Migratory Notes 22
Water free for all at the border, “children as bait,” Iraqi Christians face deportation
Know someone who might like Migratory Notes? Please help us spread the word: Here’s the subscribe form and here’s an archive on Medium. Got a story we should know about, send it on!
#MustReads
The Albuquerque Journal, in a five-part series which wraps up this week, investigates the water free for all on the U.S.-Mexico border.. There is no treaty that governs the groundwater that flows far below the metal walls that rise out of the dirt. “Whichever side strikes a straw in the deepest and drinks it up the fastest gets the water,” a hydrogeologist explains. New Mexico planted its ranching and farming future on a binational aquifer — the Mesilla Bolson in the U.S. and the Conejos Medanos in Mexico. Now it’s at risk.
In Gallup, N.M. a town sheriff refused to lock up Japanese residents during WWII and told the Japanese families “that they would be treated like his own Italian family would be.” Joe Mozingo writes in the Los Angeles Times about how this “small act of courage helped turn an ‘enemy alien’ into a national hero.”
Travel Ban
All new refugees, including those with a “bona fide relationship” to the US could soon be temporarily banned from entering the country, BuzzFeed reports. The deadline for refugees to enter the country is now July 12, or when the 50,000 cap for refugees is met.
Despite predictions that the travel ban would decrease visitors, May saw the 13th straight month of year-over-year growth, according to the U.S. Travel Association.
Sanctuary
A lawsuit in Miami against the county and Mayor Carlos Gimenez is the latest assault against local anti-sanctuary measures and could provide a national test case for opposing the Trump-backed initiatives, Miami Herald reports.
California has approved a plan that provides an extra $1 million for the Attorney General’s office to review any facility holding immigrant detainees for federal purposes, reports the Los Angeles Times. It’s another move by lawmakers in the Golden State to send a clear message to the Trump administration, which has been expanding its immigration enforcement efforts. The state is also now prohibiting local jurisdictions from expanding existing contracts or starting new ones to hold noncitizens for federal immigration enforcement.
Enforcement
Under a new Trump administration initiative, parents and relatives who paid smugglers to get their children into the country are a special target of ICE officers, reports The New York Times. Immigrant rights groups are pushing back, arguing the administration is “using children as bait” to punish the parents, according to the Los Angeles Times.
U.S. immigration officials are seeking to deport children who have received a special status for vulnerable migrants and are in the final stages of getting their green cards, Reveal reports. Undocumented children who were abandoned, abused or neglected by one of their parents in their home country received Special Immigrant Juvenile Status and a U.S. Social Security number, a work permit and a green card. But, a group of children from Central America face deportation after ICE declined to close their deportation cases in February.
Members of Congress sometimes take up individual immigration cases by pushing private bills on their behalf, which delays deportation while other actions are pursued. ICE says it will now only wait six months to deport persons who are the subjects of such bills and only if it receives a letter from the chair of the House and Senate judiciary committee or one of their subcommittees. Voice of America reports the agency says the bills are “designed to give people permanent resident status by “circumventing the normal immigration law network.””
The Trump administration’s enforcement policies build on more than a century of attempts “to create fear and terror within U.S. immigrant communities” according to a new academic paper “The Long History of Self-Deportation,” published in NACLA by University of Illinois at Chicago historian Adam Goodman.
Consequences
Iraqi Christians who backed Trump were thrown into chaos after ICE officials conducted a sweep of more than 100 men in the community. Most arrived in the U.S. legally but criminal troubles caused them to lose their legal status, explains the New York Times. They were allowed to stay in the U.S. because Iraq would not take deportees. That has changed under Trump and ICE was quick to go after those who had criminal records as far back as the 80s. Community members feel that Trump has “broke his promise” to help shelter Christians and fear the men will be in grave danger if they are returned to Iraq.
Some question the timing of the deportations, as the Muslim ban argument against the travel ban is being taken up in the Supreme Court, reports Foreign Policy.
Immigration is an International Issue
When deportees are sent back to their native countries they are often disoriented and unfamiliar with a place they left years, sometimes decades, ago. To ease the transition in Mexico a small group of former deportees are offering support. Deportees United in the Fight helps new arrivals reach relatives and teaches them how to register with the government for the $100 a month provided to the unemployed for six months. “Mostly, they come to show the new deportees that they are not alone,” writes Kate Linthicum for the Los Angeles times.
In Central America, Trump’s hard-line approach appears to have caused many would-be migrants to stay put, reports The New York Times. “Migrant smugglers in Honduras say their business has dried up since Mr. Trump took office. Fewer buses have been leaving the northern Honduran city of San Pedro Sula bound for the border with Guatemala, the usual route for Honduran migrants heading overland to the United States,” Kirk Semple writes. “In hotels and shelters along the migrant trail, once-occupied beds go empty night after night.”
Immigrants Get the Job Done
Immigrants are twice as likely to start businesses as native-born Americans. That entrepreneurial spirit is buoying the number of startups in states with a higher share of foreign-born workers, such as Nevada, Florida and Texas. But other states, with low immigration, have experienced a long-term decline in startups, according to a report from the Economic Innovation Group report.
Border
The doctors who treat patients crossing the border are also taking a political stance in murky legal territory. STAT visits a border clinic trying not to break the law.
In a crowdfunded piece for Longreads, Alice Driver takes a deep dive into a migrant shelter and the Mexican priest who oversees it. “Father Javier Calvillo Salazar is from Juárez, Mexico and he is used to it all, and to those who arrive after what is sometimes thousands of miles and hundreds of days with a collection of scars, broken bones, and missing limbs to match the inhumanity encountered along the way,” she writes.
Illegal Soldiers?
The Pentagon helped recruit undocumented immigrant soldiers with specific skills. Now it is considering ending the contracts of 1,000 officers without legal status, knowingly exposing them to deportation, Washington Post reports. In addition, it is considering starting “enhanced screening” for another 4,100 troops — mostly naturalized citizens.
Immigrants have been part of the armed forces since the Revolutionary War, Patrick Granfield responds in The Atlantic, and it would be a mistake to end that service.
An Iraq war veteran faces deportation to South Korea, reports KOIN.
Naturalization
A number of cities in Trump states have joined an effort to raise naturalization numbers, including Ohio, Kansas and Wisconsin. CityLab reports that since the beginning of 2016 the number of green card holders applying for citizenship skyrocketed to nearly 1 million people, more than at any point in the last 20 years.
Justice
The 9th Circuit has ruled that children who illegally enter the U.S. cannot be detained without a court hearing. Judge Stephen Reinhardt wrote for the court that without such hearings children “are held in bureaucratic limbo, left to rely upon the agency’s alleged benevolence and opaque decision making.” While the government is required to place the kids in the least restrictive situation, which is usually with a relative or in foster care, some are detained for years, according to the New York Times.
The ruling comes as immigration courts are in the spotlight for having a massive bottleneck of cases. According to the Government Accounting Office a shortage of immigration judges has contributed to the backlog of cases now being scheduled for 2020 and the 600,000 cases awaiting decisions, writes the Miami Herald.
Detention
Nearly 1,000 immigrants behind the walls of an El Paso detention center are wearing radio-frequency ankle or wrist bracelets. The Dallas Morning News reports that usually these ID trackers are reserved for those who are allowed to roam free while they await trial. ICE says the purpose is to “monitor the location and movement” of the detainees in the center. Critics question why the agency is monitoring those inside a private prison. El Paso is the only detention center tracking inmates within the confines of the grounds.
The Marshall Project reports that “one federal protection for immigrants has been quietly expanded in recent months:” Free legal representation for detainees who have a serious mental illness or disability. As of March, 21 immigration courts across the country were providing lawyers to immigrants in deportation proceedings incapable of representing themselves. The program began after Franco, a federal class action lawsuit. (Disclosure: Daniela’s wife is a co-counsel on the case).
JOB POSTINGS & OPPORTUNITIES
- “Homegoing” by Yaa Gyasi, is the latest choice for the Global Nation Book Club
- ¿Que Pasá Midwest? Freelance Editor/ Producer WNIN
- Associate Editor, Investigations Think Progress
- Community Engagement Editor — New Michigan Media (collaboration of ethnic/ minority media in Michigan)
- PRI’s Global Nation is accepting pitches for stories about immigration and diversity
- International Reporting Fellowship for Minority Journalists ICFJ travel fellowship (not specifically migration, but good opportunity to do so)
- Editor/ Producer — Latino USA
- Professor of Practice, Cronkite Borderlands Initiative (2 positions) — Arizona State University
- Race/ Related Editor — New York Times
- Director of Advocacy and Strategic Communications — Community Initiatives for Visiting Immigrants in Confinement (CIVIC)
- CIVIC is also accepting submissions on their site from people affected by immigration enforcement, advocates, bloggers, and scholars.
That’s all for Migratory Notes 22. We’re both based in LA, so help us out by letting us know what’s going on elsewhere. We realize this is in no way a complete list. If there’s a story you think we should consider, please send us an email.
Special thanks to intern Dalia Espinosa. Other thank you to those who helped this week, knowingly or unknowingly. Jacque Boltik for creating our template. Sue Cross, Jason Alcorn, Cindy Carcamo’s FB posts, Voice of San Diego Border Report, Global Nation Exchange FB group, Marshall Project newsletter, Xavier Maciel’s Sanctuary Schools newsletter, Migration Information Source, and countless tweeters.
*Daniela Gerson is an assistant professor at California State University, Northridge with a focus on community, ethnic, and participatory media. She is also a senior fellow at the Democracy Fund. Before that she was a community engagement editor at the LA Times; founding editor of a trilingual hyperlocal publication, Alhambra Source; staff immigration reporter for the New York Sun; and a contributor to outlets including WNYC: New York Public Radio, The World, Der Spiegel, Financial Times, CNN, and The New York Times. She recently wrote about Five lessons from a bilingual, bicultural newsroom in Southern Indiana for Local News Lab. You can find her on Twitter @dhgerson
*Elizabeth Aguilera is a multimedia reporter for CALmatters covering health and social services, including immigration. Previously she reported on community health, for Southern California Public Radio. She’s also reported on immigration for the San Diego Union-Tribune, where she won a Best of the West award for her work on sex trafficking between the U.S. and Mexico; and before that she covered a variety of beats and issues for the Denver Post including urban affairs and immigration. Her latest story explores the fate of deported veterans in Discharged. Deported. Why California may cover vets’ legal bid to return. You can find her on Twitter @1eaguilera
