"The Voice of the New Due Process Army" ————– Musings on Events in U.S. Immigration Court, Immigration Law, Sports, and Other Random Topics by Retired United States Immigration Judge (Arlington, Virginia) and former Chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals Paul Wickham Schmidt. To see my complete professional bio, just click on the link below.
Biden’s immigration polices leave Haitians stranded in Mexico
Friday, January 21, 2022
By Immigration Prof
Nicole Narea of Voxreports that the U.S. has deported nearly 14,000 Haitians to Mexico since September, according to data released by UN’s International Organization for Migration. In 2021, Mexico received more than 131,ooo asylum applications, of which an estimated 45% were Haitians and their Chilean-born children. Haitians in Mexico “face pervasive racism, and many are unable to work, have no access to medical care, and are targets for criminals,” Narea writes.
Mexico is seeing an uptick in Haitian asylum applicants.
The Biden administration continues to enforce pandemic-related border restrictions that have kept out the vast majority of asylum seekers, including Haitians.
This disingenuous action by the Administration comes at a rather inopportune time, just as they are “getting heat” for failing to deliver on promises to Black voters. Additionally, the latest Pew Study shows that immigrants now make ump 10% of the U.S. Black population and that they are “more than holding their own” in terms of education and economic contributions.
Looks like many of the “immigrants we need” (and who also need us), according to Suzanne Clark of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, have mindlessly been dumped in Mexico at great human and fiscal cost that actually results in a “negative achievement.” (That’s notwithstanding the White Nationalist myths perpetrated by the 5th Circuit and GOP AGs and not always effectively opposed by the Biden Administration. How do you purport to end “Remain in Mexico” while denying asylum seekers any right to seek refuge at the border? Not very effectively, it appears!)
Americans are more open to increased immigration than most Europeans, though far more people around the world would like to see a decrease in immigration overall, according to a recent poll by the Pew Research Center.
Pew surveyed 27 countries this spring on their views on immigration. Together, Pew reported, these 27 countries house more than half of the world’s international migrants. Of those surveyed, 45% said fewer or no immigrants should be allowed into their country while 36% said they want just about the same number of immigrants – including the U.S.
Among European countries, 82% of Greeks said they would like fewer immigrants to be allowed into the country, which has, since 2015, struggled with a surge of migrants and refugees escaping civil war in Syria. Nearly three-quarters of Hungarians, 71% of Italians, and 58% of Germans also believe fewer immigrants should be allowed to move to their countries, which have also been heavily affected by the refugee crisis.
In the U.S., only 29% of Americans want a decrease in immigration while 44% think about the same amount of immigrants should be allowed in. Nearly a quarter of Americans want immigration to increase. In Mexico, currently facing a surge in Central American migrants, 44% of those surveyed said they wanted immigration to decrease in the country, while 42% said they wanted it to stay the same.
Spain and Japan are among the most open to the idea of increased immigration, with 28% and 23% of their respective populations opting for more open borders. Japan, known for its isolationist policies and historically low immigration numbers, is currently facing a dire economic threat – its population is getting older.
The Pew report also found that outmigration is widely seen as a problem among the nations surveyed. Greeks (89%) and Spaniards (88%) are the most worried about the number of people leaving their countries, which Pew reported have seen an increase in people moving abroad in recent years. Eight out of 10 Mexicans also see outmigration as a problem. Mexico, according to the United Nations, has one of the largest numbers of people living outside their country, second only to India. But only 64% of those surveyed by Pew in India think outmigration is a problem.
Published on December 10, the report came out the same day global representatives gathered in Morocco to sign the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration. The non-legally binding agreement, backed by Angela Merkel, was created to manage migration for both origin and destination countries but was rejected by several nations, including the U.S., Chile, and Australia.
While there was little appetite (likely almost none outside of Trump’s base) for the restrictionist scheme to slash legal immigration, there also is a cautionary note for immigrants’ advocates who believe in increases in legal immigration levels; a significant plurality of Americans want to maintain legal immigration at current levels.
Consequently, even though more legal immigration channels appear to me to be 1) in our best economic interests; 2) a way of reducing “extralegal immigration;” 3) helpful in focusing the resources we spend on immigration enforcement; and 4) our destiny as a “nation of immigrants” if we wish to maintain a position of leadership among nations, there is some persuasion to be done before that’s likely to become a political reality.
