts American-ness in ways circumscribed by race, origin, and religion. Or we could try to realize our cosmopolitan faith, that tradition of universalism which elevates the egalitarian ideals of the Founding, and which seeks to define our diversity of origins as a powerful strength, not a weakness to overcome.
Jamelle Bouie
Jamelle Bouie is Slateâs chief political correspondent.”
*****************************************
Read the complete article, with more historical references to the racist historical basis for today’s GOP restrictionist policies, at the link.
Actually, “Gonzo Apocalypto,” most of those Latino, African, Hispanic, and Middle Eastern immigrants that you look down upon and disrespect aren’t illiterate in their own countries. And, they probably speak and understand English better than you do their native languages.
While you, Gonzo, have spent most of your adult life on the “public dole,” trying to turn back the clock and, as far as I can see, doing things of questionable overall value to society, immigrants have been working hard at critical jobs, at all levels of our society, that you and your White Nationalist buddies couldn’t or wouldn’t be able to do.Hard-working immigrants, not your “White Nationalist Myth,” have advanced America in the latter half of the 20th Century and the beginning of the 21st Century. Immigrants will continue to make America stong, prosperous, and great, if you and your White Nationalist restrictionist cronies would only get out of the way of progress!
“We can once again take the path that wants to keep âAmerica for Americans,â and which inevitably casts American-ness in ways circumscribed by race, origin, and religion. Or we could try to realize our cosmopolitan faith, that tradition of universalism which elevates the egalitarian ideals of the Founding, and which seeks to define our diversity of origins as a powerful strength, not a weakness to overcome.”
Yeganeh Torbati reports for Reuters News. Click the above link to play video!
*****************************************
As Yeganeh’s report notes, nobody disputes the Trump Administration’s claim that the MS-13 are “Bad Guys” who should be removed from the U.S. Although you wouldn’t know it from the Trump Administration’s self-congratulatory rhetoric, every Administration going back to that of President Ronald Reagan has made a concerted effort to remove gang members. They were a particular priority of the Obama Administration’s criminal alien removal program.
Unlike Trump, Sessions, and most of those “spouting off the rhetoric,” I have been involved in gang removal efforts from both the law enforcement and the judicial perspectives. I actually came face to face with gang members and entered final orders removing them from the United States at several levels during my Government career. And, unlike some final orders of removal, I know that these were actually carried out.
Not surprisingly, though, a few of the deportees managed to reenter the U.S. again. No “wall” is likely to stop determined international gangs from getting their members back into the U.S. if they really want to. Just like “show deportations” didn’t significantly hamper or eradicate Italian Mafia-type organized crime gangs, the “Maras” are unlikely to fold their tents and disappear quietly into the night just because of “get tough” speeches by American politicos and some well-publicized deportations. Most Maras are actually pretty good at running operations from abroad, as well as from prisons, both here and in the Northern Triangle.
I have observed, however, that the Trump Administration’s anti-gang program is likely to be relatively ineffective for a number of reasons. First, by terrorizing Latino communities with DHS arrests and removals of law-abiding non-criminals, they make it difficult or impossible for victims, most of whom are members of the Latino community, and some of whom are undocumented or come from “mixed families,” to report gang-related crimes and activities to the police. Thus, these folks are “easy marks” for the gangs.
Second, for the same reason, many community members are reluctant to come forward and be witnesses against gang members for fear of their own deportation or that the police will not protect them from retaliation.
Third, by consistently “dissing” and devaluing the contributions of the many law-abiding members of the Latino community, this Administration makes it easier for gang recruiters to point to the “empowerment” and “respect” that gangs claim to offer.
Fourth, by “manipulating the law” to deny legal protections to many of those who courageously resist gang recruitment (I just “blogged” an egregious example from the 9th Circuit this week), the Administration sends a strong “you might as well join” message to young people in the U.S. and who are returned to the Northern Triangle. The message that our Government places no value on their lives is not lost on these kids.
Finally, by failing to concentrate on the root causes of gangs in the Northern Triangle, and instead consistently “over-selling” the law enforcement benefits of deportation, the Administration guarantees an almost endless regime of violence and disorder in the Northern Triangle and a steady stream of would-be refugees flowing north.
The only effective gang-eradication programs that I’m aware of involve local authorities, often from the Latino community, gaining the trust of the young people in the community and “reinforcing” Latino role models, some originally from undocumented backgrounds, as offering viable alternatives to gangs. Slowly, through education and community based activities that show the value, respect, and positive recognition that can be gained by avoiding gangs and having the courage to stand up against them, we can, over time, drastically reduce, and perhaps eventually eliminate the destructive role gangs in America.
But, the continuing White Nationalist, anti-Hispanic “blathering” of Trump, Sessions, Homan, and the other GOP “hard liners” is likely to be counterproductive. And, “traditional” law enforcement methods of arrest, imprisonment, and deportation have been shown, by themselves, to be ineffective in solving the long-term problems of gangs in both America and the Northern Triangle. Of course we should continue to arrest and deport known gang members. But, we shouldn’t expect that, without some community-based solutions and more thoughtful approaches to the problems caused by deportations in the Northern Triangle, deportations will solve our problem. They won’t!
“Immigration negotiations: Lots of talk, little progress
By Tal Kopan, CNN
There are several groups in Congress who have been meeting regularly to try to reach a breakthrough on stalled immigration talks. But that doesn’t mean they’re making much progress.
Lawmakers are quick to bemoan the lack of forward motion on a fix for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, a program that protected young undocumented immigrants who came to the US as children that President Donald Trump is ending.
The lack of progress stands in contrast to what Trump called in his State of the Union address Tuesday a “bipartisan approach,” despite no Democrats supporting his framework.
“We presented Congress with a detailed proposal that should be supported by both parties as a fair compromise, one where nobody gets everything they want, but where our country gets the critical reforms it needs and must have,” he said, even as his proposal was dismissed as dead on arrival by Democrats whose votes will ultimately be needed to pass any compromise.
RELATED: What Trump’s State of the Union means for the immigration debate
Despite months of negotiations on how to preserve DACA and enact other measures like border security and White House-requested immigration overhauls, Congress still remains far from a clear path forward even as a deadline for government spending approaches.
“I wouldn’t say we’re making progress,” said House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer of the so-called “No. 2s” group, regular meetings of the seconds in command in both parties in both the House and Senate that have been coordinating with key administration officials.
“I would say we’re continuing, however, to try to winnow down what the discussion is about. We haven’t done it yet,” Hoyer said.
Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn similarly left a meeting last week of the group and characterized it as “wheel spinning.” Democrats have long complained their perception is the group mainly exists to slow down negotiations.
The circular talks, which sources in the room describe as mostly reiterations of positions that in most cases neither side is willing to cede, are indicative of a broader stalemate leading up to February 8 — when another short-term government funding bill is likely. After that, lawmakers await Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s promise to hold an open floor debate on immigration.
Likewise a group of roughly 20 bipartisan senators that formed out of the government shutdown at the last funding deadline has been meeting essentially daily to find common ground on the issue. But lawmakers in that group have similarly described a process of defining the issues, and have said their group’s work is mostly to generate ideas that will then be funneled to Cornyn and Democratic Whip Dick Durbin for further negotiation.
“We want to be deferential,” one of the group’s organizers, Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins, said after a meeting Monday. “We hope we might be able to be helpful to them by going through a series of concepts,” she added, saying the group had discussed various proposals out there.
Many of the lawmakers in the group have little prior specialty in immigration policy. North Dakota Democrat Sen. Heidi Heitkamp said that Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Lankford has been working to brief the group on what the Department of Homeland Security wants out of negotiations, and the group does include one of the authors of the 2013 “Gang of Eight” immigration reform bill, Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio.
“I think that there’s such a discussion right now between process, how do you start, and then definitional, and I think the great work we’re doing in there is look, let’s get our facts in order, let’s get a unified sense of understanding,” Heitkamp said after one of the meetings of the group.
The groups’ efforts have attempted to find a path forward even after Trump rejected a bipartisan compromise negotiated by Durbin and a handful of other senators over months, declined a DACA for border wall offer from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, and after the White House put out an aggressive framework that included a generous path to citizenship for the young undocumented immigrants but included a number of hardline requests that Democrats have said are impossible to swallow.
Some in the bipartisan group are already talking about narrowing the debate to just two issues — DACA and physical border security — even as others in the group reject that approach. Republicans like Cornyn and Lankford have said the White House’s “four pillars,” which include cuts to family migration and the diversity visa lottery and define border security broadly to include deportation authorities and other measures, have to be the starting point and can’t be narrowed down.
“If we can’t get a deal that includes that we may have to pair it down to two pillars and just do border and DACA as plan B,” Rubio told CNN’s Suzanne Malveaux on Wednesday. “But I know they’re going to try plan A first, and you know I’ve supported that and I continue to support limiting (family-based migration) to nuclear family.”
Meanwhile, the bipartisan group on the House side of the Capitol, the Problem Solvers Caucus, has proposed a compromise that hews very closely to the already-rejected proposal from Durbin, though the Senate has moved on from it. That group’s co-chairman, Rep. Josh Gottheimer, has been in touch with Collins and her Democratic co-organizer Sen. Joe Manchin, D-West Virginia, about possibly bringing the two groups together to meet, the New Jersey Democrat told CNN.
All of the talk is setting the stage for a potentially messy floor debate in the Senate. Though McConnell has pledged to call something to the floor for an open debate process if no deal otherwise is reached by February 8, he has not made any statements about what he would call as a starting point. And with an open amendment process, the debate could get messy and any bill could be brought down by a poison pill amendment intentionally designed to tank the process.
Still, lawmakers are continuing to meet.
“I don’t know,” Durbin said of whether the plan to funnel ideas through him and Cornyn will work. “We’ve never tried anything like this. But I’m hopeful, and so is he.”
As for the No. 2s meeting he’s a part of, Durbin added, “We do have some looming deadlines. I hope that moves us.”
Â
CNN’s Lauren Fox and Phil Mattingly contributed to this report.
****************************************
I find the stated position of Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) remarkable! Rubio himself is the product of an immigrant background. So, he knows first-hand the complete falsity of the GOP’s (essentially racist) claims about the “bogus” dangers of “Family Migration” (often pejoratively called “chain migration” by GOP restrictionists); the important positive role that family immigration plays in many ethnic communities; the important role that Family Migration has played in the United States and our economy as a whole since 1965; and the overall benefits of more, not less, legal immigration.
Yet he somehow feels that his own personal success has so far removed him from the immigrant community and the national interest that he can join the current elitist White Nationalist charade in bashing Family Migration! Â Pretty sad indeed.
“Hispanic Caucus vents at Democratic leadership over shutdown, DACA strategy
By: Tal Kopan, CNN
Hispanic Democrats on Tuesday had a combination venting and strategy session with Democratic congressional leaders as they expressed frustration that there still has not been a resolution for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer got an earful about the handling of the recent government shutdown and recent comments about future strategy, members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus said.
“I think there’s a lot of conversations about, where is our leverage and how are we going to use it?” said California Democrat Rep. Nanette Diaz BarragĂĄn.
BarragĂĄn said she specifically raised comments Schumer made in The Washington Post that “can’t just let (DACA) occupy the whole stage,” referring to Democratic strategy in red states. She said she told Schumer her community felt that sent a message they weren’t a priority.
“He stood by his comment,” BarragĂĄn said of his response. Generally, she added, “He said, ‘I can understand the pain people are feeling and the frustration’ and certainly understood why people felt disappointed in where we are today. Although I think the message is, ‘We’re better off than we were.’ So I’m not sure there’s complete agreement on all fronts.”
The “tension,” as BarragĂĄn put it, was indicative of raw nerves among the Democratic caucus about whether leadership is fully committed to using all points of leverage to push for a solution on DACA, the program being ended by President Donald Trump that protected young undocumented immigrants from deportation.
One source in the room speaking anonymously to be candid called the meeting a “waste of time” that was “all filler.”
Another called it equal parts frustration and cheerleading, with an understanding that Republicans remain the main obstacle to deal with.
Shutdown strategy
House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer called the meeting “candid,” saying the caucus is “correctly frustrated” about the situation for recipients of DACA.
“I think there were obviously some sentiments in the meeting, as you well know, that were, ‘I’m not sure we’re following the right strategy here,'” Hoyer told reporters after the meeting. “There was a candid discussion about why the strategy was being pursued and what was being pursued and what opportunities and challenges were, I think people came out with some degree of appreciation.”
Multiple lawmakers said there was frustration as Democrats rejected government funding on a Friday but voted to reopen the government on Monday when Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell promised to open debate on immigration on the Senate floor in February.
BarragĂĄn noted there is no commitment to an immigration vote in the House.”It’s very frustrating on the House side because it appears there’s a different situation in the House than in the Senate, we haven’t gotten any kind of commitment on the House side,” BarragĂĄn said. “And so even though on the Senate side, Sen. Schumer talks about how they have that commitment and he believes they’re going to get a vote, I think it still fails to take into consideration that strategy on the House side.”
Rep. Luis Gutierrez, an Illinois Democrat who has long served as a voice for immigration advocates in the House, said many in the room “were disappointed” in a “lack of communication” regarding the shutdown. But he also said the focus was on moving forward.
“Democrats, we’re good at fighting and I also think we’re good at mending fences, and that’s what we’re doing here,” Gutierrez told reporters. “We’re trying to figure out a way forward. … I think (Dem leaders) are committed and this isn’t over. Look, trip, you get up and you go back to fight, but we have a clear determination, we’re going to fight for the Dreamers.”
The chairwoman of the Hispanic Caucus, Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham, called the session a combination of strategy and “venting, productively.”
“I didn’t see it as being negative,” she said. “It was an important place to come back after a week for folks to talk about their frustrations, to talk about what they think we haven’t done well, to talk about things that we think are working and to talk about all eyes on the House. What is the House going to do, how are we going to get them to do it and where are we?”
*******************************************
I think the hard answer to Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s question is “You won’t get the House to ‘do what you want.'”Not as long as the GOP is in the majority, the White Nationalist/Bakuninist Block of the House GOP remains intact, and “Spineless Paul” Ryan (or any other GOP Representative) remains Speaker.
In simple terms, Dems and Dreamers, you’re going to have to win some elections and get some control to bring this to a conclusion that won’t involve “giving in” to the whole (or huge chunks of the) White Nationalist, anti-American, anti-growth restrictionist agenda! Minority parties pushing minority platforms seldom get what they want.Â
Instead of uselessly “ranting” and “venting” Â at each other, Dreamers and Dems need to work harder to get out the vote (a few more well-placed Hispanic, African-American, and other minority votes could have changed the results of the last election) and eventually win control of something on the national level!
Clearly, while Dreamers and their cause remain popular with the overall public, there is a “vocal minority” essentially White, racist, xenophobic “core” out there that is vehemently opposed to progress and a diverse society and puts their “hate/turn back the clock agenda” at the top of their “issues list.” That’s why most GOP legislators, particularly in the House, see little or no “downside risk” to “stiffing” Dreamers — particularly if the only “downside” is an unpopular and unsustainable “Government shutdown” by the Senate Dems.
Internal bickering is not a useful substitute for putting energy and talent into “grass-roots” organizations that appeal to voters, incorporate solutions to local and regional issues, and thereby win elections! Without “victories in the political arena,” there will be no “magic strategies” that will produce decent immigration reform — for the Dreamers or anyone else who cares about America’s future as a vibrant, forward-looking “nation of immigrants.”
Thereâs a simple question here: Do you believe in America or not?
Throughout its history, the country has accepted waves of mostly low-skilled immigrants â German, Irish, Italian, Eastern European, now Latino. There are highly skilled immigrants, too; African newcomers, for example, are better-educated than the U.S. population as a whole, and an estimated 63 percent of people holding âcomputer and mathematicalâ jobs in Silicon Valley are foreign-born. But most immigrants over the years have arrived bearing not much more than grit, ambition and a dream.
Does an influx of workers with entry-level skills tend to depress wages? Thatâs the wrong question. Instead, we should be asking why the federal minimum wage is so low as to be almost irrelevant.
And we should recognize that immigration gives the United States a tremendous competitive advantage. In other advanced countries, populations are aging rapidly. Immigration provides a steady stream of younger workers whose brain and brawn keep programs such as Medicare and Social Security viable.
The only coherent â if despicable â arguments for Trumpâs plan are racial and cultural. The way they used to put it in the Jim Crow days was succinct: White is right.”
The results are just as clear as in the German case. Between 2014 and 2016 the counties that embrace diversity accounted for 72 percent of the nationâs increased economic output and two-thirds of the new jobs. The approximately 85 percent of counties that support restrictionists like Donald Trump accounted for a measly 28 percent of the growth.
Republicansâ problem is that since George W. Bush left town theyâve become the East Germans of the 21st century. They have embraced a cultural model that produces low growth and low dynamism. No wonder they want to erect a wall.
Progressives say Republicans oppose immigration because of bigotry. But itâs not that simple. Itâs more accurate to say restrictionists are stuck in a mono-cultural system that undermines their own values: industry, faithfulness and self-discipline. Of course they react with defensive animosity to the immigrants who out-hustle and out-build them. Youâd react negatively, too, if confronted with people who are better versions of what you wish you were yourself.”
**************************************
You can can read the complete versions of both op-eds, which I highly recommend, at the above links.
Yup!
When you’re coming from the same places as Jim Crow and the East Germans, there is no acceptable “rational basis” for the restrictionist agenda. It’s bad for America as well as for immigrants. But, it’s difficult or impossible to make rational arguments against deeply held, factually incorrect, irrational beliefs, particularly those based on racial, economic, cultural, and class bias. That’s probably why rational “immigration reform” has been, and remains, so difficult to achieve.
And, having seen thousands of migrants and their families come before me at the Arlington Immigration Court over the years, gotten to know many of their stories, and having represented immigrants, entrepreneurs, and businesses during my time in private practice, there is no doubt that Brooks is right: they “out-hustle and out-build” many of those “native-born” Americans who despise and look down on them.
And, it’s not just the doctors, professors, and top execs — folks who pound nails, lay foundations, make food, sweep floors, put on roofs , and pick our produce are also performing essential services that keep our country going — and, in many if not all cases, doing it better than the rest of us could or would.Really, how long would YOU last picking lettuce or laying shingles on a 100 degree day? And, how GOOD would you really be at it? There is more “skill” to so-called “unskilled” work than most of us in the “privileged classes” want to admit!
“Senator Chuck Schumer (R-N.Y.) has dismissed the White Houseâs new Framework on Immigration Reform & Border security as a âwish listâ for hard-liners. According to Schumer, Trump is using protection for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA) participants as âa tool to tear apart our legal immigration system and adopt the wish list that anti-immigration hardliners have advocated for years.â
But Schumerâs own DACA proposal, which he put together as part of the Gang of Six, was just as unacceptable to Trump as Trumpâs current proposal is to Schumer.
Schumer rejected Trumpâs previous proposal, which was to establish a program for the 690,000 DACA participants that would continue their temporary legal status, and proposed a legalization program for a couple of million Dreamers. Moreover, he offered Trump just $1.591 billion for building a wall, which is only a small fraction of the amount he needs; and did not meaningfully address his chain migration concerns.That was not the first time Schumer has advocated a position he knew would be rejected. Four years ago, he moved his immigration reform bill, S.744, through the Senate despite the fact that it was opposed by 70 percent of the Senate Republicans. It was dead on arrival in the Republican controlled House.
. . . .
This does not have to be an âeither orâ situation. The visas currently given to extended family members could be transitioned to a merit-based point system that would give extra credit for family ties to a citizen or LPR. Under such a system, aliens who have family ties would be chosen ahead of aliens with similar qualifications who do not have family ties.”
**********************************************
Go on over to The Hill at the above link to read Nolan’s complete analysis!
Seems like an idea worth exploring, particularly since current negotiations appear to be running up against a “brick wall.” No, it won’t resolve all of the outstanding issues. But trying to work the concepts of “merit and family” into one system could be a starting point. After all, it’s hard to argue that “family” doesn’t have “merit” — both for the individuals involved and for the U.S.
“Exclusive: Bipartisan House group unveils new DACA proposal
By Tal Kopan, CNN
A bipartisan group of lawmakers in the House are unveiling Monday their proposal to resolve the immigration standoff in Washington, even as the White House has offered a more conservative plan.
The group of 48 lawmakers, split evenly by party, are calling for their immigration-border security outline to be included in a budget deal that has evaded congressional leadership for months because of the impasse on immigration and other issues.
The Problem Solvers Caucus has worked since last fall to come up with a solution on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which protected young undocumented immigrants who came to the US as children from deportation and which President Donald Trump decided in September to terminate by March 5.
The Problem Solvers proposal resembles an offer from a bipartisan Senate group led by Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, and Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, which was rejected by Trump and has been declared dead in the Senate by GOP leadership.
The White House, meanwhile, last week unveiled its own proposal that would offer a pathway to citizenship for nearly 2 million undocumented immigrants but contains a number of other sweeping immigration changes that met instant resistance from the left.
It’s unclear why the Problem Solvers Caucus proposal would have more success than the Durbin-Graham proposal, but the bipartisan group has been negotiating for months in the hope that if enough rank-and-file members can show consensus across the aisle, it could pick up steam with leadership as an option as funding talks continue without success, and provide a counterpoint to hardline bills pushed by more conservative House Republicans.
After months of rhetoric and negotiations on immigration with the parties barely any closer to each other, the reality is beginning to dawn that there may be no deal to be had.
Stakeholders working toward a deal on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, likely including border security, are not giving up hope. But the White House’s and some Republicans’ insistence on adding new restrictions to legal immigration and the left’s opposition could be an insurmountable gap.
The White House on Thursday released its proposed framework for a deal on DACA, a program that protected young undocumented immigrants who came to the US as children that President Donald Trump is terminating as of March 5 but pushing lawmakers to replace.
The proposal did have some concessions to Democrats, including a path to citizenship for an estimated 1.8 million undocumented immigrants, but also included aggressive cuts to legal immigration and a push for enhanced enforcement powers, along with upwards of $25 billion for a wall and other border security. The framework also ends family migration beyond spouses and minor children and abolishes the diversity visa lottery.
The proposal was panned by the left and the right. Groups who support restricting immigration slammed it as “amnesty.” Democratic lawmakers and immigration advocates rejected it as a “massive, cruel and family-punishing overhaul of our current legal immigration system,” as New Jersey’s Sen. Bob Menendez phrased it.
The framework, plus Trump’s earlier rejection of an offer from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to authorize upwards of $20 billion for a wall and a vulgar rejection of a bipartisan proposal from the Senate “Gang of Six,” could mean that the only option left is a temporary extension of DACA with no future certainty. Some lawmakers have even started mentioning the latter option.
For now a permanent solution for DACA is “dead,” said Leon Fresco, an immigration attorney who led immigration negotiations for Schumer in 2013.
“Thursday pretty much lined it up as the final verdict,” Fresco said. “When Trump proposed something that in orthodoxy was not possible in the Democrat world and got criticized by the right, that was the end of the deal, because how can Trump agree to something more liberal now? … For both sides, the deal is completely unacceptable, so that’s what makes this very complicated.”
One longtime lobbyist on the issue, Randel Johnson, who recently left the US Chamber of Commerce to join the law firm Seyfarth Shaw as a partner, wasn’t quite ready to give up but did acknowledge that neither side may be able to come far enough toward the other to reach a deal.
“I think the danger is both sides begin posturing to their respective bases and both sides will walk away earning brownie points with their bases and get nothing done,” Johnson said.”
In my career, I’ve seen these things “spring back to life.” But given the tortured history of DACA and the White Nationalist agenda driving the GOP restrictionists, I don ‘t see this as being one those times.
I also can’t see the Dems threatening another Government shutdown on this issue.
The “Wildcard” here, at least for the current “Dreamers:” What the Supremes and, perhaps, the lower Federal Courts do with the DACA litigation.
“Message to Republicans: You can be pro-growth. You can be anti-immigration. But, honestly, you canât be both.
Now, within the immigration debate, there are a lot of questions with no obvious right answers.
Whatâs the right balance of immigrants admitted for their skills and those allowed in because they have relatives here?
Politics newsletter
The big stories and commentary shaping the day.
How much effort should be devoted to tracking down the undocumented, and how much to punishing companies that hire them?
What should we do about the millions of immigrants who came here illegally a decade or more ago and have become established members of their communities?
And â what is the right number of legal immigrants every year from now on?
Big, complicated questions â which is why Congress shouldnât try to solve them all between now and Feb. 8, its self-imposed deadline for resolving the issue of the âdreamers.â In the few days that remain, the best it could do would be to, well, resolve the issue of the dreamers â the undocumented immigrants who were brought here as young children through no fault of their own, who obey the law and who go to school or work or serve in the military.
They are American in all but legal status. Give them a path to citizenship, as President Trump has proposed. Give Trump the money for his wall (until he gets that check from Mexico). Punt on the big, complicated questions, something Congress certainly knows how to do. Everyone declares victory, and the government doesnât shut down.
Of course, that would leave us still facing the big questions. Ideally, Congress would schedule a serious debate on them for the spring. Ideally, it would be conducted in a constructive spirit â acknowledging, for example, that reasonable people can disagree on skills vs. family.
But ideally, also, it would also be conducted with an understanding that those who favor a drastic, absolute drop in the level of immigration, as many Republicans do, would be making a choice about Americaâs future.
They would be turning us into Japan.
Now, to be clear, Japan is a wondrous nation, with an ancient, complex culture, welcoming people, innovative industry â a great deal to teach the world.
But Japan also is a country that admits few immigrants â and, as a result, it is an aging, shrinking nation. By 2030, more than half the country will be over age 50. By 2050 there will be more than three times as many old people (65 and over) as children (14âand under). Already, deaths substantially outnumber births. Its population of 127 million is forecast to shrink by a third over the next half-century.
Japan is a pioneer and an extreme version of where much of the First World is headed as longevity increases and fertility declines. The likely consequences are slower economic growth, reduced innovation, labor shortages and huge pressure on pensions. If you think our entitlement politics are fraught, think about this: In Japan in 2050, the old-age dependency ratio â the number of people 65âand over as a percentage of the number who are 15 to 64 â is projected to be 71.2 percent.
The comparable figure for the United States is 36.4 percent, up from 25.7 percent in 2020. Still high, but if it proves manageable, we will have immigration to thank. America still attracts dynamic, hard-working people from around the world, and they and their offspring help keep our population and our economy growing, as recent Pew Research Center and International Monetary Fund papers explain.
The wave of immigration over the past half-century also has changed the face of the nation, reducing the share of the white population from what it would have been and increasing the share of Asians and Hispanics. Itâs not surprising that some people find this disorienting.
But as so often with such debates, perceptions lag reality. Nearly half (48 percent) of immigrants these days have college degrees, as a fact sheet from the Migration Policy Institute last year showed. A quarter of technology company start-ups between 2008 and 2012 included at least one foreign-born founder. As incomes and education levels rise around the world, in other words, the skills mix of U.S. immigration is already changing, without any changes in our laws.
Hereâs the bottom line: I think we should remain open to immigrants because itâs part of who we are as a nation, because every generation of newcomers â even, or maybe especially, the ones who come with nothing but moxie and a tolerance for risk â has enriched and improved us.
But you donât have to buy into any of that Statue of Liberty stuff to favor immigration, because naked self-interest leads to the very same conclusion. A vote to choke off immigration is a vote for stagnation and decline.”
***********************************************
Hiatt clearly “gets it!”
But, maybe the GOP restrictionists do too. Their opposition to legal immigration is grounded in racism, White Nationalism, and xenophobia — none of which have anything to do with rationality, facts, the common good, or even “enlightened self-interest.”
Therefore, neither an appeal to “who we are as a nation” nor “naked self-interest” is likely to change their highly emotional, but essentially irrational anti-immigrant views.
“In 2006, Arizona passed a ballot initiative that barred students without legal immigration status from receiving in-state tuition rates at public universities and colleges.
Dulce Matuz, an electrical-engineering major at Arizona State, ran to find her professor.
Bursting into tears, she told him something she had only ever shared with her closest friends. She was undocumented.
âIt felt good to tell my story,â she told the Guardian this week. âIt was like a weight had been lifted.â
The law meant Matuz would have to pay the out-of-state tuition rate, which she could not afford. But the next day, her professor gave her a flier advertising scholarships for âpeople in your situationâ.
Matuz had thought she was the only undocumented student on one of the largest campuses in the country. She was wrong.
At an informational meeting, she met dozens of young people with stories similar to hers. Their discussion grew into a statewide coalition, the students rallying with organizations across the US to declare themselves âundocumented and unafraidâ.
One by one they shed their anonymity, in effect daring law enforcement to target them.
It was a risky move, especially in a state which was then a cauldron of anti-immigrant sentiment. But the students werenât alone. Thousands of young immigrants came forward to demand a future in the country where they were raised. Each had a name and a story.
Collectively, they are known as Dreamers, young people without immigration status who were brought to the US as children. Over the last decade, theyâve gone from the âshadowsâ to the center stage of US politics, and their fate now dangles before an irascible president and a gridlocked Congress.
âTrump Dreamersâ
In September, Donald Trump ended Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca), an Obama-era program that lifted the threat of deportation for Dreamers.
The administration argued that Obama had overstepped his authority. But Trump did give Dreamers a six-month grace period and called on Congress to pass legislation.
âIf the Dreamers are able to lead a fight that results in a radical, nativist administration signing into law their freedom, it would be a testament only to how much moral and political power the Dreamers have built,â said Frank Sharry, a long-time advocate of immigration reform and executive director of Americaâs Voice.
Conservatives suggest Trump is uniquely qualified to succeed where predecessors have failed, to achieve immigration reform, precisely because of his credibility among fierce opponents of illegal immigration.
At a meeting earlier this month, for example, Trump promised to âtake the heatâ if Republicans passed legislation.
âPresident Obama tried and couldnât fix immigration, President Bush tried and couldnât do it,â said Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina who is pushing bipartisan immigration reform.
Timeline
âDonald Trump and Dreamers: a timeline of mixed messagesâ
âI believe President Trump can. Todayâs Daca recipients can be tomorrowâs Trump Dreamers.â
Polling has consistently shown that a large majority of Americans â 87% in one recent survey â support protections for Dreamers. But general anti-immigrant fervor has stalled efforts to pass legislation and conservatives remain divided over whether Dreamers should ever be allowed to be citizens.
Rounds of negotiations have yielded no solution, only a brief shutdown of the federal government during which Democrats tried to force lawmakers to extend legal status to the Dreamers.
Depending on the day, lawmakers and the president are either on the verge of striking a deal or as far apart as ever. Trump was elected after championing hard-line immigration policies but he has demanded both a âbill of loveâ and a border wall.
This week, the White House released a proposal that offered a pathway to citizenship for up to 1.8 million undocumented young people â in exchange for a $25bn âtrust fundâ for a border wall, a crackdown on undocumented migrants and changes to the migration system.
The offer did not go down well, either with Trumpâs base or with progressives ranged against him. Immigration hardliners crowned Trump âAmnesty Donâ. Advocates for reform rejected the offer as an attempt to seal Americaâs borders.
In a statement issued on Friday, Chris Murphy, a Connecticut senator, called the offer âa total non-starterâ that âpreyed on the worst kind of prejudiceâ, using Dreamers âas a bargaining chip to build a wall and rip thousands of families apartâ.
Trump, meanwhile, tweeted that Daca reform had âbeen made increasingly difficult by the fact that [Senate minority leader] Cryinâ Chuck Schumer took such a beating over the shutdown that he is unable to act on immigration!â
Dreamers say the fight is only beginning.
Matuz became a US citizen in 2016, a decade after she âcame out of the shadowsâ. But she still identifies strongly with her fellow Dreamers.
âWe still havenât achieved what we set out to achieve,â she said.
âTheyâre speaking upâ
The Dreamer movement came of age during the Obama administration. But legislation to build a path to citizenship was introduced to Congress in 2001.
Two senators â Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, and Orrin Hatch, a Utah Republican â introduced the first Dream Act in August that year, a month before 9/11.
But after the attacks, as concerns over national security and terrorism dominated public life, the immigration debate shifted sharply. The bill stalled. It was reintroduced several times, without success.
Nonetheless, the Dreamers continued to galvanize public support. They escalated their tactics, staging sit ins and actions that risked arrest.
âThere was a time when they used to be very quiet,â Durbin said recently at a rally. âNot any more. Theyâre speaking up and weâre proud that they are.â
The Dreamersâ fight for citizenship, Durbin has said, is the âcivil rights issue of our timeâ.
In December 2010, the Dream Act was brought to the floor. It failed again. In 2012, months before the presidential election, Barack Obama established Daca.
Recipients had to have entered the US before their 16th birthday, which means the oldest beneficiaries are now 35.
The most common age of entry to the US was three while the median age was six, according to a report by the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank in Washington.
Quick guide
What is Daca and who are the Dreamers?
Eight hundred thousand people qualified, the vast majority of them Latino, according to data from US Citizenship and Immigration Services. Nearly 80% were born in Mexico.
The largest numbers of recipients now live in California and other border states such as Texas and Arizona. They are more likely than their ineligible counterparts to hold a college degree and a higher-skilled job, according to an analysis by the Migration Policy Institute.
âWhat youâre seeing in the Dreamers is a reflection of the American ideals,â said Daniel Garza, president of the conservative Libre Institute, a free-market Latino advocacy group founded by the Koch brothers.
âWhen one breathes freedom it manifests itself. And now that these kids have a shot at directing their own future or setting a path toward their own future, letâs remove those barriers and allow them that opportunity.â
âIâm not aloneâ
Over the last several months, Dreamers have been in Washington, walking the halls of Congress.
They wear light orange shirts with a comic book POW! bubble with the words: âClean Dream Act Now.â
They sleep on church floors and friendsâ couches; a few missed final exams to join protests in December, when there was a flicker of hope that legislation might receive a vote.
Greisa MartĂnez Rosas, 29, has been among them, leading members in song at rallies on the lawn in front of the capitol building, in between meetings with members of Congress.
She was eight when she and her father staked out a spot on the Rio Grande river and crossed from Mexico into Texas. She laid seashells to mark the place. The next day, her family swam into the United States.
Profile
Who are the Dreamers?
MartĂnez Rosas grew up in a Hispanic neighborhood of Dallas and attended Texas A&M University. But the life she was building begin to unravel when her father was deported. Her mother died in 2016.
Fighting for a Dream Act has given her purpose, she said, and she is now advocacy and policy director at United We Dream, a national organization that campaigns for migrant rights. She has three younger sisters, one of them also undocumented.
âI am really lucky to be doing this,â she said. âIt gives meaning to a lot of the pain and helps me deal with a lot of the trauma growing up undocumented.
âThe reality is that Iâm not alone. My story isnât special. Thatâs why itâs so important that we wage this fight.â
The Dreamers rejected Trumpâs latest proposal, even though it would allow a pathway to citizenship for more than twice the number of Daca recipients.
âWe are not willing to accept an immigration deal that takes our country 10 steps back no matter how badly we want reprieve,â MartĂnez Rosas said. âThatâs how much we love this country.â
*************************************************
The problem isn’t the Dreamers. It’s the 13% of so of White Nationalist citizens who have forgotten their own immigrant heritage and have abandoned human decency, compassion, and common sense in the process. Unfortunately, this minority has, and continues to wield, a disproportionate share of political power.
âGod loves the greedy and selfish, for they shall inherit the earth, the sun, the planets, and the entire universe.â
*****************************
WARNING: THIS IS âFAKE NEWSâ BUT COMES WITH MY ABSOLUTE, UNCONDITIONAL, MONEY BACK GUARANTEE THAT IT CONTAINS MORE TRUTH THAN THE AVERAGE TRUMP TWEET OR SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS NEWS BRIEFING!
Forget the wall, Trump’s plan would reshape US legal immigration dramatically
By: Tal Kopan, CNN
The eye-popping numbers of potential new citizens and billions for border security got most of the attention when President Donald Trump’s immigration proposal landed Thursday.
But while the noise about the “amnesty” for “wall” trade was the loudest, it obscured what actually would be a much more difficult fight: the President’s proposed sweeping changes to the immigration system.
The Trump administration briefed reporters and supporters on its proposal Thursday: offering a pathway to citizenship for an estimated 1.8 million undocumented immigrants who came to the US as children and asking for $25 billion for border security including infrastructure.
If that were all that was on the table, a deal might already be at hand. In fact, Democrats were mostly prepared to agree to such a proposal, which could have lined up some moderate Republicans as well.
But the deal also included two other “pillars,” as the White House has called them: family-based migration and the diversity visa lottery. In addition, the administration proposal included a number of “legal loopholes” it wants to close in the border security pillar beyond physical security — a repackaged effort to expand federal immigration authorities.
Taken together, those efforts would amount to a dramatic reshaping of the legal immigration system — one that will be far more complicated to negotiate on Capitol Hill.
Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn of Texas agreed Thursday before the White House announcement that the elements of the deal beyond pure border security were arguably more complicated.
“I think they probably are,” he said, adding that with more understanding he thought they could be negotiable.
Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, who is part of a bipartisan Senate group working to find common ground on the issue, had said earlier Thursday that while a full border wall is not acceptable, a major investment in border security is.
“I trust big investment. I’ve voted for that already,” Kaine said. “When you can patrol a border better with drones and sensors, the wall may not be the best way. But that we would make a big investment in it? The Dems are there already.”
GOP Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota said the issue of family migration comes up if the undocumented population covered by the bill is granted citizenship — and that leads down a difficult road.
“if you do that, you have to address the issue of chain migration, and that’s where it becomes a lot more complicated. So we’ve got our work cut out for us,” Rounds said upon leaving the morning bipartisan meeting.
Thorny proposals
The White House proposal would limit family sponsorship to spouses and minor children, eliminating a number of existing categories including adult children, both married and unmarried; parents of adult US citizens; and siblings of adult US citizens. Experts have estimated that cutting these categories would reduce the roughly 1 million green cards given out yearly by 25% to 50%.
At first, the Trump proposal would use the green cards from the eliminated categories — plus the 50,000 from the eliminated diversity visa lottery — to work through a backlog of millions of people waiting in a line upward of 30 years long for their green cards. The bill does extend an olive branch to the left in not making the cuts retroactive — meaning anyone already in line would still be eligible. Groups on the right are outraged that the plan would mean potentially 10 to 20 years before cuts to immigration begin.
But Democrats are unlikely to accept such a sweeping cut in legal immigration at all. And cutting the diversity visa lottery is not as straightforward as some believe — especially to members of the Congressional Black Caucus and other affinity caucuses, who are vocal about the importance of immigration from lesser represented countries.
And the framework includes vague references to closing “legal loopholes,” as a White House official put it on a briefing call, as part of the border security pillar — perhaps one of the biggest poison pills of the deal.
The White House released only a top-line overview of what it was seeking — what it characterized as “closing the loopholes” to more easily detain and deport immigrants. But a document obtained by CNN that goes into more detail, which the Department of Homeland Security has been providing to lawmakers in meetings, and the descriptions released by the White House suggest it will pursue aggressive changes.
In addressing “catch-and-release,” as the White House put it, the framework could allow detaining individuals indefinitely as they await deportation for months and years — something that has been curtailed as the result of constitutional concerns from courts. The proposals could also vastly expand the definitions of criminal offenses that could subject an individual to deportation.
All the efforts to more aggressively deport and reject undocumented immigrants could be anathema to Democrats and some moderate Republicans.
“I am a lot less interested in things that have the effect of distorting family relationships or splitting up families, and border security is less likely to do that,” said Democrat Michael Bennet of Colorado, who has long pursued an immigration compromise.
“It’s crazy,” said Democratic Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey. “This is not an easy negotiation, but we should move on the things we all agree on.”
Support for a simpler deal
The realities of trying to sort through the complicated issues the White House is looking to attach to a deal on the expiring Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program are leading lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to suggest paring down the negotiations to just two pillars: DACA and physical border security.
“We all need to understand that there are two things that are critical,” Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, a North Dakota Democrat, said as she was leaving the bipartisan group. “Dealing with the Dreamers, because we’re up against (a) March deadline, and dealing with border security. We all agree we need border security. We need more definitional work done on border security.”
Kaine agreed, saying there’s a need to be realistic.
“There’s all kinds of issues I want to fix, I just think it’s probably going to be easier to start with the two pillars,” he said.
Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, one of the leading forces in the bipartisan group, was also vocal about a narrow approach.
“We don’t have to solve the entire problem of legal immigration in this bill,” Alexander told CNN. “All we really have to do is focus on the young people who were brought here illegally through no fault of their own, and border security. Sometimes taking small steps in the right direction is a good way to get where you want to go.”
**********************************************
Here’s my “Quick & Dirty” Analysis:
Iâve been saying all along that Dreamers for Wall is the logical trade. Yes, money gets wasted; but unlike the rest of the GOP White Nationalist proposal, nothing gets broken, nobody gets hurt. And Trump gets to gloat about his âsignature item.â
Iâm just not sure it would pass the House where the GOP’s White Nationalist/Bakuninist Block is strong and Paul (âSpine-Freeâ) Ryan has never shown an inclination to stand up to them.
Itâs possible that a âSkinny Dreamersâ (protection w/o citizenship) could work for now, with the Dems figuring that they will fix things for the Dreamers when they are next in power.
But, what do I know about such things? Iâm just a retired Judge.
I focus specifically on how TPS recipients can potentially adjust their status within the United States through either a family-based I-130 petition or an I-140 employment-based petition for permanent residency. A September 2017 practice advisory from the American Immigration Council points to two decisions from the Ninth and Sixth Circuit, Ramirez v. Brown, 852 F.3d 954 (9th Cir. 2017) and Flores v. USCIS, 718 F.3d 548 (6th Cir. 2013), holding that TPS constitutes an admission for purpose of establishing eligibility for adjustment of status under INA 245(a).”
****************************************
Go on over to Dan Kowalski’s fabulous LexisNexis Immigration Community at the above link to get the rest.
Given the sad saga of the “Dreamers” — whose legalization should have been a “no brainer” for any group other than Trump and the GOP restrictionists — Â we can’t count on Congress coming to the Haitian and El Salvadoran TPSers “rescue” before their “final extension” expires. So, it’s critical for lawyers to help as many as possible of these great, hard-working folks achieve legal status under existing law before the window closes!
Sadly, one of the key cases cited by Cyrus in his full article, the BIA’s very helpful precedent decision  in Matter of Arrabelly and Yerrabelly, 25 I&N Dec. 771 (BIA 2012) is rumored to be on AG Jeff “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions’s restrictionist “chopping block.” So, there’s no time to lose!
The One-Year Asylum Filing Deadline and What to Do About It
by JASON DZUBOW on JANUARY 18, 2018
The law requires that people who wish to seek asylum in the United States file their applications within one year of arriving here. See INA § 208(a)(2)(B). Those who fail to timely file are barred from asylum unless they meet an exception to the rule (they may still qualify for otherâlesserâhumanitarian benefits such as Withholding of Removal and relief under the United Nations Convention Against Torture).
If you arrived in the U.S. on this day, you are still eligible to apply for asylum, even if it seems like a hundred years ago.
So why do we have this rule? And what are the exceptions?
Congress created the one-year bar in 1996. Its ostensible purpose is to prevent fraud. If you really fear return to your home country, the theory goes, one year should be enough time to figure things out and get your application filed.
For most people, I suppose that this is trueâthey can ask questions, find help, and file for asylum within a year. But this is easier for some than for others. People who are less educated, people whose life experiences have taught them to mistrust and avoid authority, people who are isolated and socially disconnected, people who are depressed; such people might have a harder time with the one-year bar (and of course, many of these characteristics are common among asylum seekers). Others will have an easier time: Well-educated people, people who speak English, people who have a certain level of self-confidence, and people who are engaged with the community.
There are also certain populations that seem to have difficulty with the one-year rule. At least in my experience, many LGBT asylum cases were filed after the one-year period. I suspect there are several reasons for this. For one, an immigrantâs primary connection to mainstream America is her community in the U.S. But if she is afraid to reveal her sexuality to her countrymen living here, and she cannot get their help with the asylum process, she may be unable to file on time. Also, there is the coming-out process itself. People in certain countries may not have even conceptualized themselves as gay, and so the process of accepting their own sexuality, telling others, and then applying for asylum may be lengthy and difficult.
Asylum seekers like those discussed above are sometimes blocked by the one-year rule, but in these cases, the rule is not preventing fraud; it is harming bona fide applicants.
Where the rule seems more likely to achieve its intended purpose is the case of the alien who has spent years in the United States without seeking asylum, and now finds himself in removal proceedings. Such aliens often file for asylum as a last-ditch effort to remain in the U.S. (or at least delay their deportation). Many people from Mexico and Central America are in this position, and the one-year rule often blocks them from obtaining asylum (in addition, such applicants often fear harm from criminals; this type of harm does not fit easily within the asylum framework and contributes to the high denial rate for such cases).
Although there may be situations where the one-year bar prevents fraud, the vast majority of immigration lawyersâincluding this oneâthink it does little to block fake cases, and often times prevents legitimate asylum seekers from obtaining the protection they need. In short, we hate this rule, and if I ever become king, we will find other, more effective ways, to fight fraud. Until then, however, we have to live with it.
So for those who have missed the one-year filing deadline, what to do?
There are two exceptions to the one-year rule: Changed circumstances and extraordinary circumstances. See INA § 208(a)(2)(D). If you meet either of these exceptions, you may still be eligible for asylum. Federal regulations flesh out the meaning of these concepts. See 8 C.F.R. §§ 208.4(a)(4) & (5). First, changed circumstancesâ
(4)(i) The term âchanged circumstancesâ ⌠refer to circumstances materially affecting the applicantâs eligibility for asylum. They may include, but are not limited to: (A) Changes in conditions in the applicantâs country of nationality or, if the applicant is stateless, country of last habitual residence; (B) Changes in the applicantâs circumstances that materially affect the applicantâs eligibility for asylum, including changes in applicable U.S. law and activities the applicant becomes involved in outside the country of feared persecution that place the applicant at risk; or (C) In the case of an alien who had previously been included as a dependent in another alienâs pending asylum application, the loss of the spousal or parent-child relationship to the principal applicant through marriage, divorce, death, or attainment of age 21.
(ii) The applicant shall file an asylum application within a reasonable period given those âchanged circumstances.â If the applicant can establish that he or she did not become aware of the changed circumstances until after they occurred, such delayed awareness shall be taken into account in determining what constitutes a âreasonable period.â
It is a bit unclear how long this âreasonable periodâ is. A few months is probably (but no guarantee) ok, but six months is probably too long. So if there are changed circumstances in your case, the sooner you file for asylum, the better.
The regulations also define extraordinary circumstancesâ
(5) The term âextraordinary circumstancesâ ⌠shall refer to events or factors directly related to the failure to meet the 1-year deadline. Such circumstances may excuse the failure to file within the 1-year period as long as the alien filed the application within a reasonable period given those circumstances. The burden of proof is on the applicant to establish⌠that the circumstances were not intentionally created by the alien through his or her own action or inaction, that those circumstances were directly related to the alienâs failure to file the application within the 1-year period, and that the delay was reasonable under the circumstances. Those circumstances may include but are not limited to:
(i) Serious illness or mental or physical disability, including any effects of persecution or violent harm suffered in the past, during the 1-year period after arrival;
(ii) Legal disability (e.g., the applicant was an unaccompanied minor or suffered from a mental impairment) during the 1-year period after arrival;
(iii) Ineffective assistance of counselâŚ.
(iv) The applicant maintained Temporary Protected Status, lawful immigrant or nonimmigrant status, or was given parole, until a reasonable period before the filing of the asylum application;
(v) The applicant filed an asylum application prior to the expiration of the 1-year deadline, but that application was rejected by the Service as not properly filed, was returned to the applicant for corrections, and was refiled within a reasonable period thereafter; and
(vi) The death or serious illness or incapacity of the applicantâs legal representative or a member of the applicantâs immediate family.
Again, if you have extraordinary circumstances, you must file within a âreasonable period.â How long you have to file has not been clearly defined, so the sooner you file, the safer you will be in terms of the one-year bar.
When it comes to asylum, the best bet is to file within one year of arrival. But if you have missed that deadline, there are exceptions to the rule. These exceptions can be tricky, and so it would probably be wise to talk to a lawyer if you are filing late. It is always a shame when a strong asylum case is ruined by a one-year issue. Keep this deadline (emphasis on âdeadâ) in mind, and file on time if you can.
****************************
In the outstanding tradition of former Arlington Immigration Court Judicial Law Clerks, Jason thinks creatively and writes clearly.
