Professor Michael Posner – immigrationcourtside.com

⚖️ EXPERT TO CONGRESS: FIX YOUR BORDER MESS, STOP PICKING ON ASYLUM APPLICANTS! — Ruth Ellen Wasem @ The Messenger: “Do they really think that raising the bar will deter people who are running for their lives?”

Ruth writes in The Messenger:

https://themessenger.com/opinion/congress-border-crisis-immigration-reform-migrants-asylum

The outcry of those claiming the United States has an “open border” reminds me of the “everything must go” or “for a limited time only” advertisements. People come only to discover it’s a bait and switch. Let me be clear: Migrants are not risking their lives solely because they believe false claims that the border is open. The overwhelming majority are fleeing desperate situations in their home countries; however, the drumbeat of “open borders ending soon” lends an urgency to their plight. Apprehensions of migrants entering illegally in December 2023 are projected to be a record high of 302,000.

The irony is that many conservative members of Congress try to blame the Biden administration for the surge in migrants, even though the U.S. Supreme Court has long interpreted the Constitution as giving Congress plenary power over immigration. Since the 19th century, this authority of Congress to control our national borders and determine whether a foreign national may enter or remain has been preeminent.

The executive branch is able to work only along the margins of immigration law through regulations and executive orders. When the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations tried to push these tools, the federal courts typically stopped them. Recent research by the Bipartisan Policy Center analyzing the border policies of the Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations alongside apprehension data did not find clear-cut evidence that any particular executive branch action was more effective than another.

. . . .

As others and I have stated, the migration pressures at the U.S. southern border are not due to lack of enforcement of U.S. law; instead, these pressures result in part from laws written to address migration flows that differed sharply from the numbers of people we are dealing with today. Current law is based on the assumption that most migrants apprehended along the southern border are solo adults who can be turned back easily because they are motivated by economic reasons. Yet migrants today include many more families and children, people fleeing violence, people displaced by climate change, people leaving failed states, and people who are being persecuted — people who are afforded protections under U.S. law.

Regrettably, the House-passed border security legislation, as well as several of the other alternatives Congress is discussing, naively offers to tighten up the enforcement and narrow the categories of people who might be eligible to enter. Do they really think that raising the bar will deter people who are running for their lives? Such reforms portend an increase in the urgency of desperate people and ensuing chaos.

Immigration has always been a phenomenon that drives America’s success story, that undergirds our greatness. Time is overdue for us to reform our immigration laws — to create new pathways and update the old ones — to better reflect the national interest and our values. It will not be easy, as few critical issues are, but it is imperative that Congress gets to work.

Ruth E. Wasem is senior fellow at College of Public Affairs and Education, Cleveland State University. She has more than 30 years of experience in U.S. domestic policy, including immigration, employment, and social welfare policies.

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Read Ruth’s full article at the link! Also, congrats, Ruth, on your new appointment as Senior Fellow at the College of Public Affairs and Education, Cleveland State University!

As Ruth points out, the reason why all reputable studies show little if any relationship of forced migration to changing precedents and policies in “receiving nations,” is in the nature of forced migration. Forced migration is forced by combinations of conditions at or near the “sending” countries that operate largely without regard to unilateral actions in the U.S. or any other major receiving nation or group of nations.

At best, such futile unilateral actions have marginal, transitory effects, usually by forcing strategy adjustments and pricing changes within the world of human smuggling. But, like most markets, the human trafficking market eventually adjusts and the next, largely self-inflicted, “border crisis” ensues.

And thus, the cycle continues, with receiving nations investing more and more and doubling down on “proven to fail” cruelty and deterrence. Rather than acting rationally and responsibly — by listening to experts and those with experience managing refugee migrations — politicos falsely claim that the reason for their failed policies were that they weren’t draconian or expensive enough. But, throwing more money and personnel exclusively at enforcement and deterrence never works in a practical sense.

What it does do, however, is give certain moneyed groups a huge interest in uncontrolled border militarization. It also causes cynical politicos, largely but not exclusively on the right, to invest in sure to fail policies that will be a rallying point for White Nationalists without actual disrupting the supply of exploitable, disenfranchised, largely disposable “cheap labor” popular with many U.S. businesses and political contributors.

Ruth’s article states important truths about the border and migration echoed by expert after expert that are consistently, shamefully, and improperly being ignored by legislators and other politicos. For example, another leading “practical scholar,” Professor Stephen Yale-Loehr of Cornell Law recently “warned that detaining and quickly expelling migrants before asylum screenings would not solve the influx problem for cities like New York, which is grappling with a surge of migrants.” Read more: https://loom.ly/CLCoxqA.

Professor Stephen Yale-Loehr
Cornell Law

So cowardly and misguided is the GOP’s approach that they waste public funds on a disingenuous “show trip” to the Texas border, but lack the guts and human decency to meet with and listen to the folks actually affected by their toxic policies and proposals.

As reported by Melissa del Bosque in The Border Chronicle (in her overall discouraging and depressing forecast of the deadly political shenanigans that will be rolled out by GOP nativists during the 2024 campaign):

MAGA extremists in the House of Representatives, holding emergency funding hostage for Ukraine, cut out early from Congress for Christmas vacation, but they were willing to shorten their holiday break to make an appearance in Eagle Pass, Texas, on January 3, setting the tone for the coming months leading up to the general election. House Republicans will begin holding hearings on border security in February and are planning to impeach DHS secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

In Eagle Pass, House Speaker Mike Johnson, along with 60 other Republicans, held a press conference in front of coils of razor wire placed along the Rio Grande by Texas governor Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star. During the visit, Republicans declined to meet with local community leaders who had erected a public memorial in Eagle Pass for more than 700 people who had died trying to cross the border in 2023.

https://www.theborderchronicle.com/p/the-border-chronicle-forecast-for?r=1se78m&utm_medium=email.

Border Death — This is a monument for those who have died attempting to cross the US-Mexican border. Each coffin represents a year and the number of dead. It is a protest against the effects of Operation Guardian. Taken at the Tijuana-San Diego border by Tomas Castelazo. To comply with the use and licensing terms of this image, the following text must must be included with the image when published in any medium, failure to do so constitutes a violation of the licensing terms and copyright infringement: © Tomas Castelazo, www.tomascastelazo.com / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0. Grandstanding GOP Representatives, led by Speaker Johnson, who staged a recent “border stunt” were too cowardly and morally compromised to meet with those who track the unnecessary human carnage caused by the expensive, cruel, and ineffective “deterrence only” policies they wish to expand!

Expert organizations, like the Center for Migration Studies (“CMS”) with decades of experience studying what works and what doesn’t at the border have offered straightforward plans for “Managing the Border Without Sacrificing Human Rights,” only to have them arrogantly and insultingly ignored by Congress and the Biden Administration. See https://cmsny.org/statement-manage-border-without-sacrificing-human-rights/.

Michael Posner, Professor & Director, Center for Business and Human Rights at NYU Stern School of Business
PHOTO: Linkedin

Long-time refugee expert/scholar Professor Michael Posner, writing in Forbes, also offers a far more nuanced and realistic approach to the b order that both parties are ignoring:

Rather than enacting the draconian measures Republicans are now proposing that will, in effect, deny everyone their right to seek asylum, the goal should be to strengthen the system so that the cases of genuine refugees are heard quickly, while those who don’t qualify are placed in deportation proceedings. The way forward is not to curtail everyone’s right to seek asylum, but to make the system both fairer and more efficient.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelposner/2024/01/09/why-wealthy-nations-need-to-preserve-the-rights-of-refugees/?sh=7d29141c3ead

The idea that the constitutional right to due process and fundamental fairness and the right of refuge guaranteed by international agreements that we signed and long-standing domestic implementing laws are “negotiable” is simply outrageous and fundamentally un-American!

Meanwhile, Dems cower and run away from the border issue, apparently irrationally believing that ignoring it and ceding ground to the GOP will “make it go away” in 2024. News Flash: It won’t!

Sadly, while experts and advocates who actually understand the border and migration fruitlessly rally, demonstrate, write op-ed’s, and file research-backed reports in favor of protecting asylum rights, Senate Dems by most accounts are busy negotiating them away in response to GOP demands. See, e.g., https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/01/10/senate-border-ukraine-negotiations/.

Ironically, one of the GOP’s main targets is the parole program — a part of the Biden border strategy that has actually worked in regularizing migration and reducing border pressure. Rather than doing the rational thing and building upon and expanding this success, the GOP is out to squash it, and wobbly Dems are likely to go along to some extent. See, generally, https://thehill.com/opinion/immigration/4074720-bidens-parole-program-is-the-immigration-success-story-weve-been-waiting-for/.

Ignoring the advice of experts and acting out of fear, myths, and bias seems to be the “order of the day” for both parties!🤯 That’s a national problem that won’t be solved by ever more extreme and wasteful doses of cruelty, repression, and bogus “deterrence,” no matter how politically and financially profitable continued failure might be to some within our nation’s power structure.

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

01-11-24

⚠️ STRONG ECONOMY, LOW UNEMPLOYMENT, RISING WAGES, FALLING INFLATION — WITH NO REAL ISSUES & NO POSITIVE ACHIEVEMENTS, GOP’S 2024 MAGA CAMPAIGN FOCUSES ON LIES & HATE DIRECTED @ MIGRANTS! — Here’s The Truth About The Border & Immigration We Need To Keep Emphasizing!

This guy’s ugly presence and vile racist views hang over the 2024 election campaign and Congressional negotiations. Why? Attribution: Stephen Miller Monster by Peter Kuper, PoliticalCartoons.com

From Popular Information/Substack:

Chicago in January with flip flops

JUDD LEGUM, TESNIM ZEKERIA, AND REBECCA CROSBY

JAN 4

Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) says he has transported 95,000 migrants from the Texas border to New York, Washington, DC, and other cities. On New Year’s Eve, Abbott flew hundreds of migrants — including many children — to the Rockford airport in Illinois, 30 miles outside of Chicago. It was snowing upon their arrival, and some of the migrants had no coats or shoes. Others were wearing flip-flops. The migrants were then loaded onto buses chartered by Abbott and dropped off in various suburbs.

Abbott says that he is transporting migrants to “sanctuary cities” as punishment for the cities’ permissive policies. A “sanctuary city” is a derisive term used by the right to describe a city that chooses not to volunteer local law enforcement resources to assist federal immigration agents. But in this case, the issue is largely irrelevant. The overwhelming majority of people being used as pawns by Abbott are in the United States legally.

One approach to deterring migrants is ignoring human rights and making the ordeal as traumatic as possible. That appears to be Abbott’s strategy. But it is not the law.

The Refugee Act of 1980, which passed Congress unanimously, gives migrants inside the United States the right to claim asylum based on “a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.” It was enacted “in part to make amends for the country’s shameful refusal to accept Jewish refugees during the Holocaust.”

Previously, most people seeking to cross the southern border of the United States came from Mexico. They were generally seeking seasonal work inside the United States and, therefore, sought to evade detection by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). But beginning in 2010, there was an influx of migrants from Central America fleeing gang violence, racial discrimination, and extreme poverty. More recently, political and economic disruption has prompted an increase in migrants from Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Haiti. These new migrants are seeking legal asylum and want to present themselves to border agents — not evade them.

Migrants are being transported by Abbott to places where housing is expensive and in short supply. Most asylum-seekers would like to work to support their families, but the law does not allow them to receive a work permit for 180 days. Because of bureaucratic delays, asylum-seekers often wait a year or more before they are able to work legally.

Abbott also says his efforts are in protest of President Joe Biden’s “open border policies.” Biden has not opened the border. He did recently repeal Title 42, the Trump-era program that denied migrants the right to seek asylum, citing the public health emergency created by the COVID pandemic. Title 42 was legally questionable from the outset, but its continued use after other pandemic-related restrictions were lifted was indefensible. Title 42 also encouraged repeated border crossings. After Title 42 was imposed, “migrant encounters reported by CBP increased every month for 15 straight months.” Under Title 42, many migrants were deported immediately, and no record was created. This meant there was an incentive for migrants to attempt to cross the border again and again until they were successful.

Despite the rhetoric of Abbott and other prominent Republican officials, Biden has taken a hard line against migrants. Some advocates believe that Biden’s efforts to deter migrants from crossing the southern border have exceeded his legal authority.

The truth about Biden’s immigration policy

During his campaign for president in 2020, Biden vowed to undo Trump-era immigration policies. His promises included not building “another foot of wall” on the border and a pledge to stop using private prisons as immigration detention centers. On day one of his presidency, Biden proposed legislation “to restore humanity and American values to our immigration system.” His plan, known as the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021, would have created pathways to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, increased assistance to Central America, and strengthened oversight and accountability of border operations.

The bill, however, died in Congress. Since then, Biden has only managed to make modest changes to immigration — like overruling Trump’s Muslim Ban and creating a task force to reunify separated migrant families. For the most part, experts say, Biden has continued many of Trump’s policy decisions.

Earlier this year, for example, Biden imposed new restrictive rules for asylum seekers who are not from Mexico. Dubbed by critics as the “Asylum Ban,” the rule assumes most migrants are ineligible for asylum and were similar to ones previously proposed (but never implemented) by Trump. In most cases, migrants will only be considered for asylum if they make an appointment in advance through a smart phone app, CBP One. There are far more people seeking asylum each day than appointments available through the app. In October 2023, the Biden administration announced that it was waiving 26 federal laws to construct up to 20 miles of the border wall in Texas.

A Washington Post analysis found that “nearly 18,000” family members were deported in fiscal year 2023 – about 3,000 more than were deported under Trump in fiscal year 2020. Since Biden took office, the number of migrants detained by ICE has also more than doubled. The majority of these people, the ACLU says, are held in private detention facilities. According to the group, the share of migrants detained in facilities “owned or operated by private prison corporations” has increased under Biden. In some instances, the administration has even kept open detention facilities “that its own oversight agencies have recommended for closure in light of abusive conditions and safety risks.”

Last month, immigration advocacy groups alleged in a federal complaint that officials have “forced asylum seekers to remain in CBP custody in open-air detention sites along the U.S.-Mexico border in California.” The group accuses CBP agents of forcing migrants to wait in “dangerous, exposed conditions” and “failing to provide the adequate food, water, sanitation, shelter, and medical care required under the law.” So far, at least one migrant has died while waiting outside.

Texas passes its own immigration law

On December 18, Abbott signed a law, Senate Bill 4 (SB 4), that will allow state law enforcement to arrest migrants in Texas. The new state law would make it illegal to cross into Texas from Mexico without using an official port of entry. This practice is already illegal under federal law. But now state law enforcement officers will be permitted to arrest individuals based on their suspected immigration status.

Migrants who violate SB 4 could be “charged with a Class B misdemeanor, which carries a punishment of up to six months in jail.” Repeat offenders could face a second-degree felony charge, which carries a prison sentence of up to 20 years. Charges may be dropped by a judge if the individual agrees to return to Mexico. The law is scheduled to take effect on March 5.

SB 4 includes exceptions for migrants in “public or private schools; churches and other places of worship; health care facilities; and facilities that provide forensic medical examinations to sexual assault survivors,” but does not protect those on college or university campuses. The law does not require that law enforcement officers complete any additional training on immigration law, “despite the fact it would authorize them to quickly make decisions about a person’s immigration status.”

Opponents argue that SB 4 is unconstitutional because the federal government, not Texas, is responsible for enforcing immigration laws. On December 28, the Justice Department sent a letter to Abbott stating that SB 4 “violates the United States Constitution.” Yesterday, the Justice Department filed a lawsuit against Texas and Abbott. The lawsuit states that “Texas cannot run its own immigration system” and that SB 4 “intrude[s] on the federal government’s exclusive authority to regulate the entry and removal of noncitizens, frustrate[s] the United States’ immigration operations and proceedings, and interfere[s] with U.S. foreign relations.”

The lawsuit cites Arizona v. United States, a 2012 Supreme Court case in which the Court struck down aspects of a similar Arizona law that aimed to establish immigration enforcement at the state level. In the case, the Court “declared most of [the law] unconstitutional under the federal government’s preemptive power over immigration.”

In response to the December letter, Abbott posted on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “The Biden Admin. not only refuses to enforce current U.S. immigration laws, they now want to stop Texas from enforcing laws against illegal immigration,” Abbott said in the post. According to NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth, when signing SB 4 into law, Abbott said, “We think that Texas already has a constitutional [right] to do this but we also welcome a Supreme Court decision that would overturn the precedent set in the Arizona case.”

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HISTORICAL NOTE: The article states that the Refugee Act of 1980 “passed Congress unanimously.” But, that isn’t completely accurate.

There was indeed very strong bipartisan support for that Act. It passed the Senate, 88-0.

A different version of the bill overwhelmingly passed the House, 328-47. Therefore, a Conference Committee was formed to resolve differences.

The Conference Committee report largely adopted the Senate version. The Conference bill unanimously passed the Senate again. But, the vote in the House was closer, 207-192, with 34 Representatives abstaining.

The above summary was reconstructed from the outstanding historical article by refugee guru Professors Deborah Anker and Michael Posner in the San Diego Law Review (1981) with an assist from my own recollection of events in which I long ago participated. https://digital.sandiego.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1735&context=sdlr.

Another helpful resource that I consulted is Ballotpedia.

https://ballotpedia.org/Refugee_Act_of_1980.

The Popular Information article reprinted above does very accurately set forth the lies, misinformation, and invidious intent behind the GOP’s attack on and attempt to dehumanize legal asylum seekers!

When a party has no issues, no accomplishments, and no plans for governing in a responsible way, “ginning up” hate, resentment, and “revenge” with lies, misrepresentations, and myths becomes a “strategy.” And somehow, the mainstream media largely falls for it.

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

01-06-24

Ruth writes in The Messenger:

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

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From Popular Information/Substack:

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

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