Immigration Archives • Missouri Independent

Federal appeals court weighs fate of DACA program

Ariana Figueroa — Thu, 10 Oct 2024 21:09:16 +0000

Protesters in front of the Senate side of the U.S. Capitol urged Congress to pass the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, in December 2017 in Washington, D.C. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — After concluding oral arguments Thursday, a panel of federal judges will determine the fate of a program that has shielded from deportation more than half a million immigrants lacking permanent legal status who came into the United States as children.

Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, a 12-year program that was meant to be temporary during the Obama administration while Congress passed a pathway to citizenship, has been caught in a years-long battle after the Trump administration moved to end the program.

Greisa Martinez Rosas, the executive director for the youth immigration organization United We Dream, said in a statement that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit should reject the “baseless lawsuit” brought by Texas and other states.

“DACA recipients have withstood over a decade of attacks by violent, anti-immigrant officials and have kept DACA alive through their courage and resilience,” Rosas said. “I urge President (Joe) Biden and every elected official to treat this moment with the urgency it requires and to take bold and swift action to protect all immigrants once and for all. ”

A panel of three judges on the appeals court heard oral arguments on behalf of the program from the Justice Department, the state of New Jersey and an immigration rights group, all advocating the legality of the Biden administration’s 2021 final rule to codify the program.

Last year the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas declared it unlawful and allowed current DACA recipients to continue renewing their status, but barred new applicants.

The Justice Department and the others asked the appeals court judges to consider three things. They are challenging whether the state of Texas has standing to show it was harmed by DACA; whether the regulation is lawful within presidential authority; and whether the trial court had the authority to place a nationwide injunction on the program.

The judges are Jerry Edwin Smith, appointed by former President Ronald Reagan; Edith Brown Clement, appointed by former President George W. Bush; and Stephen A. Higginson, appointed by former President Barack Obama.

The 5th Circuit in New Orleans covers Louisiana, Texas and Mississippi, and typically delivers conservative rulings.

Joseph N. Mazzara, arguing on behalf of the state of Texas, said that DACA harmed the state because there is a “pocketbook cost to Texas with regard to education and medical care.”

He said that the end of DACA would likely lead recipients to self-deport and “return to their country of origin,” which he argued would alleviate Texas’ financial costs.

It could take weeks or months for a ruling, which is likely to head to the U.S. Supreme Court, and the fate of DACA may be left to the incoming administration.

The Supreme Court in 2020 overturned the Trump administration’s decision to end the program, but on the grounds that the White House didn’t follow the proper procedure. The high court did not make a decision whether the program itself was unlawful or not.

States’ standing

Brian Boynton argued on behalf of the Biden administration.

He argued that the eight states that sued the Biden administration along with Texas have no standing because they did not demonstrate any harm caused by DACA.

Those other states challenging DACA include Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, South Carolina, West Virginia, Kansas and Mississippi.

“Any person in the state of Texas, citizen or noncitizen, is entitled to precisely the same types of services, emergency health care services and public K through 12 education,” he said. “It’s not a situation where only someone with DACA is entitled to the services.”

Boynton asked the panel to uphold U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen’s policy of keeping DACA in place for current recipients – about 535,000 people – if the court decides to strike the program down while DACA continues to undergo the appeals process.

Hanen ruled in 2021 that DACA was unlawful, determining that the Obama administration exceeded its presidential authority in creating the program. He allowed current DACA recipients to remain in the program, but barred the federal government from accepting new applicants.

It’s estimated that there are 95,000 applicants that are blocked due to that order, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services data.

The Biden administration then went through the formal rulemaking, which Hanen reviewed and again deemed unlawful, prompting the appeal before the three judges.

Boynton argued against a nationwide injunction on DACA recipients being able to apply for the program.

“With respect to the propriety of nationwide injunctions, it’s very clear that an injunction should be narrowly crafted to provide a remedy only to the party that is injured, and here that would be Texas,” he said.

Nina Perales, of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, argued that Texas in its legal arguments is including spending costs for students in K-12 schools who cannot be DACA recipients because those recipients are over 18 and have aged out of the program.

Perales addressed the health care argument from Texas and said Texas did not show the incurred health costs of just DACA recipients.

“Texas points to health care spending on the entire undocumented immigrant population, as Texas estimates it,” she said. “Not DACA recipients.”

“It’s been widely understood that DACA recipients overall provide a net benefit to their state,” she added.

Haitian immigrants find new footholds, and familiar backlash, in the Midwest, South

Tim Henderson — Tue, 08 Oct 2024 19:48:41 +0000

Attorney FritzGerald Tondreau, who helps with immigration issues at Konbit Neg Lakay in Spring Valley, N.Y., shows intimidating videos of gang hostages and enemies being killed or beaten in Haiti. As a new wave of immigrants fleeing chaos arrives, many are moving beyond New York and Florida to find jobs and housing (Tim Henderson/Stateline).

Fortified with work authorizations and a new freedom, Haitian immigrants are moving out of their longtime strongholds in Florida and New York, often finding good jobs while remaining wary of how they will be received in new places in the Midwest and South.

This movement helps explain why Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, have become embroiled in the presidential election. For several weeks, Republican presidential and vice presidential nominees Donald Trump and J.D. Vance have spread untrue rumors about Haitian immigrants in the city eating their neighbors’ cats and dogs.

Until recently, “we were counting Haitians in the dozens,” said Leonce Jean-Baptiste, who helped launch the Haitian Association of Indiana in 2008. The association’s aim: “just making sure that our children would know there is such a thing as Haitian culture, that their parents come from a very strong, very rich culture and ethnic background,” he said.

Now, the association has its hands full helping new arrivals with housing and learning the ways of the Midwest, Jean-Baptiste said. Immigrants are coming to fill factory jobs in Indiana, a trend that started in the pandemic.

“Here in Indiana, in Ohio, in the Midwest in general, the manufacturing industry was desperate for labor and so it was a perfect kind of marriage,” Jean-Baptiste said. “Haitians were looking for jobs, they might have lost a low-paying job in a hotel in Florida, they can’t access government benefits because they’re not citizens, and here they can do better.”

With more Haitian immigrants free to work legally anywhere because of work permissions granted under the Biden administration, many moved from off-the-books jobs in Florida or New York to factory work in states such as Indiana, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas and Virginia.

Those states had some of the most significant increases in Haitian immigrant population between 2019 and 2023, the most recent estimates available from the American Community Survey, according to a Stateline analysis.

In that time, the Haitian immigrant population in Indiana increased eightfold, to 12,465; almost fourfold in North Carolina, to 7,752; more than doubled in Texas, to 7,010; more than tripled in Ohio, to 5,264; more than doubled in Virginia, to 6,342; and nearly fivefold in South Carolina, to 2,569.

Meanwhile more established strongholds where the most Haitian immigrants live are seeing less growth: New York (up 5%), Florida (up 1%) and Massachusetts (down 1%).

“The situation in New York is that the cost of living and the cost of housing is shutting out the new Haitians. They are moving where there are jobs and there is housing — I know people who have gone to North Carolina, South Carolina,” said Francois Pierre-Louis, a Haitian-born professor of international migration studies at the Queens College campus of the City University of New York.

Those staking out new territory in the Midwest tend to be more established immigrants who already know enough English to get by, Pierre-Louis said.

“To be able to move to the hinterlands, you have to have a level of cultural understanding of the U.S. to be comfortable,” he added.

‘It’s always been a struggle’

In Florida and New York, where about two-thirds of the country’s Haitian immigrants still live, more established immigrants with their own memories of discrimination are helping new immigrants get established.

Mayor Alix Desulme of North Miami, Florida — the city with the highest concentration of Haitian Americans, about 38% in recent years — recalls being taunted as a boy when he arrived in Brooklyn, New York, by people who falsely believed Haitians were spreading AIDS.

“I’m an immigrant and I am a Black man. These things do not go away,” said Desulme. “We’re in a state, Florida, where the governor would like immigrants to go elsewhere. It’s always been a struggle for us as a people, but we came to this country for a better life.”

Dr. Pierre Arty, a Brooklyn psychiatrist born in Haiti, said politically motivated denigration of Haitians has an impact that he’s trying to mitigate in his work with new immigrants for Housing Works, a Brooklyn nonprofit. It happened in the 1980s with AIDS and it’s happening again with false narratives about pet-eating, he said.

“We have social media with quick distribution of false information, negative memes about Haitians and offensive jokes. It can foster inferiority complexes and shame as opposed to pride for being part of this community,” Arty said.

“This fosters dehumanization and resurrects historic Black tropes of us being less than animals,” he said. “Imagine what this can do to the psyche of children when other people make fun of them.”

Growth in Haitian immigrant communities since mid-2023 is hard to gauge, but clearly has continued in some states.

Clark County, Ohio, where Springfield is located, saw an increase in Medicaid enrollment by people with Haitian backgrounds, based on their choice of Haitian Creole language, from about 3,000 in mid-2023 to almost 8,000 in July 2024. The number dropped to about 7,200 in August, according to the county’s Department of Job & Family Services.

The number of immigrants in the community is likely much higher since not all of them have Medicaid, and the Medicaid numbers will likely continue to drop as more get jobs, said the department’s director, Virginia Martycz.

In Indiana, Jean-Baptiste thinks the number of Haitian Americans and other immigrants has increased to 30,000 from the roughly 14,000 counted by the American Community Survey last year, based on contacts to his organization and social service reports based on names.

‘A little more mobility’

In New York, as in Florida, an established community is helping new immigrants get settled before moving on to areas with more jobs and more affordable housing.

“The work authorization is a ticket to a little more mobility,” said Daniel Jean-Gilles of Nyack, New York, where he is part of a wave of earlier Haitian immigrants trying to support newcomers. “I see a lot of new faces here. They come and stay here with family and friends while they wait for work authorization and then they can move around and get that job. I hear about people moving to North Carolina, Arizona for jobs.”

“Housing and jobs are very limited here. They have to go where the jobs are,” said FritzGerald Tondreau, an immigration attorney and child of Haitian immigrants who works in Spring Valley, New York.

Tondreau showed videos of brutal beatings and executions by gangs in Haiti, posted by the gangs to intimidate enemies and families of hostages, and said gangs have set up roadblocks demanding money on major roads. “This affects every facet of life in Haiti and makes it very untenable,” he said.

Work authorization is available to many Haitian immigrants, either as part of the federal temporary protected status for unauthorized immigrants or because of humanitarian parole for those waiting for asylum hearings if they crossed the border legally and don’t have a serious criminal record, said Julia Gelatt, associate director of the immigration policy program at the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, D.C.

Many Haitian immigrants are taking advantage of a new federal program that allows them to travel directly from Haiti if they have a sponsor willing to support them during temporary humanitarian parole.

Temporary protected status, first granted to Haitian immigrants when their nation was deemed too dangerous for return in 2010 because of earthquakes, is now held by an estimated 200,000 Haitian immigrants, second in number only to Venezuelans.

The status was recently extended until 2026 by the Biden administration and could theoretically end, but that’s not likely, Gelatt said. The Trump administration tried to end temporary protected status for Haiti and some other countries, but the policy was blocked by lawsuits until the Biden administration reversed it.

The bottom line, Gelatt said, is that many new Haitian immigrants are protected from deportation and are able to work legally for the time being, but few have a path to permanent legal residence and citizenship.

“This temporary status affects their sense of integration, their willingness to invest in their futures in the United States,” she said. “They can never be sure that they’ll get to stay.”

Over decades in the United States, without a clear path to citizenship for many, Haitian immigrants have learned to make peace with uncertainty.

“The thing is to wait a long time and be good citizens and stay under the radar,” said Pierre-Louis. “And most Haitians are good citizens. They go to church and they work. They want to work. They’re not here begging for anything.”

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org. Follow Stateline on Facebook and X.

Housing: Where do Trump and Harris stand?

Ariana Figueroa — Tue, 08 Oct 2024 10:50:39 +0000

Both presidential candidates have said they have general plans to tackle the housing crisis (Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — As the cost and supply of housing remain top issues for voters, both presidential candidates have put forth plans to tackle the crisis, in hopes of courting voters ahead of the Nov. 5 election.

The coronavirus pandemic that began in 2020 exacerbated problems in the housing market, with supply chain disruptions, record-low interest rates and increased demand contributing to a rise in housing prices, according to a study by the Journal of Housing Economics.

While housing is typically handled on the local level, the housing supply is tight and rents continue to skyrocket, putting increased pressure on the federal government to help. Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump agree that it’s an issue that needs to be solved, but their solutions diverge.

The Harris and Trump campaigns did not respond to States Newsroom’s requests for details on the general housing proposals the nominees have discussed.

Promise: millions of new homes

Harris’ plan calls for the construction of 3 million homes in four years.

The United States has a shortage of about 3.8 million homes for sale and rent, according to 2021 estimates from Freddie Mac that are still relied upon.

Additionally, homelessness has hit a record-high of 653,100 people since January of last year, and a “record-high 22.4 million renter households spent more than 30 percent of their income on rent and utilities,” up from 2 million households since 2019, according to a study by the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University.

“This is obviously a multi-prong approach, because the factors contributing to high rents and housing affordability are many, and my plan is to attempt to address many of them at once, so we can actually have the net effect of bringing down the cost and making homeownership, renting more affordable,” Harris said during a September interview with Wisconsin Public Radio.

Promise: single-family zoning

Trump has long opposed building multi-family housing and has instead thrown his support behind single-family zoning, which would exclude other types of housing. Such land-use regulation is conducted by local government bodies, not the federal government, though the federal government could influence it.

“There will be no low-income housing developments built in areas that are right next to your house,” Trump said during an August rally in Montana. “I’m gonna keep criminals out of your neighborhood.”

Promise: getting Congress to agree

Election forecasters have predicted that Democrats will regain control of the U.S. House, but Republicans are poised to win the Senate, meaning any housing proposals will have to be overwhelmingly bipartisan.

“How much money is going to really be available without substantial increases in revenue to be able to do all these things that both Trump and Harris are proposing?” Ted Tozer, a non-resident fellow at the Urban Institute’s Housing Finance Policy Center, said in an interview with States Newsroom. “All the money comes from Congress.”

Many of Harris’ policies rely on cooperation from Congress, as historically the federal government has limited tools to address housing shortages.

“On the Democratic side, there’s a hunger for more action, for more direct government intervention in the housing market than we’ve seen in a long time,” said Francis Torres, the associate director of housing and infrastructure at the Bipartisan Policy Center.

Nearly all proposals that Harris has put forth would require Congress to pass legislation and appropriate funds. The first is S.2224, introduced by Sen. Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio, which would amend U.S. tax code to bar private equity firms from buying homes in bulk by denying “interest and depreciation deductions for taxpayers owning 50 or more single family properties,” according to the bill.

The second bill, S. 3692, introduced by Sen. Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon and chair of the Senate Finance Committee, would bar using algorithms to artificially inflate the cost of rents.

Both bills would need to reach the 60-vote threshold in order to advance in the Senate, whichever party is in control.

Promise: $25,000 down payment assistance

Harris has pledged to support first-time homebuyers, but Congress would need to appropriate funds for the $25,000 down payment assistance program she has proposed that would benefit an estimated 4 million first-time homebuyers over four years.

It’s a proposal that’s been met with skepticism.

“I’m really concerned that down payment assistance will actually put more pressure on home prices, because basically, you’re giving people additional cash to pay more for the house that they’re going to bid on,” Tozer said. “So by definition, they get in a bidding war, they’re going to spend more.”

Harris has also proposed a $40 billion innovation fund for local governments to build and create solutions for housing, which would also need congressional approval.

Promise: opening up federal lands

Both candidates support opening some federal lands for housing, which would mean selling the land for construction purposes with the commitment for a certain percentage of the units to be kept for affordable housing.

The federal government owns about 650 million acres of land, or roughly 30% of all land.

Neither candidate has gone into detail on this proposal.

“I think it’s a sign that at least the Harris campaign and the people in her orbit are thinking about addressing this housing affordability problem really through stronger government action than has happened in several decades,” Torres said.

Promise: expand tax credits

The biggest tool the federal government has used to address housing is through the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, known as LIHTC. Harris has promised to expand this tax credit, but has not gone into detail about how much she wants it expanded.

This program awards tax credits to offset construction costs in exchange for a certain number of rent-restricted units for low-income households. But the restriction is temporary, lasting about 30 years.

There is no similar program for housing meant to be owned.

“It’s an interesting moment, because then on the other side, on the Trump side, even though they diagnosed a lot of the similar problems, there’s not as much of a desire to leverage the strength of the federal government to ensure affordability,” Torres said.

Trump’s record on housing

The Trump campaign does not have a housing proposal, but various interviews, rallies and a review of Trump’s first four years in office provide a roadmap.

During Trump’s first administration, many of his HUD budget proposals were not approved by Congress.

In all four of his presidential budget requests, he laid out proposals that would increase rent by 40% for about 4 million low-income households using rental vouchers or for those who lived in public housing, according to an analysis by the left-leaning think tank the Brookings Institution.

All four of Trump’s budgets also called for the elimination of housing programs such as the Community Development Block Grant, which directs funding to local and state governments to rehabilitate and build affordable housing. Trump’s budgets also would have slashed the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, known as LIHEAP, which is a home energy assistance program for low-income families.

Additionally, Trump’s Opportunity Zones authorized through the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which are tax incentives to businesses and real estate to invest in low-income communities, have had mixed results.

Promise: cut regulations and add tariffs

In an interview with Bloomberg, Trump said he wanted to focus on reducing regulations in the permitting process.

“Your permits, your permitting process. Your zoning, if — and I went through years of zoning. Zoning is like… it’s a killer,” he said. “But we’ll be doing that, and we’ll be bringing the price of housing down.”

During campaign rallies, Trump has often said he would impose a 10% tariff across the board on all goods entering the U.S. He’s also proposed 60% tariffs on China.

Trump said at a rally in Georgia that tariff is “one of the most beautiful words I’ve ever heard.”

Tozer said adding trade policies, such as tariffs on construction materials like lumber, would drive up the cost of homes.

Promise: deport immigrants

Trump has argued that his plan for mass deportations will help free up the supply of housing. Karoline Leavitt, the Trump national press secretary, told the New York Times that deporting immigrants would lower the cost of housing because migration “is driving up housing costs.”

The former president has made a core campaign promise to deport millions of immigrants.

Tozer said housing and immigration are tied, because the ability to build houses comes down to workers, and roughly 30% of construction workers are immigrants.

“By shutting down the border, you’re possibly shutting down your capacity to build these houses,” he said, adding that all those policies are intertwined.

Missouri House Democrat calls for investigation of testimony given under false names

Rudi Keller — Fri, 04 Oct 2024 20:36:56 +0000

The Missouri State Capitol in Jefferson City, as pictured September 26, 2023 (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent).

Missouri House testimony presented under several aliases should be investigated and prosecuted under laws making it a felony to file false documents with a government agency, state Rep. Del Taylor said Friday.

Taylor, a St. Louis Democrat, said that The Independent’s report that a Columbia restaurant owner is the source of testimony under at least three fake names demands further investigation.

“Let’s take a closer look at who are these people that testified and submitted written testimony, and put some degree of scrutiny to them,” Taylor said in an interview with The Independent.

Written testimony submitted to the Missouri House Special Interim Committee on Illegal Immigrant Crimes included several statements that accused restaurant owners in cities around the state of conspiring to obtain liquor licenses for undocumented immigrants.

Three of the names and email addresses matched emails sent to The Independent beginning in May. Those emails included many of the same accusations sent to the committee, all tied back to officials and restaurants in Dunklin County in southeast Missouri.

False names used in testimony to Missouri House committee studying immigrant crime

Associate Dunklin County Commissioner Ron Huber, named as one of the alleged conspirators in the testimony and emails to The Independent, said he recognized them as among the aliases adopted by Crystal Umfress of Columbia as she targeted businesses he serves as an accountant.

Umfress was charged Sept. 18 in Dunklin County with filing false documents and forgery for impersonating Huber in emails seeking to withdraw liquor license applications for businesses he served. Umfress, owner of Casa Maria’s Mexican Cantina in Columbia, was already facing trial in February on charges of hiring a man to set fire to a Kennett restaurant when the forgery charges were filed.

The committee, formed by the House Republican leadership to document crimes committed by undocumented immigrants, actually found very little evidence that newly arrived people are more likely to commit offenses, Taylor said.

Taylor, a member of the committee, attended all six hearings in cities around the state, he said.

“The fact we had these hearings in the first place was unwarranted and now we have evidence to show that the testimony given that attempted to fuel the Republican anti-immigration rhetoric was falsified,” he said in a statement.

Taylor said the law making it a felony to file a false document with a government agency is one possible avenue for prosecution. Another is the punishment allowed in the Missouri Constitution for “disrespect to the House by any disorderly or contemptuous behavior in its presence during its sessions.”

“I don’t know if it would be the prosecutor from each county where a hearing took place, or the prosecutor here in Jefferson City since it was a House hearing,” Taylor said. “We are looking at a violation of Missouri statute. And I don’t know the jurisdiction, but yes, I would think the prosecutors should go ahead.”

The committee has concluded its public hearings and will prepare a report with recommendations for legislative action. The most pressing need shown by the testimony, Taylor said, is for laws protecting immigrants.

“Our immigrants and visitors are the victims of horrible human trafficking, hate crimes and wage theft,” Taylor said. “We heard that at all six of the hearings, and there were a number of recommendations that were made to offer better protections for our immigrant community.”

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Left powerless: Non-English–speaking parents denied vital translation services

Amanda Geduld — Thu, 19 Sep 2024 10:55:17 +0000

Parents and families who speak a language other than English are frequently denied access to communication from their child’s school in their primary language, often turning to Google translate, their own kid or a bilingual staff member who isn’t a trained interpreter for issues as simple as their child being absent for a day or as complex and intimidating as a special education meeting or a school disciplinary hearing (Eamonn Fitzmaurice/The 74).

For months, Wendy Rodas felt disempowered and silenced whenever she tried to reach out to her daughter’s Missouri elementary school.

The El Salvadorian mother of three, who primarily speaks Spanish, struggled to communicate with teachers, administrators and district leaders. She made repeated requests for the interpretation services that she — and all public school parents who don’t speak English fluently — are legally entitled to.

In most of her exchanges with the school, Rodas said she wasn’t even offered access to a phone translation service. If she ever needed to inform them of something like an absence or a kid running late, she had to rely on her older son to translate.

This reached a fever pitch in the fall of 2022, when Rodas’s daughter, then a 5th grader in South Kansas City, told her mom that two kids at school “were touching her inappropriately in her private parts.” When Rodas contacted the school to report this, they initially provided her with a phone interpreter, she said, but as the situation escalated over the next few months, communication dwindled.

At a meeting with district leaders to discuss the assault allegation and the attacks on her daughter that Rodas said took place afterward, the mom said she was denied any school-provided interpretation services.

“I felt powerless, not being able to say what I wanted to say, how I wanted to say it, in the manner and moment that I wanted to say it,” Rodas said in a translated interview with The 74. “And it also made me feel bad. There were a lot of times that I felt … if I was not like them — because I can’t speak the language — that I didn’t belong there. I felt ignored.”

Rodas’s experiences are not unique, according to interviews with over a dozen parents, advocates, lawyers and academic experts, along with a review of national data.

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All of this can lead to a breakdown in trust between families and schools and harmful consequences for students — and it’s happening all the time in districts across the country, advocates say.

“It’s such a prevalent issue that everybody knows about it,” said Nancy Leon, director of the D.C.-based immigration advocacy organization MLOV — Many Languages, One Voice. “It’s unspoken. It’s expected. So sometimes it’s something parents don’t even bring up to us because it just happens so frequently.”

It’s challenging to pin down just how widespread the problem is because a number of parents don’t know that they’re legally entitled to these services, advocates say, and those who do know their rights are often afraid to report violations or unaware of how to tackle that process. Others still may feel embarrassed to request the services, viewing their status as shameful or a burden.

Another Missouri mom told The 74 that she marked on enrollment papers that she needed an interpreter, but then when her son got hurt at school one day, was put on the phone with someone whose Spanish was so poor that she just told them to speak to her in English.

One measure of the extent of the problem is the number of times children are called on to interpret for their parents at school. Tricia McGhee, director of communications at Midwest-based Revolución Educativa, said they put that question to kids when the advocacy group is doing programming with Spanish-speaking families.

When they ask, “‘Have you ever been [an] interpreter for your mom?’ They all raise their hand,” she said. “Every last one of them.”

Countless examples

This year marks the 60th anniversary of The Civil Rights Act, which granted families the legal right to interpretation and translation services from public K-12 schools under Title VI.

Unlike for legal and medical interpreters, there is no national certification for education interpreters, though one is in the works, according to Ana Soler, chairperson at the National Association of Educational Translators and Interpreters of Spoken Languages. This leaves those in education largely unregulated, which means that even when parents do get an interpreter, they might not have sufficient training or expertise. And, they’re frequently accessed through a phone service, described by some as “check-off-the-box” language access.

In 2023, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights received about 3,500 complaint allegations raising Title VI issues. Of those, only 54 were related to communication with parents who don’t speak English fluently. They ranged from a child in Colorado denied access to free and reduced-price lunch — and later fined — because of miscommunication to a Rhode Island district’s widespread use of untrained interpreters and translators. The previous year, there were even fewer communication-based complaints filed: just 34.

But experts, advocates and parents assert that these numbers represent a sliver of the problem.

“We have seen countless examples of schools not providing interpretation at meetings, of parents going to schools and being told that there isn’t anybody there who speaks their language and so they should come back at another time,” said Rita Rodriguez-Engberg, director of the Immigrant Students’ Rights Project at Advocates for Children of New York.

“Whenever we hear about an example in a school, we know that there are probably dozens of parents who have gone through the same thing at that school because we’re lucky enough to get the one parent to tell us about it,” she added.

The legal standard: ‘A very tricky balance’

In 2021, just over 10% of K-12 students nationally were English learners. In some states the percentage of children whose parents are not fluent in English can be even higher, ranging from 33% in California to nearly none in Montana, according to Education Week research. And in 2021, about one-fifth of school-age children spoke a language other than English at home and about 4% also lived in “limited-English-speaking households.”

The 2023 Family Needs Assessment, which surveyed 980 families, the vast majority of whom identified as Latino with kids who are English learners, reported almost 60% of parents being at least somewhat concerned about the lack of access to translation or interpretation services at school.

In January 2015, the departments of Justice and Education released joint guidance outlining what these services should look like: Schools must communicate with parents in a language they understand and are prohibited from asking “the child, other students or untrained school staff to translate or interpret.”

Interpreters and translators must have knowledge of specialized terms in both languages and must be trained in the role, including the ethics of interpreting and translating. The document clearly establishes, “it is not sufficient for the staff merely to be bilingual.”

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It’s important that families understand “this is not a favor they’re doing for you,” said Soler. “They need to provide you with language access that is quality language access — not just anybody that speaks a little bit of one language so that they can fulfill their requirements.”

Despite their legal heft, these provisions are often misunderstood or flagrantly violated, experts and parents told The 74. And some argue the guidance doesn’t go far enough.

“Quite frankly, the verbiage is left up to interpretation,” said Revolución Educativa’s McGhee. “So if I were passing laws, I would be much more specific about the requirements.”

The standard is not completely clear when it comes to school staff who are multilingual serving as interpreters, said Paige Duggins-Clay, chief legal analyst at the Texas-based Intercultural Development Research Association, so “it’s a very tricky balance.”

And when these rights are not sufficiently met — and parents are hobbled in their efforts to advocate for their children — the consequences can be deeply harmful to both students and families.

“Having a really engaged caregiver is critically important to the success of any young person,” said Duggins-Clay, “but especially a young person who might be new to the school community or might be learning to speak English and integrating into the broader school community.”

Often schools and districts claim interpretation and translation services are expensive and budgets are tight or they don’t have access to certain languages locally, said Alejandra Vázquez Baur, a fellow at The Century Foundation, a progressive think tank based in New York City.

But, she said, these are all barriers that can be overcome.

Schools have also increasingly struggled to recruit and retain bilingual educators, though Vázquez Baur, who is bilingual and a former teacher, again emphasized that merely speaking another language is not enough.

When she taught in Florida’s Miami-Dade County between 2017-19, she said she was frequently relied on to translate and interpret for families.

At the time, Vázquez Baur said, “I did not realize that them calling me down for parent-teacher conferences for other teachers and calling parents for all the different things was against their right.”

Superintendents and school leaders across the country want to fulfill their legal obligation and communicate effectively with their parents, but are often thwarted by an “implementation gap,” according to John Malloy, the assistant executive director for the Learning Network at The School Superintendents Association and a former superintendent in California.

The challenge comes from both pipeline and funding issues, he said: “There’s a lack of professionals to fulfill that [legal] obligation, and then there’s a lack of dollars to pay those professionals.”

The problem is endemic, he added, noting, “I think you’d be hard pressed to find a district — even in the face of our legal obligations — who isn’t struggling [with this].”

In order to combat it, Malloy said, schools will require increased state and federal funding.

“Too often in my experience — whether we’re talking special education, whether we’re talking Title IX, whether we’re talking this important and legal requirement related to access — we’re stretching dollars in multiple ways,” the former superintendent of 15 years said. “And at the end of the day, we are expected to do something that we might not actually have the resources to provide no matter how hard we try.”

Until then, school leaders will continue to rely on other strategies, such as family members or untrained bilingual staff, according to Malloy.

The school principal of a rural, low-income district in Eastern North Carolina told The 74 that he was able to hire a front office secretary who is both bilingual and a trained interpreter.

“But most people aren’t that lucky,” said Patrick Greene, who is in his 12th year as principal in Greene County Schools, a district of 2,700 students.

Finding a trained, bilingual staff member was important to him because his student population is now about a third Latino, with only one designated interpreter for the entire district. Greene said he was forced to schedule “more official” meetings, such as disciplinary hearings, around that lone staffer’s schedule.

“He stays very busy,” he said.

All of the great details are just gone

Alejandra, who moved from Mexico to Missouri two decades ago, gave birth to her son Danny three years after that. Described by his mother as a bright, hyperactive kid, Danny was in third grade when he was badly injured on the monkey bars at school.

Alejandra requested only her first name and her son’s nickname be used because she feared retaliation from her son’s school district.

After Danny walked himself to the nurse’s office that day — and after the initial interpreter spoke such poor Spanish that Alejandra told her to switch to English — it was the little boy himself who had to explain the fraught situation to his mom.

“It was very frustrating,” she added, “because they ended up using my child as the interpreter.”

This experience was not new, nor has it changed in the years since. Alejandra said that in general, when her kids were in elementary school, the school would make an interpreter available, but only if she scheduled an appointment ahead of time.

“In middle school, there are no interpreters. You have to bring your own person that will help you. And for high school? Definitely not.”

In general, even when interpretation has been provided, she described it as subpar and largely unhelpful, marked by translators who cross boundaries, interjecting their views into conversations in ways that she said were inappropriate and ultimately hurt her son.

“Oftentimes, what I’ve experienced is that when they’re part of the district, they insert themselves in the situation,” she said. “Their own bias comes in, they give their own opinions, and then they get in the way of the proper communication that should just be a bridge between one party and the other.”

It’s often in the face of these deficiencies that the student gets called on to translate. Not only is this a violation of the law, but also makes families feel disconnected from their schools and leads to an adultification of children, said Daysi Ximena Diaz-Strong, an assistant professor at the University of Chicago’s School of Social Work.

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“It creates a kind of interesting family dynamic of parents wanting to support their kids, but having these sort of structural constraints, which then forces the kids to take on more responsibility within the home.”

She said as someone who grew up as an immigrant and took on these responsibilities herself, “It stays with you all the way through adulthood. You just know that you … are responsible for your family’s well-being and that you must take on that burden at any expense — including your own.”

Sometimes, students are even pulled to be translators for their peers, according to Hannah Liu, a policy analyst at the The Center for Law and Social Policy in D.C.

It’s not just an individual school issue, she said, “it’s a very widespread issue. And I think that’s something that’s been normalized in the immigrant child experience … We need to denormalize and say, ‘OK, actually, we are not supporting our kids enough.’”

McGhee, of Revolución Educativa, said unless translation is requested in advance, it’s typically not available and even when established advocacy groups like hers make the ask, often it’s still not provided. What happens then, she said, is administrators will pull in someone like a bilingual secretary to fill the gap.

“If the student is a middle schooler or above, they are doing all their own interpretation,” she said.

McGhee said she once sat in on an emotionally charged disciplinary hearing for an English learner facing expulsion. His mom didn’t speak English, so the school ultimately brought in a young, bilingual staff member who worked in the front office but had no training in interpretation.

As the meeting intensified, the staff member grew increasingly emotional and began to cry. McGhee said she turned to her and offered to take over.

McGhee said she’s also witnessed meetings where bilingual staff members are burned out and frustrated after being repeatedly asked to do this work and therefore do the bare minimum.

Christy Moreno, community advocacy and impact officer at Revolución Educativa and a trained language access provider, emphasized the harm that is done when this happens. Moreno interpreted the parent interviews for this article.

“Oftentimes what I see and what I experience and what I hear about is meetings where when the information is translated into their language of preference, it’s summarized,” she said. “So all of the great detail, all of the very important things that need to be taken into consideration when families are making decisions about the educational experience of their children, are just gone. And so they’re disenfranchised. Someone else is making decisions for them without their true input and ultimately that impacts their student, the child.”

She’s even seen cases in which legal documents, such as Individualized Education Programs, are translated using Google: “I’ve seen it many times, literally printed on the IEP where the top corner says ‘Translated by Google Translate.’”

“It’s not really a system that’s working,” said Rodriguez-Engberg, from Advocates for Children. “The problem is that there are resources and there is guidance and there’s definitely a little bit of oversight, it’s just that I’m not sure the schools are actually being held accountable.”

Unlike federal laws that protect students with disabilities, she added, the enforcement mechanisms just aren’t very robust.

“I want people to know my story”

Wendy Rodas said her daughter was hospitalized in December 2022 as a result of being victimized in her Missouri school, and that her son was forced to translate a challenging conversation between his mother and the school principal about his younger sister’s traumatizing experiences.

Eventually, frustrated by the school’s lack of response, Rodas involved Child Protective Services and requested a meeting with the principal, superintendent and director of student services. She also requested an interpreter be present.

At this point, a skeptical Rodas also elicited outside help from Revolución Educativa. On the morning of the meeting, the interpreter she had requested from the school wasn’t there, she said. A staff member in the session tried unsuccessfully to access one on the phone. Finally, the Revolución Educativa advocate, a trained interpreter, stepped in.

For the first time, Rodas said, “I felt like I was finally able to say everything I wanted to say.”

Rodas said she never saw the outcome of the investigation into what happened to her daughter. But in the year and a half since, the young girl has been healing through therapy and has transferred to another public school in the district, one that consistently offers translation through a phone interpreter, her mother said. This is better than nothing, but still feeling disconnected, Rodas continues to rely on outside services and volunteers.

Rodas is hoping for change — ideally a bilingual staffer is assigned at each school to facilitate communication between educators and families. And while reliving her daughter’s story is painful, she said she shares it to encourage other non-English-speaking parents to fight and advocate for their kids.

“I want people to know my story so that they can know that if they have the courage … they can make change. I want people to have that courage so that they can speak up, so that they can go and find answers and say what they want to say. And I want them to know that it is possible to get effective communication — we just need to push and ask for it.”

This report was first published by the 74, a non-profit national education newsroom. It can be republished in print or online.

Deportations, raids, visa access: How the presidential election could impact immigrant farmworkers

Sky Chadde — Mon, 16 Sep 2024 17:54:26 +0000

Hispanic farmworkers harvest Strawberries at a farm in Carlsbad, California (Sandy Huffaker/Getty Images).

The farmworkers scattered.

There was a union representative in the workers’ employer-provided housing, on an orchard in upstate New York. Their employer, major apple grower Porpiglia Farms, had hired them on H-2A, or temporary labor, visas. That day in August 2023, according to the workers’ union, United Farm Workers, the orchard’s owners burst in. The farmworkers ran or hid in their rooms.

Following the incident, the UFW filed a complaint with New York state, alleging the orchard prevented workers from exercising their rights. Porpiglia Farms disputed the UFW’s account and said it is working with the UFW. However, on that day, the UFW organizer had “trespassed” in an effort to “gin up a controversy,” Anthony Porpiglia, the owner, said in a statement provided to Investigate Midwest by his attorneys. The workers “asked her to leave and she refused,” he said.

The following summer, workers arrived for harvest season. Near the orchard’s entrance, workers, whose union has endorsed Kamala Harris for president, noticed a new sign: “Farmers for Trump.”

The scuffle in the orchard epitomizes the division on immigration between the two presidential candidates and what could be at stake for immigrant workers, who have underpinned the agriculture industry for decades. While Donald Trump’s rhetoric targets its workforce, the industry, writ large, has favored the former president. President Joe Biden’s administration, with Kamala Harris as vice president, has instituted protections paving a path to more farmworker unionization, while also cracking down on border crossings.

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A Harris victory would likely mean a continuation of Biden’s efforts — and renewed hope for a path to citizenship for undocumented farmworkers. She’s publicly supported one for years. But farmworkers, who are essential to the U.S. economy, will still fear being uprooted regardless of who is president, said Laurie Beyranevand, director of the Center for Agriculture and Food Systems at Vermont Law and Graduate School.

“At the end of the day, many farmworkers still fear deportation,” she said. “Obviously, that fear, I think, is more pronounced with a policy agenda like the Trump administration, but it’s not as though it’s not present with the Biden administration either.”

Neither campaign responded to a request for comment on their immigration stances.

If re-elected, Trump has promised to deport upwards of 20 million undocumented people, many of them agricultural workers who perform the dangerous jobs most Americans don’t want. Trump supported the use of the H-2A program, which farmers said is necessary to fill labor shortages. But the former president’s close allies have recently proposed eliminating it.

Agriculture corporations have lavished Trump and Republicans with campaign cash. The disparity in spending on conservatives and liberals, in conservatives’ favor, increased during the Trump administration. Rural areas, a proxy for farmers, largely voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020.

In an interview with The New York Times, Stephen Miller, who led Trump’s immigration efforts during his administration, said the Trump campaign’s goal was to upend industries that rely on immigrant labor.

“Mass deportation will be a labor-market disruption celebrated by American workers, who will now be offered higher wages with better benefits to fill these jobs,” he said.

Some research suggests deportations, especially at a large scale, could backfire on U.S. workers. In 2023, University of Colorado researchers estimated that, for every 1 million unauthorized workers deported, 88,000 native workers would lose jobs. When companies lose their labor forces, the researchers concluded, they find ways to use less labor, not replace their lost workers.

A historical example is the end of the Bracero Program, which allowed Mexican workers into the U.S. for seasonal jobs. Instead of hiring more U.S. workers when their labor force was suddenly gone, farmers turned to heavy machinery, according to 2017 research. There was no corresponding increase in employment or wages for native workers.

Temporary labor visa programs have exploded in popularity. In 2023, the government granted about 400,000 H-2A visas. But America’s farms still depend on an undocumented workforce. Out of about 2 million farmworkers in the U.S., government surveys show about 44% are undocumented. (Hundreds of thousands of other workers in the food supply chain — meatpacking plants, grocery stores, restaurants — are also undocumented.)

“If we lost half of the farmworker population in a short period of time, the agriculture sector would likely collapse,” said Mary Jo Dudley, the director of the Cornell Farmworker Program. “There are no available skilled workers to replace the current workforce should this policy be put into place.”

Antonio De Loera-Brust, a UFW spokesman, said deporting millions would be nearly impossible logistically. The point of Trump’s rhetoric, he said, was to instill fear in farmworkers so they don’t demand their rights.

Farmers who support Trump are “voting basically to try to deny their workforce labor rights and to try to reduce their workforce’s wages,” De Loera-Brust said. “I don’t think you need to psychoanalyze it that much further beyond, ‘This is in their economic interest.’”

Investigate Midwest requested interviews with several industry groups to discuss the candidates’ stances on immigration and the potential impact on agriculture. The Meat Institute, which represents the meatpacking industry, said the immigration policy it supported was expanding the visa labor program to include its industry.

“Continued labor problems in the processing sector will hamper production and drive-up costs, hurting both upstream producers and downstream consumers,” Sarah Little, the group’s spokesperson, said in an email. “Efforts to address the labor needs of agriculture must consider both the production sector and the processing sector.”

However, most either didn’t respond or declined to comment. For example, the American Farm Bureau Federation, which positions itself as the voice of agriculture, said it does “not endorse candidates nor engage in election politics.”

However, through political action committees, the bureau’s state affiliates endorse candidates. The federation’s current administrative head, Joby Young, was a high-ranking official in Trump’s U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Farm labor is dangerous. In fields, workers risk pesticide exposure, which can cause skin rashes. Long-term exposure can cause cancer or contribute to developmental issues in offspring. Tractors have crushed limbs. Workers have died falling into grain bins.

The pay is also unappealing. Agriculture is exempt from federal overtime laws. Sometimes, workers are paid “piece rate,” meaning their earnings depend on how much they harvest in a day.

In meatpacking plants, workers perform the same motion, over and over, with sharp knives. Workers have suffered tendinitis, lacerations and amputations. Because it’s so difficult, plants sometimes gradually increase newbies’ hours: It’s called “break-in pain.” And, as the COVID-19 pandemic struck, plant workers were forced to return to their jobs, exposing themselves and their families to the virus.

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Many U.S. citizens do not want jobs like this, Dudley said. Sometimes, farmers feel they have no choice but to overlook suspect IDs.

“These are valued employees,” an anonymous farmer told Minnesota Public Radio in 2019 after he suspected U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were surveilling his employees. “We get their IDs and everything. Do we know if they’re legal or illegal? Well, we’re going to say we’re open on that. We don’t know that they are, we don’t know that they aren’t. But they are employees and they are the most hard-working people that you can find.”

One of those workers, for decades, was Gloria Solis. In 1998, she left Mexico, where she struggled to afford food and rent, and began picking cherries in Washington state. When Trump was in office, she tried to stay home as much as possible, fearing an interaction with authorities that might lead to deportation. She mostly risked it for her job and for medical appointments for her two sons, who are U.S. citizens, she said in Spanish through an interpreter. Each time, she prayed.

Some of her employers seemed emboldened by Trump, and the employers made it clear that, if she and her coworkers didn’t work hard enough, they could be easily replaced. When Biden was elected, she said, there was a noticeable change. Workers with legal status and workers who were undocumented were treated much more fairly, Solis, now 47, said.

“We know that (Biden) is no longer in it, but there is his partner,” she said. “Hopefully nothing will change (as far as administration policy) because it’s perfectly fine. We are afraid that Trump will be elected. If he gets elected, then we won’t know what to do.”

Trump raids included ag job sites; Biden secured worker protections

Former President Donald Trump in a pre-recorded message told The Danbury Institute, a group opposed to abortion, that he hopes to protect “innocent life” if elected in November. In this photo, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference at the Gaylord National Resort Hotel And Convention Center on Feb. 24 in National Harbor, Maryland (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images).

Throughout Trump’s administration, immigration authorities raided farms and food processing plants. When Biden was elected, he reversed Trump’s directives. Instead of targeting workers, Biden focused on exploitative employers.

Under Trump, some of the most prominent agriculture companies in the U.S. dealt with immigration raids. In 2018, Christensen Farms — which owns two of the largest pork processing plants in the U.S., Seaboard Foods in Oklahoma and Triumph Foods in Missouri — was caught up in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement action. In 2019, raids in Mississippi rounded up about 700 undocumented workers. Some worked for Koch Foods, which supplies much of the poultry at Wal-Mart.

While the raids barely made a dent in the agricultural workforce, they had an effect. Many farmworkers feared speaking up about workplace abuses, said Nezahualcoyotl Xiuhtecutli, a National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition advocacy coordinator who previously worked as a Florida farmworker advocate.

“They felt like they couldn’t raise their voices about concerns they had on safety or wage theft or any kind of labor violation,” he said. “They just felt like it made them a target and they could easily be replaced.”

Many farmworkers who have been in the U.S. for decades travel north from Texas and Florida each year to work in Midwestern fields. But, with Trump in office, some in Florida decided to forgo the annual pilgrimage to avoid running into ICE, Xiuhtecutli said. Some took housekeeping or landscaping jobs to make ends meet.

“I don’t think it was necessarily a positive change for them because it wasn’t steady work,” he said. “It was still seasonal.”

Once in office, Biden announced crackdowns on employers in the food supply chain that used migrant child labor, following a New York Times expose. Children worked in factories that processed or produced products for Walmart, Whole Foods and General Mills, the cereal giant.

In 2023, Biden also announced that workers who were in the country without documentation could be granted deferred action — i.e., not immediate deportation — if they witnessed or were victims of labor violations. The change would help hold “predatory” employers accountable, the administration said.

UFW’s De Loera-Brust said the deferred action rule was a “game changer” for unions. A couple dozen members of his union, which represents workers with a variety of legal statuses, have been granted stays under the new rule, he said.

“We’re actually able to tell workers not just that you will get better wages, better protections, better conditions through unionization,” he said. “We can actually also help protect you from deportation.”

Solis, the worker in Washington state, benefited from the new rule. In 2023, she was fired from her job on a mushroom farm. According to the state attorney general, the farm discriminated against female workers, including firing them, and was fined $3.4 million. Because of the incident, Solis was officially allowed to remain in the U.S. When she received the paperwork in the mail, she cried out of happiness all night, she said.

Another Biden rule, implemented this year, allowed H-2A farmworkers to invite union representatives into their employer-owned housing. It also banned employers from retaliating against workers trying to unionize. The state of New York allowed H-2A workers to unionize starting in 2020, which facilitated the unionization effort at Porpiglia Farms. The Biden rule codified the right for H-2A workers nationwide.

In late August, though, a judge temporarily blocked the rule, after 17 Republican-led states sued the Biden administration over it. The administration asked the judge to narrow the breadth of the injunction, which would allow some other farmworker protections to be enacted, according to Bloomberg Law. The request was denied.

Beyranevand, at the agriculture and food systems center, said the rule would be an important step for farmworkers. But the challenge would be enforcing it, and having workers believe they won’t face retaliation.

“I don’t know that a lot of farmworkers are going to invite in labor representatives or anyone that is putting their job in jeopardy if the farm owner is able to catch a whiff of that,” she said.

Trump and his allies promise hard-line immigration policies

Deporting millions of farmworkers could have far-reaching consequences, experts and advocates said.

If the agricultural workforce were suddenly gone, the U.S. would likely have to rely much more heavily on imported food, said Dudley, of the Cornell farmworker program. That could lead to higher food prices, especially if another Trump proposal — replacing the income tax with tariffs on imports — is enacted. In turn, that could put more price pressure on individual consumers, particularly ones in food insecure families, Dudley said. (Some research suggests that more immigrants and H-2A workers in the food system leads to less inflation at the supermarket.)

Relying on imported food could become a national security issue. It could be easier for a foreign adversary to destabilize the U.S. if its food supply was prevented from reaching its shores. (The Biden administration said in a 2022 memo it was looking into how to bolster the security of the food system.)

Another consequence of mass deportation would be the gutting of the social safety net, Dudley said. In 2022, undocumented immigrants paid almost $100 billion in taxes, and about a third went to Medicare and Social Security, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.

“If you transition away from an undocumented labor force in agriculture, construction, restaurants, and other service sectors,” Dudley said, “there would be a significant financial loss to those systems, affecting all beneficiaries including the growing number of ‘baby boomers’ who are increasingly reliant on those programs for their financial well-being.”

The dairy industry relies heavily on undocumented labor, and it can’t use the H-2A program because milking cows is not a seasonal job. When asked to discuss the potential impact of a Trump presidency, the National Milk Producers Federation, which represents the dairy industry, said it had no one on staff “whose expertise aligns with the story you’re writing.” The Dairy Business Association, which represents Wisconsin dairies, said it is not commenting on the election.

Instead of undocumented labor, Trump signaled his support for the H-2A program, an increasingly popular program bereft with labor abuses. In a 2018 press release, Trump’s U.S. Department of Agriculture called the program a “source of legal and verified labor for agriculture.”

While in office, Trump made it easier for employers to hire H-2A workers, including eliminating some red tape. He also sought to change how visa workers were paid, which would have limited their earnings.

But close allies of Trump have proposed eliminating the program altogether. They’ve also recommended ending its sister program, the H-2B visa, which the meatpacking industry has latched onto. Both visa programs are intended to address seasonal labor shortages.

The influential conservative think tank, The Heritage Foundation, is behind the proposals, known as Project 2025. Trump has distanced himself from it, but The Washington Post reported he flew on a private jet with its leader in 2022, and CNN found at least 140 people who worked in Trump’s administration are involved in the project.

Actually eliminating the visa programs would likely be incredibly unpopular among farmers and industry lobbying groups, especially without a viable alternative, Beyranevand said.

The visa system “provides a really stable workforce for the agricultural sector,” she said. “Without the stability, I would imagine that farm businesses would be really opposed to something like that.”

The number of meatpacking plants that use H-2B visa workers has increased six-fold since 2015, according to federal labor department data. Little said her organization, the Meat Institute, would continue to ensure the H-2B visa was open to the meatpacking industry. Also, the industry supported reforming the H-2A program to “include meat and poultry processing and to recognize the year-round labor needs of the industry,” she said.

Tom Bressner, the executive director of the Wisconsin Agri-Business Association, said his organization wants to see the use of the H-2A program expanded, as well. It also supports streamlining the application process and removing some red tape.

“It’s a good program, but it really needs some major tweaking to make it work more effectively,” he said. “You talk about a nightmare to try to qualify for that program. You’ve got people out there wanting to work and we need them.”

The National Corn Growers Association, which represents an industry that hires H-2A labor regularly, said it did not comment on presidential elections.

De Loera-Brust, with UFW, said he thinks Trump’s campaign rhetoric is not intended to translate into actual, on-the-ground policy. He made similar comments as a candidate in 2016 and as president, but deportations on the scale Trump promised did not occur.

“What I think the mass deportation slogan is really about is scaring workers,” De Loera-Brust said. “It’s about making immigrant workers feel like they cannot count on tomorrow, so they better keep their heads down and not say anything if they’re getting screwed out of their wages.”

Harris has voiced support for a path to citizenship

Vice President Kamala Harris speaks on gun violence during an event at John R. Lewis High School on June 2, 2023 in Springfield, Virginia. (Alex Wong/Getty Images).

In general, top Democrats have cracked down hard on illegal immigration while offering some relief. The Democratic president before Biden, Barack Obama, was often called the “deporter-in-chief” by his critics as he deported more undocumented immigrants than Trump. However, he also instituted the deferred action for childhood arrivals, or DACA, policy.

At the Democratic National Convention, Harris continued walking this line. In her speech accepting the Democratic Party nomination, she promised to sign bipartisan border security legislation into law.

“I know we can live up to our proud heritage as a nation of immigrants — and reform our broken immigration system,” she said. “We can create an earned pathway to citizenship — and secure our border.”

As president, Biden has cracked down on illegal crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border. In early September, the New York Times reported he was considering making it tougher to enter the country without a visa by permanently blocking most asylum claims. This year, the numbers have dropped to their lowest point in years. (Because of the economic importance of immigration, some experts also worried about how Biden’s policies could impact the economy, Politico reported.)

Biden tasked Harris with addressing immigration. In 2021, she visited the Northern Triangle, the area of Central America where many recent immigrants originate. She spearheaded the Biden administration’s attempt to address poverty, violence and corruption in the area, the so-called “root causes” of immigration. When she visited Guatemala, Harris told those looking to journey to the U.S.: “Do not come.”

In his 2025 budget, Biden said he’d address immigration by hiring more than a thousand new border patrol agents and about 400 immigration judges to reduce the case backlog. In the Democratic Party platform, released for its convention, party leaders said it would “explore opportunities to identify or create work permits for immigrants, long-term undocumented residents, and legally processed asylum seekers in our country.”

Xiuhtecutli, with the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, said the Biden administration probably eased concerns for undocumented immigrants who had lived in the U.S. for decades, mostly because the population was not a near-constant target of powerful politicians.

“There was some relief, at least in the sense that it wasn’t being talked about as openly,” he said, “but, in the community, there’s still the perception that the border was still going to be a hot zone, that it was difficult to cross, still.”

Some farmworker advocates are hopeful for what a Harris administration could mean. When it endorsed Harris, UFW, the California-based farmworker union, said Harris was the “best leader to defeat Donald Trump and to continue the transformative work of the Biden-Harris administration.” Biden, it added, had been the “greatest friend” the union had.

Solis, who is a UFW member, said she hopes Harris continues the policies Biden implemented and possibly goes further. Trump’s rhetoric stigmatized her and her family, she said, particularly when he said he’d end the birthright citizenship of her sons.

“I would tell him — with all due respect because he was president — he does not know how much he has hurt them with the way he expresses himself,” she said.

Mónica Cordero and Jennifer Bamberg contributed to this story.

This article first appeared on Investigate Midwest and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

A Missouri panel of lawmakers looks at immigration — and gets pushback

Mary Sanchez — Thu, 12 Sep 2024 15:46:21 +0000

Immigrants line up at a remote U.S. Border Patrol processing center after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border on Dec. 7, 2023, in Lukeville, Ariz. (John Moore/Getty Images).

It’s like clockwork each election cycle.

Politicians reach for an old playbook, brandishing images from the southern border, claiming that undocumented migrants steal jobs and commit violent crimes at an alarming rate.

The intent is to sow fear and misinformation about immigrants for political advantage.

During Tuesday’s presidential debate, Donald Trump talked about immigration more than any other topic, most notably citing false claims that Haitian immigrants are eating pets in an Ohio city.

“They’re eating the dogs,” Trump said.

Messaging in 2024 is following the pattern, even supercharging it.

The Missouri General Assembly entered the fray this summer, forming the Special Interim Committee on Illegal Immigrant Crimes.

That committee recently concluded hearings around the state, including in Kansas City and St. Louis.

It got an earful, with many witnesses trying to explain immigration law and citing data that refutes common messaging that many critics of the committee find starkly anti-immigrant.

“Our immigrant community is not criminal,” Tomas Hernandez testified in Kansas City, with the help of a Spanish language translator. He migrated to the Kansas City area three years ago from El Salvador. “Rather, we are criminalized for the mere fact of being immigrants. For me, it would be terrible if this committee goes (down) this path.”

Undocumented immigrants make for fodder in political campaigns in a country that talks more about building walls or welcoming people to the American dream than it does about finding ways to do either.

Little in that political rhetoric puts statistics in context, acknowledges the need for foreign labor or discusses the dysfunctional and byzantine path to citizenship or legal entry standing in the way of people who want to play by the rules.

Testimony in St. Louis noted that violent crime is falling in Missouri and accused the committee of cherry-picking and exploiting crimes committed by immigrants, which are statistically less likely compared to crimes committed by native-born people.

“This is simply not good governance,” concluded a statement submitted by the Migrant and Immigrant Community Action Project. “Missourians should be united to solve problems, not create false narratives for political gain.”

The political battle over the immigration narrative is being amplified by plenty of cash. In the first six months of the year, politicians nationwide spent more than $247 million on advertising and social media mentioning immigrants.

The outlay was $40 million more than what was spent on any other topic.

It’s a lot of attention for the estimated 3.3% of the U.S. population who are undocumented immigrants.

Pew Research Center estimates that about one in 100 people in Missouri are undocumented. In Kansas, nearly three in 100 are undocumented. They are a critical source of labor for the economy — and the focus of an ongoing debate about how the country manages its borders.

“I can’t speak for everybody on this committee, but my focus is trying to determine the facts regarding the headlines relating to illegal immigration and crime,” said Missouri Rep. David Casteel, a Republican from Jefferson County. “So without specific data, how can we determine where the truth lies?”

Witnesses speak

Kansas City witnesses tried.

Kansas City Police Department officers said immigration is a federal issue. And they do not routinely ask the immigration status of people because doing so could undercut the trust officers need to solve crime and serve the entire community.

“Our officers work very hard to make sure that people feel safe to call us,” said Officer Octavio Villalobos, “regardless of accent or what they look like on the outside.”

KCPD Maj. Kari Thompson repeatedly told the group that Black men are a heavy focus for the department, both as perpetrators and victims of violent crime — not immigrants from Latin countries.

Pressed for data about crime related to citizens and noncitizens, Thompson promised to share those concerns with superiors.

Labor expert Judy Ancel told the panel that wage theft from local immigrants is their most common brush with crime. She recounted decades of U.S. trade and foreign policy, trying to encourage the committee to understand that, in her view, the country is complicit in the factors that drive migrants to seek asylum at the southern border.

Immigration attorneys speaking to the Missouri legislative committee also highlighted nearly 49,000 cases backlogged at the immigration court in downtown Kansas City.

Immigrants are being told to appear in 2027 or 2028. That causes many people seeking asylum to miss their one-year window to apply for authorization to work, said Michael Sharma-Crawford, a Kansas City immigration attorney.

“The process is daunting,” he said. “That’s the easiest word that I have and it’s probably not strong enough.”

Backlogs in the portion of the immigration system that governs work-related entry into the nation can keep industries, such as the ranchers Sharma-Crawford has represented in western Kansas, from getting enough workers.

Meanwhile, foreign-born children brought to the U.S. by their parents can also find themselves without legal status even as they’re assimilated into American culture, like one student he aided who wore a Nirvana T-shirt.

“You can’t get any more American than grunge rock,” Sharma-Crawford told the panel. “We now have an Americanized, educated immigrant population.”

Immigration basics

Immigration law is among the most complicated parts of the federal government, second only to the tax code.

Those who know the convoluted system best — immigration attorneys, advocates for immigrants and scholars — argue the stakes are huge. Immigration law and policy can determine whether someone is sent back to a nation where they fear for their lives, or whether families remain separated for decades.

“A lot of immigration law is just sometimes outright contradictory because it’s been glommed together over decades,” said David Thronson, a professor at Michigan State University College of Law. “It just doesn’t have any coherence to it, the way something like tax law does.”

The policies and laws are intended to uphold the reunification of families, aid the economy by admitting immigrants with needed skills, provide humanitarian protections and promote national diversity.

The foreign-born population in 2022 was 14.3% of the nation’s residents, according to Pew Research Center. The historic high was 14.8% in 1890.

For decades, studies have concluded that immigrants are net job creators. They tend to start businesses more often than native-born people. And immigrants are about one in every six people in the workforce.

The U.S.-born population also is more likely to commit crimes, violent or otherwise.

But politicians tend to blame worries about the U.S. economy, lost jobs and costs related to housing, education and health care on new arrivals.

In 2024, the criticisms come from both Democrats and Republicans. Former President Donald Trump launched his first campaign by framing immigrants as invaders and calling for mass deportation, which most experts say isn’t feasible given legal concerns and resources. He has continued to call for mass deportation in 2024.

But Lucas Kunce, a Democrat challenging Republican U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, has also released ads touting his experience training with agents at the U.S. southern border.

In one ad, Kunce vows: “I’ll secure that border, no matter who the president is.”

Changing rhetoric

Invoking immigrants during political campaigns is not new. But there has been a shift in tone in recent decades.

Thronson begins lessons on immigration and elections by asking students to watch a 1980 GOP presidential primary debate between Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. Bush replied to an audience question about undocumented children attending public schools in Houston for free.

“I’d like to see something done about the illegal alien problem that would be so sensitive and so understanding about labor needs and human needs that that problem wouldn’t come up,” he said.

Bush added that the lack of legal pathways for migrants marked a fundamental problem. He didn’t want young children denied an education. (By 1982, a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in a Texas case, Plyler v. Doe, guaranteed those students the right to attend.)

Reagan proposed what is blasphemy in the 21st century GOP — allowing legal entry and reentry, work visas and to “open the border both ways.”

More than four decades later, an immigration system nimble enough to be responsive to U.S. labor needs still doesn’t exist, Thronson said.

“Both (Reagan and Bush) are significantly further to the left of anybody today, even the left,” he said.

In recent decades, gerrymandering has made congressional and state legislative districts more solidly for one party or the other, Thronson said, and that rewards extreme views during primaries.

One result is the use of immigration as a wedge issue, despite the fact that polling shows broad public agreement that the current system isn’t working.

The last significant change to immigration law came in 1996. It included several measures making it easier to deport people and taking away eligibility for some benefits.

The changes imposed three- and 10-year bans on undocumented immigrants if they leave the country to try and reenter legally.

“So people don’t leave,” Thronson said. “And now we have millions of people in this country who are eligible for visas. They have long-standing marriages to U.S. citizens and families … but they can’t get the visa for which they’re eligible.”

In June, the Biden administration introduced a program allowing a pathway for undocumented people married to U.S. citizens, if they met certain conditions.

In late August, Texas and Idaho filed suit to stop Biden’s plan. Missouri and Kansas are among the 14 states whose Republican attorneys general also joined the lawsuit, which a federal judge put on hold while the issue goes through the courts.

Playing for votes

Campaigns are targeting immigration messages at particular groups.

Black voters are sometimes being encouraged to see a Kamala Harris presidency as a threat. Harris, as vice president, was given the job of exploring the root causes driving many people from Central American countries to the U.S.

Trump has spoken of immigrants coming to take “Black jobs.” Metal signs with racially offensive messaging have appeared at bus stops in Denver and Chicago, goading Black riders to take seats at the back of the bus while “Kamala’s migrants sit in the front.”

The U.S. Border Patrol documented a record 250,000 encounters with migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border in December 2023, before seeing the numbers begin to drop.

In August, for the first time, the largest civil rights organization working on behalf of Latinos issued a border policy paper based on the views of Latino voters.

The report was a first for the D.C. group, UnidosUS, which is led by Kansas City, Kansas-born and raised Janet Murguia.

Overwhelmingly, Latino voters voiced support for an immigration system and border policies that would be “firm, fair and free of cruelty,” said Cristobal Ramón, senior adviser on immigration with UnidosUS. But he said that, like most Americans, economic issues rank higher with Latino voters.

“Pocketbook issues are always the leading issues for Latinos and Americans writ large,” he said. “Inflation hits everybody.”

The polling showed that Latino voters are not lining up behind hard-line approaches at the border, like separating families, especially children.

But they join other voters in wanting solutions.

“The Latino electorate has had this position for a very long time,” Ramón said. “What’s shifted is just simply that political parties, the candidates, have been starting to pay attention a little bit to where the public is, and have been shifting their positions around that.”

This article first appeared on Beacon: Missouri and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

U.S. House GOP sets up fight over noncitizen voting in bill averting government shutdown

Ariana Figueroa — Mon, 09 Sep 2024 19:53:28 +0000

The U.S. House as it returns from a five-week recess is preparing to vote on a stopgap spending bill that also includes a provision to bar noncitizens from voting in federal elections (Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom).

WASHINGTON — As Congress returns from a five-week recess Monday, House Republicans have attached a provision to bar noncitizens from voting in federal elections — which is already unlawful — to a stopgap funding bill that is already teeing up a battle with the Senate and White House.

The GOP drive in Congress echoes state lawmakers’ push for ballot measures this November that would bar noncitizens from voting in Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Wisconsin.

It also comes in the heat of the presidential campaign, as Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump repeatedly calls for mass deportations of undocumented immigrants and faces the Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, in a crucial Tuesday night debate.

Current federal government spending will expire Oct. 1, so Congress must pass a continuing resolution, or CR, to approve temporary spending beyond that date or risk a shutdown.

The measure that requires proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections, which U.S. House Republicans and some vulnerable Democrats passed in July, has been added by the House GOP to a CR that would extend spending until March 28. A vote by the House is expected this week.

The White House on Monday vowed President Joe Biden would issue a veto if Congress passed the measure in that form.

“Instead of meeting the security and disaster needs of the Nation, this bill includes unrelated cynical legislation that would do nothing to safeguard our elections, but would make it much harder for all eligible Americans to register to vote and increase the risk that eligible voters are purged from voter rolls,” the White House said in a statement Monday. “It is already illegal for noncitizens to vote in Federal elections—it is a Federal crime punishable by prison and fines.”

Senate opposition

The voting language is a nonstarter among Senate Democrats, who hold a slim majority in the chamber.

“As we have said repeatedly, avoiding a government shutdown requires bipartisanship, not a bill drawn up by one party,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Patty Murray of Washington said in a joint statement Friday.

“If Speaker Johnson drives House Republicans down this highly partisan path, the odds of a shutdown go way up, and Americans will know that the responsibility of a shutdown will be on the House Republicans’ hands,” they continued.

Democrats have argued that the bill is an attempt to sow distrust in U.S. elections ahead of November elections.

House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana has stressed that noncitizen voting in federal elections is an issue, although research has found it rarely happens.

“As the 2024 election nears, it is imperative that Congress does everything within our power to protect the integrity of our nation’s election system,” he said in a statement.

The bill is also supported by Trump.

In April, Johnson while at Trump’s residence in Palm Beach, Florida, announced the House would pass a bill relating to noncitizen voting. The former president has often falsely blamed voting by large numbers of undocumented people for his 2016 opponent Hillary Clinton as the reason he lost the popular vote.

Other Democrats objected to passing a CR that would last until next year.

The top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, criticized the six-month measure because it is “shortchanging veterans and jeopardizing their care by kicking the can down the road until March.”

“A continuing resolution to the end of March provides Republicans with more leverage to attempt to force their unpopular cuts to services that American families depend on to make ends meet,” she said in a statement.

Texas congressman spearheads bill

The original noncitizen voting bill, H.R.8281, was first introduced by Texas GOP Rep. Chip Roy, a member of the far-right House Freedom Caucus. It passed 221-198, with five Democrats voting with Republicans, but stalled in the Senate.

Those five Democrats who voted in support of the measure are: Reps. Jared Golden of Maine, Henry Cuellar of Texas, Donald Davis of North Carolina, Vicente Gonzalez of Texas and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington.

Under current U.S. law, only citizens can vote in federal elections, but the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 prohibits states from confirming citizenship status.

Along with the ballot measures, hundreds of Republican state legislators have also signed on to a letter by the Only Citizens Vote Coalition urging Congress to pass a bill to bar noncitizens from voting in federal elections.

The Only Citizens Vote Coalition includes election denier activists, organizations headed by former Trump aides and anti-immigrant groups. It was founded by Cleta Mitchell, a key figure who tried to overturn the 2020 presidential election and is now running a grassroots organization to aggressively monitor elections in November.

Five of the eight states — Idaho, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Wisconsin — with votes set on ballot measures have state legislators who sponsored bills to put the question on the ballot and are signed on to the letter by Only Citizens Vote.

Federal judge pauses program that grants protections for undocumented spouses

Ariana Figueroa — Tue, 27 Aug 2024 15:28:35 +0000

A federal judge has temporarily blocked a Biden administration plan to give deportation protection to undocumented people married to U.S. citizens for at least 10 years (David McNew/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — A Texas federal judge late Monday sided with 16-Republican led states to temporarily block a Biden administration program that grants deportation protections for undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens and a potential pathway to citizenship.

The ruling by Judge J. Campbell Barker of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, is an administrative stay, meaning no applications can be processed while the case is ongoing. The Department of Homeland Security began accepting applications last week.

“The claims are substantial and warrant closer consideration than the court has been able to afford to date,” Barker, who former president Donald Trump appointed, wrote in his order.

A DHS spokesperson said the agency will defend the program, known as Keeping Families Together, in court.

“Keeping Families Together enables U.S. citizens and their family members to live without fear of separation, consistent with fundamental American values,” a DHS spokesperson said. “The Department of Homeland Security will comply with the court’s decision, including continuing to accept applications, while we defend Keeping Families Together in court.”

DHS is still allowed to collect applications for the program, but not allowed to approve them, according to the order from Barker. Applications that have already been processed and a parole in place granted, are not impacted by the current stay.

The states, which filed the suit last week, are Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Wyoming.

They are being represented by American First Legal, an organization established by former Trump adviser Stephen Miller — the architect of Trump’s hard-line immigration policies.

Those states argue that the Biden administration overreached its authority in creating the program and they argue the program would financially harm them if that group of undocumented people — roughly 500,000 — are allowed to remain in the country.

In his order, Barker set a court timeline that could deliver a decision by mid-October, right before the presidential election. Both sides have until Oct. 10 to submit their briefs.

“The court does not, however, express any ultimate conclusions about the success or likely success of those claims,” Barker wrote. “As with most administrative stays, the court has simply undertaken a screening, ‘first-blush’ review of the claims and what is at stake in the dispute.”

President Joe Biden in June unveiled the program, which is a one-time action that applies to long-term undocumented people married to U.S. citizens for 10 years as of June 17 this year. It also applies to their children. It’s expected to roughly include 50,000 children who are undocumented but have an immigrant parent married to a U.S. citizen.

The program allows for those undocumented spouses and their children to apply for a green card under certain requirements, which DHS will review on a case-by-case basis.

Under current U.S. immigration law, if a noncitizen enters the country without authorization, they are ineligible for permanent legal status and would need to leave the U.S. and then reenter through a green card application by their U.S. spouse. It’s a lengthy process that can take years.

GOP states aim to halt Biden program protecting some noncitizen spouses from deportation

Ariana Figueroa — Mon, 26 Aug 2024 20:18:45 +0000

Immigrants line up at a remote U.S. Border Patrol processing center after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border on Dec. 7, 2023, in Lukeville, Ariz. (John Moore/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — Texas and 15 states Friday filed a suit in federal court to block the Biden administration’s program that protects some people in the country without authorization who are married to U.S. citizens from deportation and grants them a pathway to citizenship.

States in the suit, which was filed in United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, argue that the Department of Homeland Security unlawfully created the program and that those 16 states will be financially harmed by its implementation.

“Longstanding federal law prohibits aliens who entered the United States unlawfully from obtaining most immigration benefits,” the suit reads. “This includes obtaining lawful permanent resident status — without first leaving the United States and waiting outside the United States for the requisite time — based on an approved family-based or employment-based visa petition.”

The other states in the suit are Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee and Wyoming.

The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment.

Applications for the program, known as a parole in place, opened last week.

The Biden administration created the program because under current U.S. immigration law, if a noncitizen enters the country without authorization, they are ineligible for permanent legal status and would need to leave the U.S. and then reenter through a green card application by their U.S. spouse, which is a lengthy process that can take years.

America First Legal is representing the states. The organization was established by former Trump adviser Stephen Miller, the architect of the former president’s hard-line immigration policies.

The program is a one-time action and it applies to people who have been in the U.S. long term without legal authorization and who are married to a U.S. citizens.

It’s estimated that roughly 500,000 noncitizen spouses and their children will be eligible to apply for lawful permanent residence — a green card — under certain requirements. It’s expected to roughly include 50,000 children who are noncitizens and have an immigrant parent married to a U.S. citizen.

Those qualifications include that a noncitizen must have resided in the U.S. for 10 years as of Monday, June 17, 2024, and be married to a U.S. citizen since that date as well. That spouse who is a noncitizen also cannot be deemed a security threat.

Trump promises mass deportations of undocumented people. How would that work?

Ariana Figueroa — Fri, 23 Aug 2024 19:17:40 +0000

A person holds a sign that reads “Mass Deportation Now” on the third day of the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum on July 17, 2024 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (Leon Neal/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — “Mass deportation now!” is a catchphrase for the Trump presidential campaign, as the Republican nominee proposes a crackdown on immigration that would oust thousands of undocumented people.

Often citing a deportation operation enacted by former President Dwight Eisenhower in the 1950s, former President Donald Trump has repeatedly vowed in campaign rallies that he plans to not only go back to the tough immigration policies of his first term in office, but expand them greatly.

“We’re going to have the largest deportation,” Trump said at a June campaign rally in Racine, Wisconsin. “We have no choice.”

The crowd responded with a chant: “Send them back. Send them back. Send them back.”

Mass deportation would be a broad, multipronged effort under Trump’s vision. The plan includes invoking an 18th-century law; reshuffling law enforcement at federal agencies; transferring funds within programs in the Department of Homeland Security; and forcing greater enforcement of immigration laws.

But whether a Trump administration could accomplish a mass deportation is doubtful. Historians, lawyers and immigration and economic experts interviewed by States Newsroom said removal of the more than 11 million undocumented people in the country would require enormous amounts of resources and overcoming legal hurdles. The effects on the U.S. economic and social fabric would be profound, they said.

“I don’t think it will happen,” Donald Kerwin, a senior researcher on migration at the University of Notre Dame, said of mass deportations. “But what it can do is it can make the lives of the undocumented and their families miserable.”

GOP support

Trump repeatedly has pledged mass deportation.

At the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee in July, delegates waved “Mass Deportation Now” signs as Trump said “to keep our families safe, the Republican platform promises to launch the largest deportation operation in the history of our country.”

In a March rally in Dayton, Ohio, Trump said some undocumented immigrants were not “people.”

“I don’t know if you call them people,” Trump said. “In some cases they’re not people, in my opinion, but I’m not allowed to say that because the radical left says that’s a terrible thing to say.”

Trump’s campaign message comes as the Biden administration has dealt with the largest number of migrant encounters at the southern border in 20 years and immigration remains a top issue for voters.

However, since President Joe Biden signed a recent executive order, border crossings have fallen to their lowest level since he took office.

The GOP and Trump have now set their sights on the Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris.

House Republicans already led a resolution disapproving of Harris’ handling of the southern border and labeling her the “Border Czar,” a title she was given by the media. Her campaign has argued she never had such an official title and her involvement with immigration has been focused on root causes of migration in Central and South America, rather than domestic immigration.

Even though Biden is no longer in the race, and has undertaken his own crackdown on immigration, he warned in mid-June, during an announcement of protections offered for the spouses of long-term undocumented people, that Trump would undertake mass deportations.

“Now he’s proposing to rip spouses and children from their families and homes and communities and place them in detention camps,” Biden said of Trump. “He’s actually saying these things out loud, and it’s outrageous.”

How does the public feel?

Polls have found Americans are split on the idea of mass deportations but Republicans are more supportive.

A recent CBS News poll that found nearly 6 in 10 voters favor a new government agency that would deport all undocumented immigrants. Of those voters, one-third were Democrats and 9 in 10 were Republicans.

The Trump campaign did not respond to multiple requests from States Newsroom for comment on the specifics of how a second Trump administration would plan to carry out mass deportations.

The massive deportation campaign that Trump often cites in his campaign rallies was conducted under the Eisenhower administration in the summer of 1954, with a pejorative, racist name attached to it.

“Following the Eisenhower model, we will carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in American history,” Trump said at a September rally last year in Ankeny, Iowa.

But what the Trump campaign is proposing is not an Eisenhower-style crackdown, said Michael Clemens, a professor in the Department of Economics at George Mason University.

“That policy was instituted hand-in-hand with a crucial other arm of the policy,” he said — which was that lawful work pathways for Mexicans to the U.S. were nearly tripled at the same time as the mass deportations.

“We’ve heard zero about substantial increases in lawful migration pathways from the people who are now talking about an Eisenhower-style crackdown,” Clemens said. “What they’re proposing is not an Eisenhower-style crackdown — it is something that the Eisenhower administration understood would not work and therefore it did not do.”

Additionally, the Eisenhower program was not as successful as thought.

The Einshower administration claimed that it deported 1 million people back to Mexico, but the real number is a couple hundred thousand, said Eladio Bobadilla, an assistant history professor at the University of Pittsburgh.

“It wasn’t really about getting rid of immigrants in any real sense,” he said. “It was a way to sell to the American public that the problem had been solved.”

While one agency of the Eisenhower administration was deporting Mexicans — and often U.S. citizens of Mexican descent — another agency was sometimes bringing those same workers back in through the so-called Bracero program, which was created through an executive order by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1942.

States and local governments also worked in tandem with the 1950s deportation operation, something unlikely to happen under a second Trump administration, said David Bier, the director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank.

“You also had the cooperation of the employers in those areas, because the Eisenhower administration was totally explicit that all the people that we’re deporting, you’re gonna get workers back legally through the Bracero guest worker program,” said Bier.

Obama deportation

The most recent mass deportation campaign came during the Obama administration, said Clemens, who studies the economic effects of migration.

That was the Secure Communities program, which was a set of agreements between local law enforcement and federal level immigration enforcement officials such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection. Localities shared information about noncitizens who were encountered by local law enforcement, such as at traffic stops.

“Our most recent experience with mass deportation at the federal level, mostly under the Obama administration, directly harmed U.S. workers,” Clemens said.

The program was slowly rolled out, from 2008 to 2014, but over those six years nearly half a million workers were deported.

For every 10 workers who were deported, one U.S. job was eliminated, Clemens said.

“The net effect is that Secure Communities cost jobs for Americans across the country,” he said.

In a recent paper for the Center for Migration Studies of New York, Kerwin and Robert Warren found that mass deportations would financially harm U.S. families, especially the more than 3 million mixed-status families.

“The household income in those households plunges, and drops all of these families, or a high percentage of them, into poverty,” Kerwin said.

Of those mixed-status families, meaning some family members have different citizenship or immigration status, about 6.6 million members are U.S. citizens, said Warren, a senior visiting fellow at the center, a think tank that studies domestic and international migration patterns.

“So you say, ‘We took out one undocumented immigrant,’ but you damaged a family of U.S. citizens,” Warren said.

Expanded executive authority

The early architects of the Trump administration’s immigration policies such as Steven Miller and Ken Cuccinelli have laid out a second term that would expand the use of executive authority to carry out mass deportations and curtail legal immigration.

Such policies include limiting humanitarian visas and parole and moving to end Temporary Protected Status, known as TPS, said ManoLasya Perepa, policy and practice counsel with the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

Like the first Trump administration, Perepa anticipates that there will be a slew of lawsuits to file injunctions, such as preventing the ending of TPS.

The Trump administration dealt with a flurry of lawsuits over an order to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which protects a little over half a million undocumented people brought into the United States as children without authorization.

The Supreme Court eventually blocked it and kept the program, but DACA is still at risk of being deemed unlawful in a separate suit that is likely to head again to the high court.

“I think anybody with a status that keeps getting renewed is really, really at risk,” she said. “All you’re doing is driving people into the shadows.”

With the courts likely to get involved, Trump has said he wants to go back to his policy that expanded expedited removals, which means if an undocumented person is in the country for two years without a court hearing or any type of authorization, they can be deported without a hearing before a judge.

That type of removal is limited to 100 miles from a border zone, but the Trump administration expanded that to the rest of the country.

“The reality is, if the (Trump) administration increases interior enforcement, technically, all of these people could be detained,” Perepa said.

The Migration Policy Institute, a think tank that researches migration, has estimated that “the expansion of expedited removal to the U.S. interior could apply to as many as 288,000 people.”

Miller, a senior White House adviser during the Trump administration, said on the right-wing podcast “The Charlie Kirk Show” in November 2023 that the U.S. military would need to be involved for those mass deportations to Mexico, which is “why Trump has talked about invoking the Alien Enemies Act.”

“Because of the logistical challenges involved in removing…you would need to build an extremely large holding area for illegal immigrants that at any given points in time, you know, could hold upwards of 50, 60, 70,000 illegal aliens while you are waiting to send them someplace, somewhere that would be willing to accept them,” Miller said.

The Alien and Sedition Act, an 18th-century wartime law, allows the executive branch to deport any noncitizen from a country that the U.S. is at war with and deport any noncitizen deemed dangerous.

The law can also be used for extraordinary measures that are not deportation, including the last time it was invoked after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. It led to the internment camps of more than 120,000 people of Japanese descent, more than half of whom were U.S. citizens, as well as German and Italian nationals, during World War II.

Trump has vowed to use a title within the Alien and Sedition Acts to target drug dealers, gang members and cartel members.

“I will invoke the Alien Enemy Act, to remove all known or suspected gang members from the United States ending the scourge of illegal alien gang violence once and for all,” Trump said at a campaign stop in Reno, Nevada.

Cuccinelli, a former attorney general of Virginia and acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services during the Trump administration, wrote the policy section for the Department of Homeland Security for the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 – a conservative “battle plan” for the next Republican president.

In that section, he laid out recommendations for an incoming Republican administration to curtail the use of temporary work visas for workers in agriculture, construction and hospitality; prevent U.S. citizens from qualifying for federal housing subsidies if they live with someone who is a noncitizen; and require driver’s license information to be shared with federal authorities; among other policies.

The Heritage Foundation did not respond to a request for comment.

Punishing states

In a lengthy interview Trump conducted with Time magazine, he said he would withhold federal funding from states and local governments that don’t cooperate in deportation proceedings.

That could violate the 10th Amendment in the Constitution, said Mae Ngai, a historian and Asian American studies professor at Columbia University.

“States and municipalities cannot be coerced to enforcing federal laws,” she said, adding that immigration law is a federal matter. “You cannot force the police department or sheriffs … to pick up immigrants.”

State and local cooperation in detaining immigrants could be a challenge, said Julia Gelatt, associate director of the U.S. Immigration Policy Program at the Migration Policy Institute.

Legal challenges make it costly for local law enforcement to detain people solely to wait for immigration proceedings, and many local governments have decided not to hold people beyond their criminal detentions.

Funding issues

Deploying the military for immigration enforcement and constructing detention camps would also come with a large price tag.

Those large expenses would have to be approved by Congress, which may not be a willing partner.

There are ways to get around the legislative branch, such as reshuffling money within the Department of Homeland Security, but they come with downsides, Bier of the Cato Institute said.

“That’s politically risky because if there’s any kind of natural disaster, and you’re using money to deport people that can have some big blowbacks in the affected areas,” he said.

The Trump administration did this in 2019, when it transferred $271 million from the Federal Emergency Management Association to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It also transferred $23.8 million from the Transportation Security Administration to ICE.

Trump could also reassign law enforcement agencies to tackle immigration enforcement, Bier said, but he would face pushback from affected agencies that have their own priorities.

“They’re not going to want to cooperate with just giving up on everything they’re trying to do,” Bier said.

Congress aims to boost enforcement at the border – with Canada

Lia Chien — Fri, 09 Aug 2024 17:07:27 +0000

A U.S. Border Patrol agent walks along the U.S.-Canada border in upstate New York (James Tourtellotte/Department of Homeland Security).

WASHINGTON – While much of U.S. border security talk focuses on the southwest corner of the country, the U.S. Senate passed a bipartisan bill in June aimed at a different target — growing migration along the U.S.-Canada border.

The legislation, titled the Northern Border Coordination Act, was co-authored by Sens. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, and Gary Peters, a Michigan Democrat. The measure would hire additional U.S. Border Patrol agents for critically understaffed areas of the northern border and establish the Northern Border Coordination Center at Selfridge Air National Guard Base near Detroit to coordinate border security strategy.

The Senate passed the measure by unanimous consent, but the House has not acted on it.

The northern border is the longest international border in the world at just over 5,500 miles, divided into eight patrol sectors comprising 49 official border crossing stations.

It is also largely undefended.

Much of the border is undefined and unobstructed, marked only by a 6-foot clearing, or vista, that follows the length of the border, hundreds of white markers, and naturally occurring boundaries like streams or lakes.

Illegal crossings up

There has been growing attention from northern-state lawmakers in recent years over increased attempted illegal border crossings as migration from Latin America grows due to economic and political conditions.

In 2023, CBP encountered almost 190,000 individuals attempting to cross from Canada to the United States. That’s almost seven times more than in 2021.

CBP encountered almost 2.5 million individuals on the southern border in 2023.

The Swanton Sector, a 24,000-square-mile area spanning the northern borders of eastern New York, Vermont, and New Hampshire, has seen the highest number of illegal crossings. From October 2022 to September 2023, CBP saw a 550% increase in apprehensions of people crossing from Quebec into the sector.

Encounters are when border officials catch individuals illegally crossing from one country to another either at or between ports of entry. Individuals can then be sent back to their country of origin, Canada, or released into the U.S.

Collen Putzel, an associate policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, a liberal-leaning immigration policy think tank, said in an interview with States Newsroom that encounter numbers don’t perfectly reflect the number of people entering the U.S.

“The encounter numbers may be increasing, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that the number of people actually entering are increasing,” Putzel said.

Understaffed

Staffing on the northern border remains a critical issue in maintaining border policies and security. The U.S. Government Accountability Office conducted a study in 2019 and found there were “an insufficient number of agents that limited patrol missions along the northern border.”

GAO attributed many of the staffing shortages to be a result of “competing priorities along the U.S.-Mexico border.”

A CBP spokesperson told States Newsroom in a written statement that more congressional support is needed to address northern border issues.

“CBP continuously adjusts to shifting trends while continuing to call on Congress to provide the resources and personnel necessary to sustain and improve our border security along all our borders,” the spokesperson said.

Peters said his bill with Collins would help solve staffing shortages.

“This legislation will further cement the center’s role in coordinating border security efforts, supporting personnel training and conducting testing for new border security technologies,” he said in a press release from Collins’ office.

Routes set by smugglers

Most of the people crossing the border come from areas outside Canada. About half come from Mexico, CBS News Boston reported. Others are from India, Bangladesh and Haiti.

Many buy one-way plane tickets to Toronto or Montreal.

The increased movement of people through Canada could be fueled by smuggling operations, Putzel said.

“Oftentimes, migration routes are, in part, dictated by the smuggling networks that are controlling them,” she said.

In February, Canada changed a visa rule for Mexican nationals, requiring citizens to obtain a Canadian or U.S. travel visa before entering Canada. Previously, no visas were required.

Canada has seen an increase in Mexican migrants claiming asylum over the past decade. In 2015, only 110 people from Mexico applied for asylum. At the end of 2023, almost 24,000 applied, the majority filing their claims from airport offices, according to the Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada Department.

National security vulnerabilities

With more people moving from Canada into the U.S., the situation at the northern border has grown more precarious, prompting bills like the Northern Border Coordination Act, which was introduced in July 2023.

In 2023, the CBP Office of Field Operations, which monitors the border at ports of entry, encountered 484 individuals on the terrorist watchlist attempting to cross into the U.S. from Canada. That’s almost nine times more than in 2021, according to CBP data. Officials on the southern border only encountered 80 people on the watchlist in 2023.

Authorities have also encountered more drugs being brought over the northern border. According to the CBP, drug seizures in 2023 were up by about 29% from 2021 levels. Marijuana was the most common drug officers found, with just under 3,500 seizures in 2023 compared to just under 2,000 in 2021.

But weapons and ammunition seizures have decreased in recent years. In 2021, CBP seized over 9,000 weapons, ammunition, and gun parts. In 2023, that figure was down to just over 4,000.

Rep. Shri Thanedar, a Democrat who represents part of the Detroit area along the northern border, said in a statement to States Newsroom that the Collins-Peters proposal “is essential to address the rising national security threat along the northern border.”

“I firmly believe this strategic investment will benefit the safety of communities within Michigan’s 13th Congressional District,” Thanedar said.

Economic factors push more migrants to U.S.

The U.S. may be more appealing to migrants than Canada because of culture and the job market, Silvia Pedraza, a professor of sociology and American culture at the University of Michigan, said. Immigrants are more likely to get jobs in the U.S. than Canada, she said.

“In Canada, people (immigrants) don’t get decent jobs. They (Canadians) treat them nicely. They’re even, I would say, hospitable and warm,” said Pedraza. “The fact of the matter is that they don’t give them any jobs that are worth anything.”

“We (the U.S.) don’t give them papers, but we give them jobs,” she said, acknowledging the better job prospects immigrants seek to support themselves and their families.

But Pedraza also thinks that Americans should recognize the positive economic impact immigrants bring.

She said with U.S. citizens’ increasing levels of education, they are less willing to work jobs in the service industry, construction, and agriculture. In recent years, immigrant workers have begun to make up significant populations in these industries, according to a study by Pew Research Center.

“We don’t seem to recognize that we have a real need, a real lack of people in these sorts of jobs that are essential to the economy,” said Pedraza.

Pedraza emphasized that the U.S. is a country built on immigration and that intense media coverage of the southern border won’t help solve the crisis.

“It’s such a negative portrayal all the time that doesn’t see the value of what immigrants bring to a country,” she said.

States pledged hundreds of troops and spent millions to help Texas at the border so far this year

Staff Reports — Mon, 15 Jul 2024 12:00:04 +0000

A soldier with the South Dakota National Guard stands near the banks of the Rio Grande in Eagle Pass on Sept. 11, 2023 (Photo by Justin Hamel).

More than a dozen Republican governors gathered in Eagle Pass in February, heeding a call from Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to confront what he labeled “President Joe Biden’s border crisis.” The governors, along with other GOP state leaders, vowed to send another round of National Guard troops from their states to the Texas-Mexico border.

With shifts in pandemic-era federal border policies, there’d been a sharp increase in migrant encounters in the latter half of 2023. But then January saw a steep 50% drop.

Still, the governors told their constituents that they needed to send more people to assist Texas in fending off an “invasion,” as both Abbott and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis have called it, or fight drug smuggling. But the deployments have been widely criticized as political grandstanding — opportunities to take photos near personnel in uniform on the border while feeding nationalism and fear during an election year.

States Newsroom outlets across the country have tracked state deployments and expenses so far this year as part of a collaboration with Texas Tribune and Stateline to get a sense of what becomes of these promises, and what those deployments look and feel like at the border.

States generally chip in anywhere from five to 200 troops for deployments that can last anywhere from a couple of weeks to months. Typically, the funding comes from state budgets and state emergency funds.

The federal government also deploys thousands of National Guard members to the border year-round.

Gen. Daniel Hokanson, the chief of the U.S. National Guard Bureau who will retire Sept. 1, told the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense in mid-June that nearly 2,500 troops were serving at the southwest border under federal command. Sen. Jon Tester, a Democrat from Montana, asked the general about the impact of this deployment on the guard’s other duties.

“There is no military training value for what we do [on the border],” Hokanson said. “For our guardsmen there, they might as well be deployed to Kuwait or somewhere overseas, because they’re away from their families. They’re there doing mission sets that are not directly applicable to their military skill set. That time, I think, would be better utilized building readiness to deter our adversaries.” — Marisa Demarco

STATE DEPLOYMENTS

Texas

Gov. Greg Abbott launched Operation Lone Star in March 2021, soon after Biden took office. Since then, the state has deployed thousands of people from the Texas Department of Public Safety and Texas National Guard along the roughly 1,250-mile border it shares with Mexico.

It was an unprecedented activation of soldiers for a state operation. Usually the federal government, not a state, deploys troops for long-term assignments and gives them much more notice. Soon after the operation began, guard members began to complain about being paid late or not at all, living in cramped mobile homes and feeling underutilized.

Today, 97% of troops currently on the mission volunteered to be deployed, according to guard leadership. The state also just finished building the first phase of a new base in Eagle Pass to house National Guard members. The base is designed to house up to 2,300 people.

Texas has spent more than $11 billion on Operation Lone Star to date, but it’s not clear how much of the money has been spent on the National Guard deployment, and the state hasn’t divulged exactly how many people have been sent to the border. — Alejandro Serrano / The Texas Tribune

Missouri

When Gov. Mike Parson announced a deployment of 200 National Guard troops and 22 state highway patrol officers in February, he cited a visit to the region that he said showed it was a “crisis.” There has been some debate over the deployment, which was funded in part by a special appropriation bill.

During a February budget hearing, lawmakers focused on short-staffing at the state patrol, noting that the officers were being sent despite being 132 short of full strength.

“Does that not put Missouri at risk when we’re sending even more troopers away when we already have a deficit of 132?” asked state Rep. Deb Lavender, a Democrat from Manchester.

Col. Eric Olson, superintendent of the patrol, said only volunteers were going, and they had been selected from eight of the patrol’s nine regions.

“Geographically, we spread that out,” Olson said, “and we feel like we will be able to manage this event as well as take care of our duties here at home.”

There was very little opposition to the actual spending once troopers were deployed in March. National Guard members were sent on rotations of 50 over three months at a cost of $2 million, while patrol officers were split into two teams and sent to Texas for 32 days at a cost of $206,000. The deployments were set to end on June 13. The money came from the state’s general fund.

The Missouri budget for the fiscal year that began July 1 included $8.8 million to continue deployments for a full year, but Parson has said he will not extend the deployment and vetoed $6 million of that appropriation.

“We don’t need that money,” he said. “I think that was more of a political statement people were trying to make.”

In his letter to lawmakers explaining the veto, Parson wrote the National Guard’s deployment to the southern border has already concluded. If there is a need to deploy again, Parson wrote, there is enough money already in the budget to “support another short-term mission.” — Rudi Keller / Missouri Independent

South Dakota

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem’s deployment of 60 National Guard troops in the spring is the state’s fifth deployment to the U.S.-Mexico border since 2021.

Noem initiated three of the deployments in response to calls for help from Texas, and the other two were federal.

One of the deployments Noem initiated was mostly funded by a $1 million donation from Tennessee billionaire Willis Johnson. That donation and Noem’s use of it sparked criticism from Democrats, who said it gave the appearance that the South Dakota National Guard is available to do the political bidding of wealthy donors.

Noem funded the remaining costs and the two other deployments she initiated with money from the state’s Emergency and Disaster Fund, despite a state law that defines emergencies and disasters as events “in any part of the state.” She declined to deploy guard troops to flood-ravaged areas in South Dakota in late June. Her use of the fund has drawn bipartisan criticism from some legislators, but a majority endorsed the practice during the last legislative session.

Previous deployments have cost the Emergency and Disaster Fund at least $1.3 million, and $1.5 million is budgeted from the fund for this year’s. No further deployments are planned yet. — Seth Tupper / South Dakota Searchlight

Montana

After Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte made a trip to the border earlier in the year, he declared that he would send members of the Montana National Guard to Texas at the request of the Texas governor, a fellow Republican.

Ten troops were called to active duty for vehicle repair and maintenance.

They returned home in mid-May after a monthlong deployment, where Gianforte met with them for breakfast, and he declared May “Military Appreciation Month” in Montana.

Despite public document requests being filed in April, no information has yet been released on the expense. — Darrell Ehrlick / Daily Montanan

Indiana

Indiana’s National Guard has estimated the cost of a 10-month, 50-member deployment at $7 million. The troops were called up under state active duty, meaning Indiana pays their salaries. That budget also covers transportation, supplies and maintenance.

Guard officials have said they will use existing appropriations in their budget for the costs.

Gov. Eric Holcomb made the move this year — his last in office. He didn’t need legislative action. There has been little debate on the matter. Republican lawmakers issued supportive statements, and Democrats have been opposed.

Troops deployed in early April. That month, an Indiana guard member assigned to Operation Lone Star shot a migrant who was attacking another migrant, according to a U.S. Border Patrol bulletin.

“I am beyond thankful to this individual who potentially saved two lives by defending them and themselves. I’m reassured that the training that they got before they deployed and assumed this active duty on the southern border was beneficial,” Holcomb told reporters on a Zoom. — Niki Kelly / Indiana Capital Chronicle

New Hampshire

New Hampshire National Guard troops have been deployed to the southern border twice since 2020, each time for about a year and by the federal government. From April through early June, 15 soldiers from New Hampshire were stationed at a Texas National Guard base camp in Del Rio, about an hour from Eagle Pass.

Two months earlier, during an hourlong discussion with Gov. Chris Sununu, the Joint Legislative Fiscal Committee’s Democrats in February asked the governor how much of an impact 15 National Guard members could have at a border crossing seeing thousands of migrants a day.

Sen. Lou D’Allesandro, a Manchester Democrat, said a better response could come from Republicans in Congress who blocked a border deal that cleared the U.S. Senate. “Although it’s a wonderful thought in terms of support, it seems to be that the real issue is that Congress isn’t funding what they should be funding to protect the southern border,” D’Allesandro told Sununu.

The committee’s Republicans praised Sununu’s plan to send troops to the border. Senate President Jeb Bradley noted the governor had requested the funding for the 2024 deployment under the civil emergency law to address the state’s drug overdose deaths, which have topped 400 yearly since 2015.

The three-month deployment cost the state $850,000, which covered salary and benefits. New Hampshire paid the Texas National Guard $200 a day per soldier for room and board, as well as other expenses at its base in Del Rio. — Annmarie Timmins / New Hampshire Bulletin

Idaho

In Idaho Gov. Brad Little’s State of the State Address in January, he announced he would send two teams of five state police troopers to the border to “learn the best tactics to respond to those who smuggle and abuse vulnerable people.”

The 10 officers were sent to the border in April for three weeks and partnered with the Texas Department of Public Safety for the mission.

“We are determined to utilize this training to enhance our efforts in Idaho and to combat human trafficking with utmost efficiency,” Idaho State Police Col. Kedrick Wills said. “It’s vital for our troopers to face repeated real-world scenarios to sharpen their skills.”

The governor this year recommended $200,000 to the Idaho state police budget to send troopers to the Texas-Mexico border for training. The total cost of the trip was $205,655.

One state police officer said the majority of the time was spent along the border wall assisting the Texas Department of Public Safety and the National Guard with traffic stops and arrests, then turning people over to the Border Patrol. — Mia Maldonado / Idaho Capital Sun

Nebraska

Republican Gov. Jim Pillen has continued a push by his predecessor, former Gov. Pete Ricketts, to send state-paid law enforcement and National Guard members to the Texas border with Mexico.

In 2023, Pillen sent 61 National Guard members and 10 state troopers to the border, and Ricketts sent 32 state troopers to the Del Rio area in 2021.

This year, Nebraska sent 24 National Guard members for roughly three months from April 1 through June 27. Ten state patrol troopers deployed for two weeks from April 14-28. No additional deployments have been announced.

This year’s two border deployments ordered by Pillen cost a combined $1.27 million. The state says it paid $1.2 million of that total using interest accrued from the second wave of $48 million in federal pandemic relief funds that Congress set aside for rental assistance.

State taxpayers covered the remaining $71,675 from the state’s general fund, the Nebraska state patrol confirmed.

Pillen has argued that public safety and national security dictate the need for every state to send help, speaking often about the importance of doing what it takes to stem the flow of migrants at the southern border. He has dismissed questions about the cost-effectiveness of state efforts.

Pillen, like Ricketts, has faced criticism of his efforts from some Democrats and from groups that advocate for immigrant rights and those representing Latino voices in Nebraska. They argue that his push is political and his rhetoric about crime and drugs at the border contributes to the animosity and fear local Latinos face. — Aaron Sanderford / Nebraska Examiner

Iowa

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds has deployed National Guard troops and state law enforcement officers to the border multiple times in recent years. There are currently five Iowa National Guard troops in Texas who arrived April 1 and will be there through Sept. 30, providing public affairs assistance and vehicle maintenance for Operation Lone Star. Earlier this year, 110 troops were deployed to the Texas border from April 1 through May 3, assisting the Texas Military Department. Eight Iowa Department of Public Safety troopers and two sergeants went to work with Texas DPS from March 31 through April 27.

The cost of the 2024 border deployment has not yet been released, according to Iowa National Guard officials.

Previous deployments saw 109 National Guard members and 31 Iowa DPS personnel assisting at the border in 2023, and 28 Iowa State Patrol troopers in 2021. While the deployments over the past two years have been financed using federal American Rescue Plan funding, with the 2023 mission costing $1.93 million, according to the governor, the 2021 deployment was paid for with $300,000 in other state funds

Reynolds has also spoken in favor of the 2023 Texas law — currently under injunction — allowing state law enforcement to arrest migrants suspected of illegally entering the country. She signed into law a similar measure this year that was set to take effect July 1 but is under a preliminary injunction following challenges from the U.S. Department of Justice and civil rights organizations.

The blocked Iowa statute would have also allowed state law enforcement to arrest and charge immigrants if they have been previously deported, removed or denied admission from the U.S., or if they have an order to leave the country. Judges would have been allowed to order people charged with “illegal reentry” crimes to leave the country or face prison time, with state agencies and law enforcement authorized to transport them to U.S. ports of entry to ensure they leave the country.

State Attorney General Brenna Bird appealed the injunction ruling on Iowa’s law in June, seeking to begin enforcement. — Robin Opsahl / Iowa Capital Dispatch

Tennessee

Gov. Bill Lee has continued to deploy Tennessee National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border since 2021, when he first sent 300 troops on a yearlong mission.

In March, Lee affirmed he would send two waves of 50 active-duty soldiers as part of Operation Lone Star, in addition to the 123 deployed in October 2023.

State funding for these deployments have ramped up through the years. In fiscal year 2022, Tennessee spent $500,000. In 2024, it jumped to $1.4 million. The state government’s fiscal year 2025 started July 1, and $5 million in nonrecurring funds was budgeted. — Holly McCall / Tennessee Lookout

Utah

After Utah Gov. Spencer Cox’s February visit to Texas’ southern border, he deployed a small number of troops. The Republican governor announced he would send five people from the Utah National Guard engineer battalion to maintain military equipment, plus one sergeant and four officers from the Utah Highway Patrol’s Criminal Interdiction Team, which specializes in drug investigations.

The deployment for both groups was scheduled on Feb. 26. The highway patrol team went for 30 days at a cost of $100,000, while the Utah National Guard battalion was sent for 14 days costing $50,000. Funding came from the Governor’s Office’s emergency fund.

Legislative leaders at the helm of the Republican-supermajority Utah Legislature applauded the deployment when it was announced earlier this year, while Democratic leaders pushed back, arguing it shouldn’t be Utah’s role. Senate Minority Leader Luz Escamilla, D-Salt Lake City, and Senate President Stuart Adams, R-Layton, agreed, however, that Congress and the White House should seek solutions to the nation’s broken immigration system.

The Utah Democratic Party criticized Cox for playing a part in “the MAGA Republican party’s ongoing political grandstanding in immigration.”

Asked whether the governor has sent or will send any additional resources, a spokesperson said, to her knowledge, no additional deployments are promised or planned. A spokesperson for the Utah National Guard echoed that. — Katie McKellar / Utah News Dispatch

Arkansas

Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders has spent more than $2 million in state funding to send 120 Arkansas National Guard members to the southwest border twice since taking office in January 2023.

Eighty guard members were deployed for a mission that lasted from June 24 to Aug. 5, 2023, and cost $1.3 million. This year, another 40 were activated for a $1 million mission from April 1 to May 30.

Both active-duty missions ordered by the governor were paid for with state funds, said Maj. Cibeles Ramirez-Rodriguez, Arkansas National Guard spokesperson.

Additionally, 50 guard members were deployed to the southwest border from October 2022 to October 2023 for a Title 10 federal mission in support of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Ramirez-Rodriguez said. The state guard also sent 40 members to the southern border in 2021 for 90 days. That mission was primarily to recover and repair vehicles belonging to a Texas task force.

Troops from the Arkansas Guard were deployed between 2006 and 2008 in support of the federal Operation Jump Start under former President George W. Bush, with the state providing more than 750 soldiers and airmen in support of Border Patrol. — Antoinette Grajeda / Arkansas Advocate

Louisiana

Gov. Jeff Landry announced July 1 that engineers with the Louisiana National Guard would deploy in Texas to assist with border security through mid-November. Their assignment extends Louisiana’s commitment of 150 personnel from its state militia spread across three 30-day rotations.

Landry said the additional time guard members will spend in Texas will not create an additional cost to taxpayers. State lawmakers approved $3 million for Operation Lone Star earlier this year, and there is $800,000 remaining from that allocation, according to the governor’s office.

Landry is one of many Republican governors who have sent National Guard troops to Texas in support of Abbott’s border policies. In addition to busing migrants to Democratic-led cities, the Texas governor placed razor wire along the banks of the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass to hinder unauthorized border crossings.

In a letter to legislative leaders, Landry said Abbott and the Texas National Guard leadership requested additional engineering support from Louisiana. The governor said he has worked with Brig. Gen. Thomas Friloux of the Louisiana National Guard and Jacques Thibodeaux of the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness “to ensure that this will not impair our ability to mobilize troops here at home if necessary.”

Louisiana National Guard members are among the first emergency response personnel put to work ahead of a pending disaster and during the recovery stages. The Atlantic hurricane season started June 1 and lasts until the end of November. — Greg LaRose / Louisiana Illuminator

Georgia

The Georgia Army National Guard has fewer than 20 troops supporting Texas’ border operations, according to spokesman Maj. William Carraway.

Carraway said the deployments are paid for through Texas’ Emergency Management Assistance Compact and directed questions about funding to the Texas National Guard and Texas governor’s office. He declined to give a specific timeline but said the troops likely arrived in early May and that they wouldn’t be there long.

“It’s a short-term thing,” he said. “They’re just going over there, and they’re coming back. So they’re not going to be over there for years or anything like that.”

Gov. Brian Kemp announced the deployment in a Feb. 13 press conference in the Georgia Capitol, where he blamed Biden for what he termed a crisis on the southern border. Kemp said the troops will be responsible for assisting with the construction of a forward command post on the border.

Kemp has made multiple visits to the U.S.-Mexico border since he was first elected in 2019 and made immigration a major issue in both of his successful campaigns, suggesting in a 2018 commercial that he may need to round up “criminal illegals” in his big truck. — Ross Williams / Georgia Recorder

Florida

Gov. Ron DeSantis announced on Feb. 1 that Florida would deploy up to 1,000 members of the Florida National Guard and Florida State Guard to assist Texas with Operation Lone Star. That was in addition to the more than 90 officers from the Florida highway patrol, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and Florida Department of Law Enforcement that were already on the border.

A couple of weeks later on Feb. 23, DeSantis announced he would send more troops to Texas for border security — 50 National Guard members and another 76 Florida highway patrol officers.

How many troops were sent or what it cost the state remains unknown. Gov.Ron DeSantis’ press office did not respond to requests for comment.

The state budget this year provides nearly $20 million to “restore and build upon” the Florida State Guard, one of the state agencies that has been sent to deter migrants in Texas and South Florida.

Gov. DeSantis signed measures in 2022 and 2023 that included an additional $12 million to continue to relocate immigrants to “sanctuary jurisdictions.” This year, there is no funding specifically allocated for those relocations.

A spokesperson for the Florida National Guard said troops have also deployed as part of the federal mission in 2021 and 2023, with the next company set to depart in October and return a year later. — Mitch Perry / Florida Phoenix

FEDERAL DEPLOYMENTS

Barbwire separates migrants and Texas troops and law enforcement on the banks of the Rio Grande on Tuesday, Dec. 20, 2022, in El Paso (Photo by Ivan Pierre Aguirre for The Texas Tribune).

North Dakota

About 100 members of the National Guard deployed to the southern border in August 2023 under state orders from Gov. Doug Burgum. Members of the 188th Engineer Company, they were integrated into the Texas Department of Public Safety and Military Department for one month as part of Operation Lone Star. The North Dakota Emergency Commission authorized up to $2.2 million for the deployment through a loan with the Bank of North Dakota. About $1.7 million was spent.

Since 2021, members of the North Dakota National Guard have supported U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents every October under federal orders through the Department of Defense. North Dakota National Guard members will complete their third yearlong deployment to the southern border in the fall.

The deployed units, consisting of between 100 to 125 soldiers, are tasked with assisting with surveillance efforts, maintenance and other needs, according to the National Guard.

The 142nd Engineer Battalion will head to the southern border in the fall on federal orders under the direction of U.S. Northern Command and Joint Task Force North, according to a guard spokesperson. The unit will consist of about 50 service members. — Michael Achterling / North Dakota Monitor

Ohio

After a request from Texas’ governor, in June 2023, Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine authorized 14 Ohio state highway patrol officers and supervisors to go to Texas to help with border surveillance for two weeks. They were not tasked with making arrests. A spokesperson for DeWine said in May that he did not believe Ohio highway patrol troopers had been down to the border at all in 2024.

Ohio National Guard spokesperson Heidi Griesmer said Ohio troops have had a continuous presence at the border since October 2020.

“Over the past four years, Ohio has deployed approximately 375 Ohio National Guard members to support the Southwest Border operations at the request of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Northern Command, including Ohio National Guard members who deployed in October 2023 and remain there today,” she said.

For operational security reasons, she said, they would not reveal the number of guard members currently at the border. Nor could she confirm whether there would be future deployments. When asked for the costs, she said they don’t have a figure for expenditures.

“Ohio National Guard members’ deployments have been paid for by the U.S. Department of Defense,” Griesmer said. — David DeWitt and Marty Schladen / Ohio Capital Journal

Alaska

Alaska plans to send 20 National Guard members and two helicopters to the border as part of the federal Department of Defense’s ongoing border mission, according to a spokesperson for Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy, a Republican. They are scheduled to support the federal Border Patrol for an estimated nine months, starting in early October. While there are no official orders yet, the state continues to move forward with planning.

This mission is entirely federally funded and not related to Texas’s Operation Lone Star, according to Dunleavy’s office. The state does not have plans to send the Alaska National Guard to support Operation Lone Star, the governor’s spokesperson said.

Dunleavy said in February that he was interested in supporting Texas’s operations, but cited the cost as a potential concern. The estimated cost was $1 million per month to support 100 guard members, and the Legislature did not include funding for this in the annual budget it passed in May, which Dunleavy signed into law in June for the budget year starting in July. — Andrew Kitchenman / Alaska Beacon

Kansas

The Kansas Legislature allocated $15.7 million to send Kansas National Guard troops to Texas to assist with the U.S.-Mexico border.

Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly vetoed the funding, but she was overridden by GOP supermajorities in both the House and Senate. That means the funding remains in place through fiscal year 2025 but is unlikely to be spent.

“As the Kansas National Guard’s commander-in-chief, it is my constitutional authority to direct the National Guard while on state duty,” Kelly said when she vetoed the funding. “It is not the Legislature’s role to direct the operations or call out the National Guard.”

The governor also said “lawmakers in Washington must act to solve this issue.”

Still, there are Kansas National Guard troops at the U.S. border as part of federal security efforts, whose deployments are federally funded by the Department of Defense. — Sherman Smith / Kansas Reflector

Michigan

Dave Kennedy, a spokesperson for the Michigan National Guard, said there are no troops deployed to the U.S. southern border, nor any scheduled for fiscal year 2024, which ends Sept. 30. While negotiations are ongoing for the FY 2025 budget, there has been no discussion of additional funding for deployments to that region.

However, that hasn’t stopped the Michigan Freedom Caucus, a small group of far-right lawmakers in the Michigan House, from demanding Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer send guard troops to Texas or Arizona.

The legislators banded together during the current session after Republicans moved into the minority in Lansing for the first time since 2010. The caucus says the military personnel are needed to help stop what they referred to as “sabotage” of the nation’s borders. Several members also visited the border in February.

Whitmer’s office has noted that the Michigan National Guard has made several deployments to assist at the southern border in the past few years as part of federal operations, during both the Trump and Biden administrations, including 175 members of the 3rd Battalion, 126th Infantry Regiment, who were sent to locations in Fort Bliss, Laredo and El Paso, Texas, from March 2020 to March 2021. — Jon King / Michigan Advance

Pennsylvania

In March, the GOP-controlled Pennsylvania Senate voted along party lines 27-22 to pass a resolution urging Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro to send Pennsylvania National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border. Introduced by Republican state Sen. Doug Mastriano, the resolution came the same day as a U.S. Supreme Court preliminary ruling that allowed state authorities in Texas to deport people who crossed the border into the U.S.

Mastriano, who ran for Pennsylvania governor in 2022 and lost, argued that immigration was as big a concern for Pennsylvania as it is for border states, noting that in 2006, then-Gov. Ed Rendell, a Democrat, authorized 500 Pennsylvania National Guard soldiers and airmen to deploy to the Texas border on a volunteer basis for “Operation Jump Start” during the George W. Bush administration.

Shapiro ultimately did not send troops. “This issue requires leaders in both parties to step up and deliver real, comprehensive solutions – not more the failed talking points and political grandstanding that have brought us decades without immigration reform,” Shapiro spokesperson Manuel Bonder said. — Peter Hall / Pennsylvania Capital-Star

This article was reported and written in collaboration with The Texas Tribune, a nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.

U.S. House passes bill requiring proof of citizenship to vote in federal races

Lia Chien — Wed, 10 Jul 2024 21:58:40 +0000

Voters walk into cast their ballots at the Center Point Church on Nov. 8, 2022 in Orem, Utah (George Frey/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON – The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill Wednesday that would require individuals registering to vote to provide proof of citizenship to participate in federal elections.

The legislation, passed 221-198, would also require states to check their voter rolls for registered noncitizens.

The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or SAVE, is intended to prevent noncitizens from voting. That act is already illegal, since under current U.S. law, only citizens can vote in federal elections, but the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 prohibits states from confirming citizenship status.

Voting laws vary by state, with some states like Georgia and Wisconsin requiring photo identification and others, such as Pennsylvania and New Mexico, requiring no documentation at all.

States that do mandate photo identification or other documents use driver’s licenses, military ID cards, student ID cards, birth certificates, tribal ID cards, or even a recent utility bill.

The SAVE Act, introduced by GOP Rep. Chip Roy of Texas in May, would require most individuals to have a passport to register to vote.

Only about 48% of U.S. citizens have a passport, according to State Department data. Driver’s license and tribal ID cards typically do not prove a person’s citizenship and couldn’t be used to register under the SAVE Act.

Data also indicates that noncitizen voting is not a prevalent issue, as many House Republicans have said.

According to The Associated Press, states such as North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, California, and Texas reviewed their voter rolls between 2016 and 2022. These audits found that fewer than 50 noncitizens in each state had voted in recent elections, out of upwards of 23 million total votes per state.

The measure is unlikely to advance in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

Partisan divide

House Republicans have stood staunchly in favor of Roy’s bill, H.R.8281.

On the House floor Wednesday, Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, urged his colleagues to pass the bill, saying it was “one of the most important votes that members of this chamber will ever take in their entire careers.”

Last month, Johnson’s office released a 22-page report asserting the SAVE Act was critical for American election integrity.

Johnson blamed the Democratic Party for keeping American “borders wide open to every country on the planet,” and claimed Democrats “want illegal aliens voting in our elections.”

On Monday, the Biden administration issued a Statement of Administration Policy against the legislation, saying there is no cause for concern about noncitizen voting and that it would only hinder the voting rights of eligible Americans.

Rep. Joe Morelle of New York, the top Democrat on the House Administration Committee, urged his House colleagues during Wednesday floor debate to vote no on the bill, saying it would be devastating for all American voters.

“This bill is about scaring Americans, this bill is about silencing Americans, this bill is about disenfranchising Americans,” he said. “This bill is about further damaging the foundations of our democracy.”

But House Administration Committee Chairman Bryan Steil backed the legislation during a Rules Committee hearing.

“In the past few decades, Americans’ faith in the integrity of our elections has eroded and it is Congress’ responsibility to restore confidence in our election system,” said Steil, a Wisconsin Republican. “The SAVE Act would do just that.”

Republican Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana in a Monday press conference called the bill “a safeguard to ensure that only American citizens vote in America’s elections.”

Election implications

Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York during Wednesday floor debate alluded to the broader implications of the SAVE Act, looking towards the November election and the possibility of a second term for President Joe Biden.

He said Republicans could use the bill “as a cover, already trying to set up an excuse for what may happen in November.”

Voting rights advocates have expressed concern over the SAVE Act, saying it contains many falsehoods and conspiracy theories that perpetuate extreme views.

At a Tuesday press conference hosted by America’s Voice, an immigrant advocacy nonprofit, Sean Morales-Doyle from the Brennan Center for Justice said the bill plays into greater themes of racism and xenophobia.

“It’s also a very damaging lie with an ulterior motive: to lay the groundwork for challenging legitimate election results down the road,” he said.

One House member equated the bill to a “Jim Crow poll tax” during floor debate. Jennifer McClellan, a Virginia Democrat, said she “is not aware of any single proof of citizenship document that doesn’t cost an individual money to get it.”

Wesley Hunt, a Republican from Texas, responded that “Jim Crow is over.”

Biden to unveil protections for some undocumented spouses, easier DACA work visas

Ariana Figueroa — Tue, 18 Jun 2024 10:50:06 +0000

President Joe Biden will formally make an announcement about protections for undocumented spouses and speedier work visas for DACA recipients during an afternoon White House event to celebrate the 12th anniversary of the DACA program (Drew Angerer/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration Tuesday will announce deportation protections for long-term undocumented immigrants married to U.S. citizens, along with quicker approval of work permits for those in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

President Joe Biden will formally make the announcement during an afternoon White House event to celebrate the 12th anniversary of the DACA program. The initiative was launched during the Obama administration and was meant to temporarily protect undocumented children brought into the United States without authorization.

The new policies were previewed by senior administration officials to reporters late Monday.

The new DACA policy will allow those recipients who have graduated from an accredited university and have an offer by a U.S. employer for a highly skilled job to quickly qualify for one of the existing temporary work visas, such as an H-1B visa.

The new policies came two weeks after Biden enacted his harshest crackdown on immigration with a partial ban on asylum proceedings at the southern border. Immigration remains a top issue for voters and for Biden’s GOP rival, former President Donald Trump.

Democrats and immigration advocates have long pressed the Biden administration to instill permanent protections for the nearly 579,000 DACA recipients as they await a decision from the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals that could deem the program unlawful. The legal dispute is likely to head to the Supreme Court.

Many immigration policy experts have called DACA outdated, because there are now thousands of undocumented people who are not eligible for the program because they were not even born yet. To qualify, an undocumented person needs to have continuously resided in the U.S. since 2007.

Biden pushed to take action

Americans with undocumented spouses have expressed their frustration and pushed for the Biden administration to use executive action to grant relief for the more than 1.1 million Americans who fear their undocumented spouses could face deportation.

The deportation protections to those married to a U.S. citizens are a one-time action expected to allow roughly 500,000 noncitizen spouses and their children to apply for a lawful permanent residence — a green card — under certain requirements.

To qualify, a noncitizen must have resided in the U.S. for 10 years as of Monday, June 17, 2024, and be married to a U.S. citizen since that date as well. That spouse who is a noncitizen also cannot be deemed a security threat.

The Department of Homeland Security will consider those applications, which are expected to be open by the end of summer, on a case-by-case basis, a senior administration official said.

This move is also expected to affect roughly 50,000 children who are noncitizens and have an immigrant parent married to a U.S. citizen.

For those children to qualify, they have to be 21 or younger, unmarried “and the marriage between the parents has to have taken place before the child turned 18,” a senior administration official said.

Under current U.S. immigration law, if a noncitizen enters the country without authorization, they are ineligible for permanent legal status and would be required to leave the U.S. and reenter legally through a green card application by their U.S. spouse, which is a lengthy process that can take years.

“The challenges and uncertainty of this process result in many eligible spouses not applying for permanent residence,” a senior administration official said.

Application info coming

More information on the application and eligibility process will be published in the Federal Register in the coming weeks, a senior administration official said.

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which oversees the legal immigration system, has a similar program that allows noncitizens who are immediate family members of U.S. military service members to obtain green cards without leaving the country.

“This announcement utilizes existing authorities to keep families together,” a senior administration official said. “But… only Congress can fix our broken immigration system.”

Any immigration reform from Congress is unlikely, with Republicans in control of the House and Democrats controlling the Senate. A bipartisan border security deal fell apart earlier this year. There was no pathway to citizenship in that deal for DACA recipients or longtime immigrants.

The closest Congress came to bipartisan immigration reform was in 2013, when the “Gang of Eight,” made up of four Republican and four Democratic senators, crafted a bill that would create a pathway to citizenship for millions of undocumented people.

It passed the Senate, but Republican House Speaker John Boehner never brought the bill to the floor for a vote.

Immigrant advocates, congressional Dems press Biden for permanent protections

Ariana Figueroa — Wed, 12 Jun 2024 20:12:45 +0000

U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, Democrat of Michigan, speaks Wednesday at an event outside the U.S. Capitol, calling on the Biden administration to use its executive authority to protect people in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals immigration program. (Ariana Figueroa/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — Ashly Trejo Mejia is eager to attend medical school, but she’s not sure she can pursue that dream because of an upcoming court decision that could end the Obama-era program meant to temporarily protect immigrants like her who were brought into the country illegally as children.

“You’re frozen in time,” she said.

The 23-year-old from Hyattsville, Maryland, was one of dozens of organizers and a handful of lawmakers outside the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, urging the administration to instill permanent protections for the nearly 579,000 recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program before a 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals decision that could deem the program unlawful.

It’s a case that is likely to head to the Supreme Court.

Democratic lawmakers Sen. Alex Padilla of California, Reps. Sylvia Garcia of Texas, Delia Ramirez of Illinois and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan called on President Joe Biden to use his executive authority to enact protections for beneficiaries for the deferred action program, which then-President Barack Obama created 12 years ago this week.

The lawmakers suggested the president could grant parole or Deferred Enforced Departure status, which allows those covered to be exempt from deportation for a certain period of time.

“This was a promise made by the Biden administration, that they would address this issue and we gotta keep them on this promise,” Tlaib said.

Padilla acknowledged that because of the makeup of Congress, where Republicans control the House and Democrats hold a slim majority in the Senate, any action on the program, often called DACA, must come from the White House.

“He has an executive authority to provide relief for caregivers, for Dreamers, for DACA recipients and the undocumented spouses of United States citizens,” Padilla.

DACA recipients are often called “Dreamers,” based on never-passed legislation called the Dream Act.

The White House did not respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment on any executive action related to DACA.

Court challenge

A case brought by seven states threatens the program.

In the lawsuit, which Texas led along with Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, South Carolina and West Virginia, the states argue that DACA places an undue burden on the states and that the Obama administration didn’t follow proper procedures when implementing the program in 2012.

The Biden administration implemented its own final rule on DACA, but a federal judge deemed it unlawful in a September 2023 decision. The Biden administration has appealed to the 5th Circuit and is awaiting its decision.

Under the federal court order, the program remains in place for people who are already covered, but an injunction was placed to bar any future applicants, like Reyna Valdivias Solorio, from being able to apply.

Valdivias Solorio came to the U.S. when she was a year old and recently graduated from Nevada State University.

“I’ve been undocumented my whole life,” she said. “The hardest part is the emotional stress that comes from living in fear that one day, my older siblings, my parents and I could be deported and be separated from my younger siblings in this country we call home.”

There are about 94,500 pending applications for the DACA program, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services data.

Additionally, the immigration advocacy and research organization FWD.us estimates there are 400,000 eligible undocumented youth who are unable to meet DACA eligibility requirements because they came to the U.S. too recently.

The program has seen legal challenges before, including a move by President Donald Trump’s administration in 2017 to rescind the program.

The move was ultimately blocked by the Supreme Court in a June 2020 decision. The high court ordered the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to accept first-time DACA applications, but the Trump administration didn’t until December 2020.

Spouses

Americans with undocumented spouses have expressed their frustration with the White House.

Speakers at Wednesday’s event pushed for executive action to grant relief for the more than 1.1 million Americans who fear their spouses could face deportation.

Ramirez said her husband, who is a DACA recipient, first entered the program when he was 14, and that many in the program are adults still waiting for a pathway to citizenship.

“I get to call him my husband,” she said. “Unfortunately, this country calls him undocumented.”

YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE.

Immigration group pleads for help bringing deported relatives back to the U.S.

Lia Chien — Wed, 12 Jun 2024 12:53:47 +0000

Omar Toumbou of Maryland speaks Tuesday at a press conference hosted by the Ohio Immigrant Alliance on the U.S. Capitol grounds. (Lia Chien/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON – The Ohio Immigrant Alliance at a Tuesday press conference at the U.S. Capitol called on members of Congress to bring deported family members back home to the United States.

Present at the event were relatives of those deported asking for both Congress and President Joe Biden to reform the American immigration system and allow their loved ones to return, many of whom had lived in the U.S. for decades.

Lynn Tramonte, director of the Ohio Immigrant Alliance, and Suma Setty, a senior policy analyst at the Center for Law and Social Policy, a D.C.-based nonprofit fighting for policy solutions for low-income groups, also launched their new book, “Broken Hope: Deportation and the Road Home,” at the event.

“I just wanted to take a minute to ask you guys to think about what if somebody told you tomorrow, you had to walk away from everybody, and everything that you had built for 20 years?” said Tramonte. “That’s what deportation is. It’s an extreme consequence for a paperwork violation.”

Wafaa Hamdi, an Ohio resident, also spoke to the gathered crowd, flanked by her young niece and nephew at her side.

Her sister, Tina Hamdi, of Dayton, Ohio, was deported in 2017 to Morocco, after serving a drug-related sentence that resulted from an abusive relationship, according to the National Immigrant Justice Center, a nonprofit that advocates for migrants and works with pro bono lawyers.

Tina came to the U.S. when she was 3 years old, and had resided under DACA status — a program for undocumented people brought to the United States as children — until her incarceration. She hasn’t seen her children in eight years, Wafaa Hamdi said.

“There’s a lot of kids, a lot of people in general, that have a loved one that they cannot see and that they used to go to sleep or wake up to every day and they no longer get to,” said Wafaa.

Tina’s son also spoke up. “I’m here because I miss my mom,” he tearfully said.

Longtime simmering issue

Deportation in the U.S. has been a contentious issue and top priority for presidents in recent decades.

Under President Barack Obama, average annual deportations increased by over 26,000 compared to the George W. Bush administration, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse of Syracuse University, a data research center.

When former President Donald Trump took office, deportations to Africa increased by 74 percent compared to the Obama administration, according to Tramonte and Setty. Trump also enacted several travel bans from primarily African and Muslim countries during his first year in office.

This year, TRAC found that deportations are up 50% under the Biden administration compared to the Trump administration levels in 2019, according to the publication Border Report. Many of these migrants had crossed the southern border.

Omar Toumbou, a Maryland resident, spoke to the effect historical Western colonization in Africa has had on deportations. Toumbou’s uncle, Abdoulaye Thiaw, was deported to Mauritania.

“Starting here with the will to want things to change will allow us to really start to break down these issues on a larger scale, to really understand what colonialism has truly done to the continent, and how it’s created such a broken, fractured structure to where countries don’t even have stabilization within their own governments,” said Toumbou.

Toumbou pointed to damaging effects of Western colonization, like political and economic instability, as the primary driver of Africans fleeing to the U.S. He said reformed immigration policies must take into account the systemic violence many Africans have fled.

“A lot of these things are a result of decades of neglect and also decades of blatant assault on Africa as a continent,” he said. “We need to change the way that we actually look at the continent as a whole.”

Central process advocated

The National Immigrant Justice Center launched its Chance to Come Home campaign in 2021. Its mission is for the Biden administration to establish a central process through the Department of Homeland Security for deported individuals to apply to return to America.

Biden signed a similar order in 2021 for deported veterans to apply to come back.

Democrats including Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, and Reps. Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri, Adriano Espaillat of New York and David Trone of Maryland support NIJC’s campaign and urged Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to establish a central system.

Members of the Ohio delegation have also taken steps to protect those from Mauritania from deportation. Over half of Mauritanians coming to Ohio settled in Cincinnati.

In January, Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown and Reps. Mike Carey, Joyce Beatty, and Greg Landsman introduced the TPS for Mauritania Act of 2024 to grant Mauritanians in the U.S. Temporary Protected Status, which allows migrants to stay and work in the United States temporarily. Many other activist organizations called on President Biden last year to halt all deportations to Mauritania.

For now, several issues plague those facing deportation from the U.S.

Demba Ndiath, an Ohioan whose close family member was deported to Mauritania, said language barriers, inadequate translators, and a lack of financial services for legal services make it difficult for people to argue their case to stay.

Tramonte pushed for overall immigration court reform in the U.S. and called for support for NIJC’s Chance to Come Home campaign.

The Ohio Immigrant Alliance also planned to meet with the Ohio congressional delegation to push for immigration justice.

The stories of those far away were top of mind for everyone at Tuesday’s event. Ndiath reminded listeners that they were making a difference for their loved ones.

“I wish they could see everybody who’s here,” he said. “Standing up for them, meeting with members of Congress, advocating for them. I think we’re building hope for them.”

YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE.

On the U.S.-Mexico border, hopes and fears after Biden’s order limiting asylum

Ariana Figueroa — Mon, 10 Jun 2024 21:25:11 +0000

Razor wire along the Rio Grande on the Texas side of the U.S.-Mexico border (Ariana Figueroa/States Newsroom).

EL PASO, Texas — Seventeen-year-old Karina Parababire gently rocked her three-month-old daughter as they waited in a migrant shelter before a Friday night bus ride to Chicago.

“I want my daughter to have everything that I didn’t have,” Parababire, who traveled up the extremely dangerous route of the Darien Gap while pregnant, said in Spanish.

The Venezuelan, who is traveling with her family, had to stop in Honduras to give birth to her daughter, Avis, before continuing to the United States. Once in Mexico, she and her family were granted an appointment through the CBP One app — a tool the Biden administration uses to grant migrants a meeting with an asylum officer.

She had been at the Sacred Heart Church shelter with her family for four days. They planned to continue on to Chicago, where they’ll be met by her cousin. Parababire hopes that after she gets to the Windy City, she can go back to high school and possibly enter college.

Parababire and her relatives arrived in the U.S. just before President Joe Biden issued an executive order that partly bans asylum claims when unauthorized crossings exceed a daily threshold. Because the family was admitted using the CBP One app, they were allowed to continue their journey.

As for other migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border, local leaders said this week they are anticipating the effects of the order to be somewhat beneficial in limiting unauthorized crossings, though there was also plenty of skepticism.

Immigration advocates expressed deep concern the order — issued after Congress failed to take action on sweeping immigration legislation — would lead to more harm to already vulnerable people.

“I’ve come here today to do what Republicans in Congress refuse to do, take the necessary steps to secure our border,” Biden said in announcing the order, referring to a bipartisan border security deal Republicans walked away from earlier this year. “This action will help us gain control of our border.”

Uncertainty about a new policy

The shelter at Sacred Heart Church that housed Parababire currently has a relatively low number of migrants — about 70 compared to a capacity of 120.

The director, Michael DeBruhl, said it’s unclear how the order will affect the number of migrants who arrive not only at the shelter, but at the many ports of entry along the southern border.

“The thing is that the Border Patrol is going to take the brunt of this executive order and that they will have to process everybody,” he said. “The difference is going to be that there are nuances regarding how everything can apply to asylum, so they’re going to make it more difficult for you to apply to asylum.”

The big question, DeBruhl said, “is how exactly they are doing that.”

“You’re gonna have all these Border Patrol agents making these decisions, all these nuances, of a policy that’s just been implemented,” he said.

A Customs and Border Protection official declined to comment on the effects of the new executive order, but noted it would change the processing of noncitizens at the southern border.

Local officials saw some positives. “This is a start, but it’s just the beginning,” the mayor of El Paso, Oscar Leeser, said during a Wednesday presentation to journalists with local border officials.

Leeser was one of the several Texas mayors who attended the White House’s announcement of this week’s executive order.

Leeser said he believes the order will stop unauthorized border crossings because “the consequences are greater now and that’s the difference.”

Presidential campaign

The order, which is Biden’s most drastic crackdown on immigration during his administration, comes five months before a presidential election in which it’s a top issue for voters and for his GOP rival, former President Donald Trump.

The order is currently in effect because daily unauthorized crossings have reached a threshold of more than 2,500 encounters with migrants each day for a week at the southern border.

“Simply put, the Departments do not have adequate resources and tools to deliver timely decisions and consequences to individuals who cross unlawfully and cannot establish a legal basis to remain in the United States, or to provide timely protection to those ultimately found eligible for protection when individuals are arriving at such elevated, historic volumes,” according to the text of the interim final rule from the executive order.

The order goes away once government officials determine that fewer than 1,500 people a day have crossed the border in a week’s time span. Unaccompanied children are exempt, along with victims of human trafficking, people with visas, people with medical emergencies or those who report serious threats to their lives.

Those migrants who arrive at ports of entry to claim asylum once the cap is reached and do not establish a “reasonable probability of persecution or torture in the country of removal,” will be removed and subjected to a five-year ban from applying for asylum in the U.S., according to the Department of Homeland Security.

Returning to Mexico or home countries

Leeser said the order will help manage high numbers of arrivals of migrants at ports of entry because it will allow the Biden administration to return those migrants either to their home countries or elsewhere in Mexico if their home country is deemed too dangerous.

Leeser said because of this, he expects migrants to use more legal pathways, such as the CBP One app, through which appointments can be made with an immigration official to claim asylum.

Through the CPB One app, more than 1,400 migrants are processed for appointments each day with an immigration official. The wait time for an appointment can take about five to eight months, according to a May report by the Robert Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the University of Texas at Austin, which documents asylum claims at ports of entry.

But Juan Acereto Cervera, the adviser to the mayor of Juárez, Mexico, which borders El Paso, expressed skepticism that the new White House policy will stop people from trying to cross the border to claim asylum.

“Nothing’s going to stop this migration,” he said. “It’s because something is happening in their other countries that make these people to try to find the best country in the world, that is the United States. That’s the truth.”

Jorge Rodriguez, the coordinator for the El Paso City & County Office of Emergency Management, said that it’s common for the number of migrants that arrive in El Paso to fluctuate, based on immigration policy changes from the White House.

“With time … what we’ll see is how this one will ultimately play out,” he said.

Legal action looms

Under U.S. immigration law, for a noncitizen to claim asylum, they have to reach U.S. soil and then make that claim. They can stay in the U.S. and receive due process if they have a fear of persecution based on their “race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion.”

The American Civil Liberties Union, which was at the forefront of many legal cases against the Trump administration’s immigration policies — including ones that restricted asylum — has already stated it plans to sue the Biden administration over its executive order.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, whose district includes El Paso, said in a statement that she was disappointed that the Biden administration focused its executive order only on enforcement.

“It is my sincere hope that administrative actions on immigration relief, like parole in place for the spouses of US citizens and designations of Temporary Protected Status for vulnerable populations, will also happen,” she said.

‘A very dangerous place’

Immigration advocates and attorneys in El Paso said during a separate Wednesday panel with journalists they fear for the impact the executive order could have on migrants.

“I think we do kind of know what’s going to happen — it creates a backlog,” said Imelda Maynard, an attorney at Estrella Del Paso Legal Aid.

Maynard said she can easily see how the executive order will be misinterpreted by migrants who will think the 2,500 threshold is a quota to allow people into the U.S.

“What the government is trying to do, right, lessen the amount of irregular entries, I think that’s going to increase,” she said.

Father Rafael Garcia, a priest who serves Sacred Heart Church, said he expects the executive order will cause more migrants to wait in Mexico, which could burden Mexico and leave those migrants in dangerous situations.

“It’s hard to know how this is gonna play out, but it doesn’t look too good,” Garcia said.

The director of Sacred Heart Church, DeBruhl, said that he thinks it will take a few weeks to see the full impact of the executive order.

“The conservatives are saying that it’s not going to make any difference… the (Biden) administration is saying this is going to have a specific (effect), and be quite impactful,” he said. “I don’t think anybody really knows how this is going to play out.”

Aimée Santillán, a policy analyst at the Hope Border Institute, which advocates for solidarity and justice across the borderlands, said that the order will require many migrants to wait in Mexico, and “right now, Mexico is a very dangerous place for migrants to be in.”

“We think that this might exacerbate the situation, or push people to … find other routes of entering the country that are less controlled, have less services, have less people receiving them and giving them assistance,” she said.

This story was reported through an El Paso-based fellowship on U.S. immigration policy organized by Poynter, an institute for the professional development of journalists, with funding from the Catena Foundation.

Executive order limiting asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border to be signed by Biden

Ariana Figueroa — Tue, 04 Jun 2024 16:09:05 +0000

In an aerial view, a Texas National Guard soldier walks past a barrier of shipping containers and razor wire at the U.S.-Mexico border on March 17, 2024 in Eagle Pass, Texas (John Moore/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden will sign an executive order on Tuesday that will allow him to partly suspend asylum requests at the U.S.-Mexico border when daily unauthorized crossings reach a threshold of 2,500 migrants.

“We do expect the authority would be in effect immediately,” a senior administration official said on a Tuesday call with reporters previewing the executive order. It would not be permanent and only applies to the southern border, including the southwest land border and southern coastal borders.

The White House has been dealing with the largest number of migrant encounters at the southern border in 20 years. In addition, presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has made it a top issue for voters. Biden’s move marks his most drastic crackdown on immigration during his administration.

The order makes three changes to asylum law under Title 8 of the Immigration and Nationality Act when that threshold of 2,500 migrants is reached, a senior administration official said. The first is that a noncitizen who crosses the border without authorization will be ineligible for asylum.

The second is any noncitizen who crosses the border while the order is in effect and is processed for removal will only be referred to a credible fear interview with an asylum officer “if they manifest or express a fear of return to their country or country of removal, a fear of persecution or torture, or an intention to apply for asylum,” a senior administration official said.

And the third is raising the standard for credible fear interviews to a “reasonable probability of persecution or torture standard,” which is “a new, substantially higher standard than is currently being applied at the border,” a senior administration official said.

“Taken together, these measures will significantly increase the speed and the scope of consequences for those who cross unlawfully or without authorization and allow the departments to more quickly remove individuals who do not establish a legal basis to remain in the United States,” a senior administration official said.

The order, versions of which were reported ahead of the White House announcement, drew criticism from both parties.

Republicans like U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana called it a “weak executive order,” while progressive Democrats slammed it as a partial ban on asylum.

A senior administration official argued that the executive order is different from the Trump administration’s immigration policies because the order will “only apply during times of high encounters.”

Biden, who campaigned in 2020 on protecting asylum law, is relying on the same presidential authority — Section 212(f) of the Immigration Nationality Act — that the Trump administration used to justify several immigration-related restrictions, such as the travel ban from predominantly Muslim countries.

The Biden order would also allow border officials to return certain individuals who cross the border without authorization back to Mexico – nationals from Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti and Venezuela.

There will be exemptions for lawful permanent residents, unaccompanied minors, people with an “acute medical emergency” or an extreme threat to life or safety, and for victims of human trafficking, a senior administration official said.

A senior administration official said this temporary order would go away when there are seven consecutive days when daily encounters are less than 1,500 migrants between ports of entry. Once that is established, the order expires in 14 calendar days.

The Biden administration has considered moving forward with the executive order after an immigration deal the White House and Senate brokered earlier this year fell apart after Trump came out against it. Republicans quickly fell in line. Among other things, that deal would have given Biden the authority to shut down any asylum requests once encounters reached 5,000 people in a week or 8,500 in a day.

A senior administration official said the 2,500 threshold was chosen to be similar to the deal stuck in the Senate.

“To Joe Biden, the safety of American families should always come first,” senior deputy press secretary Andrew Bates said in a memo.

“That’s why today, the President is announcing new historic executive actions to bar migrants who cross our Southern border unlawfully from receiving asylum. Because of President Biden’s leadership, law enforcement will gain new capabilities that congressional Republicans cannot block.”

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Already outlawed in Missouri, noncitizen voting ban will appear on statewide ballot

Jason Hancock — Tue, 04 Jun 2024 12:00:02 +0000

A national database run by The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, shows that there have been fewer than 100 cases of voter fraud tied to noncitizens since 2002 (Mario Tama/Getty Images).

Missouri’s Constitution has banned noncitizens from voting since 1924. And state law requires individuals to verify they are a U.S. citizen in order to register to vote.

But GOP lawmakers contend the constitutional and statutory language isn’t strong enough. Instead of saying that “all citizens” can vote, Republicans argue the state constitution should be changed to make it clear that “only citizens” can vote.

So on the final day of the 2024 legislative session last month, the GOP pushed through a proposal that would, among other things, ask voters to change “all” to “only.”

“If they become a citizen, then absolutely I would welcome their engagement in our electoral process,” state Sen. Ben Brown, a Republican from Washington, said while presenting the bill to a House committee. “However, what I aim to do is to prevent the dilution of the voice of U.S. citizens.”

Critics painted the proposal as nothing more than “ballot candy” designed to stoke anti-immigrant sentiment and trick voters into signing off on the amendment’s other provision — a ban on ranked-choice voting.

Marilyn McLeod, president of the League of Women Voters of Missouri, called the proposal a “red herring” at a legislative hearing last month.

“It’s already against the law,” she said.

Missouri initiative petition bill, a top GOP priority, dies on final day of session

The idea that noncitizens could be illegally voting has become an election-year talking point for Republicans across the country, often echoing the baseless conspiracy theory spread by former President Donald Trump that millions of undocumented immigrants voted in the 2016 election.

A nationwide survey by the Brennan Center for Justice found the number of noncitizens suspected to have voted in the 2016 election was only around 30. A national database run by The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, shows that there have been fewer than 100 cases of voter fraud tied to noncitizens since 2002, according to a recent count by The Washington Post.

The Ohio Secretary of State’s Office this year announced only 137 suspected noncitizens were discovered to be on that state’s rolls out of roughly 8 million voters. And the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office found that 1,634 noncitizens attempted to register to vote over a 25 year period, but all had been blocked by local election officials.

Yet in some states, even though noncitizens are prohibited from voting in federal elections, they have been permitted to cast a ballot for local candidates.

In 16 cities and towns in California, Maryland and Vermont, noncitizens are allowed to vote in some local elections, such as for school board or city council. In 2022, New York’s State Supreme Court struck down New York City’s 2021 ordinance that allowed noncitizens to vote in local elections, ruling it violated the state constitution.

State Sen. Bill Eigel, a Weldon Spring Republican and a candidate for governor, said the language in the Missouri Constitution designed to prohibit noncitizen voting is similar to other states where the practice is taking place locally.

He believes Democrats in Missouri could follow suit.

“So do I think that if (St. Louis) Mayor Tishaura Jones thought that there was an opportunity to start engaging noncitizens to vote in local St. Louis city municipal elections, would she do it using the same procedure that’s happened to these other states?” he said. “I absolutely think she would. So for me, it’s important to put these additional protections in the constitution.”

Already illegal?

In 1865, Missouri voters approved a new constitution abolishing slavery. The 1865 “Drake Constitution,” written by what were called Radical Republicans, took the vote away from former Confederates and extended it to immigrants who were not yet citizens but who had declared their intent to become one.

The provision rewarded the largest immigrant group in Missouri at the time, Germans, who were among the most anti-slavery, and therefore Radical Republican voters.

The franchise was taken away from noncitizens in 1924, when newcomers were more likely to come from eastern and southern Europe, in an amendment proposed by a state Constitutional Convention passed with 53.5% of the vote.

In addition to the century-old constitutional prohibition, state law also requires Missourians to declare whether they are a U.S. citizen when registering to vote. And Missouri Secretary of State Jay Aschroft, a Republican and candidate for governor, has repeatedly clarified over the years that state law says “you have to be a citizen to register to vote.”

Much of Missouri’s debate this year about noncitizen voting took place as part of a session-long fight over a Republican push to make it harder to amend the state constitution through the initiative petition process.

A campaign to legalize abortion up to the point of fetal viability submitted more than 380,000 signatures to the Missouri Secretary of State’s office, paving the way for the proposed constitutional amendment to potentially land on the November ballot.

In response, Republicans hoped to raise the threshold for amending the constitution from a simple majority statewide to both a majority of votes statewide and a majority of votes in five of the state’s eight congressional districts.

Under that proposal, approximately 23% of voters could theoretically control the outcome, where a vote against an amendment in four districts would be enough to defeat it statewide.

Missouri state Sens. Denny Hoskins, left, and Rick Brattin, center, confer with Freedom Caucus Director Tim Jones (Elaine S. Povich/Stateline).

Many Republican proponents of raising the bar for amending the constitution acknowledged its chances of winning voter approval was slim.

“Raising the threshold is a loser and various states have proven that’s a loser,” Tim Jones, state director of the Missouri Freedom Caucus, said earlier this year.

So to bolster the amendment’s chances, Republicans added the noncitizen voting provision.

Senate Democrats refused to allow the proposal to go to the ballot with the noncitizen language, arguing it was deceptive. They staged a 50-hour filibuster that ultimately killed the proposal amid Republican infighting.

“It’s in there to deceive voters,” state Sen. Karla May, a St. Louis Democrat, said during the filibuster about the noncitizen voting ban. “It’s already law, but they want to trick voters into thinking it’s not law. It’s deceiving language added to the bill.”

Gov. Mike Parson, a Republican, seemed to agree, telling a reporter from Nextar Media Group that “it’s already illegal for an illegal to vote in the state of Missouri. We’ve already got that part.”

With the Senate mired in gridlock, the House picked up and passed the rank-choice voting amendment that included noncitizen provision. After months of heated debate over the issue, it was barely mentioned when the rank-choice voting ban was sent to the ballot on the session’s final day.

“It seems like we’ve been wringing our hands for about a week or two on this particular issue,” state Rep. Brad Banderman, a St. Clair Republican, said during the House debate, “but on this day, on this Senate Joint Resolution, the other side of the aisle doesn’t seem to be standing at mics complaining.”

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Bipartisan border bill loses support, fails procedural vote in U.S. Senate

Ariana Figueroa — Fri, 24 May 2024 12:15:31 +0000

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, flanked by Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat, left, and Sen. Debbie Stabenow, a Michigan Democrat, speaks during a news conference to support a border security bill on Wednesday, May 22, 2024. The bill failed on a procedural vote Thursday (Kent Nishimura/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate failed Thursday to advance a border security bill as both parties seek to hone their messages on immigration policy in the runup to November’s elections.

The Senate bill failed to advance on a 43-50 procedural vote. The chamber already rejected the measure as part of a broader foreign aid package earlier this year. The bill, negotiated with the White House and a bipartisan trio of senators in the hopes of winning broad appeal, would have overhauled immigration law for the first time in more than 30 years.

Two of the border deal’s chief Senate negotiators, Oklahoma Republican James Lankford and Arizona independent Kyrsten Sinema, voted against advancing the measure Thursday, protesting what they said was an unserious process focused on political optics. The bill’s third major sponsor, Connecticut Democrat Chris Murphy, voted in favor.

The procedural vote to advance to debate on the bill came as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer aimed to contrast Democrats’ approach to immigration policy with Republicans’ ahead of the November elections. The issue continues to rise as a top concern for voters and remains a core campaign theme for the GOP and its presumptive presidential nominee, Donald J. Trump.

Both chambers are readying other votes seemingly aimed at highlighting election themes.

The Democratic-led Senate is teeing up votes as early as next month on access to contraceptives, and protections for in vitro fertilization, or IVF, as Democrats have continued to campaign on the issue of reproductive rights.

The Republican-controlled House is moving forward with immigration related legislation, such as barring noncitizens from voting in federal elections, something that is rare and already illegal, as the GOP continues to highlight its disagreements with the White House over immigration policy.

Shortly after the Senate vote, President Joe Biden in a statement said Senate Republicans “put partisan politics ahead of our country’s national security.”

“Congressional Republicans do not care about securing the border or fixing America’s broken immigration system,” he said. “If they did, they would have voted for the toughest border enforcement in history.”

Losing support

The border security bill, S.4361, received fewer votes Thursday as a standalone bill than it had as part of the larger foreign aid package in February, when it failed on a 49-50 procedural vote. Sixty votes are needed to advance bills in the Senate.

The bill did not get all Democrats on board, which Schumer acknowledged earlier this week was a possibility.

“We do not expect every Democrat or every Republican to come out in favor of this bill,” Schumer said on the Senate floor Tuesday. “The only way to pass this bill – or any border bill – is with broad bipartisan support.”

But the bill failed to attract that broad support, losing backing even from Democrats who’d voted for the foreign aid package.

New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker said in a Wednesday statement that while he voted for the larger package in early February – mostly because it included critical aid to Ukraine – he would not do so this time around because the bill was too restrictive.

“I will not vote for the bill coming to the Senate floor this week because it includes several provisions that will violate Americans’ shared values,” Booker said. “The proposed bill would exclude people fleeing violence and persecution from seeking asylum and instead doubles down on failed anti-immigrant policies that encourage irregular immigration.”

‘Another cynical, political game’

Democratic senators who voted against moving the bill forward included Alex Padilla and Laphonza Butler of California, Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Booker. Independents Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Sinema also voted against.

Sinema said she voted against advancing her own bill because she felt Democrats were using her bill to “point the finger back at the other party.”

“Yet another cynical, political game,” she said.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska was the only Republican to vote to advance the bill after Lankford voted against the bill he helped write.

Lankford said Thursday’s vote was “a prop.”

“Everyone sees this for what it is,” he said. “It is not an actual effort to make law, it is an effort to do political messaging.”

Padilla, who voted against the larger package, said on the Senate floor Thursday that he was disappointed Democrats were voting on the bill again because it did not address the root causes of migration or create lawful pathways to citizenship for children brought into the U.S. without authorization known as Dreamers, farmworkers, and noncitizens who have been in the country for decades.

He urged other Democrats to vote no.

“The proposal before us was initially supposed to be a concession, a ransom to be paid to Republicans to pass urgent and critical aid to Ukraine,” Padilla said. “What’s this concession for now? It’s hard to swallow.”

Senate Republicans accused Democrats of bringing the bill as a political stunt.

“One thing the American people don’t have to wonder about is why Washington Democrats are suddenly champing at the bit to convince their constituents that they care about border security,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said on the Senate floor Thursday. “(Americans) know the solution is not cynical Senate theater.”

Biden called McConnell and House Speaker Mike Johnson on Monday night to ask them to vote for the bill, but both Republican leaders rejected that appeal.

First vote

Lankford, Sinema and Murphy introduced the bill earlier this year, optimistic that months of bipartisan negotiations could lead to the first immigration policy overhaul in decades.

But Trump opposed the measure, and after those senators released the legislative text, House Republicans said they would fall in line with the former president. Senate Republicans then walked away from the deal they had said would be needed in order for passage of a supplemental foreign aid package to Ukraine, Israel and the Indo-Pacific region.

The sweeping border security bill would have raised the bar for migrants claiming asylum, clarified the White House’s parole authority, ended the practice of allowing migrants to live in U.S. communities as they await their asylum hearings, and given Biden the executive authority to close the southern border when asylum claims reached high levels, among other things.

Dueling messages

The day leading up to Thursday’s vote, Senate Democrats and Republicans held dueling press conferences on the bill.

Democrats, including Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow, argued that the bill negotiated earlier in the year would address the fentanyl crisis by providing new scanning technology at ports of entry and increasing staffing for custom agents.

Stabenow said she’s tired of Senate Republicans saying that “‘somebody should do something about the border,’” and that Thursday’s vote would give them an opportunity to address the southern border.

She was joined by Democratic Sens. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Brian Schatz of Hawaii and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, who talked about how many people in their states had died from fentanyl overdoses.

Republicans in their press conference argued that Democrats were holding a second vote to protect vulnerable incumbents in competitive races in Montana, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

“It is an election-year political stunt designed to give our Democratic colleagues the appearance of doing something about this problem without doing anything,” Tennessee GOP Sen. Marsha Blackburn said Wednesday.

She was joined by Republican Sens. Roger Marshall of Kansas, Rick Scott of Florida, Eric Schmitt of Missouri, John Coryn of Texas, J.D. Vance of Ohio and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin.

House opposition

Even if the border security bill passed the Senate, it would have no chance in the House, where Johnson has vowed it will be dead on arrival.

The Louisiana Republican in a Wednesday press conference called the measure a messaging bill and said Schumer was “trying to give his vulnerable members cover.”

And not all House Democrats were on board with the bill negotiated out of the Senate.

The chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington state and the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Nanette Barragán of California, slammed Senate Democrats for putting forth the legislation and urged them to abandon the effort.

“We are disappointed that the Senate will once again vote on an already-failed border bill in a move that only splits the Democratic Caucus over extreme and unworkable enforcement-only policies,” they wrote in a statement.

“This framework, which was constructed under Republican hostage-taking, does nothing to address the longstanding updates needed to modernize our outdated immigration system, create more legal pathways, and recognize the enormous contributions of immigrants to communities and our economy.”

Latino Democrats also voiced opposition to the bill when it was first released because it contained many hard-line policies that were reminiscent of the Trump administration.

Biden administration seeks to speed some asylum cases with new immigration docket

Ariana Figueroa — Fri, 17 May 2024 11:30:31 +0000

Asylum seekers board a bus en route to a shelter in New York City on May 18, 2023. The Biden administration announced changes Thursday, May 16, 2024, meant to speed processing of asylum claims (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration will start a new system Friday to hasten asylum claims for single adults, administration officials said Thursday.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Department of Justice will launch a new expedited docket for migrants who arrive alone at ports of entry and turn themselves in to border authorities, senior administration officials said on a call with reporters previewing the changes.

Those single adult migrants will have their asylum cases processed first, rather than have their case go to the back of the line, which can take years.

The new recent arrivals docket will “more swiftly impose consequences, including removal, on those without a legal basis to remain in the United States,” a senior administration official said. Administration officials briefed reporters on the changes on the condition they not be named.

“Today, we are instituting with the Department of Justice a process to accelerate asylum proceedings so that individuals who do not qualify for relief can be removed more quickly and those who do qualify can achieve protection sooner,” Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement.

The recent arrivals docket will allow asylum cases to be decided in 180 days, or six months, rather than years, a senior administration official said.

As of April, there is about a 3.6 million-case backlog in U.S. immigration court that will take years to process, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, or TRAC, which is a research center at Syracuse University that collects data on immigration. There are roughly 600 immigration judges in the country.

Average asylum processing time nearly 3 years

Currently, when a migrant arrives to claim asylum, they are processed and, if they are not detained, they are allowed to live in the country while they await their court date. The average processing time for asylum cases for fiscal year 2023, was 1,016 days or about 2.8 years, according to TRAC.

“The recent arrivals docket is designed to decrease the amount of time it takes for certain noncitizen single adults to have their cases efficiently adjudicated by (the Executive Office for Immigration Review),” a senior administration official said.

A senior administration official said single adult migrants placed in the recent arrivals docket will have their cases processed before immigration judges in five cities: Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and New York.

There will be 10 immigration judges dedicated to the docket, a senior administration official said.

The new arrivals docket will go into effect Friday, a senior administration official said.

The DOJ and DHS announced a similar process in 2021 where a dedicated docket applied to migrant families that arrived between ports of entry at the Southwest border.

The changes build upon the Biden administration’s announcement last week of a proposed rule that would allow immigration officials to reject asylum seekers who have a criminal record that poses a threat to national security or public safety and quickly remove them.

As the White House deals with the largest number of migrant encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border in 20 years, the Biden administration has faced continued intense criticism about its immigration policies from GOP lawmakers and the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Donald J. Trump.

Asylum seekers with criminal records would be more quickly removed under Biden proposal

Ariana Figueroa — Thu, 09 May 2024 21:21:32 +0000

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas participates in a fireside chat with Mike L. Sena during the National Fusion Center Association 11th Annual Training Event on March 28, 2024, at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C. (DHS photo by Tia Dufour).

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration announced Thursday it’s proposing changes to the asylum system that would allow immigration officials to reject asylum seekers who have a criminal record that poses a threat to national security or public safety and quickly remove them.

Those changes will occur during the initial screening stages, a senior U.S. Department of Homeland Security official said on background during a call with reporters.

The proposed rule would allow asylum officers to issue a denial within days if there is evidence that a migrant is ineligible to claim asylum due to ties to terrorism, a threat to national security or a criminal background.

“This really only applies to individuals who have a serious criminal history or who are linked to terrorist activity and that is inherently a small fraction of the individuals that we encounter or interview on a given day,” the senior DHS official said. “We don’t think that the rule will apply to large numbers of people but it will apply to the people that we are most concerned about.”

Currently, when a migrant claims asylum, they undergo a “credible fear” screening even if they have criminal charges levied against them, and depending on the severity of the charges, they can continue to seek asylum or be disqualified.

“The proposed rule we have published today is yet another step in our ongoing efforts to ensure the safety of the American public by more quickly identifying and removing those individuals who present a security risk and have no legal basis to remain here,” DHS Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement.

DHS is also issuing revised guidance to asylum officers to consider whether an asylum seeker can relocate to another part of their country where they fear persecution, known as internal relocation. This was implemented under the Trump administration by Ken Cuccinelli and the Biden administration rolled that policy back.

The new guidance “will ensure early identification and removal of individuals who would ultimately be found ineligible for protection because of their ability to remain safe by relocating elsewhere in the country from which they fled,” according to a DHS press release.

The Biden administration is dealing with the largest number of migrant encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border in 20 years, and has faced continued intense criticism about its immigration policies from Republicans and presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

Congressional Republicans have passed legislation to reinstate hard-line Trump-era immigration policies, walked back a bipartisan border security deal and recently impeached Mayorkas.

The public comment period on the notice for the proposed rule will be from May 13 to June 12. The senior DHS official said the agency anticipates the proposed rule to be finalized this year and quickly implemented.

U.S. House Republicans pass bill to stop census from counting noncitizens

Ariana Figueroa — Thu, 09 May 2024 12:12:51 +0000

A bill passed in the U.S. House Wednesday would add a citizenship question to the census and end the practice of including noncitizens in the official population count (Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — U.S. House Republicans passed a bill Wednesday to add a citizenship question to the census and exclude noncitizens from the official headcount when determining population for representation in Congress and electoral votes.

The legislation, which passed on a 206-202 party-line vote, is part of a trend of House GOP bills relating to immigration as the November elections approach. Republicans and their presumptive presidential candidate, Donald J. Trump, have centered their campaigns on immigration.

The Trump administration tried to add a citizenship question in the 2020 census but the Supreme Court blocked it.

“We should not reward states and cities that violate federal immigration laws and maintain sanctuary policies with increased Congressional representation,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said in a statement after the bill passed. “Common sense dictates that only American citizens should be counted for electoral apportionment.”

The bill, H.R. 7109, sponsored by North Carolina GOP Rep. Chuck Edwards would impact the 2030 census and onward if signed into law.

The census, which occurs every 10 years, helps determine congressional seats in the House and can determine political power.

Since the first census in 1790, citizens and noncitizens have been included in the official population count of the U.S. due to the 14th Amendment’s requirement to include “whole numbers of persons in each State.”

Edwards argued during debate of the bill that the Constitution did not specify that noncitizens should be counted in the census.

He argued that the word “persons,” in the 14th amendment, “carries no definition.”

It’s unlikely to pass the Senate, which Democrats control by a slim margin, and the White House already put out a statement opposing the bill.

The White House said the bill “would preclude the Department of Commerce’s Census Bureau from performing its constitutionally mandated responsibility to count the number of persons in the United States in the decennial census,” and would “make it more difficult to obtain accurate data.”

“The Biden-Harris Administration is committed to ensuring that the census remains as accurate as possible and free from political interference, and to upholding the longstanding principle of equal representation enshrined in our Constitution, census statutes, and historical tradition,” the White House said.

Numbers padded in Dem areas, GOP claims

During debate on the House floor, Republicans argued that areas that have high immigrant populations take away congressional representation from U.S. citizens and benefit states led by Democrats.

“This is absolutely outrageous,” Republican Rep. Garret Graves of Louisiana said. “This is 100% about stacking the vote.”

Tennessee Republican Rep. Tim Burchett said states with more noncitizens “will get more congressional districts and more electoral votes.” He said those votes would also benefit Democrats and “skew things in their favor.”

Dems warn of Hispanic undercount

Democrats argued that the bill would not only violate the Constitution but also harm immigrant communities by undercounting, and could threaten the accuracy of the census.

“The census is essential to democracy,” Maryland Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin said. “This bill would destroy the accuracy of the census, which may have something to do with its actual motivations.”

Raskin added that the bill would not only carve out all noncitizens, including permanent residents with green cards “who are on the pathway to citizenship.”

Raskin said the GOP’s move to add a citizenship question for the 2020 census led to a chilling effect and undercount of communities of color, especially Hispanics.

There were six states – Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, Mississippi, Tennessee and Texas – that counted fewer people in the 2020 census than were estimated to live there.

Nationally, there was a record undercount of Hispanics in the 2020 census of about 3 million, according to the Pew Research Center.

Eight states – Delaware, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island and Utah – had overcounts, according to Pew.

The chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Rep. Nanette Diaz Barragán of California said the bill would have a chilling effect on accuracy of the census and would harm immigrant communities.

“It’s a bill that threatens fair and equal representation of immigrant communities,” she said.

U.S. House GOP targets noncitizen voting, even though it’s rare

Ariana Figueroa — Wed, 08 May 2024 19:33:25 +0000

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana and other Republicans at a press conference introducing legislation on noncitizen voting at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday (Ariana Figueroa/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson Wednesday unveiled a bill that would require states to verify proof of citizenship to prevent noncitizens from voting in federal elections, something already barred under the law.

Johnson, a Louisiana Republican who played a key role through legal challenges in defending the former president’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, said at a press conference that voting by noncitizens is “a clear and present danger to the integrity of our election system.”

Outside the U.S. Capitol, Johnson was joined by former Trump aides Stephen Miller and Ken Cuccinelli, Tea Party Patriots co-founder Jenny Beth Martin and Cleta Mitchell, a key figure who tried to overturn the 2020 presidential election and is now running a grassroots organization to aggressively monitor elections in November.

The bill would amend the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 to require proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections, according to bill text provided by the office of the sponsor, Republican Rep. Chip Roy of Texas.

“Under any method of voter registration in a State, the State shall not accept and process an application to register to vote in an election for Federal office unless the applicant presents documentary proof of United States citizenship with the application,” according to the bill text.

It would also allow states to check citizenship through federal databases with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration. The bill bars DHS from charging a fee to the state for complying with a request to verify citizenship.

Proof of citizenship would also be required for mail-in voting and registration agencies would also have to verify proof of citizenship while registering someone to vote.

The bill would also allow states to remove noncitizen voters from voter rolls.

Johnson meeting with Trump

The press conference came after Johnson met with former president Donald J. Trump last month, and Johnson announced plans to take up legislation related to noncitizens voting in federal elections.

The April event doubled as support from the former president, as Johnson was facing increasing pressure from hard-right members threatening to oust him from his role.

The threat to oust Johnson as speaker is ongoing from Georgia’s Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Johnson on Wednesday did not give details on when he would schedule the bill for a vote on the House floor.

Utah’s GOP Sen. Mike Lee will introduce the companion bill in the Senate.

“When federal law has been interpreted as precluding, in many ways, the voter registration officials in the various states from even inquiring into someone’s citizenship when addressing voter roll issues, we have a problem,” Lee said.

With Democrats controlling a slim majority in the Senate, the measure is unlikely to be brought up for a floor vote.

Researchers and studies have disproved that noncitizens vote in federal elections. The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, conducted an analysis of election conduct from 2003 to 2023 and found 29 instances of noncitizens voting.

A few cities and towns allow noncitizens to vote in local elections, a move that has spurred a GOP backlash and sparked a conservative national rallying cry about noncitizens voting.

Since 2020, five states — Alabama, Colorado, Florida, Ohio, and Louisiana — have amended their constitutions to make it clear that only citizens can vote in elections at any level.

Trump has made his reelection campaign center on immigration, and the former president and Republicans are pushing the false narrative of noncitizens often voting in federal elections.

The executive director of a policy think tank, Sam Oliker-Friedland of the Institute for Responsive Government Action, said in a statement that the bill does not improve election security.

“It’s nothing more than a messaging bill designed to stoke fear and undermine confidence in our democracy,” Oliker-Friedland said. “There is no evidence to support the claim that there are waves of non-citizens voting.”

The top Democrat on the Committee on House Administration, Joseph Morelle of New York, slammed the bill for trying to solve a “non-existent problem.”

“Non-citizen voting in federal elections is already a federal crime,” Morelle said in a statement. “States already have several systems in place to deter non-citizen voting and people who violate the law face prison time and deportation.”

Biden administration to issue rule expanding DACA health care access

Ariana Figueroa — Fri, 03 May 2024 12:15:08 +0000

Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra testifies at his 2021 confirmation hearing before the Senate Finance Committee. HHS published a final rule Friday to expand health care access to DACA recipients (Michael Reynolds-Pool/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration will publish a final rule Friday that will allow about 100,000 uninsured people in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program to enroll in state-run or private health insurance plans provided under the Affordable Care Act, administration officials said.

The new rule from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services could provide an opportunity for those uninsured DACA recipients to enroll in health coverage through a Health Insurance Marketplace plan or a state-run Basic Health Program, also called BHP, in the few states where those plans are available.

“By providing new opportunities for quality, affordable … health care, this rule will give DACA recipients the peace of mind and opportunity that every American deserves,” White House Domestic Policy Advisor Neera Tanden said on a Thursday call with reporters previewing the final rule.

Only two states, Minnesota and New York, operate Basic Health Programs. Oregon is set to become the third this year. The program, created in the Affordable Care Act, allows states to provide affordable health care coverage to low-income people who make too much to qualify for Medicaid. The programs are almost entirely federally funded.

In a statement, President Joe Biden said DACA recipients, often called Dreamers, deserve access to health coverage.

“Dreamers are our loved ones, our nurses, teachers, and small business owners,” Biden said. “And they deserve the promise of health care just like all of us.”

There are about 600,000 DACA recipients who were brought into the country without authorization when they were children. The Obama-era program protects them from removal.

HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said about one-third of DACA recipients are uninsured.

“DACA recipients are currently three times more likely to be uninsured than the general U.S. population and individuals without health insurance … are less likely to receive preventative or routine health screenings,” Becerra said on the Thursday call.

November start date

The rule will go into effect Nov. 1, “in order to align with the individual market Open Enrollment Period in most states and allow time for required operational updates,” according to a fact sheet provided by the White House. The move could affect as many as 100,000 DACA recipients, the White House said.

“DACA recipients are no longer excluded from receiving coverage from a quality health plan,” Becerra said.

DACA recipients who qualify to enroll in a Marketplace plan could also qualify for “advance payments of the premium tax credit (APTC) and cost-sharing reductions (CSRs) to reduce the cost of their Marketplace coverage, depending on their income,” according to the fact sheet.

The rule will update the definition of “qualified noncitizen” to receive Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program benefits to clarify the categories of noncitizens who qualify for coverage. The rule will not otherwise change eligibility for those programs for noncitizens.

A senior administration official also noted that most DACA recipients have health care coverage through their employment, but that this rule will catch any recipients who are uninsured. The administration official spoke to reporters on the condition they not be named.

DACA recipients are currently awaiting a court case that is likely to head to the Supreme Court to determine the legality of the program after the Trump administration tried to end it. If the Supreme Court deems the program unlawful, it’s unclear what happens to those in the program.

Trump says he’d use police, National Guard and possibly the military to expel immigrants

Ariana Figueroa — Tue, 30 Apr 2024 20:21:02 +0000

Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump at Coastal Carolina University on Feb. 10, 2024 in Conway, South Carolina (Win McNamee/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump in his second term would carry out mass deportations of undocumented immigrants by utilizing local law enforcement, the National Guard and potentially the U.S. military, according to a lengthy interview he conducted with Time magazine.

“When we talk military, generally speaking, I talk National Guard,” the presumptive 2024 GOP nominee for president said in an interview that published Tuesday.

Trump has vowed that on his first day in office, he plans to roll out a massive deportation effort reminiscent of an immigration crackdown that took place in the 1950s.

“I would have no problem using the military, per se,” he said. “We have to have law and order in our country. And whichever gets us there, but I think the National Guard will do the job.”

The interviewer, Time magazine national politics reporter Eric Cortellessa, asked how Trump could justify using the military, given the Posse Comitatus Act, an 1878 law that removed the military from civil law enforcement. “Well, these aren’t civilians,” Trump responded. “These are people that aren’t legally in our country.”

The Biden campaign put out a statement following the interview that slammed Trump’s comments, arguing his responses would reflect an authoritarian second term, and calling him a “dictator.”

“In his own words, he is promising to rule as a dictator on ‘day one,’ use the military against the American people, punish those who stand against him, condone violence done on his behalf, and put his own revenge and retribution ahead of what is best for America,” James Singer, a spokesperson for the Biden campaign said in a statement. “Trump is a danger to the Constitution and a threat to our democracy.”

The campaign made no rebuttal in that statement of Trump’s remarks about deportation.

Trump cited using the National Guard in Minneapolis in 2020. However, it was not Trump but Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz who activated the National Guard in response to massive protests after Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin killed George Floyd.

Floyd, a Black man, died when Chauvin held his knee on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes. Chauvin was convicted of murder in 2022.

“We will be using local law enforcement,” Trump said, adding that he wants special immunity for police from prosecution.

“And we have to give the police back the power and respect that they deserve,” he said. “Now, there will be some mistakes, and there are certain bad people and that’s a terrible thing. And you know, police are being prosecuted all the time. And we want to give them immunity from prosecution if they’re doing their job.”

Trump said he would create funding incentives for local and state police departments to take part in deportations.

“Well, there’s a possibility that some won’t want to participate, and they won’t partake in the riches, you know,” Trump said.

He’s likely to face pushback from Democratic-led states and municipalities, as well as legal challenges.

Trump did not go into detail about how much money he would request from Congress for his deportation plans. The control of Congress, now split between Republicans in the House and Democrats in the Senate, also could shift after this fall’s elections.

Trump added that he would not rule out building mass detention centers to carry out mass deportations.

“It’s possible that we’ll do it to an extent, but we shouldn’t have to do very much of it, because we’re going to be moving them out as soon as we get to it,” Trump said.

Those policies are likely to face legal challenges, and Trump said he would follow any ruling from the Supreme Court, where he picked three of the nine justices, solidifying a conservative court for decades.

“I have great respect for the Supreme Court,” he said.

Even though Trump also promised mass deportations in his first term, those first four years had fewer deportations than the first term of the Obama administration.

In the first four years of the Obama administration, there were more than 1.5 million non-citizens deported and the first Trump administration deported more than 1.2 million non-citizens, according to data from the Department of Homeland Security.

However, due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Trump administration authorized the public health tool Title 42 and expelled more than 2 million migrants from claiming asylum.

Missouri won’t let Kansas City become sanctuary city, but mayor wants more immigrant workers

Meg Cunningham — Tue, 30 Apr 2024 13:52:10 +0000

Union Station and downtown Kansas City (Getty Images).

Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas has essentially invited immigrants to come and fill the local labor pool.

He’s offering officials in New York and Denver help from the crush of immigrants in those cities and welcoming foreign workers to Kansas City.

That quickly sparked accusations that Lucas appeared bent on making Kansas City a sanctuary city, offering harbor to people in the country illegally — in a place where that would violate state law.

After an uproar from anti-immigration politicians in Jefferson City, Lucas made clear his welcome mat only applied to immigrants in the country legally with work visas.

“We need a lot more employees,” the mayor told Bloomberg News. “If there are people who are willing and able to work, then I believe that there could be a place for them.”

Even without a sanctuary city designation, bringing immigrant workers to Kansas City will create chores for the city and resettlement agencies.

Is Kansas City becoming a sanctuary city?

How exactly Kansas City would handle immigrant workers remains unclear. Local lawmakers aren’t considering designating Kansas City as a sanctuary city, which would mean passing ordinances protecting people in the country illegally from deportation or federal prosecution.

But city officials are looking at ways to bolster the metro’s workforce.

Lucas told Bloomberg that he has been in contact with mayors in some large U.S. cities. He said that Kansas City will have a better idea of its capacity after Memorial Day.

Immigrants have positive impacts on their communities through labor and small businesses, said J.H. Cullum Clark, the director of the Bush Institute-Southern Methodist University Economic Growth Initiative.

“It’s totally obvious that the benefits outweigh the costs,” Clark said.

Economic development is a major focus of both Missouri and Kansas City. In the past five years, companies have announced $9 billion in investments in the metro area, Bloomberg reported.

The City Council has already set aside $1 million toward housing, training and language services for immigrants. Research shows that, unsurprisingly, immigrants thrive more when they have help learning English.

But some members of the City Council still have questions.

“I do have concerns about the lack of discussion and planning,” Councilwoman Lindsay French said last week at a meeting of the Special Committee for Legal Review. “I’m really concerned that we haven’t had those discussions internally as a council.”

French said that she wants the council to consult with the nonprofit resettlement organizations — Della Lamb Community Services, Jewish Vocational Service and El Centro Inc. — to get a better idea of their capacity.

An influx of immigrants typically poses a slight drain on local and state budgets, Clark said.

Over time, immigrants and their families improve the finances of the federal government by paying income taxes, Clark said. But there is a near-term cost for states and cities.

“One way or another, they have to sleep someplace and they have to get fed,” Clark said. “That’s a big administrative lift right now for a lot of cities.”

Still, data show that immigrants and their families add more to communities and economies than they take.

What would it mean for Kansas City to bring in workers into the U.S.?

Research shows that places like Kansas City profit from when they welcome immigration.

A report Clark authored ranked Kansas City as the top 23rd metropolitan area for immigrants moving within the U.S.

“Everybody has an image of lots of immigrants in Los Angeles, New York, Miami,” Clark said. “They may not have this image of foreign-born people streaming into Kansas City and doing all kinds of jobs. But that is the case, to a much greater degree than probably most people understand.”

And amid an effort to bolster the local economy, Kansas City’s workforce isn’t keeping up with demand.

Unemployment in Kansas City was at 3.6% in February of this year. In Missouri, it was 3.3% and in Kansas it was 2.7%. Nationally, unemployment was at 3.9% in February.

“My union, they’re begging for people,” said Ralph Oropeza, the business manager at Greater Kansas City Building & Construction Trades Council.

He said fewer people are chasing construction and labor jobs, but projects are booming. He pointed to the planned $800 million mixed-use development at the Berkley Riverfront that is set to break ground later this year.

“There’s going to be a need for laborers,” Oropeza said. “Our doors are wide open for people to apply for apprenticeship, but nobody will.”

Another factor: Kansas Citians are aging out of the labor market. Data from the U.S. Census Bureau found that by 2030, 25% of Missouri’s population will be over 60.

The Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan federal agency, predicts U.S. deaths will exceed births starting in 2040. Then, immigration will account for all population growth.

That creates a need for workers on two fronts, said Giovanni Peri, a migration and economics researcher at the University of California, Davis. Laborers and health care workers are now increasingly in demand.

“From jobs in restaurants, hospitality, elderly care to more high-tech jobs,” Peri said, “the labor force is shrinking and aging.”

The economy is absorbing foreign-born workers while also generating jobs for those who were born in the U.S., an analysis from the left-leaning, pro-union Economic Policy Institute found, bucking claims that immigrants may be filling jobs that Americans would otherwise be working.

Growth begets growth, Peri said.

For example, say a company wants to build a hotel, but it struggles finding construction laborers and hospitality workers to fill the potential jobs. That’s a net negative for the city when it comes to generating jobs and economic development.

“When there are these bottlenecks and a firm cannot fill some jobs in some areas,” Peri said, “it slows down the growth with the consequence of needing fewer and fewer people in other jobs, too.”

This article first appeared on The Beacon and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Senate committee adds anti-immigration sanctions targeting Kansas City to Missouri budget

Rudi Keller — Thu, 25 Apr 2024 10:55:57 +0000

Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas testifies in an April 10 hearing of the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs. Missouri lawmakers are targeting Kansas City for sanctions over Lucas’s recent remarks welcoming immigrants able to work legally (Screenshot from U.S. Senate stream).

Missouri Republican lawmakers are seeking to target Kansas City with heavy sanctions if it moves ahead with stated plans by Mayor Quinton Lucas to welcome immigrants with legal clearance to work while in the United States.

The last item added to the state budget Wednesday during deliberations of the Senate Appropriations Committee was language that cuts all state funding for cities that become sanctuaries for immigrants. It also requires any money already received by those cities to be paid back with interest.

The provision, added to the budget at the urging of Republican state Sen. Tony Luetkemeyer of Parkville, came in response to statements Lucas made, first to Bloomberg News and later to local media and on social media, that he is in talks with mayors in New York and Denver to help them with large numbers of recently arrived migrants.

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“We wanted to have the clawback provisions in there to make sure that if he does that, once we’re out of session, and some of that money is expended by the city of Kansas City, the state has the ability to seek reimbursement of that, as well as interest,” Luetkemeyer said.

The language almost passed unnoticed in the fast-paced hearing, until state Sen. Barbara Washington, a Kansas City Democrat, raised objections.

She said the provision is borne of cruelty to migrants and animosity toward a city controlled by Democrats.

“I want them to be able to come here and be safe, be able to work, be able to go to school, be able to eat and do the things that they do, be entrepreneurs that they want to,” Washington said.

Washington was caught off guard by the provision yet, like other Democrats, voted for most of the budget bills as they were approved on their way to Senate floor debate. The amendment was added to every bill so it could impact school funding, student college aid and grants to civic groups, depending on how it is interpreted.

The controversy over Kansas City’s welcoming policy began after Lucas spoke to Bloomberg for an article published April 16.

“We need a lot more employees,” Lucas said. “If there are people who are willing and ready to work, then I believe that there could be a place for them.”

That drew a rebuke from Attorney General Andrew Bailey, who said Missouri laws prohibit the transportation or employment of undocumented immigrants.

“Your open invitation to illegal aliens to come to Missouri is not only dangerous but comes at great expense to Missouri taxpayers, residents, and business owners,” Bailey wrote in a letter to Lucas included in a news release. “Rather than undermining the rule of law, I invite you to join me as I actively seek to defend it and to protect Missourians.”

In a statement on X, as opposition led by Republicans escalated, Lucas said he is trying to welcome people legally able to work.

“What we’re saying is if you’ve gone through that work permit, you’ve worked with the Department of Homeland Security, and you are lawfully present here in the United States, then you know what, we want to welcome you,” Lucas wrote. “We want to make sure there’s a way to find work in our community.”

YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE.

Lucas clarified his position again during a meeting Tuesday of the Kansas City Council’s Special Committee for Legal Review.

“There is nothing that has been proposed that suggests we are a sanctuary city,” he said, according to the Kansas City Star. “There is nothing that has been proposed that suggests that this city is funding or in some conspiracy to help create more illegal immigration.”

The provision added the budget states:

“No funds shall be expended to any municipality that enacts or adopts a sanctuary policy, in accordance with Section 67.307, RSMO. any municipality that enacts or adopts a sanctuary policy and has received state funds during the current fiscal year shall pay back all funds with interest calculated at the statutory rate of interest as provided in Section 408.040.4, RSMO.”

The law barring Missouri cities from declaring they are sanctuary cities defines that as an ordinance or policy to limit or prohibit communication with federal immigration agencies “to verify or report the immigration status” of any individual or grants people in the United States illegally the right to lawful presence.

The statute setting the interest makes it equal to the rate set by the Federal Reserve for its loans to banks, plus 3%, which would make it 8.25% to 8.5% as of Wednesday.

The penalty is withholding grants administered by state agencies. It is triggered when a complaint is made, and requires “any member of the general assembly” to ask the attorney general for an official opinion on whether there has been a violation.

The language in the budget goes beyond that law and will be thrown out in the courts, Washington said. There is no provision for taking money back, she noted.

“If we are going to be the protectors of our state’s budget, and respect the citizens of this state, we have got to stop doing things that are going to cost us a lot of money in court,” Washington said.

Seeking a repayment with interest is legal, Lutkemeyer said.

“The statute is silent as to that issue,” he said. “We’re just filling that gap.”

The Center for Immigration Studies, which defines sanctuary cities as those with “laws, ordinances, regulations, resolutions, policies, or other practices that obstruct immigration enforcement and shield criminals,” does not consider any city in Missouri a sanctuary city.

In a statement, state Sen. Lauren Arthur, a Kansas City Democrat, said the language will not impact immigration.

“There are no sanctuary cities in Missouri and this language will not actually do anything to help our state,” Arthur said. “It is simply another distraction from the fact that Congressional Republicans are refusing to pass the bipartisan border security bill that would finally address the real crisis at the border.”

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Senate rejects two impeachment articles against DHS Secretary Mayorkas

Ariana Figueroa — Wed, 17 Apr 2024 21:54:46 +0000

U.S. senators being sworn in for the impeachment trial of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on April 17, 2024 (Official U.S. Senate photo by Daniel Rios).

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate on Wednesday dismissed two articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

The Democrat-controlled chamber voted, 51-49 along party lines, to adjourn the impeachment trial after finding that the impeachment articles accusing Mayorkas of not complying with federal immigration law and breaching the public trust did not rise to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors and were therefore unconstitutional.

“The charges brought against Secretary Mayorkas fail to meet the high standard of high crimes and misdemeanors,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on the Senate floor before a series of votes. “To validate this gross abuse by the House would be a grave mistake and could set a dangerous precedent for the future.”

The adjournment vote followed successful votes to drop the two House-passed articles of impeachment against Mayorkas, as well as a series of Republican motions to adjourn the court of impeachment or enter closed session, which all failed.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska was the only senator to break party ranks during an afternoon vote series. She voted “present” on a motion to drop the first article of impeachment.

Senators were sworn in Wednesday as jurors after House Republican impeachment managers delivered the two articles of impeachment the day before, starting the proceedings. House Republicans voted to impeach Mayorkas, on their second try, in February.

Republicans have demanded a trial, while Senate Democrats indicated they planned to either dismiss the articles or table the trial because they argued the charges against Mayorkas did not reach the constitutional threshold required of impeachment, which is “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

“To validate this gross abuse by the House would be a grave mistake and could set a dangerous precedent for the future,” Schumer, a New York Democrat, said.

Republicans blast process

Following the vote, Republicans slammed Democrats, arguing the move to avoid a trial set a precedent.

“They created a new precedent saying you don’t even have to vote on the articles (of impeachment),” Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri told reporters off the Senate floor.

Missouri Republican Eric Schmitt warned that voters would remember the Senate’s decision in the November elections.

“They see what a disaster the border’s been,” he said to reporters.

Congressional Democrats and the White House have criticized Republicans’ efforts to impeach Mayorkas as political and campaign fodder for the November elections. Congressional Republicans and the Biden administration have clashed over immigration policy for years.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell argued Wednesday it was senators’ constitutional duty to hold a trial.

“It is the job of this body to consider the articles of impeachment brought before us and to render judgment,” the Kentucky Republican said on the Senate floor.

Even if a trial had been held, it’s unlikely that the two-thirds majority in the Senate required to remove Mayorkas could have been reached.

In an email, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said House Republicans have not provided the necessary evidence to warrant an impeachment effort.

“Secretary Mayorkas spent months helping a bipartisan group of Senators craft a tough but fair bill that would give DHS the tools necessary to meet today’s border security challenges, but the same House Republicans playing political games with this impeachment chose to block that bipartisan compromise,” the spokesperson said.

“Congressional Republicans should stop wasting time with unfounded attacks, and instead do their job by passing bipartisan legislation to properly fund the Department’s vital national security missions and finally fix our broken immigration system.”

Amid the impeachment proceedings in the Senate, Mayorkas has been making his rounds on Capitol Hill to defend the president’s fiscal year 2025 budget for the Department of Homeland Security.

White House Spokesperson for Oversight and Investigations Ian Sams praised the Senate’s decision in a statement.

“Once and for all, the Senate has rightly voted down this baseless impeachment that even conservative legal scholars said was unconstitutional,” he said.

Several votes

Washington state Democrat Sen. Patty Murray presided over the impeachment proceedings, which included several votes Wednesday afternoon.

Schumer tried to approve by unanimous consent a structure for the trial, including debate time and the number of points of order senators could make, but Schmitt objected.

“I will not assist Sen. Schumer in setting our Constitution ablaze,” he said.

Schumer then raised a point of order declaring that the first article of impeachment did not rise to high crimes under the constitution, leading to a series of Republican senators demanding votes on proposals to delay a vote on Schumer’s motion

Sen. Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, moved to go to closed session and debate the articles of impeachment but Schumer objected. GOP Sen. Mike Lee of Utah made the same motion. Senators voted on both motions and rejected them 49-51.

Sen. John Kennedy, Republican of Louisiana, made a motion to adjourn the court of impeachment and begin impeachment proceedings on April 30 at noon.

Kennedy’s motion failed 49-51.

GOP Sen. Rick Scott of Florida made the same motion to adjourn, which also failed 49-51.

They went back to the point of order Schumer made that declared the first article of impeachment was unconstitutional. The Senate voted, 51-48, to reject the first article of impeachment on the grounds that it did not rise to the constitutional standard for impeachment, with Murkowski voting present.

Schumer made an identical point of order on the second article of impeachment.

Kennedy again filed a motion to adjourn to May 1, 2004 for impeachment proceedings. He corrected his request to 2024. It again failed 49-51.

GOP Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas then made a motion to adjourn until Nov. 6 until after the election and “before this body disrespects the Constitution.” It failed 49-51.

Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 2 Republican, moved to table Schumer’s second point of order that the second article of impeachment is unconstitutional. It failed 49-51.

Senators then approved Schumer’s second motion, 51-49.

House action

Georgia’s Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has been at the forefront of impeachment efforts against Mayorkas, first introducing the measure in September.

Greene is also a House impeachment manager, along with GOP Reps. Mark Green of Tennessee, Michael McCaul of Texas, Andy Biggs of Arizona, Ben Cline of Virginia, Andrew Garbarino of New York, Michael Guest of Mississippi, Harriet Hageman of Wyoming, Clay Higgins of Louisiana, Laurel Lee of Florida and August Pfluger of Texas.

Two of the impeachment managers, Biggs and Higgins, came to the Senate Wednesday to watch that chamber’s proceedings.

The two articles of impeachment charged Mayorkas with not complying with federal immigration law and breaching the public trust.

The first article of impeachment accused Mayorkas of contributing to myriad problems, including rising profits for smuggling operations, a high backlog of asylum cases in immigration courts, fentanyl-related deaths and migrant children found working in dangerous jobs. Republican state legislatures have moved to roll back child labor laws in industries from the food industry to roofing.

Republicans argued that the first article of impeachment would hold Mayorkas accountable for the large number of migrants that have traveled to the southern border to claim asylum. The Biden administration is dealing with the largest number of migrant encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border in 20 years.

The second article of impeachment charged Mayorkas with breaching public trust by making several statements in congressional testimony that Republicans argue are false, such as Mayorkas telling lawmakers that the southern border is “secure.”

The second article also charged Mayorkas with not fulfilling his statutory duty by rolling back Trump-era policies such as terminating contracts that would have continued construction of the border wall and ending the Migrant Protection Protocols, also known as the “Remain in Mexico” policy that was ended after it went up to the Supreme Court.

Republicans in Congress delay Mayorkas impeachment proceedings

Ariana Figueroa — Wed, 10 Apr 2024 14:26:20 +0000

U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas holds a press conference at a U.S. Border Patrol station on Jan. 8, 2024 in Eagle Pass, Texas (John Moore/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — U.S. House Republicans will delay until next week their delivery to the Senate of the two articles of impeachment against Homeland Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, a spokesperson for House Speaker Mike Johnson said Tuesday.

“To ensure the Senate has adequate time to perform its constitutional duty, the House will transmit the articles of impeachment to the Senate next week,” the spokesperson wrote in a late afternoon statement. “There is no reason whatsoever for the Senate to abdicate its responsibility to hold an impeachment trial.”

Johnson, Republican of Louisiana, and 11 impeachment managers had informed Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer that they planned to walk over the two articles of impeachment to the Senate Wednesday, but postponed after a request from Senate Republicans.

The articles accuse Mayorkas of a “willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law,” and of a breach of public trust.

Once the articles are delivered in the Senate, the process for an impeachment trial immediately starts. Senate Republicans sought to avoid a timeline that had them conducting the early stages of an impeachment trial instead of flying home on Thursday as they typically do.

During a press conference Tuesday afternoon, Senate Republicans said they didn’t expect an impeachment trial to last a week, but didn’t want a trial to start so close to a fly-out date.

“If we don’t start it until the end of the week, that leaves us no adequate opportunity to debate it and you don’t want members trying to get out of town so quickly that they are influenced by the jet fumes,” Utah’s Mike Lee said.

Schumer, a New York Democrat, said during a Tuesday press conference that he plans to move through the process quickly, which has angered Senate Republicans who are pushing for a trial.

Schumer said the articles of impeachment are “absurd and there are no charges in the House complaint that rise to the level of impeachment.”

“Impeachment should never be used to settle policy disagreements,” he said.

Schumer can make a motion to dismiss or table the articles with a simple majority, where Democrats hold a slim 51 seats.

Schumer said in a statement that the Senate is prepared to move forward.

“We’re ready to go whenever they are,” Schumer said. “We are sticking with our plan. We’re going to move this as expeditiously as possible.”

If the articles are delivered to the Senate next week, the trial would begin within days of another Mayorkas appearance on Capitol Hill.

The House Homeland Security Committee, which held two impeachment proceedings and moved forward with articles of impeachment, will have Mayorkas testify on April 16 about the DHS budget for fiscal year 2025.

The chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, Rep. Mark Green of Tennessee, is also one of the 11 impeachment managers.

The rest of the Republican impeachment managers are Reps. Michael McCaul of Texas, Andy Biggs of Arizona, Ben Cline of Virginia, Andrew Garbarino of New York, Michael Guest of Mississippi, Harriet Hageman of Wyoming, Clay Higgins of Louisiana, Laurel Lee of Florida, August Pfluger of Texas and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.

U.S. House Speaker Johnson sets date to deliver Mayorkas impeachment articles to Senate

Ariana Figueroa — Thu, 28 Mar 2024 20:15:43 +0000

Articles of impeachment against Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas will be delivered to the U.S. Senate on April 10, the speaker of the House said Thursday. In this photo, Mayorkas speaks about public safety plans for Super Bowl week at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center on Feb. 07, 2024 in Las Vegas, Nevada ( Candice Ward/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson announced Thursday that two articles of impeachment against Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas will be sent to the U.S. Senate in early April when senators return from recess.

“We call upon you to fulfill your constitutional obligation to hold this trial,” Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, wrote in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat.

“The American people demand a secure border, an end to this crisis, and accountability for those responsible,” said Johnson. “To table articles of impeachment without ever hearing a single argument or reviewing a piece of evidence would be a violation of our constitutional order and an affront to the American people whom we all serve.”

With Democrats holding a slim majority in the Senate, it’s unlikely Mayorkas will be removed from office. But the push for a trial is a mark of House Republicans’ escalation of their opposition to the White House’s immigration policy. The topic has also taken center stage in the 2024 presidential campaigns.

The process for a trial in the Senate will kick-start when the House impeachment managers walk over the two articles of impeachment to the upper chamber on April 10.

“As we have said previously, after the House impeachment managers present the articles of impeachment to the Senate, Senators will be sworn in as jurors in the trial the next day,” Schumer’s office said in a statement.

Senate President Pro Tempore Sen. Patty Murray, a Washington state Democrat, will preside, Schumer’s office said.

According to the rules currently on the books, the Senate must act in some way when the articles of impeachment are presented.

For example, senators can follow the already established rules, vote to make new rules or even take a procedural step to dispose of the impeachment resolution.

The House impeachment managers are Republican Reps. Mark Green of Tennessee, Michael McCaul of Texas, Andy Biggs of Arizona, Ben Cline of Virginia, Andrew Garbarino of New York, Michael Guest of Mississippi, Harriet Hageman of Wyoming, Clay Higgins of Louisiana, Laurel Lee of Florida, August Pfluger of Texas and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.

The White House has in the past condemned House Republicans’ efforts to impeach Mayorkas, calling it “shameless,” and an “unconstitutional stunt.”

“This political and unconstitutional exercise is also drawing broad condemnation by conservatives in the U.S. Senate, where the impeachment will now be sent and where Republican senators have sharply dismissed it as baseless and a waste of time,” the White House said in mid-February.

House Republicans, who hold a slim majority, impeached Mayorkas on their second try, on the grounds that Mayorkas willfully ignored immigration law and lied to Congress about the status of border security.

Following Mayorkas’ impeachment on Feb. 13, Schumer called the efforts a “sham.”

“House Republicans failed to present any evidence of anything resembling an impeachable offense,” Schumer said on the Senate floor on Feb. 13.

Missouri House sends bill funding border deployment to the Senate

Rudi Keller — Thu, 07 Mar 2024 17:13:32 +0000

Immigrants wait overnight next to the U.S.-Mexico border fence to seek asylum in the United States on Jan. 7, 2023 as viewed from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico (John Moore/Getty Images).

The Missouri House overwhelmingly supported Gov. Mike Parson’s plan to send soldiers and state troopers to the Mexican border Thursday by voting 122-12 for the money needed to finance it.

Parson is sending 200 Missouri National Guard soldiers and 11 Missouri State Highway Patrol troopers to work with Texas law enforcement at the request of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. There are also about 250 National Guard soldiers from Missouri in Texas operating under federal orders and paid from the federal treasury.

The 11 patrol troopers will be in Texas for 32 days and the 200 guard soldiers will rotate tours of 50 during the 90-day mission, which could be extended.

The bill provides $2.2 million for the deployment, $2 million to cover costs for the National Guard and $206,757 for patrol operations.

Republicans backing the bill said the state must step up because too many people are illegally entering the country.

“When the federal government and its weakness fails to act in the best interest of Missourians, it is the obligation of the state of Missouri to act,” said Rep. Chad Perkins, a Republican from Bowling Green.

Parson seeks $2.2M to send Missouri troopers, soldiers to Texas for border duty

During a hearing on the appropriation last week, Col. Eric Olson, superintendent of the patrol, said the agency is 132 troopers short of full strength. Thursday, state Rep. Ingrid Burnett, a Kansas City Democrat, said the troopers going to Texas are needed more at home.

“It’s a reckless move to deplete our service people even more,” Burnett said. “It just doesn’t make good sense to me to be taking this move at this time with our troops.”

Democrats who supported the spending said the extra help at the border will support the men and women from the National Guard already deployed.

“For years we have had Missouri National Guard down on the border at the request of the Biden administration,” said state Rep. Maggie Nurrenbern, a Kansas City Democrat. “These additional troops will just go to support those who have been on that border for quite some time now.”

Nurrenbern also said she’s hopeful Congress will take action. A bipartisan immigration bill negotiated in the U.S. Senate was shelved after intense opposition from former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president.

“I hope that Congress will soon pick up the immigration bill,” Nurrenbern said, “to truly secure our border to make a process available to all who want to immigrate to this country legally.”

Bill Eigel vows mass jailing, removal of undocumented immigrants from Missouri

Rudi Keller — Fri, 01 Mar 2024 21:21:02 +0000

State Sen. Bill Eigel of Weldon Spring, a candidate for governor, speaks Thursday evening at the Boone County Republican Lincoln Days dinner in Columbia (Rudi Keller/Missouri Independent).

State Sen. Bill Eigel promised Thursday that if elected governor he’d invoke a provision in the Missouri Constitution allowing him to call out the militia to round up and deport undocumented immigrants.

That means mobilizing sheriffs, the Missouri State Highway Patrol and the National Guard, Eigel told a crowd of about 175 party faithful at the Boone County Lincoln Days event in Columbia.

“I’m also the only candidate for governor that’s gonna go after every one of the 50,000 to 70,000 illegal immigrants that are bringing crime into our community,” Eigel said, later adding: “And if I have to drive the buses myself to the border of this country, we’re going to take our state back, folks.”

Eigel, a Weldon Spring lawmaker who is one of the leading candidates for the Republican nomination for governor, is trying to stake out the most strident position on immigration, an issue dominating GOP politics. His rhetoric Thursday was echoed by one of his rivals for the GOP gubernatorial nomination, Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, who when asked about the idea during an interview following the event said “until we stop the invasion, we can’t deal with the problem effectively.”

Ashcroft said he, too, would declare the influx of immigrants an invasion.

Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, a candidate for governor, speaks Thursday evening at the Boone County Republican Lincoln Days dinner in Columbia (Rudi Keller/Missouri Independent).

The other major Republican candidate for governor, Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe, did not attend Thursday’s party gathering.

Contacted by email, his spokesman did not address questions about whether it was proper to declare an invasion of Missouri or to order mass removal, instead boasting about Kehoe’s trip to the Mexican border with members of state national guard.

“Mike Kehoe takes action from the front-lines, not from behind a keyboard and Twitter account,” said Michael Hafner, a spokesman for Kehoe’s campaign.

Kehoe is visiting the approximately 250 National Guard soldiers already in Texas operating under federal orders. Gov. Mike Parson has ordered 200 soldiers and 11 Missouri State Highway Patrol troopers to work with Texas law enforcement at the request of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. Parson has asked lawmakers for $2.2 million to cover the cost.

If Eigel’s plan were to be activated, it would be the second time in state history that a governor has ordered the mass removal of people based on a social or cultural characteristic.

In 1838, Gov. Lilburn Boggs issued the infamous “Extermination Order” calling out the militia to drive Mormons from the state.

“The Mormons must be treated as enemies, and must be exterminated or driven from the state if necessary for the public peace—their outrages are beyond all description,” Boggs wrote in his orders to Gen. John B. Clark.

In all, 15,000 people fled the state, most going to Illinois, and property losses were estimated at $1 million to $2 million, equal to as much as $70 million today.

The order against Mormons wasn’t officially canceled until 1976, when Republican Gov. Kit Bond wrote a recission order that stated, “Boggs’ order clearly contravened the rights to life, liberty, property and religious freedom” and apologized “for the injustice and undue suffering” it caused.

In an interview, Eigel said he was not worried about the logistics of feeding, housing and providing for other basic needs of the thousands he would take into custody.

“We have jails across the state that can serve as holding facilities,” Eigel said.

He also said he is unconcerned about the cost.

Of all the potential problems, he said, “one of them certainly is not that we don’t have enough money to take care of that fact. I’m pretty sure that we have the surplus necessary to buy a fleet of buses that we’re going to use to actually transport these individuals.”

Eight candidates have filed so far for the GOP nomination for governor and three – Eigel, Ashcroft and Kehoe – are running full-scale campaigns.

Ashcroft didn’t address immigration directly in his speech. Instead, he focused on his crusade to stop “pornography” in libraries and block foreign ownership of farmland.

In 2013, lawmakers passed a bill that made it possible for a Chinese food processing conglomerate to purchase Smithfield Foods and its 40,000 acres of Missouri farmland. More recently, lawmakers who voted for the bill have been harshly criticized as China is viewed more and more as a global economic and military adversary.

Last year, Ashcfoft said, the Missouri Senate couldn’t advance a bill repealing the law allowing foreign ownership of up to 1% of the state’s agricultural land. So, he said, he worked to pass a bill through the Missouri House that cut that percentage in half.

In the Senate, a provision was added that exempted farmland purchased for development or other nonfarm uses, including “raising genetic traits that are used for human or animal research,” as long as no farming occurred on the land.

Ashcroft said that was a horrible provision.

“Our state Senate voted to amend it to allow any foreign country to buy as much of our land as they want and even to use it specifically for human genetic testing,” Ashcroft said. “That’s the problem in Jefferson City.”

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Presidential campaign moves to the border, as Biden urges Trump to back immigration deal

Ariana Figueroa — Fri, 01 Mar 2024 14:50:56 +0000

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers await the arrival of President Joe Biden to deliver remarks about immigration and border security at the Brownsville Station on February 29, 2024 in Olmito, Texas. The president visited the border near Brownsville on the same day as a dueling trip made by former President Donald Trump to neighboring Eagle Pass, Texas (Cheney Orr/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump on Thursday afternoon paid competing visits to the nation’s southern border, where Biden called on Congress to reconsider a bipartisan border security deal that Republicans tanked at Trump’s direction.

Biden traveled to Brownsville, Texas, while Trump journeyed to Eagle Pass, highlighting how immigration policy has risen in importance as the 2024 presidential race takes shape. Biden is seeking reelection and Trump is the GOP primary front-runner.

“Here’s what I would say to Mr. Trump,” Biden said. “Instead of telling members of Congress to block this legislation, join me, or I’ll join you in telling the Congress to pass this bipartisan border security bill. We can do it together.”

Senate Republicans earlier this month walked away from that deal they brokered with the White House, following Trump’s objection to the plan that would drastically overhaul U.S. immigration law and bolster funding.

Biden said the Senate needs to reconsider the bipartisan border security bill and Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson should bring the measure to the floor for a vote.

Johnson has refused, arguing that the House already passed its own measure in H.R. 2, and that Biden has the executive authority to take action to address high levels of immigration. Democrats object to many of the policies in that bill.

Accompanying the president was U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who was impeached by House Republicans over policy disputes in early February, and Democratic Rep. Vicente Gonzalez of Texas, whose district includes Brownsville.

During his visit, Biden met with U.S. Border Patrol agents, law enforcement, frontline personnel and local leaders, the White House said.

“I just received a briefing from the Border Patrol at the border as well as immigration enforcement asylum officers and they’re all doing incredible work under really tough conditions,” Biden said. “They desperately need more resources.”

Mayorkas said only Congress can help DHS fund more Border Patrol agents, immigration enforcement agents, asylum officers, immigration judges and support personnel, facilities and technology.

“You can see the impact these resources will have on our ability to strengthen our security, advance our mission to protect the homeland and enforce our nation’s laws quickly and effectively,” he said. “Though Congress has not yet provided the resources we need, DHS will continue to enforce the law and work to secure our border.”

Migrant encounters

As the Biden administration deals with the largest number of migrant encounters at the southern border in more than 20 years, Trump’s reelection campaign has centered on stoking fears surrounding immigration — as he previously did in his 2016 presidential campaign.

More than 300 miles away from Biden in Eagle Pass on Thursday, Trump criticized the Biden administration and touted how he managed the border during his first presidency.

He highlighted his “Remain in Mexico” program that required asylum seekers to stay in Mexico while waiting for their asylum cases to he heard — a move that many advocates documented resulted in harm, separation and deaths to those migrants who had to comply.

“The best was ‘Remain in Mexico,’” Trump said. “You stay in Mexico.”

Trump implemented the program in 2019 and the Biden administration sought to terminate it in June 2021.

But the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas determined in Texas v. Biden that the termination memo from the Biden administration was not issued in compliance with the Administrative Procedure Act, so the court ordered the Department of Homeland Security to keep the program in place.

It took a Supreme Court ruling for the Biden administration to finally be allowed to end the program.

Trump also praised Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott, who is at odds with the Biden administration over who wields authority over the border, most recently when Abbott defied U.S. Supreme Court orders to remove razor wire along the border.

Abbott has also sent migrants on buses and planes to Democratic-led cities without warning local officials, putting strains on those cities.

“He’s in some sanitized location,” Abbott said of Biden’s visit to Brownsville. “It just goes to show that Biden does not care about either Texas or the border and what’s going on.”

GOP on the attack in D.C.

U.S. House Republicans at the Capitol also criticized Biden’s visit to the border, calling it a “photo op,” and arguing that Brownsville is not a busy area that encounters many migrants.

“The border is the issue for every American no matter where they live, no matter where their state is, because every state is a border state,” Johnson said during a Thursday press conference.

Johnson also pressed for Biden to take executive action on immigration, something Biden has argued he cannot do without congressional authority.

Utah’s Blake Moore, the vice chair of the House Republican Conference, argued that El Paso, Texas, and Tucson, Arizona, are busier than Brownsville in terms of immigration.

“Brownsville can hardly be considered one of the most challenging immigration areas,” Moore said.

Moore said that this should not be just the second time in Biden’s presidency he has visited the border, and that Trump’s visit on the same day made it seem like Biden was trying to compete with Trump. Biden’s first visit to the border was in January 2023.

“That is what the American people will take from this, and it’s disheartening to know that that is the case,” Moore said.

NBC has reported the White House says Trump’s visit had nothing to do with Biden’s trip to Texas.

Biden and Trump both heading to the southern border on Thursday

Ariana Figueroa — Mon, 26 Feb 2024 17:06:14 +0000

President Joe Biden is expected to visit Brownsville, Texas, on the U.S.-Mexico border on Thursday. In this photo, migrants cross the Matamoros-Brownsville International Bridge into the United States after obtaining an appointment to legally enter the country on May 12, 2023 (Joe Raedle/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden will visit the southern border in Texas on Thursday, according to a White House official, the same day as the GOP presidential front-runner, Donald Trump.

Their visits are a sign of the importance the immigration issue has assumed in what’s expected to be a 2024 rematch in November between Biden and Trump.

During the trip to Brownsville, Texas, Biden will meet with U.S. Border Patrol agents, law enforcement and local leaders to “discuss the urgent need to pass the Senate bipartisan border security agreement, the toughest and fairest set of reforms to secure the border in decades,” according to a White House official speaking on background.

“He will reiterate his calls for Congressional Republicans to stop playing politics and to provide the funding needed for additional U.S. Border Patrol agents, more asylum officers, fentanyl detection technology and more,” the White House official said in a statement.

Senate Republicans earlier this month walked away from the bipartisan border deal they brokered with the White House, following Trump’s objection to the plan that would drastically overhaul U.S. immigration law. House Republicans also insisted they would not take up the Senate package.

As the Biden administration deals with the largest number of migrant encounters at the southern border in more than 20 years, Trump’s campaign platform aims to stoke fears surrounding immigration — as he previously did for his 2016 presidential campaign.

The visit follows House Republicans’ impeachment, on a second try, of Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, over the GOP’s opposition to Biden administration immigration policies.

More than 300 miles away from Biden, Trump will visit Eagle Pass, Texas, which CNN first reported, on Thursday, following his GOP primary win in South Carolina last weekend.

He is also expected to win Michigan’s presidential primary on Tuesday.

Biden is also planning to meet with congressional leaders Tuesday about passing the global securities supplemental package to unlock aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan and avoid a partial government shutdown Friday, according to the White House.

Those leaders he’ll meet with at the White House include Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York and House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana.

This will be Biden’s second trip to the southern border. His first visit to the border was in January 2023.

U.S. House Republicans impeach Homeland Security chief Mayorkas on second try

Ariana Figueroa — Wed, 14 Feb 2024 12:00:02 +0000

U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas holds a press conference at a U.S. Border Patrol station on Jan. 8, 2024 in Eagle Pass, Texas (John Moore/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — In their second attempt in as many weeks, U.S. House Republicans impeached Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Tuesday, marking an inflection point in the growing rift between the GOP and the White House over immigration policy decisions at the southern border.

In a 214-213 vote, the House approved two articles of impeachment that charged Mayorkas with willfully ignoring immigration law and lying to Congress about the status of border security. It is only the second time in history that a Cabinet member has been impeached; William Belknap, the secretary of war and a former Iowa state legislator, was impeached in 1876.

A vote on the same resolution failed spectacularly last week, 214-216, while House GOP Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana was absent due to ongoing cancer treatments. Republican Blake Moore of Utah switched his vote from “yes” to “no” as a procedural move to allow the resolution to be reconsidered.

“House Republicans are far from done,” House Homeland Security Committee Chair Mark Green of Tennessee wrote on X before the Tuesday vote. “Secretary Mayorkas has sparked the worst border crisis in American history, and it’s long past time for him to be impeached.”

Green held several hearings on impeachment proceedings against Mayorkas.

All House Democrats present and three Republicans voted against the two articles of impeachment. Critics of the process have said a Cabinet official should not be impeached over what they say are policy disputes.

The Republicans who voted against impeachment were Reps. Ken Buck of Colorado, Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin and Tom McClintock of California.

President Joe Biden slammed House Republicans, calling the impeachment vote “petty political games.”

“Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas, a Cuban immigrant who came to the United States with his family as political refugees, has spent more than two decades serving America with integrity in a decorated career in law enforcement and public service,” Biden said. “Instead of staging political stunts like this, Republicans with genuine concerns about the border should want Congress to deliver more border resources and stronger border security.”

Following the vote, Mia Ehrenberg, a spokesperson for DHS, said in a statement that “House Republicans will be remembered by history for trampling on the Constitution for political gain rather than working to solve the serious challenges at our border.”

The Senate will be required under the Constitution to hold an impeachment trial. Conviction would require a vote by two-thirds of that chamber.

Immigration clash

The impeachment effort, initiated by Georgia Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene, is perhaps the most high-profile example of the growing clash between Democrats and Republicans on how to handle an unprecedented number of migrants at the southern border.

Tensions have only increased after Senate Republicans tanked a bipartisan border security deal last week. The agreement would have significantly overhauled U.S. immigration law by creating a temporary procedure to shut down the border during active times and raising the bar for asylum claims.

The border security deal, which was tied to a $95 billion security package, died in the Senate after Republicans fell in line with GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump, who has centered his campaign on stoking fears about immigration at the southern border.

The global security package passed early Tuesday without the immigration deal.

House Democrats have decried the efforts to impeach Mayorkas as political, while Republicans have argued that Mayorkas should be held accountable for what they have deemed a “crisis” at the southern border.

The first article of impeachment accuses Mayorkas of a “willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law,” and the second accuses him of a breach of public trust by making false statements during congressional testimony, particularly citing statements by Mayorkas telling lawmakers the border is “secure.”

Two impeachment votes

Due to House Republicans’ razor-thin majority and absences last week, House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana could only afford to lose two votes during the first impeachment vote, on Feb. 6. Scalise was back in Washington on Tuesday, giving Republicans the margin they needed to overcome three members voting with Democrats.

The same GOP lawmakers who voted against the second impeachment also voted against the first — Buck, McClintock and Gallagher.

Gallagher, who was a key holdout in the effort to impeach Mayorkas, announced shortly after that he would not seek reelection.

In an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, Gallagher explained his vote against impeachment, expressing concern about the precedent it would set.

“Creating a new, lower standard for impeachment, one without any clear limiting principle, wouldn’t secure the border or hold President Biden accountable,” he wrote. “It would only further pry open the Pandora’s box of perpetual impeachment.”

The White House said in a statement last week that impeaching Mayorkas “would be an unprecedented and unconstitutional act of political retribution that would do nothing to solve the challenges our Nation faces in securing the border.”

Intense opposition to U.S. Senate immigration deal quickly emerges

Ariana Figueroa — Tue, 06 Feb 2024 00:40:05 +0000

U.S. Capitol. (Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — The proposed global security funding legislation that includes major bipartisan updates to immigration policy encountered opposition from members of both parties Monday, especially Republicans upset by the Biden administration’s handling of border security, charting a tumultuous path for passage in the Senate this week.

The deal on immigration policy, negotiated for months by a bipartisan trio of senators, aims to stem migration at the Southern border. It spurred bipartisan ire in both chambers after its introduction Sunday night as some Republicans said it would not force the Biden administration to take more action and some Democrats argued it would undermine the asylum system.

U.S. Sen. Steve Daines, who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the campaign arm for Senate Republicans, blamed the Biden administration for rolling back Trump-era immigration policies.

“President Biden could have secured the border on Day One of his presidency and chose not to and the disastrous results speak for themselves,” the Montana Republican said in a statement.

President Joe Biden told reporters Monday that the bill would give him tools he needed to control the border.

His critics call the border “out of control,” he said.

“Well guess what? Everything in that bipartisan bill gives me control, gives us control,” he said during a campaign stop in Las Vegas.

The bill “still meets the needs” of people seeking to immigrate legally, he added.

The bill’s supporters, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, urged critics to accept the deal.

“This bipartisan agreement is not perfect, but given all the dangers facing America, it is the comprehensive package our country needs right now,” Schumer, a Democrat of New York, said on the Senate floor Monday.

A procedural vote is set for Wednesday, which Schumer called “the most important (vote) that the Senate has taken in a very long time.”

Even though Schumer and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, support the immigration deal and the $118.28 billion supplemental package to aid Ukraine, Israel, Indo-Pacific region and U.S. border security, many senators are expressing their displeasure after the nearly 400-page bill was released late Sunday.

The immigration deal was negotiated by the White House and Sens. James Lankford, a Republican from Oklahoma, Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, and Kyrsten Sinema, an independent from Arizona.

Changes would include raising the bar for migrants to claim asylum, creating a temporary procedure to shut down the border at particularly active times and an end to the practice of allowing migrants to live in the United States while they wait for their cases to be heard by an immigration judge, among other policies.

“Our immigration laws have been weak for years,” Lankford said in a statement Sunday. “This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to close our open border and give future administrations the effective tools they need to stop the border chaos and protect our nation.”

The Senate will consider the immigration overhaul and global aid package as a single bill after Senate Republicans insisted on tying the supplemental aid package for policy changes at the Southern border.

Many Senate Republicans reject deal

Several Republican senators came out against the package, less than 24 hours after it was introduced.

On X, formerly known as Twitter, Republican Sens. Mike Braun of Indiana, Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Ted Budd of North Carolina, Mike Lee of Utah, Marco Rubio and Rick Scott of Florida, Josh Hawley of Missouri, Roger Marshall of Kansas and J.D. Vance of Ohio already said they will not vote for the package.

Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee called to instead pass a hard-right immigration bill the House passed last year known as H.R. 2. That bill would resume the construction of a barrier along the Southern border and reestablish Trump-era immigration policies.

Republican Sen. Deb Fischer of Nebraska said in a statement that she would not support the bill because it “falls short” of securing the border.

In a Fox News appearance Monday, GOP Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin expressed displeasure at the immigration bill, which he said “appears even worse than we feared.”

Alabama’s GOP Sen. Katie Britt said in a statement that she is not supportive of the bill because of the president’s current immigration policies at the Southern border.

“At every step along the way, President Biden has made it clear that he doesn’t want to end the border crisis – he wants to enable it,” she said. “Ultimately, this bill would not effectively block President Biden from executing that very agenda, and I won’t support it.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, is pushing for a process to add amendments “to try to improve the bill,” he said in a statement. He added that if amendments are not allowed, then “the bill will die because of process.”

“Like many others, I am open-minded on steps we can take to make the bill stronger,” Graham said. “That can only come through the amendment process.”

Even Maine’s Sen. Susan Collins, a moderate in the Senate Republican Caucus, did not indicate whether she would support the package.

In a statement, Collins, the top Republican on the Senate Committee on Appropriations, said she was pleased that her provisions to speed up work permits for migrants were included in the immigration section of the supplemental package.

The union that represents about 18,000 U.S. Border Patrol agents has endorsed the bill.

Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council, said the bill’s enforcement provisions “will give U.S. Border Patrol agents authorities codified, in law, that we have not had in the past.”

“While not perfect, the Border Act of 2024 is a step in the right direction and is far better than the current status quo,” Judd said.

Latino Democrats also object

Adding to the bill’s detractors, two Latino Democratic senators voiced opposition to the bill Monday. They argued it contains many hard-right policies reminiscent of the Trump administration and does not include a pathway to citizenship for undocumented people brought into the country as children, often referred to as Dreamers.

“Major chunks of this legislation read like an enforcement wish list from the Trump administration, and directly clash with the most basic tenets of our asylum system,” New Jersey Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez said in a statement.

California’s Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla said he strongly supported the bill’s foreign military and humanitarian aid funding, “but not at the expense of dismantling our asylum system while ultimately failing to alleviate the challenges at our border.”

The global security supplemental includes $60 billion to support Ukraine in its war against Russia; $14.1 billion in assistance for Israel; and $10 billion in humanitarian assistance “to provide food, water, shelter, medical care, and other essential services to civilians in Gaza and the West Bank, Ukraine, and other populations caught in conflict zones across the globe,” according to a summary.

Outlook worse in House

House Republicans, who hold a slim majority in that chamber, have already thrown cold water on the package.

Hours after the bill was released, House Speaker Mike Johnson wrote on X that the Senate bill is “dead on arrival” in the House.

“I’ve seen enough,” the Louisiana Republican said. “This bill is even worse than we expected, and won’t come close to ending the border catastrophe the President has created.”

Rep. Mark Green of Tennessee, chair of the House Homeland Security Committee who moved articles of impeachment for Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, said in a statement that he will “vehemently oppose any agreement that legitimizes or normalizes any level of illegal immigration.”

A vote on the House floor for the impeachment of Mayorkas, which is driven by House Republicans’ disagreement over policies at the Southern border, could come as early as Wednesday.

More states offer health care coverage for certain immigrants, noncitizens

Nada Hassanein — Wed, 31 Jan 2024 15:19:11 +0000

Julio Figuera, 43, an asylum-seeker, talks about his life traveling to the U.S. from Venezuela and living at O’Hare International Airport while he waits for medical treatment at the Cook County, Ill., medical clinic in October 2023, in Chicago. Across the U.S., states are implementing more programs to offer health care coverage to immigrants who don’t otherwise qualify for it because of their immigration status (Charles Rex Arbogast/The Associated Press).

Gabriel Henao fled Colombia to escape a guerrilla group who, he said, twice threatened to kill him. After some time in Mexico, he arrived in Colorado in July 2022, settling in Fort Collins.

His severe stomach pain started when he was in Mexico, he said. It was debilitating and left him bedridden for days at a time. The pain continued to plague Henao in the United States, but he said he didn’t make enough money cleaning houses to pay for health insurance.

Colorado did not offer Medicaid coverage to residents living in the country without legal status such as Henao, or to immigrants in the mandatory five-year waiting period after receiving their green cards. Without coverage, Henao couldn’t get a proper checkup, he said, let alone a diagnosis or treatment for his stomach pain.

That changed at the beginning of this month, when Henao received care through Colorado’s OmniSalud program, which provides health care coverage to low-income immigrants in the country without documentation. When the program started accepting enrollments in 2022 it covered 10,000 people without requiring them to pay premiums, and this year Colorado expanded the number of zero-premium slots to 11,000.

Alianza NORCO, a nonprofit organization that supports immigrants in northern Colorado with legal and other resources, is helping Henao acclimate to the U.S. and assisted with his application to the OmniSalud program.

“I started to get really scared, nervous, anxious because I didn’t have money to care for my health,” said Henao, 44, a father of three who owned a clothing warehouse in Colombia. He has applied for asylum, saying his life was in danger in his native country.

Now, after undergoing an appendectomy three weeks ago, “I feel excellent,” he said in Spanish through a translator provided by the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition.

Colorado is one of a growing number of Democratic-dominated states that are extending health care coverage to a limited number of immigrants who otherwise wouldn’t be eligible for public insurance because of their legal status.

Supporters say such programs save money in the long run, because insured people are more likely to receive treatment for chronic conditions and get preventive care, thereby avoiding expensive medical crises that end up costing taxpayers and raising premiums for the insured. But as more states face budget crunches, critics object to spending millions to insure people who are living here without authorization.

Meanwhile, the flood of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border figures to be a major issue in the presidential campaign. And earlier this week, nine Democratic governors sent a letter to the Biden administration and congressional leaders urging them to solve the “humanitarian crisis” of “the sustained arrival of individuals seeking asylum and requiring shelter and assistance.”

The Colorado program serves immigrants, regardless of their legal status, who have an income of less than $22,000 a year for an individual or less than $45,000 for a family of four. The state filled its 11,000 available slots in two days. The program costs the state an estimated $73 million annually, according to the Colorado Division of Insurance.

“For some people, it’s the first time that anyone in their family has been able to have health care, which is a huge, life-changing advancement,” said Raquel Lane-Arellano, communications manager for the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition. “They’re not just seeking emergency care. They’re able to go get preventative care.”

Covering more people

Advocates say the pandemic, and the health disparities it revealed, prompted state efforts to provide coverage to more people, regardless of their immigration status.

“It’s a very exciting trend that we are monitoring very closely. Some of the work on this has been decades long,” said Tanya Broder, senior staff attorney at the National Immigration Law Center. “But the recognition of the value of investing in health care for all really increased during the height of the pandemic, when states recognized that our health is interconnected, and it makes sense to protect the health of everyone in the community in order to protect public health.”

California, Oregon and Washington state also offer health care coverage to people of all ages who have incomes below a certain level, regardless of their immigration status. Minnesota will do so starting in 2025.

In addition, at least 24 states and Washington, D.C., now offer coverage to pregnant immigrant women who are in the five-year waiting period to qualify for Medicaid, according to an analysis by KFF, a health care policy research organization. Meanwhile, seven states — California, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Rhode Island and Washington — use state dollars or money from the state-federal Children’s Health Insurance Program, known as CHIP, to offer coverage for a year postpartum regardless of immigration status, according to KFF.

Starting in March, Michigan will eliminate the five-year waiting period for Medicaid for children and pregnant women. The change will result in coverage for up to 4,000 children and about 5,500 women, most of them Hispanic, said Simon Marshall-Shah, senior policy analyst for the Michigan League for Public Policy. Michigan will spend about $6.4 million on the program, but federal matching funds will bring the total to $26.4 million.

And this month, a new law went into effect in California offering Medicaid coverage to adults ages 26 to 49 regardless of immigration status.

California rolled out its health care coverage for immigrants in phases. In 2020, the state expanded its Medicaid program, which it calls Medi-Cal, to young adult immigrants ages 19 to 25, modeling the Young Adult Expansion program after a previous one for children under 19.

“This expansion comes out of our state general fund, meaning there isn’t like a new tax or a new funding source that we have to raise for this expansion,” said Sarah Dar, California Immigrant Policy Center’s policy director. Since emergency room visits are costly to both individuals and hospital systems, creating programs that expand access to primary health care coverage “makes good fiscal sense,” she said.

Pushback on efforts

But critics say California can’t afford the expansion amid the state’s mounting budget deficit. Republican state Sen. Brian Jones, who is the minority leader, released a statement earlier this month urging Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom to enact an 18-month freeze on the program.

“In the midst of a significant budget deficit, hospitals shutting down, and a massive influx of migrants illegally crossing our open border, now is not the time to be expanding this costly government program,” Jones wrote. “Our priority should be safeguarding critical services and core functionalities.”

In Nevada, Republicans blocked efforts to expand Medicaid to immigrants without documentation last year, saying the proposal would be too costly. During a March floor debate, Republican state Sen. Robin Titus, who is also a physician, said she worried about adding thousands more to the Medicaid rolls when the state already struggles with a lack of enough health practitioners.

“You’re diluting an even more diluted system. So, in the long run, it might hurt everyone,” she said. “How do you solve that access to care when you already don’t have enough of us?”

However, Republican-dominated Utah this month began enrolling kids in a new state-funded children’s health insurance program that covers immigrant children without documentation. The bipartisan bill signed by Utah Republican Gov. Spencer Cox last March allocated $4.5 million toward the program.

Critics say immigrants who are living in the United States illegally burden the system without contributing to it. But even unauthorized workers have payroll taxes deducted from their paychecks, and they pay sales taxes on their purchases. Immigrants without legal status pay property taxes on their homes or indirectly as renters, and at least half file income tax returns.

Those taxes help support public insurance programs such as Medicaid and Medicare, research shows. An analysis published in 2022 in the American Medical Association’s JAMA Network Open by researchers from Boston University, Harvard Medical School and others found immigrants here without legal permission pay an estimated $51.9 billion more into the health care system than the cost of their care.

Ultimately, “it’s about values,” said Dar, of the California Immigrant Policy Center. “We want our communities to be healthy. … It costs much less to just get preventative care, get regular checkups, get on insulin; if you need it, get on a statin, if you’ve got blood pressure issues. Those things are actually far, far cheaper than expensive life-saving procedures and tests.”

Starting this month in Washington state, immigrants without documentation and recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which delays deportation of immigrants who came to the U.S. as children, are allowed to shop for health plans through the state’s exchange marketplace. Those making $36,450 or less can qualify for state aid to help them cover premiums.

In July, the state also will launch a new Medicaid program that will cover poorer residents ages 19 and older, though there will a spending cap.

Dr. Leo Sergio Morales, who co-directs the University of Washington’s Latino Center For Health, noted that certain treatments and procedures, such as transplants, are especially costly and increasingly inaccessible for the uninsured.

“Transplants can be life-saving,” Morales said, “[and] people have to be able to afford the medications and treatment that follows the transplant — so, a lifetime of immunosuppression.”

States are also grappling with budget constraints. Illinois, for example, last November paused new enrollments for its health care coverage program for noncitizens 42 and older.

Colorado’s OmniSalud now provides zero-premium coverage to 11,000 people, but the state has about 200,000 immigrants who are in the country without authorization, Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition’s Lane-Arellano noted. “The biggest thing we want to see is the program continuing to expand,” she said. “This is very much that ‘all ships rise’ kind of situation.”

“There are economic reasons and sound data that prove preventative care saves the state of the economy and families in the long run,” she added. “It hurts families, and it hurts our entire community, our economy, when people get sick or are forced into medical debt.”

Henao hopes more states create programs like OmniSalud.

“It will be positive for all communities if immigrants who are arriving are able to get the support that they need, are able to get the ability to work, have access to health insurance,” he said. “Medical care is costly in this country.”

U.S. House committee advances impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas to floor

Ariana Figueroa — Wed, 31 Jan 2024 12:25:28 +0000

The U.S. House could vote as soon as next week on the impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas after a panel voted early Wednesday to approve two articles of impeachment (Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom).

WASHINGTON — The U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security early Wednesday voted 18-15 along party lines to send articles of impeachment against Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to the House floor. Republicans argue the charges are legitimate.

Members of the full House could vote as soon as next week to impeach Mayorkas, who is engaged with members of the Senate and the White House in finalizing a deal to overhaul immigration laws. Republicans, including the GOP front-runner in the race for the presidency, Donald Trump, have made clear immigration will be a central issue in the 2024 elections.

If the articles of impeachment are brought to the House floor for a vote and passed, it will be the first time in U.S. history that a Cabinet official is impeached due to what Democrats said are policy differences rather than alleged misconduct.

Even if the Republican House, with its slim majority, manages to impeach Mayorkas, the Democrat-controlled Senate will likely acquit him. This means, in the end, Mayorkas probably will not be removed from office.

“This is not about policy differences at all,” House Homeland Security Chair Mark Green, a Tennessee Republican, said in his opening statement at the committee markup. “This goes far deeper. Secretary Mayorkas has put his political preferences above following the law.”

Mayorkas sent a letter to Green Tuesday before the markup, defending his record, and pushed back on House Republicans’ claims that he has not enforced immigration law.

“We have provided Congress and your committee with hours of testimony, thousands of documents, hundreds of briefings, and much more information that demonstrates quite clearly how we are enforcing the law,” Mayorkas wrote.

After a more than 15-hour meeting that initially started Tuesday morning, the committee passed two articles of impeachment, accusing Mayorkas of “high crimes and misdemeanors.” It will be up to House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana to call for a House vote.

Democrats submitted nine amendments, and none were adopted.

Two articles of impeachment

The first article of impeachment against Mayorkas is for a “willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law” by not following court orders or laws passed by Congress, with the result an unprecedented number of migrants at the southern border.

The second article of impeachment cites Mayorkas for a breach of public trust by making false statements and obstructing oversight efforts at DHS by the Office of Inspector General, the agency’s internal watchdog.

The top Democrat on the committee, Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, said that those two articles of impeachment do not reach the standards of “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

“In a process akin to throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks, Republicans have cooked up vague, unprecedented grounds to impeach Secretary Mayorkas,” Thompson said in his opening statement.

Articles of impeachment have also historically gone through the House Judiciary Committee, Thompson added.

Green held two hearings this month on impeachment proceedings without Mayorkas as a witness. In the most recent hearing, Mayorkas was invited but could not attend due to a scheduling conflict, as he was meeting with officials from Mexico about migration issues.

Officials at DHS have called the markup “political games,” and noted that Mayorkas has testified 27 times before Congress, “more than any other Cabinet member.”

Democrats lambasted the markup as a “sham” and argued that Republicans were moving forward with impeachment as a way to campaign on immigration.

Thompson said that Republicans should instead agree to pass the bipartisan deal that the Senate is working on. No bill text has been released of that deal, and Johnson has not publicly supported it, or indicated that he will bring it for a vote in the House.

Press conferences

Leading up to the markup, Republicans and Democrats held dueling press conferences Monday.

Democrats, including Thompson and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, called the move to impeach Mayorkas “illegitimate,” and said that a Cabinet official cannot be impeached over policy differences.

Republicans, made up of mostly the Texas delegation, threw their support behind Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott, who is defying orders from the U.S. Supreme Court and the White House to remove razor wire fencing along the Texas-Mexico border.

Those Republicans repeatedly told Biden to leave the Lone Star State alone, and that they would move forward with impeaching Mayorkas.

“I think the voters are going to continue into November by calling this what it is. It is an invasion. It is the most egregious breach of our national security in the history of this country,” Texas GOP Rep. August Pfluger, who also sits on the House Homeland Security Committee, said.

GOP cites Supreme Court decision

Republicans focused on a recent Supreme Court decision, United States vs. Texas, to justify the move to impeach Mayorkas. In that case, Texas and Louisiana challenged new DHS immigration enforcement guidelines that prioritized the arrest and removal of certain noncitizens.

The conservative court voted 8-1 and found that the two states lacked standing. Republicans cite the lone dissent of that case from Justice Samuel Alito as part of their arguments for congressional authority to remove Mayorkas.

Alito said that “even though the federal courts lack Article III jurisdiction over this suit, other forums remain open for examining the Executive Branch’s enforcement policies. For example, Congress possesses an array of tools to analyze and influence those policies [and] those are political checks for the political process.”

Georgia’s Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, along with other Republicans, argued that one of those tools is the ability to impeach and said that the Supreme Court decision “left the House of Representatives with little choice.”

“The only one (tool) that makes sense in the current political environment is impeachment,” Greene said.

Maryland’s Democratic Rep. Glenn Ivey said that tools that Congress possesses for policy are “oversight, appropriations, the legislative process and Senate confirmations and through elections,” not impeachment.

Rep. Josh Brecheen, an Oklahoma Republican, said he felt it was dangerous for the executive branch to pick and choose which policies to follow.

“To allow the executive (branch) on how to enforce it or what to enforce, you’ve granted them the ability to become a king,” Brecheen said.

Ivey agreed there is no monarchy in the United States.

“We don’t have kings, we have elections and we have three branches of government,” he said.

‘Thin on constitutional grounds’

Democrats defended Mayorkas and argued that the articles of impeachment did not rise to the high bar needed.

Rhode Island Democratic Rep. Seth Magaziner said that the grounds for impeachment are treason, bribery or high crimes and misdemeanors, and he argued that Republicans have not made that case for Mayorkas.

“The case here is so thin on constitutional grounds that it’s laughable,” he said.

The first article of impeachment that cites laws Mayorkas did not follow includes detention and removal requirements under the Immigration and Nationality Act, such as the requirement for expedited removals.

Exceptions to expedited removal include credible fears on the part of migrants and claims of asylum. In 2021, Biden directed DHS to review those noncitizens who were subject to expedited removal and a year later the agency rescinded the expansion of expedited removal under the Trump administration, citing limited resources.

The first article of impeachment also cites Mayorkas’ use of parole authority, which allows migrants temporary protections without a visa. The executive branch has had this authority since the 1950s, but federal courts are currently reviewing the range of that parole authority.

The Biden administration has created temporary protections for certain nationals who qualify to allow them to temporarily work and reside in the country. Some migrants who are eligible for parole are from Afghanistan, Ukraine, Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, among others.

The first article of impeachment argues that because of those policies, Mayorkas is responsible for the unprecedented number of migrants. For the 2024 fiscal year, which started Oct. 1, there have been more than 785,000 migrant encounters at the border, according to recent DHS data.

The articles also accuse Mayorkas of being responsible for the strain on cities that are struggling to care for migrants such as New York City. Abbott has placed migrants on buses and planes and sent them to mainly Democratic-run cities without alerting local officials.

The first article of impeachment also blamed Mayorkas for profits made by smuggling operations, backlogs of asylum cases in immigration courts, fentanyl-related deaths and migrant children found working in dangerous jobs. Republican state legislatures have moved to roll back child labor laws in industries from the food industry to roofing.

Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee introduced an amendment to eliminate the first article of impeachment.

It failed on a 15-18 party-line vote.

Another amendment by Democratic Rep. Lou Correa of California eliminated the second article of impeachment.

It also failed on a 15-18 party-line vote.

The second article of impeachment argues Mayorkas has breached public trust by making several statements in congressional testimony that Republicans argue are false.

“Mr. Mayorkas lied to Congress,” Green said.

They cited statements by Mayorkas telling lawmakers the border is “secure,” and saying that the Afghans placed into the humanitarian parole program were properly vetted following the Taliban takeover of the country after the U.S. evacuated.

The second article of impeachment said that another false statement Mayorkas made was about a 2021 image of U.S. Border Patrol agents on horseback with whips as Haitian migrants were running away.

Mayorkas said he was “horrified” by the image and would immediately investigate.

An internal report found that the agents did not whip the migrants but used excessive force.

The second article of impeachment also charges Mayorkas with not fulfilling his statutory duty by rolling back Trump-era policies such as terminating contracts that would have continued construction of the border wall and ending the Migrant Protection Protocols, also known as the “Remain in Mexico” policy.

“If he is changing the policies of the Trump administration, that means it’s a policy decision, not a violation of the law,” Democrat of New York Dan Goldman said.

Goldman was the lead counsel for the first impeachment inquiry of Trump when he was president.

Remain in Mexico policy

Florida GOP Rep. Laurel Lee said that Mayorkas was ordered to reinstate the remain in Mexico policy and failed to do so. Mayorkas was not ordered to reinstate the 2019 Trump-era policy.

In a 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court upheld in 2022 that the Biden administration had the authority to end the remain in Mexico policy.

The remain in Mexico policy required asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their cases were heard in immigration court. Many immigration advocates argued this left migrants in dangerous situations.

“He’s come to this Congress and he’s given testimony before that was demonstrably false, stating that our border was secure, stating that he had operational control of the border when in fact, every person in this room, and I dare say the vast majority of America, knows that is not the truth,” Lee said.

Democrats accused Republicans of wanting to campaign on immigration rather than fixing the problem.

“The real reason we are here, as we all know, is because Donald Trump wants to run on immigration for his number one issue in the November 2024 election,” Goldman said.

Democratic Rep. Troy Carter of Louisiana said impeaching Mayorkas would set a dangerous precedent.

“So the slippery slope of ‘just because we can’ is a dangerous one,” he said. “You have no evidence to support why a person is impeached.”

Republican Carlos Gimenez of Florida said impeaching Mayorkas was not about politics and that the Biden administration is “using policy to mask unlawful behavior.”

Democratic Rep. Dina Titus of Nevada said the markup was a “political stunt.”

“Another saying that appropriately describes what’s going on here,” she said, “and that’s just shoveling the same old sh-t and calling it sugar.”

The US needs homes. But first, it needs the workers to build them

Robbie Sequeira — Tue, 30 Jan 2024 14:45:43 +0000

(Getty Images).

The United States needs an estimated 7 million more homes to house everyone who needs shelter. But to build all those homes, experts say, America would need many more construction workers.

“The biggest challenge that the construction industry is facing, to put it tongue in cheek, is that people don’t want their babies to grow up to be construction workers,” said Brian Turmail, vice president of public affairs and strategic initiatives at the Associated General Contractors of America, an industry group that’s been calling for more workforce development.

For decades, Turmail said, many educators and policymakers have been encouraging students to go to a four-year college, leading to a shortage of skilled tradespeople such as electricians and plumbers. Most of the tradespeople he knows, Turmail added, got into the business because of a personal contact.

And now, following both the Great Recession of 2008 and the construction cutbacks of the COVID-19 pandemic, more workers are leaving the industry than entering it, according to the National Center for Construction Education and Research.

“If there are fewer workers available, construction takes longer,” said Lily Roberts, managing director for inclusive growth at the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank based in Washington, D.C.

The construction industry says it is experiencing a workforce shortage and has been since well before the pandemic. Employment isn’t growing fast enough, said Erika Walter, director of media relations for Associated Builders and Contractors, a national industry group.

An analysis released earlier this month by the Associated Builders and Contractors found that at the end of November there were about 459,000 job openings in the industry. The 5.4% job opening rate was the highest since 2000.

Several states have taken steps in recent years to boost their construction workforces. They’re funding apprenticeships, investing in community college programs and offering grants to benefit specific industries, all in hopes of building a domestic pipeline of skilled construction workers. In Montana, nearly 3,000 apprentices are now working through a state program that links students to industry sponsors.

“The big surprise in 2023 for me was that all of a sudden these governors did more than just pump money into the labor shortage problem,” said Karl Eckhart, vice president of intergovernmental affairs for the National Association of Home Builders. “We need to expedite this process so we can at least get shovels under the ground.”

The problem

The U.S. construction industry lost nearly 30% of its workforce during the Great Recession of 2008, and had barely recovered before the COVID-19 pandemic hit it again, as outlined by a study shared last spring by economists at the University of Utah and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The authors attributed much of the shortage, however, to the federal Secure Communities immigration crackdown of the Obama administration.

“If a shortage of lower-skilled labor makes it more difficult to find workers to finish framing a house, this will also reduce demand for electricians and plumbers required at the subsequent stage of construction,” the authors wrote.

But another issue is that the industry’s labor force is headed toward retirement. More than 1 in 5 construction workers are 55 and older, and much of the workforce will be retiring in the coming decade, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

For now, though, roughly 68% of construction firms say their job applicants lack the skills they need, according to an Associated General Contractors survey last year.

“We’ve invested hundreds of millions into workforce training, because not only do we need homes, but the average age of an electrician in America is around 50 years old,” said Eckhart, of the National Association of Home Builders.

“If you’re, you know, Gen X or younger, your guidance counselor never said, ‘Hey, you should become an electrician.’ Now the industry has lost that potential pool of talent.”

Building a workforce

Among the challenges, experts and studies say, is that the construction industry isn’t doing enough to recruit different types of people.

According to a 2022 U.S. Department of Labor report, many apprentice programs for construction and trade-based skills often have sponsors who do not recruit or hire individuals from underrepresented groups — and may not even be aware of how to recruit members of those groups.

“In the construction industry, a generally untapped group of potential employees is women, including women of color,” Roberts, of the Center for American Progress, said.

Women and people of color are underrepresented in the construction industry and especially in the higher-paid, higher-skilled trades, according to the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Rose Khattar, director of economic analysis for inclusive economy at the Center for American Progress, said some jurisdictions have taken steps to expand the diversity of their workforce through training.

And in recent months, several states have touted new investments in trades education.

In November alone, for example, New York Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul announced that more than $12 million in grant money would be invested into training roughly 2,000 workers in various fields, including programs for welding, machine maintenance and construction work.

Ohio Republican Gov. Mike DeWine announced that 35 Ohio high school programs would receive almost $200 million in grant money to expand training facilities in areas including the electrical trades, welding and carpentry.

And Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat, signed an executive order requiring officials overseeing state construction projects of more than $5 million to consider using contractors participating in registered apprenticeship programs.

“I think the stigma of the construction industry is that you’re going into building trades because you couldn’t do anything else,” said Shelly Bell, vice president of workforce development at Florida’s Tallahassee Community College, which has a trades education curriculum tied to a larger, state-sponsored program.

There’s plenty of need, she pointed out, and long-term job security given the country’s housing shortage. “We want our students to see a career in construction that includes upward mobility and professional fulfillment,” she said.

Policymakers should take heed of ongoing workforce needs for another reason as well, Eckhart said.

“If you’re not investing in training skilled workers, that only hurts the consumer,” he said. “Less-skilled workers means homes that won’t be stable and functional, and you can’t afford to make shortcuts when it comes to building homes.”

U.S. Senate Republicans insist they won’t bow to Trump demands to quit immigration talks

Ariana Figueroa — Fri, 26 Jan 2024 12:00:55 +0000

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, listens as U.S. Senate Minority Whip Sen. John Thune, a South Dakota Republican, speaks to reporters following a weekly Republican policy luncheon at the U.S. Capitol on Oct. 19, 2021 in Washington, D.C. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — Top U.S. Senate negotiators said Thursday that final details on an immigration policy deal remain under debate in the U.S. Senate, despite outside pressure from GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump to sink any agreement as he makes immigration his central campaign message.

The No. 2 Senate Republican and GOP whip, Sen. John Thune, said that negotiations on an immigration deal tied to the passage of a multi-billion-dollar global securities supplemental package are at “a critical moment, and we’ve got to drive hard to get this done.”

“If we can’t get there, then we’ll go to Plan B,” the South Dakota Republican said.

He did not go into details on what a “Plan B” would look like or if a deal on immigration would be removed from the supplemental, which would provide critical aid to Ukraine that some Republican and Democratic senators are advocating as the country runs low on ammunition in its war with Russia.

Like in his first presidential campaign, Trump has made immigration a main theme, often referring to migrants claiming asylum at the Southern border as an “invasion.” On his social media site, Truth Social, he has urged congressional Republicans to not accept a deal.

During a closed-door meeting on Wednesday night, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky acknowledged the difficulty of passing an immigration bill and the potential it would undermine Trump, the top Republican negotiator of the deal, Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford, told reporters at the Capitol.

But Lankford disputed that McConnell’s comments, which were first reported by Punchbowl News, meant a deal on immigration would be killed so that Trump can attack President Joe Biden on the issue.

“McConnell was laying out the political realities of where things are, and it was the elephant-in-the-room conversation,” Lankford said. “We’re in a political election season.”

But Republican Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, a longtime Trump critic, told CNN that “the fact that (Trump) would communicate to Republican senators and Congress people that he doesn’t want us to solve the border problem, but basically wants to blame Biden for it — this is really appalling.”

Lankford said that he has not talked to Trump in months and that he, along with the bipartisan group of senators working on the border deal — Sens. Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, and Kyrsten Sinema, independent of Arizona — are still moving forward.

“It’s now the end of January, in the middle of the presidential primary season, so I think that’s the shift that has occurred that he’s just acknowledging,” Lankford said of McConnell. Trump on Tuesday sailed to victory in the New Hampshire presidential primary, following his victory in the Jan. 15 Iowa caucuses, with former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley his sole major remaining opponent.

It’s also unclear whether any eventual Senate deal will survive in the House, as GOP Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana is demanding hard-line House immigration legislation be adopted and is moving forward with impeachment proceedings for U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over his immigration policies.

Johnson has also thrown his support behind Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who is defying U.S. Supreme Court orders and the White House in keeping and installing razor wire along the Texas-Mexico border.

Parole targeted

While no framework or bill text of a Senate deal has been released, some of the proposals put forth would curb the Biden administration’s use of parole authority, which the administration has heavily relied on to grant temporary protections to migrants by allowing them to live and work in the United States without visas.

The Biden administration has invoked its parole authority more often than previous administrations to manage the large number of migrants at the Southern border, according to data compiled by Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, or TRAC, which compiles immigration data.

The deal is also likely to make changes to asylum law that would raise the bar for migrants claiming asylum.

For four months, Lankford, Sinema, and Murphy have worked to strike a deal with the White House to free up more than $100 billion in supplemental global security aid to Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan, and for U.S. border security.

Senate Republicans have hinged their support for the global supplemental package on immigration policy changes.

If passed, it would be the most substantial change to immigration law in 30 years.

Whether a deal passes is up to Republicans, Murphy said.

“We have negotiated a border policy package, we did what Republicans asked us to do, and now they seem to be having a hard time actually closing the deal,” he said.

Murphy said that the negotiators have an outline that appropriators are considering. He added that he’s not sure if aid to Ukraine would be unlinked to changes in immigration policy.

“I think what is very scary to some Republicans is that the deal we have reached will actually fix a big part of the problem, and I know for Donald Trump and some Republicans, it’s not in their best interest for there to be policy changes that actually fix the broken asylum system, or give the president new tools to better manage the border,” Murphy said.

Sen. Steve Daines, the chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the GOP campaign arm, said that he has not spoken to Trump about the immigration deal.

“It seems to me quite ironic that folks are blaming Trump for the border deal when this is Biden who created the problem and can solve the problem unilaterally through executive action,” the Montana Republican said.

South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham, a staunch Trump supporter, said that he’s talked to the former president and has “told him what we’re trying to accomplish,” but declined to answer questions if the deal could be passed without Trump’s approval.

Some Republicans reluctant to wait

Despite the push from Trump to quash the talks, some Senate Republicans said that they have an obligation to address the Southern border.

GOP Texas Sen. John Cornyn, who endorsed Trump earlier this week, said that “Texas can’t afford to wait 11 months,” referring to a potential second Trump presidency in 2025.

“Some people have said, well, the (immigration) issue is going to go away, and so that’ll be denying President Trump the issue. I think that’s a fantasy,” Cornyn said. “You’re not going to turn off what’s happening at the border like a water faucet, so this is going to continue to be a problem and it’s obviously a very, potent, political issue.”

He said that while Trump is “an important voice,” the Senate “has a job to do, and we intend to do it.”

Lankford echoed the same sentiments, and expressed doubt that Republicans would be able to get substantial immigration policy done under a second term with Trump because “we tried to do some immigration work while President Trump was president (and) Democrats would not join us in that conversation, and I’m not sure that they would in the next administration in that time period as well.”

Lankford noted that the deal they are working on now, if passed, will set immigration policy for decades.

“It’s really setting what’s going to be the policy direction for a long time,” he said. “So I encourage people to have a longer look on this, to say, ‘What can we do to be able to make sure that we have a consistent policy that works better than what we have now?’”

Funding seen as a last hurdle to final U.S. Senate immigration deal

Ariana Figueroa — Tue, 23 Jan 2024 22:57:51 +0000

U.S. Capitol. (Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom).

WASHINGTON — A bipartisan agreement that would make the most substantial changes to immigration policy in 30 years hinges on funding disputes, key senators said Tuesday.

While senators have not finalized the text of the agreement, they are discussing changes to the White House’s use of parole authority to grant temporary protections to migrants by allowing them to live and work in the United States without visas. Senators also want to raise the bar for migrants to claim asylum.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said during a Tuesday press conference that senators will get a chance to review the bill text, but did not indicate when he would bring the deal to the floor for a vote. Senate Democrats and Republicans have pushed for a quick deal on immigration policy to free up aid to Ukraine.

There were few specifics on the holdups to an agreement, but funding appeared to be one. “One of the things we have to discuss is the appropriations process because there will be a need for new money, and you know, we’re all discussing how much is there,” Schumer said. “There’s some disagreements. We’re trying to come to an agreement.”

Senate appropriators are working out “technical details,” said Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma, the lead Republican negotiator working with Arizona independent Kyrsten Sinema and Connecticut Democrat Chris Murphy.

“We’re still cranking through everything,” Lankford said.

The top Republican on the Senate Committee on Appropriations, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, said that appropriators are reviewing the immigration policies in the negotiated deal.

Collins added that there are some details that have not yet been finalized.

“There still is a lot of text that is bracketed on some major issues and where negotiations are still continuing,” she said. “This is a real challenge for us to get accurate cost estimates from (the U.S. Department of Homeland Security) and (the Congressional Budget Office) if we don’t have the final text.”

Collins said she hopes the Senate will vote on the deal this week, “but obviously members are going to want to look at the actual text.”

Even if the Senate passes an agreement as part of a global security supplemental package to provide aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, it’s unclear if House Speaker Mike Johnson will bring the legislation for a vote.

Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, has advocated for the inclusion of H.R. 2 – a bill that would codify some hard-line Trump-era immigration policies – the House passed with only Republican votes last year.

Schumer and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell have rejected the inclusion of the House bill, arguing that any agreement on immigration needs to be bipartisan.

Aid critical for Ukraine, senators say

During a Tuesday press conference, McConnell stressed the importance of Congress passing the supplemental global security package.

“The rest of the world is basically at war,” the Kentucky Republican said.

He added that it’s an “ideal time,” to address immigration policy at the Southern border.

“If this were not divided government, we wouldn’t have an opportunity to do anything about the border,” he said. “In fact, I don’t think we’d get 60 votes for any border plan if we had a fully Republican government. This is a unique opportunity where divided government has given us an opportunity to give us an outcome.”

For months, Lankford, Sinema and Murphy have worked to strike a deal with the White House to free up more than $100 billion in supplemental global security aid to Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and for U.S. border security.

Senate Republicans have hinged their support for the foreign assistance on immigration policy changes at the Southern border.

Murphy said a deal needed to be reached quickly because of the war in Ukraine.

“Ukraine is at a breaking point,” Murphy said. “We’re not engaged in a theoretical conversation about Ukraine possibly losing the war, they will lose the war very soon if we don’t get them aid.”

The White House said that it sent its last round of aid to Ukraine, and there are concerns that Ukraine is running out of ammunition as it nears the third year of war with Russia.

“We want to get this done as soon as possible,” Schumer said.

Biden backs immigration changes

President Joe Biden last week made one of his strongest public statements to date when he said that he backed “significant policy changes” to asylum law. It was a stark reversal from his campaign promise to protect asylum law and move away from the harsh immigration policies of former President Donald Trump’s administration.

As the 2024 presidential election campaign gets underway, immigration has become a central way for Republicans to criticize Biden and Democrats, as well as a central issue for Trump, the front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination.

As an unprecedented number of migrants head to the Southern border to claim asylum, Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has added to the strain in major Democratic-run cities by placing migrants on buses and planes to such cities, often without warning local officials.

Nine Democratic governors on Monday sent a letter to Biden and congressional leaders requesting federal aid and urging changes to immigration law as their states take in an overwhelming number of asylum seekers.

The two major policy issues senators are negotiating are raising the bar for migrants to claim asylum and curbing the administration’s use of parole authority, which grants temporary protections to migrants.

The executive branch has used parole since the 1950s, but the Biden administration has invoked that authority more often to manage the large number of migrants at the Southern border, according to data compiled by Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, or TRAC, which compiles immigration data.

For example, in fiscal year 2021, about 30,000 migrants were paroled, and in fiscal year 2022, more than 130,000 migrants were paroled, according to TRAC. That number increased in fiscal 2023, when in the first 10 months, more than 301,000 migrants were paroled, according to TRAC.

Recently, Biden has used that authority to grant temporary protections for migrants at the border, as well as more than 140,000 Ukrainians; more than 76,000 Afghans; and 168,000 Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan nationals.

Senate Republicans have made clear that limiting the White House’s use of parole is a “red line” issue and without it, no deal will be made.
U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has also been part of talks in the Senate as House Republicans are moving forward with a markup of articles of impeachment for Mayorkas next week over immigration policies at the Southern border.

Ashley Murray contributed to this report.

Democratic governors ask Congress for immigration aid to reverse years of ‘inaction’

Ariana Figueroa — Tue, 23 Jan 2024 15:07:33 +0000

Hundreds of recently arrived migrants to New York City wait outside of the Roosevelt Hotel, which has been made into a reception center, as they try to secure temporary housing on July 31, 2023 in New York City (Spencer Platt/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — Nine Democratic governors sent a letter to President Joe Biden and congressional leaders Monday, requesting federal aid and urging changes to immigration law as their states take in an overwhelming number of asylum seekers.

“The sustained arrival of individuals seeking asylum and requiring shelter and assistance, due to lack of Congressional action on infrastructure and policies, can only be addressed with federal organizational support and funding to meet the public safety and humanitarian needs of our local communities,” the letter led by New York Gov. Kathy Hochul read.

The letter was also signed by Govs. Katie Hobbs of Arizona, Gavin Newsom of California, Jared Polis of Colorado, J.B. Pritzker of Illinois, Wes Moore of Maryland, Maura Healey of Massachusetts, Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico and Phil Murphy of New Jersey.

New York City has taken in 168,000 migrants in the past 18 months, according to Mayor Eric Adams. Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has added to the strain in major Democratic-run cities by placing migrants on buses and planes to such cities, often without warning local officials.

“While the Biden Administration has made important progress in managing immigration at the Southwest border, the number of migrants arriving in states and cities seeking emergency shelter continues to increase at record pace,” according to the letter. “States and cities have spent billions to address inaction by Congress and match these challenges with solutions for our state and local economies.”

A bipartisan trio of Senate negotiators — Sens. James Lankford, Republican of Oklahoma, Kyrsten Sinema, independent of Arizona, and Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut — are hammering out the final details of changes to immigration policy as part of negotiations for a global security aid package of more than $100 billion. Some Republican senators had demanded immigration policy changes to be applied to the Southern border as a condition of considering Biden’s request for overseas aid.

The governors asked that Congress grant Biden’s request to include in a supplemental funding bill $4.4 billion for a federal migration strategy and $1.4 billion in aid to states and local governments dealing with an influx of migrants.

The governors are requesting Congress and the White House include “federal coordination and decompression at the southern and northern borders; federal funding for both border and interior states and cities receiving new arrivals; and a serious commitment to modernizing our immigration system in the United States.”

Of the $100 billion in supplemental funding, about $14 billion would go toward U.S. border security, and the rest would be for aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. Senators have not released bill text on the immigration policy, but the proposals they are considering would mark the most significant change to immigration law in the last 30 years.

Proposals being floated include making changes to asylum law that would set a higher bar for migrants to claim asylum and curbing the White House’s use of its parole authority that it has used to grant temporary protections to migrants from certain countries and others at the U.S. southern border.

“With ongoing conflicts around the world, global migration is at a historic high,” according to the letter. “States and cities cannot indefinitely respond to the subsequent strain on state and local resources without Congressional action.”

The letter comes after Biden said in a speech to more than 300 bipartisan mayors at a conference in Washington, D.C., that he is supportive of “significant policy changes” to asylum law – a stark reversal from his administration’s earlier position to protect asylum law.

U.S. House Republicans move ahead with drive to impeach Mayorkas over immigration policy

Ariana Figueroa — Thu, 18 Jan 2024 21:53:43 +0000

CAPTION: U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas holds a press conference at a U.S. Border Patrol station on Jan. 8, 2024 in Eagle Pass, Texas (John Moore/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — U.S. House Republicans Thursday held a second hearing on the impeachment of Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, even as Mayorkas works to reach a deal on changes in immigration law with a group of senators.

Republicans on the Homeland Security Committee argued that Mayorkas has not upheld his oath of office because he enforces Biden administration border policies, and that alone should be an impeachable offense.

Two of the Republican witnesses who testified, both mothers, said that administration immigration policies played a role in their daughters’ deaths.

“These crimes were wholly preventable, yet Secretary Mayorkas’ policies enable these criminals to enter our country and destroy these family’s lives. It’s despicable,” GOP Chair Mark Green of Tennessee said. Green did not indicate how many more hearings would be held before Republicans move on an impeachment resolution.

One mother who testified, Tammy Nobles, from Maryland, lost her daughter in 2022. A minor, who was a noncitizen, was charged with the sexual assault and murder of Kayla Hamilton.

Another witness, Josephine Dunn, of Arizona, lost her daughter, Ashley Dunn, in 2021 from a fentanyl overdose.

The top Democrat on the committee, Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, argued that the hearing was not a real impeachment inquiry. “It’s a predetermined, pre-planned partisan political stunt,” Thompson said.

Ian Sams, special assistant to the president and White House oversight spokesperson, said in a statement that Republicans were moving forward with impeachment to appease the far right.

“Beyond the shameless partisanship of attempting to scapegoat a Cabinet secretary who is actively working to find solutions to a problem Congressional Republicans have spent years refusing to actually solve, this stunt by House Republicans is just the latest example of their blatant disregard for the Constitution and our democratic system of government,” Sams said.

Mayorkas negotiating immigration deal

The hearing came as a group of bipartisan senators and Mayorkas is working to strike a deal on immigration policy in order to pass a multibillion global security package to aid Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and U.S. border security.

At issue in those talks is the Biden administration’s use of parole authority to grant temporary protections to certain nationals and some migrants at the Southern border.

While the House impeachment proceedings were ongoing Thursday, the Congressional Hispanic and Progressive caucuses held a press conference disapproving of changes to asylum law and limits on parole authority.

At the beginning of the hearing, Democrats argued that Republicans were not following proper procedures.

Thompson and Democratic Rep. Dan Goldman of New York said that if the committee was moving forward with an impeachment inquiry, then under those rules, Democrats are supposed to have a separate hearing where they can bring their own witnesses, rather than only having one witness.

The witness Democrats tapped was a constitutional law scholar, Deborah Pearlstein, the director of the Princeton Program in Law and Public Policy and Charles and Marie Robertson visiting professor of law and public affairs.

Green disagreed.

“There’s an interpretation disagreement on this,” he said. “Our parliamentarian says that you’re entitled to witnesses and not a specific hearing.”

Mayorkas not present

Republicans argued that Mayorkas violated his oath of office given the increase in migrants claiming asylum.

Since fiscal year 2024 began on Oct. 1, there have been more than 483,000 encounters with noncitizens at the Southwest land border, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data.

GOP lawmakers also criticized Mayorkas for being absent from the hearing. Mayorkas has agreed to appear before Congress and was not at Thursday’s hearing because he was meeting with officials from Mexico’s government to discuss border enforcement, according to DHS.

Texas Republican Rep. Michael McCaul, who also chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, asked the GOP witnesses, Nobles and Dunn, if they believed Mayorkas had violated his oath.

Both agreed and said they personally held Mayorkas responsible for the deaths of their daughters.

Rep. Clay Higgins promised that Mayorkas would be impeached.

“As God is my witness, we will impeach that man in this committee,” the Louisiana Republican said.

Florida GOP Rep. Carlos Gimenez questioned Pearlstein about whether Mayorkas could be impeached under “dereliction of duty.”

Pearlstein said in her testimony that there have only been two occasions in U.S. history where officials were charged with “dereliction of duty,” in 1804 and 1873.

“In both of those cases, the charges alleged that the officials were either chronically inebriated or mentally incapacitated, or both,” she said. “In short, neither involved a case in which Congress was simply dissatisfied with the official’s performance in office; both involved officials who were at base physically or mentally unable to carry out their duties.”

Pearlstein said that there is “no remotely comparable evidence of Secretary Mayorkas’ incapacity (that) has been presented here.”

Gimenez asked if it would be an impeachable offense if someone “fails to uphold their oath to protect the homeland and does it in a way that it’s a dereliction (of) duty.”

Pearlstein said in general it could be conceivable, but “I don’t know if there is evidence here of dereliction,” in terms of Mayorkas.

She added that “dereliction of duty,” is also different from “failure to comply with the oath.”

“Impeachment is only about a certain category of offenses,” she said. “It only addresses a certain category of offenses — it has to be an offense similar to treason or bribery, that is, an offense against the system of government, not any ordinary criminal offense, something that disrupts the structure of the Constitution or system of government.”

Democrats see a lack of evidence

Maryland’s Democratic Rep. Glenn Ivey said the hearing was a distraction from actually working on border policy.

“If there is no evidence that the Republicans have presented about actual impeachment, the standard and the Constitution being violated, we should not be moving forward with this,” he said.

Rhode Island’s Democratic Rep. Seth Magaziner made similar comments, and argued that Republicans have the opportunity to address border security in the supplemental talks.

“Where have House Republicans been in those talks?” he said.

Those negotiations are only between the Senate and the White House, and Speaker Mike Johnson met with President Joe Biden and those negotiators Wednesday. Following that meeting, Johnson said that border security needs to be included in any supplemental package.

Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who first introduced the resolution to impeach Mayorkas for “high crimes and misdemeanors,” argued that House Republicans have put forth policy changes, with the passage of H.R. 2 back in May of last year.

That bill is dead on arrival in the Senate and includes the reimplementation of several harsh Trump-era immigration policies.

“They want more money to help more migrants come into the country,” Greene said of Democrats’ border security funding request. “It’s unfortunate that it’s about migrants, it should be about Americans.”

She added that if Mayorkas is following Biden’s policies, then “maybe we should be holding articles of impeachment on the president.”

Greene has already introduced articles of impeachment against Biden. She asked Pearlstein if Mayorkas or Biden should be impeached.

Pearlstein said that the Constitution is not for impeaching officials over policy differences.

“We’re not talking about the Constitution,” Greene said.

Nevada’s Democratic Rep. Dina Titus said she found it interesting that Greene “actually had the gall to say, ‘We’re not talking about the Constitution.’”

“She’s the one who entered the resolution that we are considering, so if we’re not talking about the Constitution, what are we talking about?” she said. “We’re wasting our breath … It’s a political stunt.”

Mothers testify

Florida’s Laurel Lee asked both mothers what Congress could do to prevent the tragedies they experienced.

Nobles said that she wants migrants to be vetted and go through a background check. An Office of Inspector Generals report found that while U.S. Border Patrol within U.S. Customs and Border Protection followed protocol in “screening procedures to prevent migrants with serious criminal backgrounds” from entering the country, agents could strengthen the process in maintaining a noncitizen’s file.

The noncitizen minor who was charged with her daughter’s murder had a prior criminal record in El Salvador, Nobles said.

“They failed Kayla by not checking her murderer’s background,” she said. “I know Americans commit crimes on other Americans, but why do we have to take other countries’ trash? Why do we need them?”

Dunn said that she wants military personnel at the U.S.-Mexico border.

“We need our military at the border stopping the drugs, stopping people from coming in,” Dunn said.

Oklahoma’s GOP Rep. Josh Brecheen asked Nobles if DHS notified her that the minor charged with her daughter’s murder had ties with MS-13, a gang.

“It took the local detectives to find out he was MS-13,” she said, and explained that came after DNA testing.

With GOP pushing hard on immigration, parole emerges as a make-or-break issue in Congress

Ariana Figueroa — Thu, 18 Jan 2024 13:21:39 +0000

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., speak during a news conference on border security on Jan. 17, 2024 in Washington, D.C. Graham highlighted what he calls the Biden Administration’s “abuse of the immigration parole system" (Kent Nishimura/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — Passage of a multi-billion-dollar supplemental package hinges on curbing an executive authority used to grant immigration protection, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said during a Wednesday press conference.

“If we don’t fix parole, there will be no deal,” Graham said alongside Senate Republican Whip John Thune of South Dakota.

Graham said parole is a “red line” for Senate Republicans, and his comments came as President Joe Biden met with congressional leaders to advocate for more than $100 billion in aid for Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and U.S. border security. Republicans have tied changes in immigration policy to their support for the supplemental, which the White House has said is essential to aid countries the U.S. supports.

“As these negotiations, we hope, conclude soon, there have been some significant gains made in terms of policies that are real,” Thune said, adding that some of those policies include “dealing with asylum, dealing with border security measures, whether that be a physical wall or technical barriers.”

The strong focus in Congress on immigration policy follows the Iowa caucuses, where former president Donald Trump easily won and vowed in his victory speech to push for harsher immigration policies. Those policies, which call for mass deportations and the continuation of building a barrier along the U.S.-Mexico border, are the center of his presidential reelection campaign.

“We’re going to seal up the border,” Trump, the GOP front-runner, said to a cheering crowd after his Monday win, adding that there is an “invasion” from the people claiming asylum at the Southern border.

U.S. House Republicans on Wednesday conducted two separate hearings and a vote slamming the Biden administration’s immigration policy, amid the continuation of impeachment proceedings of U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

The House also voted on a resolution, H.Res. 957, put forth by GOP Rep. Nathaniel Moran of Texas, that condemns the Biden administration’s immigration policy at the border. It passed 225-187, with 14 Democrats joining Republicans.

Those Democrats include Reps. Mary Peltola of Alaska; Yadira Caraveo of Colorado; Jared Moskowitz of Florida; Eric Sorensen of Illinois; Jared Golden of Maine; Angie Craig of Minnesota; Susie Lee of Nevada; Wiley Nickel and Don Davis of North Carolina; Greg Landsman of Ohio; Henry Cuellar, Colin Allred, and Vicente Gonzalez Jr. of Texas; and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington.

“The president has failed to maintain operation control of this nation’s borders,” Minnesota GOP Rep. Michelle Fischbach said on the House floor during debate of the resolution.

Pennsylvania Democratic Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon said on the House floor during debate that the resolution is a GOP campaign tool.

“It’s an effort to keep campaigning on the fear of immigrants rather than any serious attempt to address the complex issues created by global migration forces and decades of congressional inaction,” she said.

What is parole?

To handle the increase of people at the Southern border, the Biden administration has used its executive authority to grant parole — something that presidents have employed since the 1950s — to allow non-citizens to temporarily reside and work in the United States.

Graham said that Republicans’ top negotiator on border policy, Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma, has negotiated “meaningful reforms” in immigration policy through expedited removal procedures and changes to asylum law. But Graham argued that “none of those reforms will work until you deal with parole.”

The Biden administration has used parole authority in two ways. The first is a limit for certain nationals such as Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans to temporarily work and live in the U.S. The White House also used parole authority for more than 140,000 Ukrainians and more than 76,000 Afghans.

So far, there have been 168,000 benefactors from the Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan Parole Program, according to the Migration Policy Institute, a think tank that tracks migration.

The administration has also used parole authority on a case-by-case basis for migrants at the border. For fiscal year 2022, more than 370,000 people were granted parole at the border and in fiscal year 2023, more than 304,000 people were granted parole at the border, according to the Migration Policy Institute.

While there is no bill text or framework for an immigration deal, Republicans have floated the idea of raising the bar for migrants to claim asylum, and curbing the White House’s use of parole authority.

Graham warned Republicans to take the deal the Senate and White House make, because if Trump is in the White House in 2025, “Democrats will be expecting a pathway to citizenship for that (deal) in my view.”

“So to my Republican friends, to get this kind of border security without granting a pathway to citizenship is really unheard of,” Graham said.

Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, whom Democrats tapped for negotiations on immigration policy, said that the Senate is close to a deal.

“Our goal is to give the executive branch new tools to better manage the border while living up to our values as a nation of immigrants,” he said during a Wednesday press conference.

House priorities

Additionally, House Speaker Mike Johnson has continued to push for the hard-line immigration policies of H.R. 2 while a bipartisan trio in the Senate that also includes independent Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona along with Lankford and Murphy works to strike a deal on immigration policy.

Johnson said that when he attends a meeting at the White House scheduled for Wednesday about funding for Ukraine, he will push for policies at the Southern border.

“We have to take care of our own house,” Johnson said during a press conference earlier Wednesday. “We have to secure our own border before we talk about anything else.”

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has called H.R. 2 a nonstarter in the Senate.

“The hard right — typical of them — in the House have insisted on passing a highly partisan bill, H.R. 2, word-for-word,” the New York Democrat said on the Senate floor.

“That is not bipartisanship. Any agreement on an issue as complex and contentious as the border is going to have to have enough support from both sides.”

The House Oversight & Accountability Committee held a hearing Wednesday that focused on how the Biden administration rolled back numerous hard-right immigration policies of the Trump administration that many courts struck down. Those included the “Remain in Mexico” policy that required migrants to wait in Mexico while their asylum cases were processed and the so-called “Muslim ban” that barred entry from countries with a predominately Muslim population.

During the committee hearing, GOP Chair James Comer of Kentucky argued that no amount of funding will help the Southern border, “because what we are seeing isn’t a money problem, it’s a policy problem.

“It’s a problem of not enforcing U.S. immigration law,” he said.

The top Democrat on the committee, Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, said the hearing was an opportunity for Republicans to show how they will run on immigration policy in the upcoming 2024 election.

“It has become obvious that Trump’s party doesn’t want immigration solutions at the border, they want immigration problems to run against,” Raskin said.

Ohio Democratic Rep. Shontel Brown said that the immigration system that Biden inherited “has been broken for a very long time.” She argued that the supplemental package the Senate and White House are negotiating will help officials as they handle the increase in migrants claiming asylum at the border.

“Extreme Republicans have a choice — they can keep using immigration to try to score political points, or they can help solve the problem,” Brown said.

An oversight panel of the House Energy and Commerce Committee also held a late-afternoon hearing on how the Biden administration’s policies at the Southern border have impacted the heath, safety and economics of U.S. communities.

And on Thursday, the House Homeland Security committee will hold its second hearing into the impeachment proceedings for Mayorkas.

Mayorkas has agreed to testify before Congress, but the committee has not announced if he will be a witness.

U.S. House impeachment proceedings against Mayorkas over immigration feature state AGs

Ariana Figueroa — Wed, 10 Jan 2024 21:40:04 +0000

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey at Wednesday's U.S. House Homeland Security committee hearing testifies that he believes Congress should move forward with impeaching U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas (screenshot).

WASHINGTON — U.S. House Republicans began their impeachment proceedings against Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas with a Wednesday hearing, a move Democrats called politically motivated.

The House Committee on Homeland Security hearing aimed to set the stage for Mayorkas’ impeachment, with Republicans arguing that the Biden administration appointee has failed to fulfill his oath in office and therefore should be impeached.

“Our evidence makes it clear, Secretary Mayorkas is the architect of the devastation that we have witnessed for nearly three years,” said Rep. Mark Green, the Tennessee Republican who leads the committee.

Green referenced as evidence a December report from committee Republicans that found Mayorkas failed to “enforce laws passed by Congress.” Green said he plans to hold additional hearings on impeachment proceedings.

Democrats on the committee called the five-hour hearing a “sham,” and argued that disagreements over policy are not an impeachable offense.

“You cannot impeach a Cabinet secretary because you don’t like the president’s policies,” the top Democrat on the committee, Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, said. “This impeachment is a sham.”

Congress has only impeached one Cabinet member in U.S. history, Secretary of War William W. Belknap in 1867. He was unanimously impeached in the Senate for “criminally disregarding his duty as Secretary of War and basely prostituting his high office to his lust for private gain.”

No formal charges have been brought against Mayorkas, and Mayorkas did not appear at the hearing, nor did any DHS officials. The witnesses included GOP attorneys general from Montana, Missouri and Oklahoma.

“Oklahoma, like every other state, bears a significant financial burden related to the routine services that must be provided to those who are here illegally,” Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond said in his opening statement.

The hearing comes as Mayorkas, the White House and a group of bipartisan senators are working to strike a deal on immigration policy tied to a global security supplemental package that includes billions in aid for U.S. border security.

In the House, Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana had a Wednesday phone call with President Joe Biden in which Johnson advocated for the White House to accept the GOP-passed bill H.R. 2, Raj Shah, deputy chief of staff for communications for Johnson, said in a statement.

“The Speaker strongly encouraged the President to use his executive authority to secure the southern border and reiterated the contents of his letter to the President dated December 21, 2023,” Shah said.

H.R. 2 is dead on arrival in the Senate.

Impeachable offenses?

The witness tapped by Democrats, Frank O. Bowman, a professor emeritus of law at the University of Missouri School of Law, said that policy disagreements should not be the grounds for impeaching an official.

“I’ve seen nothing that rises to the level of an impeachable offense,” he said.

Louisiana Republican Rep. Clay Higgins said that Mayorkas is “going to be impeached,” because “he is the executive in charge of the border policy for President (Joe) Biden.”

“That executive has a responsibility to advise the president that his policies are not only not working to secure the border, they’re bringing an injury to the country,” Higgins said.

Florida GOP Rep. Carlos Giménez said that he believes Mayorkas should be impeached because he is not following the laws passed by Congress.

The last time Congress passed comprehensive immigration policy was in 1986.

“We have this issue of policy versus law, “Giménez said. “The law clearly states that people coming into the United States or people seeking asylum in the United States, two things happen to them, they are either detained here or they are detained in another country waiting the outcome of their asylum hearing.”

He criticized the Biden administration for overusing its parole authority to allow migrants to work and temporarily stay in the country.

The president has parole authority under the Immigration and Nationality Act.

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey said the Biden administration was violating the law by using parole. Texas, and a dozen attorneys general — including Bailey — filed a suit to block the Biden administration’s use of its parole authority.

Bailey, who is running for a full term later this year, said that decision from the Biden administration to use parole authority forced “a lawsuit from several like-minded state attorneys general because of the drastic, terrible harm that’s occurring on the streets in our communities.”

Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who filed a resolution impeaching Mayorkas, said that the two impeachments of former President Donald Trump were “quite a political, sham impeachment.”

Trump was first impeached in 2019 on two charges of obstructing Congress and abusing his power. The second impeachment was for inciting a pro-Trump mob to attack the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

Bowman repeated multiple times that differences in policies do not reach the bar of “high crimes and misdemeanors” to impeach a government official.

“Congress and the executive are (supposed) to work together to solve the country’s problems. They’re often going to disagree about how to do that,” he said. “In our system, the solution is the hard work of legislation, of negotiation, of compromise, of coalition building. Impeachment is not and never has been the answer.”

He said the framers of the Constitution made it clear that impeachment is “for the most extraordinary of circumstances, and simply to resolve a partisan, political debate or to change policy is not it.”

Fentanyl crisis cited

Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen said he has seen an increase in fentanyl opioid deaths in his state and blamed Mayorkas.

“At the direction of Secretary Mayorkas, the Department of Homeland Security has wreaked havoc at our southern border, exacerbated the fentanyl epidemic, and emboldened the drug cartels,” Knudsen said in his opening statement.

According to the most recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data, in the United States there were 106,699 drug overdose deaths in 2021 — a 16% increase from 2020.

In Montana, there were 199 overdose deaths in 2021, or 19.5 per 100,000 people. It’s also the top safety threat in the state.

“Fentanyl is our biggest issue,” Knudsen said.

Democratic Rep. Donald Payne of New Jersey said that Congress needs to address the fentanyl crisis and discern “why is fentanyl killing so many of our folks,” and to understand “the demand for it as well.”

Immigration negotiations in Congress center on parole, asylum policy

Ariana Figueroa — Wed, 10 Jan 2024 11:50:20 +0000

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer says he believes talks on immigration have made progress and “we’re going to be persistent” (Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom).

WASHINGTON — A deal on changes to immigration policy remained elusive on Tuesday for top U.S. Senate negotiators.

Those leading the talks — Sens. James Lankford, Republican of Oklahoma, Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut and Kyrsten Sinema, independent of Arizona — have worked for weeks to strike a deal between the White House and Senate Republicans on immigration policy changes at the U.S. Southern border.

Congress was on a break for the holidays but returned this week.

“Everybody’s still at the table talking, so that’s a good thing,” Lankford said, adding that he’s hoping there can be bill text later this week.

Democratic Senate Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said that negotiations on an immigration deal have made progress.

“We’re going to be persistent,” Schumer said. “We’re closer today to an agreement than we have ever been.”

For the past month, the Biden administration has been negotiating with that group of bipartisan senators to strike a deal that would tighten immigration restrictions in exchange for passage of a more than $100 billion in emergency supplemental aid for Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and U.S. border security.

“There needs to be a strong border provision (as) part of (the supplemental),” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said during a Tuesday press conference.

A major demand by Republicans is to make changes to asylum law to set a higher bar for migrants to claim asylum and to curb the Biden administration’s use of its parole authority.

Republican Whip Sen. John Thune of South Dakota said that the White House and Democrats “are now finally starting to address (parole), and if they can get that addressed, we’ll see how it goes this week.”

Thune added that it’s unlikely that there will be an agreement on immigration and the supplemental before Congress’ first funding deadline on Jan. 19. If it is not met, there could be a partial government shutdown.

Mayorkas impeachment

The talks in the Senate come as House Republicans are moving forward with a Wednesday hearing beginning impeachment proceedings against Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over the Biden administration’s immigration policy at the Southern border.

Mayorkas, who visited the Southern border on Monday, defended his agency’s policies and called on Congress to pass immigration reform.

“Some have accused DHS of not enforcing our nation’s laws,” Mayorkas said during his trip to the border. “This could not be further from the truth.”

Mayorkas said that Border Patrol agents and officers dealt with a high number of migrants at the Southern border in December.

Since fiscal year 2024 began on Oct. 1, there have been more than 483,000 encounters with noncitizens at the Southwest land border, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data.

House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana also led a delegation of House Republicans to the Southern border recently, criticizing the White House’s immigration policy, and advocating for Trump-era immigration policies.

Debate over parole

Democrats and immigration advocates have pushed back against changes to asylum and parole authority.

Nicole Melaku, executive director of the National Partnership for New Americans, a coalition of more than 60 immigrant and refugee rights organizations, said proposals to change asylum and parole will “only worsen existing challenges at the border.

“We urge you to hold the line and bring forward solutions that improve our immigration system, fully resource welcoming infrastructure, and honor our nation’s long-standing responsibility to offer refuge to those in need of safety,” Melaku said.

There are two ways the Biden administration has used parole authority. The first is for certain nationals such as Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans to temporarily work and live in the U.S.

The administration has also used parole authority on a case-by-case basis for migrants.

Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, the U.S secretary of Homeland Security has the authority to “parole into the United States temporarily under such conditions as he may prescribe only on a case-by-case basis for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit any [noncitizen] applying for admission to the United States.”

Lankford has stated multiple times that he wants to curb the Biden administration’s broad use of parole authority for migrant releases at the border.

Murphy said he thinks it’s important to preserve the presidential authority to use parole, but did not specify the potential changes to the White House’s use of parole authority under discussion.

“The president uses parole to help better manage the border and to make sure that people are vetted before they arrive,” Murphy said. “My worry is that many Republicans who are asking for parole reforms are actually trying to increase, not decrease, the chaos at the border.”

U.S. House speaker leads GOP lawmakers to the border to slam Biden on immigration

Ariana Figueroa — Thu, 04 Jan 2024 11:55:21 +0000

CAPTION: U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson speaks at a press conference at the U.S.-Mexico border on Jan. 3, 2024 (Screenshot from live feed supplied by Johnson’s office).

WASHINGTON — U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson led a delegation of House Republicans on a Wednesday trip to the U.S.-Mexico border to demand hard-line immigration proposals in exchange for passage of President Joe Biden’s emergency global security supplemental request.

“If President Biden wants a supplemental spending bill focused on national security, it better begin by defending America’s national security,” Johnson, of Louisiana, said. “It begins right here on our Southern border.”

The press conference in Eagle Pass, Texas, came as the Senate is trying to strike a bipartisan deal on immigration policy that has been tied to passage of the supplemental package. The White House in 2023 sent Congress an emergency supplemental request of roughly $106 billion for global security for Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and U.S. border security.

Separately, quickly approaching funding deadlines of Jan 19 and Feb. 2 could throw Congress into a partial government shutdown, in two stages.

Johnson said that negotiations for government funding are ongoing and that two top priorities for House Republicans are border security and to “reduce nondefense discretionary spending.”

There is still no agreement on a total spending level for the current fiscal year, known as the topline.

Increase in migrants

The number of migrants coming to the U.S. border to claim asylum has continued to rise, with the most recent data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection recording more than 483,000 encounters in total for fiscal year 2024 that began on Oct. 1.

White House spokesperson Andrew Bates criticized Johnson and the Republicans for visiting the border, instead of passing the Biden administration’s emergency supplemental request that included about $14 billion for U.S. border security, before leaving for a three-week recess in December.

“Speaker Johnson is continuing to block President Biden’s proposed funding to hire thousands of new Border Patrol agents, hire more asylum officers and immigration judges, provide local communities hosting migrants additional grant funding, and invest in cutting edge technology that is critical to stopping deadly fentanyl from entering our country,” Bates said.

In the House, Republicans are insisting on immigration policies from legislation passed in that chamber, H.R. 2. Biden has promised to veto it.

It’s also unclear if Johnson would accept a bipartisan agreement from the Senate. He argued that the House “has done its job” in passing H.R. 2.

“H.R. 2 is the necessary ingredient,” Johnson said.

However, Senate Democrats have already stated that H.R. 2 is a non-starter.

GOP immigration policies

That legislation the House passed in May mirrors Trump-era immigration policies, such as resuming hundreds of miles of construction of a border wall, stripping funding from nonprofits that aid migrants, beefing up staffing of Border Patrol agents and restricting the use of parole programs.

Republicans are seeking to curb the Biden administration’s use of parole to allow nationals from Haiti, Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela to work temporarily in the U.S.

The delegation on Wednesday was also led by Rep. Tony Gonzales of Texas, whose congressional district is on the border. His office, and Johnson’s office, did not respond to States Newsroom’s request for a list of all the GOP lawmakers in attendance. Johnson said there were 64 members on the trip.

Johnson said that Republicans met with local residents and sheriffs and toured a CBP processing facility.

He criticized the Biden administration for rolling back immigration policies from the Trump administration, such as stopping the construction of the border wall and ending the “remain in Mexico” policy.

The protocols require migrants from Mexico who are seeking asylum to remain in Mexico while their paperwork is processed, but many advocates have documented harm, separation and deaths to those who must comply with the program.

In October, the Biden administration decided to allow for the construction of additional border wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, angering Democrats and immigration advocates.

Mayorkas impeachment to be launched

The House Homeland Security Committee on Jan. 10 will also hold a hearing to begin an impeachment case against U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over his handling of immigration at the border.

Rep. Mark Green of Tennessee, who chairs the committee, said at the border press conference that his committee has finished its investigations into Mayorkas and that “you’re going to see a lot more coming here very soon.”

“The greatest domestic threat to the national security and the safety of the American people is Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas,” Green said. “He, through his policies, has defied and subverted the laws passed by the United States Congress.”

In a statement to States Newsroom, DHS spokesperson Mia Ehrenberg said that House Republicans were “wasting valuable time and taxpayer dollars pursuing a baseless political exercise that has been rejected by members of both parties and already failed on a bipartisan vote.

“There is no valid basis to impeach Secretary Mayorkas, as senior members of the House majority have attested, and this extreme impeachment push is a harmful distraction from our critical national security priorities,” Ehrenberg said. “Secretary Mayorkas and the Department of Homeland Security will continue working every day to keep Americans safe.”

US Senate negotiators see progress in immigration talks, but no deal likely until 2024

Jennifer Shutt — Wed, 20 Dec 2023 12:00:55 +0000

Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Lankford speaks with reporters outside the U.S. Capitol about border policy negotiations on Thursday, Dec. 7, 2023 (Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom).

WASHINGTON — Senators attempting to clinch a bipartisan agreement on immigration and border policy gave the clearest indication yet Tuesday they’ll work into the new year, further delaying aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.

“We are closer than ever before to an agreement, but … we need to get this right,” said Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, Democrats’ top negotiator.

“There’s a reason why Congress hasn’t passed major immigration or border reform in 40 years,” Murphy added. “This is tough to come to a compromise and it’s just as tough to write to make sure you get the ideas down onto paper in a way that makes sure the policy is implemented correctly.”

Murphy said he planned to take one-and-a-half days away to spend Christmas with his family, but would otherwise be at the negotiating table for as long as it takes.

“Momentum is heading in the right direction and I think that will continue over the course of this week,” Murphy said.

Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Lankford said Tuesday afternoon that negotiators had met twice earlier in the day and were scheduled to talk later in the evening.

“We’re making progress,” Lankford said. “We’re taking it section-by-section and chipping away at it. So you just make progress as you go.”

Lankford said it is possible that negotiators get the agreement wrapped up in January, adding “we’ve got to get it done.”

Senate trio working on immigration

Murphy, Lankford and Arizona independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema have been huddling for weeks to try to find a way forward on changes to immigration and border security.

They were joined late last week by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas as well as staff from Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell’s office.

Republicans insist that a bipartisan compromise on immigration and border security policy is necessary to advance additional funding for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.

Senate Democrats introduced a $110.5 billion spending package for those three areas as well as for U.S. border security, but GOP senators blocked that from moving forward in early December.

National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby said Tuesday during the White House press briefing that there’s enough funding left from earlier aid packages for one additional round of aid for Ukraine this year.

“That’s why it’s so critical that Congress act on that supplemental funding,” Kirby said.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, said during a press conference Tuesday that there is no other option than to reach a bipartisan agreement on immigration policy in order to get military and humanitarian aid for U.S. allies.

“Negotiations aren’t easy, we know it’s going to take more time but I am significantly more optimistic today than I was Thursday,” Schumer said.

Democrats agree “the border must be fixed,” but Schumer said finding common ground remains “difficult.”

McConnell said during a separate press conference Tuesday that “it’s pretty safe to say that we’ve made some significant progress, but we obviously aren’t there.”

“This is not easy but we’re working hard to get an outcome because the country needs it and the country needs it soon,” McConnell said.

Hopes dim even more for immigration agreement in US Senate before holidays

Ariana Figueroa — Tue, 19 Dec 2023 14:56:55 +0000

The U.S. Capitol (Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom).

WASHINGTON — U.S. senators late Monday said they are closer to an agreement on changes to immigration policy in order to clear a multi-billion-dollar global security package, but any timing on a deal or details of that framework remained elusive.

“While the job is not finished, I’m confident that we’re headed in the right direction,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said.

Schumer, a New York Democrat, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky acknowledged that progress was made on immigration negotiations over the weekend, but said that more time was needed for an agreement and to produce legislative text.

“Senate Republicans will not make up for others showing up late to the table by waiving our responsibility to carefully negotiate and review any agreement before voting on it,” McConnell said.

The Biden administration is negotiating with a group of bipartisan senators to strike a deal that would tighten immigration restrictions and thus ease passage of more than $100 billion in emergency supplemental aid for Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and U.S. border security.

If the package is punted to the New Year, it adds to Congress’ growing list of difficult items, including two funding deadlines that could lead to a potential partial government shutdown if not met, and the White House has warned Ukraine has about a month of funding left unless Congress approves aid.

The talks on Capitol Hill follow recent comments from the Republican front-runner, former president Donald Trump, who has continued to use dehumanizing language toward immigrants — most recently at a campaign stop in New Hampshire over the weekend. The anti-immigrant remarks echoed language in Adolf Hitler’s memoir “Mein Kampf.”

Just 61 senators vote

Schumer kept the Senate in session to continue negotiations after the House left last week, and he did not indicate Monday if a vote on the supplemental would be held this week. Only 61 senators were in attendance for a vote Monday night to confirm former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley as commissioner for the Social Security Administration.

Schumer said that there needs to be a “middle ground” and that both sides will have to make concessions.

The lead Senate negotiators are Sens. Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, Kyrsten Sinema, independent of Arizona and James Lankford, Republican of Oklahoma.

Lankford said there is currently no bill text and does not expect a vote to be held this week, but said that decision is ultimately up to Schumer. He also noted that there are currently only a handful of Senate Republicans in attendance.

Murphy said that the Senate and the White House continue to “make good progress,” and that the group is working to get bill “text as quickly as we can.”

“I want to get this done as quickly as possible,” he said. “This set of law is so important and so complicated that you gotta get it right, not get it fast.”

Murphy declined to comment on specific proposals being discussed in negotiations, but potential changes to asylum law have drawn criticism from progressive and Latino Democrats who argue those proposals would raise the bar for migrants to claim asylum by making changes to the “credible fear” standard.

Latino Democrats and immigration advocates have expressed their frustration with being shut out of negotiations and have warned the Biden administration that these negotiations could risk alienating young and Latino voters in next year’s presidential election.

Those lawmakers warned against a potential immigration deal that would resurrect a pandemic-era tool used by the Trump administration to expel millions of migrants, known as Title 42.

Graham says senators ‘not anywhere close to a deal’

South Carolina’s GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday that he did not think any deal on immigration policy would be made until the New Year.

“The bottom line here is we feel like we’re being jammed, we’re not anywhere close to a deal,” Graham said.

Graham noted that progress has been made, especially on changes to asylum, but for Republicans, “there’s a ways to go” on the humanitarian parole authority that the Biden administration uses to grant temporary protections to people from certain countries. Republicans have wanted to curb the Biden administration’s use of its humanitarian authority.

The Biden administration has used humanitarian parole to allow nationals from Haiti, Cuba, Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Ukraine and Venezuela to work temporarily in the U.S.

Graham said that he believes the House will agree to Senate negotiations if there are changes to asylum and “stop blanket (humanitarian) parole.”

Sen. John Kennedy also expressed doubts that an agreement on immigration policy would be reached by the end of the week.

“It doesn’t appear that we’re gonna be able to land this plane before Christmas, but stranger things have happened,” the Louisiana Republican said. “So we’ll see.”

South Dakota GOP Sen. Mike Rounds said he didn’t think it was a good idea to negotiate a framework with the House out of session, pointing out that even if an agreement is reached, nothing can happen until the House comes back from its three-week recess.

“All it does is allow everybody to take potshots at whatever the deal is,” Rounds said. “We’re trying to find common ground, but the bottom line is, this administration has known now for well over a month that the conditions require the Southern border to be dealt with.”

More Hispanic families are reaching the middle class

Tim Henderson — Mon, 18 Dec 2023 20:20:17 +0000

Attendees mingle at a Hispanic Power Lunch with local business leaders at the Consulate de Mexico in Dallas. The Hispanic middle class has grown faster than the white or Black middle class over the past decade, a Stateline analysis shows (Richard Rodriguez/Getty Images).

The Hispanic middle class has grown faster than the white or Black middle class in the past decade and has reached near-parity with the white middle class in seven states, according to a new Stateline analysis.

Between 2012 and 2022, the percentage of Hispanic households in the country that qualified as middle class grew from about 42% to 48%, while the share of white households in the middle class remained about the same at 51%. The proportion of Black middle-class households grew more slowly, from 41% to 44%.

Hispanic households’ increasing economic success reflects the maturing of a community that now has more U.S.-born residents. But it also reflects a change in fortunes for immigrants filling service jobs that are in high demand, as well as a broader labor shortage that has pushed up wages.

However, the gains are fragile and could evaporate over time, said Thomas Saenz, president of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which advocates for fair labor practices for Hispanic workers.

“While I welcome the progress, it’s not enough to say we’re close to solving the problems with inequity for communities of color. We’re not,” Saenz said. He noted that middle-class income takes a long time to translate into wealth, which often entails passing the financial benefits of homeownership to future generations.

A Pew Research Center report last year found Black and Hispanic adults are more likely than white adults to fall out of the middle class once they’ve reached it, based on data through 2021. Black and Hispanic Americans still lag in college education, which is associated with greater chances of economic success, Rakesh Kochhar, a senior researcher and author of the report, said in an email.

Furthermore, the percentage of Hispanic households that make more than twice the median income, 10%, is still far lower than the 21% of white households in that category.

For purposes of the analysis, Stateline defined as middle class those households making between two-thirds and twice the state median income adjusted for family size, which ranges from about $70,000 in New Mexico to almost $108,000 in Massachusetts. The analysis is based on responses to the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey provided by the University of Minnesota at ipums.org.

According to the Stateline definition, a three-person household would have to earn $46,000 to qualify as middle class in New Mexico. The same size family would have to make $53,000 in Florida and $72,000 in Massachusetts and New Jersey. The analysis only included the 15 states where at least 10% of the population is Hispanic.

Among those states, the share of Hispanic families who are middle class is nearly the same as it is for white households in seven states: Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, Nevada, New Mexico and Texas. In Illinois, Nevada and New Mexico, the Hispanic middle-class share is higher than the white share, and it is within 3 percentage points in the other four states.

In 2012, the only state where the Hispanic middle-class percentage approached the share for white households was New Mexico.

Nevada illustrates the progress that Hispanic families have made. Fifty-seven percent of Hispanic households in Nevada are middle class, compared with 52% of white households. That’s a reversal from 2012, when 53% of white households and 49% of Hispanic households were middle class.

Recently, the roller-coaster fortunes of the Nevada tourism industry have been an economic boon to Hispanic workers. Layoffs came in both the Great Recession and the pandemic, but lately jobs have come back with higher wages than before.

Last month, the Culinary Union ratified a contract for 40,000 Nevada resort workers that will raise pay 32% over five years. For Elsa Roldan, a single mother who cleans guests’ rooms at the Bellagio resort in Las Vegas, that would put her over the middle-class threshold she is already approaching at her $25-an-hour pay. In Nevada, the middle-class household income range is about $54,000 to $161,000.

“I couldn’t be more happy or more proud. I feel like I’m middle class, or maybe working class but I have my benefits, my health care, I own my house in Henderson [a Las Vegas suburb], a very peaceful area where I feel safe, and my son is in college,” said Roldan, who was born in Chicago and lived in Mexico for a time before moving to Las Vegas 17 years ago.

Las Vegas has changed a lot since Antonio Munoz grew up there as the son of laborers who arrived in the 1960s as part of the Bracero Program that brought workers from Mexico to ease labor shortages. Back then, neighborhoods were segregated into different areas for white, Latino and Black families, but now neighborhoods are mixed, he said. Munoz is the first in the family to own his own business, the 911 Taco Bar restaurant and catering service.

Being a small-business owner is not easy, though.

“I feel like we’re doing pretty well, though there are always ups and downs in the restaurant business. We’ve been busy, but with all the inflation we’re not making any more money,” said Munoz. He’s considering buying his own restaurant building, but prices are as much as $1.5 million for a simple drive-thru location, and he’s not sure he can afford such a big loan.

The gap between Hispanic and white middle-class households is largest in Northeast states, where living costs are higher. Hispanic residents in states such as Rhode Island and New Jersey are also less likely to be U.S.-born and to speak English easily, factors that have been shown to boost access to middle-class incomes.

The disparity between the Hispanic and white middle class is still 10 percentage points or more in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Rhode Island.

In Rhode Island, where 13% of households are Hispanic, 39% of Hispanic households are middle class compared with 56% of white households, a gap that’s about the same as it was in 2012.

Many Hispanic residents in Rhode Island are single mothers from Central America with low-paying work in house cleaning and child care, with little chance of buying homes and building wealth in today’s inflated housing market, said Marcela Betancur, director of the nonprofit Latino Policy Institute in Providence.

“Being middle class means more than money. It means being able to pass it on to the next generation,” Betancur said, adding that she sees hope for the future in increasing college enrollment among children of immigrants.

Rosa Flores was born in the Dominican Republic and owns a beauty salon in Providence where she moved after studying at a beauty college in New York City about 20 years ago. A single mother, she endured some hard times in the pandemic, living on her savings when the salon, Disnalda, closed for 72 days.

“People came back, thank God, that was a big relief and we’re doing well now,” Flores said. “I do feel middle class and it’s much easier to get by now that I have my own business. I’m very happy.”

The middle-class gap between white and Hispanic households is 12 percentage points in Massachusetts, 11 points in Connecticut and 10 points in New Jersey.

Overall, the growth of the Hispanic middle class is “rapid but not surprising” as the community matures and includes more U.S.-born citizens who are educated and speak English, said William A.V. Clark, a geography professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, who wrote a 2003 book on immigration and the middle class.

A report published this year by The American Journal of Economics and Sociology also emphasized the importance of fluency in English.

The report looked at spending between 2010 and 2019 and found that English-speaking Hispanic families spent more than those who spoke only Spanish on expenses considered middle-class like home mortgages, car payments and family vacations, said author Hua Zan, a family economics researcher at the University of Hawaii.

US Senate postpones winter break as lawmakers try to craft an immigration deal

Jennifer Shutt — Fri, 15 Dec 2023 13:17:00 +0000

Senate negotiators and the White House have tried for weeks to reach agreement on changes in immigration law that GOP leaders insist are necessary to approve more than $100 billion in emergency aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan (Bill Dickinson/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — Members of the U.S. House headed home Thursday for a three-week winter break without completing work on several must-pass bills, but senators are now scheduled to return to Capitol Hill on Monday as leaders in the upper chamber and the White House look for an agreement on immigration policy.

The last-minute scheduling change for the Senate came Thursday afternoon, when Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced he was adding a week to the calendar to try to unlock funding for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, potentially combined with new limits on acceptance of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border.

“That will give negotiators from the White House, Senate Democrats, Senate Republicans a time to work through the weekend in an effort to reach a framework agreement,” Schumer said. “It’s not easy to reach an agreement on something this complicated. This might be one of the most difficult things we have ever had to work through.”

Schumer said Democrats “hope to come to an agreement, but no matter what, members should be aware that we will vote on a supplemental proposal next week.”

Senate Minority Whip John Thune said Thursday afternoon “signs are encouraging,” but said lawmakers were still a long way from reaching a bipartisan agreement on border security that can pass the Senate.

The South Dakota Republican said even if a bipartisan deal is struck in the days ahead, GOP senators are likely to slow down final approval of the bill.

“Even if we had text by early next week, I still don’t see any way it gets done because we’ve got members who are going to object for various reasons and use all the procedural tools at their disposal,” Thune said, referring to specific language in legislation.

It also remains an “open question” whether House GOP leaders would bring that chamber back before the scheduled end of their recess on Jan. 9 to clear any bipartisan deal for the president’s desk, Thune said. The Senate had been expected to return on Jan. 8.

Progressive, Latino lawmakers raise concerns

Progressive and Latino Democratic lawmakers have become increasingly concerned and frustrated about the direction talks are moving and have urged the Senate and President Joe Biden to reject major changes in immigration policy that mirror far-right goals.

Some of those proposals being floated include the resurrection of a pandemic- era immigration tool used to expel migrants and bar them from claiming asylum known as Title 42, and raising the bar for migrants to claim asylum by making changes to the “credible fear” standard.

Senate Democrats’ supplemental spending package includes $1.42 billion for staff hires for immigration judges, such as clerks, attorneys and interpreters and $5.31 billion for U.S. Customs and Border Protection to expand border security, such as fentanyl detection, among other provisions.

But Republicans say that increase in funding isn’t enough, calling for a reduction in the number of undocumented immigrants entering the United States from Mexico.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Thursday morning the emergency spending bill for Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and the U.S. border security needs to have “substantive policy changes at the border instead of just throwing money at the problem.”

“The Senate cannot claim to address major national security challenges without a solution to the one we are facing on the Southern border,” McConnell said.

Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, the lead negotiator for Democrats on immigration and border policy, said that after the White House became involved, there has been some progress.

“We don’t have a deal, but we’ve gotten closer to it,” he said.

Murphy added that he’s not sure if the House will pick up the supplemental if the Senate strikes a deal.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Thursday during the daily press briefing the president believes negotiations are “heading in the right direction.”

“We understand we have to find a bipartisan compromise,” she said, adding that the White House wants a deal by the end of the year.

Jean-Pierre also addressed concerns from Latino and progressive Democrats about agreeing to immigration proposals that are reminiscent of the Trump era.

“(The president) believes we need to fix what’s happening with the broken immigration system,” she said. “He’s willing to find a bipartisan compromise to get that done.”

Immigration talks in Congress lag as Latino lawmakers urge rejection of GOP proposals

Ariana Figueroa — Thu, 14 Dec 2023 12:10:19 +0000

U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., speaks during a press conference held by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus on Dec. 13, 2023. Behind Melendez, left to right, are Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal of Washington and House members Gabe Vasquez of New Mexico, Jesus “Chuy” Garcia of Illinois, Robert Garcia of California, Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chair Nanette Diaz Barragán of California, Greg Casar of Texas, Rob Menendez of New Jersey and Veronica Escobar of Texas (Ariana Figueroa/States Newsroom).

WASHINGTON — Negotiations over immigration policy made small progress Wednesday, but not enough to strike a deal and ease the passage of billions in global security aid before Congress leaves for a three-week recess.

Meanwhile, members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus said they are frustrated that some proposals under discussion would make major changes in immigration policy for the first time in years, yet no Latino senators are part of Senate talks.

A disagreement over border security policy has been the linchpin that has snagged a $110.5 billion emergency supplemental spending package to bolster aid to Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and U.S. border security.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said that Democrats are still trying to reach an agreement in negotiations over policy at the U.S.-Mexico border, and that “real progress was made.”

He implored Republicans to stay in Congress through the holidays, but many GOP senators acknowledged that there is simply not enough time for an agreement, especially as both chambers are scheduled to leave this week. Work on the supplemental would be punted to next year absent a deal.

“The stakes are high,” Schumer, a New York Democrat, said. “Time is of the essence.”

Republican Whip Sen. John Thune of South Dakota said that negotiations about immigration are not far along and that “these are all concepts right now.”

“I think these things that the discussions that are happening with the White House right now are largely … in the concept phase,” he said.

Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance and Indiana Sen. Todd Young, both Republicans, said that Democrats have moved in the direction of the GOP somewhat in immigration policy negotiations, but not enough.

“I think now the White House’s got involved there’s at least some logjam that’s broken, but my sense is there’s still a lot of uncertainty,” Vance said.

Young said that the lead Republican on negotiations, Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma, indicated that “there’s still some work to do before he can bring a proposal back” to Republicans.

“It sounds like, you know, there’s finally been some forward movement, so most of us are encouraged by that,” Young said.

Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn suggested that it wouldn’t be a good idea for the Senate to pass the emergency supplemental and then have the House pick up the package in the new year.

“It’ll be a piñata out there,” he said. “People will take potshots for the next couple of weeks.”

Latino lawmakers speak out

In addition to a tight schedule, a coalition of Democratic Latino lawmakers expressed their frustration over some of the negotiations that they say would drastically change asylum law and mirror hard-line Trump immigration policies.

“We’re here to call on President Biden and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to reject the immigration and border proposals at the hands of Republicans in the ongoing negotiations around the supplemental aid package,” Congressional Hispanic Caucus Nanette Barragán of California said at a press conference outside the Capitol.

She added that the caucus has tried to have a meeting with the White House, and she expressed frustration that Senate “negotiations (are) taking place without a single Latino senator at the table.”

Democratic Sens. Bob Menendez of New Jersey and Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico, both Latinos, said right-wing immigration approaches are being floated.

They include the resurrection of a pandemic-era tool used to expel migrants and bar them from claiming asylum known as Title 42, expedited removal proceedings and raising the bar for migrants to claim asylum by making changes to the “credible fear” standard.

“These would be the most far-sweeping, anti-immigrant and permanent changes to our law in a generation,” Menendez said.

Menendez stepped down as chair of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee in September amid federal indictment charges of conspiracy to commit bribery.

Luján added that the caucus has asked for a meeting with the White House’s chief of staff.

“Let’s sit down and talk and let’s find real solutions that are going to be meaningful for all of the challenges that are before us in the United States of America, while living up to our national security responsibilities,” he said.

The chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Pramila Jayapal of Washington, said that the Senate and White House “must not agree to these extreme demands.”

She said the proposals being discussed would only create more chaos at the Southern border. Jayapal said the changes to the credible fear standard would “completely shut down the asylum system for people who are facing danger in their home countries.”

“These are hallmarks of Donald Trump and extreme MAGA Republicans,” she said. “They cannot tend not to become the hallmarks of the Biden administration and Democrats.”

Time running short

Several Senate Republicans acknowledged that even if there was an agreement, there is not enough time to pass the emergency supplemental request in the House, despite the push from Democrats to approve critical aid to Ukraine.

The White House warned Wednesday that funding could run out within a month if Ukraine does not get aid.

The slow negotiations follow Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s visit to Capitol Hill Tuesday in an attempt to convince members of Congress, particularly Republicans, to approve about $50 billion in additional aid to his country amid a nearly two-year war with Russia.

But Republicans said national security demands major shifts in immigration policy at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Wyoming’s Sen. John Barrasso, the No. 3 Republican, said that Senate Republicans are “going to stand firm unless serious changes are made” on immigration policies at the Southern border.

The Biden administration in October asked Congress to approve more than $105 billion in emergency aid to Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and U.S. border security.

Senate Democrats released a $110.5 billion spending package last week that would have provided funding for all four of those areas. But Republicans blocked the bill from moving forward, insisting the legislation include changes to immigration policy.

In the emergency supplemental, Senate Democrats included $1.42 billion for staff hires for immigration judges, such as clerks, attorneys and interpreters; $5.31 billion for U.S. Customs and Border Protection to expand border security, such as fentanyl detection; and $2.35 billion for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for operational costs, fentanyl detection and enforcement.

“I’m doing my job,” President Joe Biden wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “Republicans on the Hill should do theirs.”

Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma said the Senate has to be “realistic” on whether a deal can be made, and he criticized the White House for not getting involved with negotiations sooner.

GOP Sen. Steve Daines of Montana said that it was “way too late” for the president to take part in talks.

“He’s just very, very late to the party,” Daines said of Biden.

The Biden administration became involved in negotiations over the weekend, and U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas met Tuesday with a group of bipartisan senators tasked with striking a deal — Sens. Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, Lankford and Kyrsten Sinema, independent of Arizona.

With time growing short, U.S. Senate talks extend on immigration overhaul

Jennifer Shutt — Fri, 08 Dec 2023 12:00:02 +0000

U.S. Sen. Katie Britt of Alabama speaks at a press conference on Thursday, Dec. 7, with other Republican members of the U.S. Senate, on talks over border security. From left, Tom Cotton of Arkansas, John Thune of South Dakota, John Cornyn of Texas, Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina (Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom).

WASHINGTON — Members of Congress left the Capitol on Thursday without a deal on sought-after changes to immigration policy that’s tied to aid for Ukraine and Israel — leaving them just one week to resolve the dispute before lawmakers depart for a three-week holiday break.

Negotiations among a small group of senators are expected to continue throughout the three-day weekend, though odds are long that Democrats and Republicans can broker an agreement this year.

That will leave billions in aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan on ice until talks resume in 2024. Both the House and Senate are set to leave on Dec. 14 for their winter break. And national security officials have stressed the importance of getting more military aid to Ukraine and Israel approved this year.

North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis said GOP negotiators were presenting Democrats with their latest offer on Thursday, but he cautioned there are a lot of areas where lawmakers still need to reach agreement.

“This is about things that we can honestly go to our Republican members, look them in the eye and attest to the fact that we’re going to have a dramatic reduction in flows across the border on an almost immediate basis,” Tillis said.

“Anything short of that, it’s going to be very difficult to get a majority of our conference, and we don’t move this bill without a majority of our conference,” he added.

Even if Democrats accept that offer, Tillis said, the staff would then need to draft legislative text and make sure it matches what everyone agreed to during talks.

Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy, of Connecticut, said that Republicans were sharing new ideas with him and other negotiators on Thursday, though he wasn’t sure if those proposals would lead to a deal.

“I’m willing to continue talking if those ideas are constructive, but they’ve got to move us closer to getting Democratic votes,” Murphy said. “So far, we’ve seen proposals that can get lots of Republican votes and no Democratic votes.”

Murphy said he remains willing to compromise on policy issues and said he was hopeful negotiators would “get to a place this weekend where both sides are willing to make compromises.”

Biden remarks noticed

President Joe Biden saying Wednesday that he “willing to make significant compromises on the border” may help to move talks forward, according to Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Lankford.

“We’ve always been a nation open to immigration. We’ve got to be able to stay that way,” Lankford said. “But as lawmakers, we probably should think the law is important. And if, as lawmakers, we don’t think the law is important, then we need to be able to resolve that.”

Lankford argued it was the Biden administration that tied border security and immigration policy to additional funding for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan when the White House sent Congress an emergency spending request that included all four areas.

The White House referred to its funding request for U.S. border security as a “tourniquet” and said what really is needed are changes to policy, Lankford said.

But resolving differences about who should be allowed to immigrate to the United States and under what circumstances has evaded lawmakers for about 30 years, making these negotiations especially challenging, Lankford said.

Speaker’s letter

House Speaker Mike Johnson wrote in a ‘Dear Colleague’ letter released Thursday that any legislation to help Ukraine resist Russia must be tied to border and immigration policy changes.

Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, wrote that while House Republicans “understand the very real security threats in theaters around the world, yesterday’s failed Senate vote has demonstrated there is no path forward on Ukraine funding without meaningful, transformative change in policy at our southern border.”

“Furthermore, as I have said repeatedly, the House passed funding for Israel over a month ago in a bipartisan manner,” Johnson added, referring to a bill that cut Internal Revenue Service funding to pay for the assistance. “I remain hopeful that we will find reasonable partners on the other side who recognize that reality and are willing to reach consensus on these urgent matters.”

Senators on Wednesday were unable to advance a $110.5 billion spending package that would have bolstered funding for Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and U.S. border security.

The failed procedural vote on the bill came amid a cooler moment in talks between Democrats and Republicans on border security policy. Those talks appeared to be back in full swing on Thursday.

But it remained unclear if an agreement would be reached during the last week lawmakers are scheduled to be in Washington, D.C. this year.

It was also not entirely clear how a lack of additional funding for Ukraine and Israel might impact the stability of those countries in the middle of ongoing wars.

‘Seize a new opportunity’

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, said Thursday that he hoped the failed procedural vote would allow senators to “seize a new opportunity to make real progress on legislation that addresses urgent national security priorities — both at home and abroad.”

“I know many of our Democratic colleagues recognize the urgency of this crisis. I know many of them are ready to help restore sanity at our Southern border,” McConnell said. “Well, Senator Lankford, Senator (Lindsey) Graham, and other Republican colleagues are still working hard to do exactly that. And there’s no time like the present to join them in those efforts.”

Iowa Republican Chuck Grassley, who is not actively involved in negotiations, said during a press conference Thursday that it’s “common sense” to “secure the border.”

“We need some policy changes and that’s what this debate is all about,” he said.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, said that Republican negotiators must be more serious with the offers they present.

“Both sides must accept that we have to compromise on things important to each side if we have any hope of passing this supplemental,” Schumer said.

“Let me state, we Democrats very much — very much — want an agreement,” he said. “We are willing to make compromises and concessions to meet our Republican colleagues, as long as they are willing to do the same.”

Border talks stuck as Senate nears vote on package for Israel, Ukraine aid

Ariana Figueroa — Wed, 06 Dec 2023 15:23:26 +0000

U.S. Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., speaks to members of the press at the U.S. Capitol on Dec. 4, 2023 in Washington, D.C. Lankford is the lead Republican negotiator in border talks (Alex Wong/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — The success of the U.S. Senate in passing a $106 billion global security supplemental aid package hinges on a bipartisan agreement about U.S. border security, but any deal was at an impasse Tuesday.

“There will not be a national security bill unless and until there is serious and significant changes in security at our Southern border,” said the No. 3 Republican, Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming.

To address mounting global crises, the White House requested an emergency supplemental package that includes $61.4 billion to Ukraine, $14.3 billion to Israel — including $9.15 billion in humanitarian aid to those areas — and $7 billion for Taiwan and another $13.6 billion for border security.

A procedural vote on that package, which lacks any bipartisan deal on border security, is expected Wednesday, and 60 senators would be needed for the legislation to advance.

“The bill already has very strong provisions on dealing with some of the problems that the border (has), particularly, really augmenting what we do at ports of entry to prevent the flow of fentanyl from Mexico into the United States,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said of the border security provisions in the supplemental legislation.

Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Patty Murray of Washington released the border security bill text late Tuesday. It mirrors the White House’s request for funding.

That includes:

$1.42 billion for staff hires for immigration judges, such as clerks, attorneys and interpreters.
$5.31 billion for U.S. Customs and Border Protection to expand border security, such as fentanyl detection.
$755 million for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to address asylum claim backlogs and work authorizations.

“We face a host of pressing national security challenges that demand continued American leadership—and immediate action from Congress,” Murray said in a statement. “It’s past time for Senators to stop tying partisan and extreme immigration proposals to a broadly bipartisan supplemental.”

Republicans tout their approach

Not only are negotiations fraught in the Senate, but there’s a snag in the House, where Republicans have signaled they won’t budge on border security polices.

In a Tuesday letter to the White House, Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana said that he would not support aid to Ukraine unless the Biden administration agrees to tighten border security in line with legislation already passed in the House without any Democratic support.

“[S]upplemental Ukraine funding is dependent upon enactment of transformative change to our nation’s border security laws,” he said. “We stand ready and willing to work with the Administration on a robust border security package that protects the interests of the American people. It is well past time for the Administration to meaningfully engage with us.”

Johnson did not detail which policies he wanted, but referred to a piece of legislation that House Republicans passed in May, H.R. 2, the Secure the Border Act, that mirrors hard-right immigration policies of the Trump administration.

Senator Dick Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, said Democrats in the Senate won’t support H.R. 2.

“I’ve seen some radical ideas coming out of H.R. 2,” Durbin said. “I certainly think they go too far.”

Schumer, a New York Democrat, has also called H.R. 2 a “nonstarter” in the Senate.

Seeking agreement

A bipartisan group of six senators is trying to work out an agreement on border security proposals. Those six senators include Democrats Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Michael Bennet of Colorado, independent Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Republicans Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and James Lankford of Oklahoma.

Murphy, a key negotiator for a deal on border security, said that “the things that Republicans are putting on the table, don’t have any Democratic votes.”

“I still don’t sense any seriousness from Republicans to cut a deal,” Murphy said.

Murphy also questioned whether some Republicans were pushing for those border change policies as a way to sabotage the chances of passing aid to Ukraine.

“A cynic would say the goal here is to take down Ukraine funding,” he said. “Every single day that goes by without any reasonable offer from Republicans is a day that Vladimir Putin gets closer to marching through Ukraine into Europe.”

Lankford, the lead GOP negotiator on border security talks, said that senators have focused on the increase of migrants at the border who are claiming asylum.

“We’re working through the details as we get through a section that we can find agreement on,” he said, adding that he’s still optimistic that a deal can be reached by the end of the year.

White House warning on Ukraine

On border security talks in the Senate, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Monday said the Biden administration would “let them have those conversations,” and would stand by as negotiations play out.

The White House on Monday also sent out a letter warning Congress that without more funding for Ukraine, the United States will no longer be able to provide that country with military assistance, weakening Ukraine’s ability to fight off Russia.

On the Senate floor, Schumer accused Republicans of holding funding for Ukraine “hostage.” He blamed Republicans of putting forth “radical immigration polices that come from Donald Trump.”

“If Republicans are unable to produce a broadly bipartisan immigration proposal, they should not block aid to Ukraine in response,” he said. “They should not be resorting to hostage taking.”

On the Senate floor, McConnell said that the supplemental needs to address U.S. border security. He pushed back against accusations that Republicans weren’t serious about border negotiations.

“Anyone who suggests that Senate Republicans are injecting the issue of border security into this discussion at the last minute,” McConnell said, “either isn’t serious or hasn’t been paying attention.”

Congress is haggling over border security: Where does it stand?

Ariana Figueroa — Mon, 04 Dec 2023 15:00:02 +0000

A Texas National Guardsman observes as Border Patrol agents pat down migrants who have surrendered themselves for processing at Gate 42, some after waiting near the border wall for days, May 10, 2023. Congress is currently debating a new border security package (Corrie Boudreaux for Source NM).

WASHINGTON — As Congress negotiates the White House’s $106 billion supplemental aid request for Israel, Ukraine and U.S. border security, fights over immigration policy have tied up the request.

The White House sent its proposal that includes nearly $14 billion in supplemental border security funding to Congress in late October, but it will likely look different after going through the House and Senate.

Congress only has a couple of weeks until recess to pass the supplemental measure. A small bipartisan group of six senators in the Senate is trying to put together a border security package.

Those six senators include Democrats Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Michael Bennet of Colorado, independent Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Republicans Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and James Lankford of Oklahoma.

However, Democrats object to some of those Republicans’ attempts to change asylum requirements and place more limits on humanitarian parole, as well as include a hard-line immigration bill passed in the House and advocated by Republicans.

Here’s a look at what’s in the White House request and where negotiations stand:

What’s in the White House’s proposal?

On Oct. 20, President Joe Biden released a request for added funding to focus on border enforcement, deterrence and diplomacy.

The plan would beef up hiring. It includes 1,000 additional U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers and resources for U.S. Homeland Security investigations; an additional 1,300 Border Patrol agents; 300 Border Patrol processing coordinators; an additional 1,600 asylum officers and support staff; 30 new U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services officers to process work authorization documents; and 1,470 additional attorneys and support staff to match the 375 new immigration judge teams to help reduce the more than 2.5- million-case backlog in immigration courts.

The request also asks for additional funding for removal flights, additional beds at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities, and $1.4 billion in Shelter and Services Program grants to local governments and non-profits for temporary food, shelter, and other services for recently arrived migrants.

This would aid border towns, as well as several cities that have taken in a majority of migrants, such as Chicago, New York City and Washington, D.C., among others.

It would also give Southwest Border ports of entry the technology to enhance inspection capabilities, such as fentanyl detection.

Is a pathway for Dreamers part of this request?

No. A pathway to citizenship for the 800,000 people in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, who were brought into the country without authorization when they were children, is not part of these border security talks.

What’s the House position?

House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana wants to include provisions of H.R. 2 in the supplemental aid package, an immigration bill that House Republicans passed in May.

H.R. 2 is a symbolic border security package that mirrors Trump-era immigration policies. It would resume the hundreds of miles of construction of a border wall, strip funding from nonprofits that aid migrants, beef up staffing of Border Patrol agents and restrict the use of humanitarian parole programs that the Biden administration has used to allow nationals from Haiti, Cuba, Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Ukraine and Venezuela to work temporarily in the U.S.

It’s a nonstarter for Democrats in the Senate.

What are the disagreements in the Senate?

Senate Democrats don’t agree with including H.R. 2 in the supplemental package, and Senate Democrats also oppose changes that Republicans want to make to the asylum and humanitarian parole system. The Biden administration has relied heavily on the parole system.

The Biden administration already earlier this year placed new restrictions on asylum that resulted in criticism from Democrats and lawsuits from immigration advocacy groups.

Nearly a dozen Senate Democrats have already said they are concerned about the permanent changes that Senate Republicans now want to the asylum and parole system.

Similarly, a group of nearly 200 immigration rights organizations sent a letter to Congress, urging lawmakers to not make changes to asylum requirements or humanitarian parole and instead use funds “to improve asylum processing; reduce backlogs and work permit waiting times; resource states, localities and community shelter and support services; and fund legal counsel.”

What are changes to the parole system that Senate Republicans want?

Republicans want a limit on Biden’s authority to create humanitarian programs by prohibiting the U.S. Department of Homeland Security from using broad criteria to grant humanitarian parole, according to a one-page summary by GOP Sens. Lankford, Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Graham.

The GOP proposal would narrow the scope of the parole statue so that parole is only used in rare circumstances. It would also limit the time parole is granted to one year instead of two years.

What are the changes to asylum that Senate Republicans want?

Senate Republicans want to raise the bar for initial credible fear of persecution screenings that migrants present to asylum officers who decide whether a person can reside in the U.S. while their case is being presented before an immigration judge.

Now, to claim asylum under the fear of persecution, migrants must show there is a “significant possibility” they will face persecution. Republicans want to change that language and require asylum seekers to demonstrate that “more likely than not” they would face persecution if they remain in their home country.

Republicans have argued this would “weed out” meritless claims for asylum, but Democrats have contended it would deny lifesaving protection for vulnerable people.

Where are talks now?

There is no agreement in the Senate or House and negotiations continue.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York has made it clear to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Johnson that any border security agreement has to be bipartisan. Schumer has raised concerns about Johnson wanting to include H.R. 2 provisions in the Senate’s supplemental border security package.

“Democrats are willing to work with Republicans on commonsense, realistic border security, but we can’t have the hard right essentially say it’s H.R. 2 or nothing,” Schumer said in a floor speech. “If Speaker Johnson, or for that matter the negotiators, feel they have to listen to what Speaker Johnson can pass just amongst his caucus, we’ll never get anything done.”

Schumer said he plans to hold a vote on the supplemental package as soon as the week of Dec. 4.

U.S. House votes to bar use of public lands for housing migrants

Ariana Figueroa — Fri, 01 Dec 2023 13:39:28 +0000

The U.S. Capitol Building on June 01, 2023, in Washington, D.C. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — The U.S. House Thursday passed a bill to bar the use of public lands for temporary housing for migrants applying for asylum.

The bill, H.R. 5283, passed with a majority of Republicans in support, 224-203.

Six Democrats voted with Republicans: Reps. Henry Cuellar of Texas, Don Davis of North Carolina, Jared Golden of Maine, Vicente Gonzalez of Texas, Mary Peltola of Alaska and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington.

It’s dead on arrival in the U.S. Senate, where Democrats hold a slim majority, and many Democrats criticized the bill as a messaging tactic for the 2024 elections, where hard-line immigration policies are the cornerstone of the GOP platform.

The Senate is currently negotiating a $14 billion request from the White House for U.S. border security.

“The mission of the National Park Service is to conserve the natural and cultural resources for the enjoyment of future generations, not bail out the failed border policies of the Biden administration,” the chair of the House Committee on Natural Resources, Bruce Westerman of Arkansas, said during debate Wednesday.

The push for the bill comes after the Biden administration granted New York City officials’ request to build temporary housing and facilities for migrant families at Floyd Bennett Field in Southeastern Brooklyn.

The bill prohibits this type of action from land under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, or the Forest Service.

It also revokes a 2023 lease between the National Park Service and New York City to use portions of the Gateway National Recreation Area to provide housing for migrants.

The bill’s sponsor, Republican Rep. Nicole Malliotakis of New York, said that New York City’s decision to house migrant families on public land is “encouraging people to take that treacherous journey instead of applying (for asylum) from the next safe country.”

Migrants in NYC

This is not the first time House Republicans have passed legislation in response to New York City’s handling of migrants in its city.

In July, House Republicans passed a bill to bar the use of public K-12 school facilities to provide shelter for migrants seeking asylum. That bill, which will also go nowhere in the Senate, was in response to a May decision by New York City officials to convert several current and former school gyms to temporarily house about 300 migrants.

The top Democrat on the House Committee on Natural Resources, Rep. Raúl Grijalva of Arizona, said the bill voted on Thursday to bar the use of public lands to temporarily house migrants was a “political stunt that will invite even more hateful anti-immigration rhetoric from the extreme MAGA wing of the Republican Party.”

During the House Rules Committee meeting on the public lands bill Tuesday, Republicans argued that the area used to house migrants at Floyd Bennett Field posed a danger to Americans who live nearby because there are single adult men in the temporary structures. However, a majority of migrants staying at Floyd Bennett Field are families.

About 500 people are currently living at Floyd Bennett Field for up to 60 days, but it can house up to 2,000 people, according to the lease agreement. As temperatures drop in New York City, there’s concern that the plastic tents will not be warm enough for those families, THE CITY reported.

Minnesota Republican Rep. Pete Stauber said the bill is needed because “Republicans are taking action to address our Southern border crisis, because the Biden administration has failed to do so.”

Democratic Rep. Chellie Pingree of Maine, said the bill does not help cities dealing with newly arrived migrants. She said a big issue is that because of the current asylum law, migrants have to wait six months before they are authorized to work.

Pingree advocated for her legislation, which would cut that waiting period to 30 days so that migrants aren’t spending six months relying “on social safety nets to survive.”

The Biden administration recently redesignated the Temporary Protected Status for nearly half a million Venezuelan nationals, which allows them to work in the U.S. The September decision came after multiple requests from cities that have struggled to house asylum seekers and calls from Democratic lawmakers to redesignate TPS for those Venezuelan nationals.

New Jersey Democratic Rep. Bob Menendez said that Republicans were vilifying families seeking refuge.

“This bill has no purpose other than to score cheap political points for House Republicans,” he said.

Republican Rep. Juan Ciscomani of Arizona, who came to the U.S. as an immigrant when he was a child and later became a naturalized citizen, argued that New York City’s decision would encourage migrants to make the long and dangerous journey to the U.S.

“This is no way to treat immigrants seeking asylum,” Ciscomani said.

National parks and citizens

House Republicans argued that national parks should be solely for the use of American citizens.

“Americans shouldn’t be denied access to national parks and lands paid for by their tax dollars because of this administration’s destructive immigration policies,” Rep. Jen Kiggans, Republican of Virginia, said.

However, national parks are not limited to use for only American citizens, as there is no citizenship requirement to enter a park and millions of international visitors attend national parks each year.

Republican Rep. Tom Tiffany of Wisconsin said that he was concerned about the damage that can be done to a national park by using it to temporarily house people.

He said he wants the bill passed to ensure that “the public lands we all cherish are not transformed into squatting grounds.”

Amendments considered

Lawmakers voted on two amendments to the bill, one from Tennessee Republican Rep. Andy Ogles and another from New York Democratic Rep. Nydia Velázquez.

The amendment from Ogles would require the U.S. Department of Interior and U.S. Department of Agriculture to submit a report to Congress on the number of immigrants who were housed on federal lands.

“This amendment requires accountability,” Ogles said.

Grijalva said the amendment was unnecessary because the bill, if passed into law, would ban migrants from being temporarily housed on federal lands.

“It’s a permanent requirement for reporting on nothing, paid for by the taxpayer,” he said.

The amendment passed by a voice vote.

The other amendment, by Velázquez, would allow the U.S. Secretary of the Interior to provide housing for migrants under certain criteria.

They would include when the original state those migrants came to has transferred them to another state; the original state has funded that transportation; the original state has not given 48 hours of notice to the governor of the destination state; and if the original state failed to give those migrants accurate information on the conditions of the state they are being transferred to.

That amendment is in response to Republican governors, especially Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who have sent buses of migrants to cities such as New York, often without warning local officials.

Abbott has also sent buses to Washington, D.C., dropping off migrants, in the cold and without proper clothing, outside the residence of Vice President Kamala Harris, who has been tasked by Biden to address the root causes of migration along the Southern border.

The Velázquez amendment failed, 206 to 223.

Trump immigration policies set the tone for most of the GOP presidential field

Ariana Figueroa — Wed, 22 Nov 2023 17:00:24 +0000

An immigrant family wades through the Rio Grande while crossing from Mexico into the United States on Sept. 30, 2023 in Eagle Pass, Texas (John Moore/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — Most of the candidates in this year’s 2024 Republican race for the presidential nomination mirror hard-line immigration policies set by the front-runner, former President Donald Trump.

What were once considered far-right policies are now common talking points among the GOP candidates. That includes support for building a wall along the Southern U.S.-Mexico border and ending birthright citizenship for American-born children of undocumented immigrants — a protection that is enshrined in the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Candidates also have argued for the reinstatement of Title 42, a pandemic-era immigration policy that immediately expelled migrants and barred them from claiming asylum. The policy was ended by the Biden administration earlier this year, but GOP candidates have argued that it should be revived because of the high number of migrants claiming asylum.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has seen an increase in encounters with migrants at the U.S. Southern border, according to its data. In fiscal year 2022, there were nearly 2.4 million encounters with migrants, and in fiscal year 2023, which ended on Oct. 1, there were nearly 2.5 million encounters with migrants at the Southern border.

GOP candidates calling for increased border security have also pointed to the opioid crisis and illicit fentanyl that is smuggled into the U.S. More than 150 people die each day from overdoses related to fentanyl, a topic in the most recent GOP presidential debate.

Most fentanyl — about 90% — is sized by border officials at ports of entry, and more than 70% of people smuggling those drugs are U.S. citizens, according to James Mandryck, a CBP official.

Here’s where the Republican presidential candidates stand on U.S. immigration policy:

Former President Donald J. Trump

Trump’s current policies build from his first term, such as expanding the “Muslim travel ban,” which was an executive order he signed in 2017 that banned travel to seven predominantly Muslim countries — Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

Courts granted immigration attorneys who sued a nationwide temporary injunction on the ban, but in 2018 the Supreme Court upheld the third version of the executive order, which included barring travelers from Venezuela and North Korea. President Joe Biden rescinded the travel ban.

At an October campaign rally in Iowa, Trump said he would expand that Muslim ban to also include an “ideological screening” of immigrants coming into the U.S. and will ban anyone who is a “communist, Marxist or fascist” who is sympathetic to “radical Islamic terrorists” and people who do not “like our religion.”

The U.S. does not have a state religion and was founded on the principles of religious freedom.

At a late November campaign rally in Fort Dodge, Iowa, Trump stated he would undertake mass deportations of undocumented immigrants. There are roughly 11 million undocumented people in the U.S. Trump has also said he wants to place those immigrants in camps as they await deportation.

Trump has pledged to reinstate the “remain in Mexico” policy from his administration and send U.S. military to the Southern border.

The “remain in Mexico” policy forced asylum seekers to stay in Mexico while their applications were being processed, which many immigration advocates criticized because it put those asylum seekers in harm. The Biden administration tried to get rid of the policy, but federal courts kept it in place until the Supreme Court ruled that the White House had the authority to end it.

Trump would also end a policy used by U.S. enforcement agencies that allows migrants awaiting their asylum hearings in court to live in the U.S., rather than be held at a detention facility.

Trump in addition has said during the campaign that he would end birthright citizenship through an executive order. Trump made the same promise while he was in office, but never acted on it.

Trump’s immigration policies during his first term were met with outcry from Democrats and advocates. They also opposed his attempts to end an Obama administration program that protects undocumented children brought into the country, known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA. Federal courts halted the ending of DACA.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis

DeSantis has said he supports policies similar to Trump’s, such as wanting to end birthright citizenship, reestablish the remain in Mexico policy and send U.S. military to the border.

During a trip to the border in the summer, DeSantis also backed mass deportations, allowing for the use of deadly force against suspected drug traffickers at the border and the indefinite detention of migrant youth — a violation of the Flores agreement that says undocumented youth cannot be detained for more than 20 days.

In that speech in Eagle Pass, Texas, DeSantis compared the border to a home invasion.

“If someone was breaking into your house, you would repel them with the use of force, right?” he said. “But yet if they have drugs, these backpacks, and they’re going in, and they’re cutting through an enforced structure, we’re just supposed to let ’em in? You know, I say use force to repel them. If you do that one time, they will never do that again.”

DeSantis also wants to continue building the border wall and use funds to do so by taxing money that migrants send home to Mexico.

In the third GOP presidential debate, DeSantis reiterated he would handle the U.S. – Mexico border by sending the military there and would authorize the use of deadly force for anyone crossing the border without authorization.

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley

Haley said she would handle the border by ending trade relations with China, because the chemicals used to make fentanyl are shipped from China and made in Mexico by cartels. She would add 20,000 more border patrol and ICE agents and pull federal funding from so-called sanctuary cities, which limit cooperation with the federal government over immigration enforcement.

States that have sanctuary cities and counties include California, Colorado, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Georgia, Iowa, Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Virginia, Vermont and Washington.

Also like Trump, Haley said she would end a U.S. policy that allows migrants awaiting their asylum hearings in court to live in the U.S. rather than be held at a detention facility. Immigration courts currently have a more than 2-million-case backlog.

During the third GOP presidential debate, Haley took a swipe at the Biden administration’s move to reinstate Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, for nearly 500,000 Venezuelans, allowing them to live and work in the United States.

“It’s just going to have more of them come,” she said of Venezuelans, and instead advocated for placing sanctions on Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro.

Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy

Ramaswamy, who is one of the few candidates with no government experience, does not have an immigration platform on his campaign site, but has called for sending the U.S. military to the border.

On various interviews with Fox News, he’s alluded to sending U.S. troops into Mexico if the country does not get drug cartels under control. “We will come in and get the job done ourselves,” he said in a Fox News interview in September.

He has also called for the ending of birthright citizenship, even though he was born in Ohio to parents who were both noncitizens. His mother later became a citizen, but his father is not. He has also called for the mass deportation of U.S. citizens who were born from undocumented parents.

Ramaswamy has called for gutting H-1B visa programs for temporary workers, even though, he, a former pharmaceutical executive, and his own company have used them, as reported by Politico. H-1B visas allow U.S. companies to employ foreign workers in tech and other specialized jobs.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie

Christie does not have any information on his immigration stance on his official website, but in debates and interviews he has stressed the way to handle the fentanyl crisis is to secure the Southern border and to treat addiction as a disease, such as the need for treatment centers.

In the most recent GOP presidential debate, he said he wants to increase technology at ports of entry and increase the number of border officials. Christie said if he is elected president, he would sign an executive order to send National Guard members to ports of entry.

Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson

While the former governor did not qualify for the most recent GOP presidential debate, he has one mention on his campaign’s website of immigration. He says he backs state-based visas.

“A one-size-fits-all approach does not adequately serve America’s varied industries and regional economies,” according to his campaign website.

The policy would allow states to design their own non-immigrant visa criteria, such as fees, employment requirements and renewal processes for visas.

North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum

During an interview with Forbes, Burgum said he supports sending the National Guard to the U.S. Southern border, which is something he’s done as governor. During his time in office, he also signed into law the Office of Legal Immigration to address workforce challenges in North Dakota.

Burgum has also acknowledged challenges to seasonal agriculture workers and tech employees and the “red tape” in U.S. immigration law.

Pastor and entrepreneur Ryan Binkley

Binkley is the CEO of a merger and acquisitions advisory firm and a senior pastor at the Create Church based in Dallas, Texas.

On his campaign website, Binkley stated he would reorganize the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to prioritize border security. He supports physical barriers along the Southern border and also wants to end sanctuary cities as well as the current program that allows asylum seekers to remain in the U.S. while they await their immigration hearings.

Binkley outlined his plan for border security that — if approved by Congress — would authorize $10 billion until fiscal year 2028 for technology at ports of entry and provide $25 billion in barriers and technology until fiscal year 2031.

Binkley would also allow DACA recipients to be eligible for a conditional permanent residence status for up to 10 years. Under his plan, those DACA recipients could become lawful permanent residents if they obtain a college or graduate degree, serve in the U.S. military for three years or are employed and working for four years. He would also extend in-state tuition for DACA recipients.

Binkley would also extend a legal pathway to citizenship for some TPS holders who have been continually present in the U.S. for three years as of March 2021. It would extend to TPS holders from El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua, but the cutoff date would not include those from Venezuela, Afghanistan, Haiti and Ukraine.

He has also called for a “Dignity Plan,” for undocumented immigrants, who would be required to pass a background check, pay any taxes owed, pay fines that total to $5,000 over seven years, and remain in good standing.

Those who complete the program would have two pathways to remain legally in the U.S. The first path allows those who complete the “Dignity Plan” to apply every five years for a lawful status and the second path allows for a lawful permanent resident status to those who learn English, pass a civics test and participate in volunteer work.

Refugees came to Noel for opportunity. Tyson’s plant closure leaves their futures uncertain

Clara Bates — Fri, 27 Oct 2023 12:00:37 +0000

Main Street in Noel, Missouri, on Sept. 23, 2023 (Clara Bates/Missouri Independent).

NOEL, Mo. — On a Sunday afternoon in rural southwest Missouri, dozens of friends and family gather at a modest one-story home to sing and celebrate in the language of their homeland, more than 8,000 miles away.

Some arrive from church, crowding into a living room to celebrate two brothers — one turning 7 and the other 17. Speeches and blessings are delivered in a mix of English and Karen, the language of the Myanmar refugees who make up most of the partygoers.

Years ago, they escaped persecution in Myanmar, where the government has targeted various ethnic minorities for decades.

They’ve constructed tight-knit communities in Noel — and the town is all that many of the children have ever known. Kids bounce on a trampoline outside the party in the crisp fall air, the 7-year-old’s clip-on tie dangling haphazardly as a rendition of “Happy Birthday” breaks out.

But an air of anxiety coexists with the revelry.

A 10-year-old guest talks about all he’ll lose when his family has to move — pointing to the hill where he loved going sledding every winter.

“I’m kind of sad,” he says between bites of noodles off a paper plate. “I’ll miss my friends from school.”

In one corner, the birthday boys’ father huddles with a church volunteer, ticking through questions on a job application, some of which he doesn’t understand.

“Computer skills?” the volunteer asks.

For three decades, migrants have been drawn to the town to work at the Tyson poultry plant, which offered jobs that didn’t require English proficiency at higher-than-minimum-wage pay. Immigrants from Mexico arrived in the 1990s, followed years later by refugees and migrants from countries in Africa, Asia, Central America and the Pacific Islands.

They came to Noel — which had a population of 2,124 people in 2020 — in search of a better life. But with the plant now shuttered, many of its 1,533 workers are scrambling to find new jobs.

Job prospects in the remote surrounding areas are slim for many of those laid off in the plant closure. For the migrants who call Noel home, they can seem even slimmer. Many have already begun moving away, scattering across the country.

Pastor Joshua Manning, who helped organize multilingual Christian church services for the last seven years, speaks of the plant closure with despondency.

He provided space in the Community Baptist Church for services in three different Micronesian languages and Spanish. He led an English-Karen service himself.

Manning wondered whether the birthday party was doubling as a goodbye party.

“It’s like watching a family member die,” Manning says. “There’s mourning, grief.”

‘The American Dream’

Say Jaw and Gideon Po celebrate their seventeenth and seventh birthdays at a party Oct. 15, 2023. Their family has been in Noel since 2016 (Clara Bates/Missouri Independent).

Tucked in the hills of the Ozarks near Arkansas and Oklahoma, Noel is a summer tourist destination that spans just two square miles.

The Elk River winds through it, attracting canoers and rafters. A small main drag features an ice cream shop, Mexican restaurant and African store. Wedged between the river and stark bluffs, beneath a limestone overhang, is a stretch of highway long considered the most scenic in the region.

And just off the highway, over a bridge, is Tyson — the economic hub of the town whose population numbered in the hundreds until 1980 and just recently surpassed 2,000.

“The county has kind of grown up around that plant,” Mayor Terry Lance said, “and it’s basically in the middle of everything now.”

Several former workers interviewed by The Independent said they learned about the closure on Facebook or in the media before Tyson informed them. Rep. Dirk Deaton, a Republican who grew up in Noel, said the company gave no indication it was planning to close the facility, and even spent money last year on renovations.

“They’re here for the long haul,” he remembers believing. “So there was really no indication that it was coming or that’s what was going to happen until — until it was.”

The decision to close the plant, which was announced in August and effective this month, was made to cut costs amid falling profits, Tyson said. It was among six plants the company announced it is closing this year to make operations more efficient.

Of those six plants, the Noel plant employed the most people.

The Tyson plant in Noel on Sept. 23, 2023 (Clara Bates/Missouri Independent).

The poultry plant transformed the makeup of a small, nearly all-white town in the span of just three decades. More than one-third of Noel’s overall population is now foreign-born, 36%, which is nine times higher than the state’s average.

What began in 1959 as what the Los Angeles Times called a “modest little country factory” morphed by the turn of the century into a massive industrial operation.

Then-giant meatpacker Hudson Foods bought the plant in 1972 and set out to ramp up production. With the advent of industrial practices to breed chickens and automate processing — the rise of “big chicken” — came reduced prices and soaring demand nationally. (“America Goes Chicken Crazy,” the New York Times proclaimed in 1984.)

Americans ate 40 pounds of chicken in 1970; by 2000, that number had nearly doubled, to 77 pounds.

Hudson needed more workers to keep up. They said the jobs couldn’t be filled in a town that then had just over 1,000 residents — in an industry the company characterized as too hazardous and difficult for most American workers to do.

So the company recruited immigrants from Mexico to the town, at first putting them up in roach-infested hotel rooms. Over time, families joined and set down roots.

Reports of the ‘90s and early aughts portrayed a difficult arrival: The homes of migrants being tagged with graffiti and kids not being allowed to play on sports teams were some examples University of Missouri Extension gave in a 2002 report. Over time, though, accounts became more positive.

Tyson acquired Hudson in 1997.

There were seven Hispanic students at Noel Elementary School in 1992, making up less than 2% of the student body. A decade later, there were 240 — half of all students.

“Most people are going to Noel,” the report said, “in search of the American dream.”

‘On the run’

Pwe Loe, a refugee from Myanmar, in Community Baptist Church in Noel (Clara Bates/Missouri Independent).

On a late Sunday afternoon last month, a group of Somali men were the only patrons at Paisa’s Mexican Food, a sit-down restaurant on Noel’s main drag. Around the corner, the Karen-English church service had just let out.

Around 15 years ago large groups of more far-flung migrants began arriving in Noel, from Somalia, Micronesia, Myanmar and elsewhere.

Some, especially the Somali and Karen, came to the country as refugees, eligible for resettlement because they were persecuted or feared persecution in their home country.

One of them was Pwe Loe, from the Karen (“kuh-ren”) ethnic minority in Myanmar, formerly called Burma — a now 39-year-old single mother of five children, whose singing opens the weekly services at the Community Baptist Church, run by Manning. The white congregants sing in English in tandem with congregants singing in Karen.

Pwe Loe, who has an expressive face and wears her black hair pulled back into a ponytail, said her life in Myanmar was characterized by constant flight.

She was “on the run all [the] time,” she said, fleeing Burmese soldiers in the jungle with other members of her village. The Karen have been persecuted for decades, along with other ethnic minorities in Myanmar.

In 2011 she made it to a refugee camp in neighboring Thailand — an improvement, she said, because she no longer had to run. But there was no work, and refugees relied on humanitarian aid groups for food. After qualifying for refugee resettlement in the United States that July, she was moved to Austin, Texas, but said it was hard to find work.

Two years later, she says a friend told her Tyson was looking for workers, so she and her family moved to southwest Missouri. She relied on the network of Karen people in town to help her adjust and came to like Noel.

Refugees are free to move around the country and many do. They must apply for lawful permanent resident status after one year and can apply for citizenship after five years (Pwe Loe is a citizen).

Refugees are expected to be self-sufficient after just 90 days in the country, when federal direct assistance, including help paying for food and rent, ends. Support services to help refugees find and maintain employment are available for the first five years they’re in the country. The government doesn’t track secondary resettlement.

Pwe Loe worked on the poultry line deboning chicken thighs — slicing out bones using a knife, on an assembly line, which involves highly repetitive movements for hours on end.

At Tyson, the starting wage was $16.35.

Many of the Karen migrants said it was a job they were proud to have — a job that, while difficult, enabled them to support their families.

Several Karen churchgoers in September wore Tyson merchandise they’d been gifted: A camouflage baseball cap with the red oval logo, a smattering of red t-shirts. In the living room of the family that hosted the party, a “5 Years of Service” silver plaque bearing the Tyson logo was hung up on the wall, still in its plastic protective wrapping.

‘Everything has an ending’

An owner of Sky Grocery store on Main Street, which caters to the Somali population, says it will soon close because so many are moving away (Clara Bates/Missouri Independent).

Manning will step down as pastor of the Community Baptist Church on December 1, to go full-time with his current job at the post office, he said.

Hundreds of migrants have passed through the church in his seven years leading and organizing services — the size of services ebbing and flowing as some moved away and others arrived.

The essential fact of new arrivals, though — and the need to provide space for them to worship — remained steady. Some, like the core group of Karen families at the party, stuck around.

Now, he said, the church will take another form, reinventing itself.

The town will change too.

In the span of three weeks — from late September to October — “for sale” signs in Noel seemed to proliferate. At least one store on Main Street, which coordinated sending remittances home to Somalia, closed.

Three suitcases are near the entrance to a Somali-run store on the same stretch, called Sky Grocery. One of its owners, a young Somali woman who was born in Kenya because of the civil war in Somalia, said she moved to Noel just five months ago from Minnesota to help run the store.

She expects it will soon close.

“The majority are moving,” she said of other Somali refugees, “to different states.”

“Everything has an ending.”

Most white residents of Noel got along with their foreign-born neighbors and appreciated their contributions to the local economy, according to Mike Newman, executive director of RAISE, a nonprofit which provides refugee services in Southwest Missouri.

“But there was certainly a minority,” Newman added, “that said they would be fine if all the immigrants and refugees left Noel — and now we’re going to see if that’s going to be a good thing for them.”

Around 250 workers, or 16% of the workforce, plan to relocate to other Tyson facilities, said Derek Burleson, the company’s spokesperson, who added that the company held hiring events after announcing the closure. (The company offered them a $5,000 transfer bonus and up to $5,000 for moving expenses, Burleson said.)

Tyson provided a $1,000 bonus for those who’d stay until the closing date. Some of the church volunteers at the birthday party speculated that workers may have been hoping for the best, or unsure how to proceed in applying for new jobs while they were still working.

Now that the end has arrived, they’re scrambling for work or leaving. The town’s mayor said Noel could lose 20% of its population.

Two children whose families migrated from the Pacific Islands sit chatting before service begins in September (Clara Bates/Missouri Independent).

Their final paycheck arrived last Friday. A church-run food pantry has seen “increased need,” said Chloe Pfrimmer, who helps run the pantry and estimates around 70 families came to the most recent one.

Deaton, the state representative for the area, said the federal government should do more to help the refugees who came to Noel for jobs.

“They have something of an obligation, you know, to not leave those people just in limbo,” he said.

But government assistance to refugees is limited and short term, said Emily Frazier, assistant professor of human geography at Missouri State University in Springfield, who studies refugee resettlement.

The system is designed to integrate refugees, especially economically, and bring them to self-sufficiency quickly. They’re subject to the same challenges any American faces when losing a job, like the concurrent loss of health insurance: a more “systemic” American problem, Frazier said.

“Losing your job,” she said, “means losing benefits, security, possibly housing — especially in states like Missouri…There’s just not a social safety net for anyone, let alone refugees.”

Migrants’ language proficiency varies widely — many of the Karen adults, like Pwe Lo, speak limited English, which constrains job options. The federal government’s quick timeline for refugees to become economically independent, Frazier said, can “often supersede their ability to really learn English or…get their GED or get higher education.”

Refugees have to work quickly after arriving in the U.S., in jobs that require little English, and are then swept up in that difficult, time-intensive work.

Brittany Martin, who teaches English as a second language, said few of her adult students worked at Tyson because the company “works a lot of overtime and so kept their employees very busy.”

Tyson is accepting bids for the plant, but it isn’t clear yet what will replace it.

Pastor Joshua Manning drives the church’s van every Sunday to pick up children for service, stopping in neighborhoods composed primarily of migrants (Clara Bates/Missouri Independent).

Pwe Loe is getting worried. She is surprised to hear, at the party, news that many of the Somali have already moved away for work.

She said she would apply to a nearby plant, Simmons Foods, in Southwest City, but worries, because she’s heard it doesn’t have many open positions.

Those who stayed on until the closure were, Pwe Loe among them, promised an extra $1,000. But other plants in the area may have filled their openings, and the time it takes to find a new job could quickly eat up the bonus.

Pwe Loe worries about taking her children from school and their friends. Three of her sons are school-aged — 14, 13 and 9. She also has an 18-year-old daughter who attends a nearby college and a one-year-old son.

If they stay in Noel, she said, she may not be able to pay their bills. But if they leave, it will be “so difficult for my kids.” Sinking into the couch in the entry room of her home, baby asleep in the next room, she looks around with apprehension.

YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE.

U.S. House panel explores impact of immigration, crime on national parks

Ariana Figueroa — Thu, 19 Oct 2023 20:00:44 +0000

Migrants from Haiti stand at a gap in the U.S.-Mexico border wall after having traveled from South America to the United States on Dec. 10, 2021 in Yuma, Arizona (John Moore/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — The effects of immigration and crime on national parks took center stage Wednesday during a U.S. House hearing led by Republicans.

Members of the U.S. House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations discussed trash accumulation, the destruction of wildlife habitats and the illegal marijuana growing operations tied to cartels as environmental consequences of migrants coming onto park lands. Republican members also expressed concerns about the placement of asylum seekers’ camps on national park land.

House Natural Resources Committee ranking member Raúl Grijalva, an Arizona Democrat, said it’s part of a humanitarian crisis.

Michael Reynolds, the National Park Service deputy director, and Chris French, the National Forest System deputy chief at the U.S. Forest Service, testified about how their agencies collaborate with U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

French said that while the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is primarily responsible for protecting the nation’s borders, the U.S. Forest Service’s “stewardship and law enforcement responsibilities are vital to assisting the border patrol with effectively defending national security, responding to terrorist threats, safeguarding human life and stopping the degradation of natural and cultural resources on National Forest System lands.”

The three other testifying witnesses were Julie Axelrod, the director of litigation at the Center for Immigration Studies, a non-profit that seeks to limit immigration into the U.S.; John Nores, a retired lieutenant with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and former Marijuana Enforcement Team leader at the agency; and Verlon M. Jose, the chairman of the Tohono O’odham Nation in Sells, Arizona.

Representatives and witnesses frequently referenced migrant camps at the National Park Service Gateway National Recreation Area’s Floyd Bennett Field, an airfield in the Brooklyn borough of New York City.

The city entered lease agreements in September with the National Park Service to create emergency housing for migrants at the airfield. New York City Mayor Eric Adams said the city has been forced to look for new options with thousands of asylum seekers arriving in the city and no federal plan for their housing.

The House Natural Resources Committee released a statement in September, in which Chairman Bruce Westerman, an Arkansas Republican, condemned the placement of migrant camps in national parks.

“The (Biden) administration has now set a terrible precedent to use our public lands across the country to house migrants,” Westerman said at the hearing.

Westerman asked Reynolds if he could “assure concerned Americans that their national parks will not be used to house any additional migrants.”

“I can assure you that we will review everything for legal basis, and conservation protection is job one,” Reynolds said.

Westerman said the building of migrant shelters on National Park Service land is not his “vision” for how the parks should be used, nor does he think many Americans consider that to be the purpose of these parks.

“These areas face challenges that unfortunately are becoming increasingly familiar across the United States, from piles of trash to concerns about human trafficking,” Westerman said.

Humanitarian crisis and local intervention

CBP has reported more than 6 million encounters at the U.S. southern border since 2020.

“The unprecedented number of refugees and asylum seekers that are coming to the border is a reality,” Grijalva said. “It is a humanitarian crisis and needs to be dealt with.”

Grijalva said it is important to have a supplemental spending bill that can provide adequate resources “for the management of that crisis.”

“It is not right, nor is it proper, that local communities bear the burden financially and otherwise, for the processing, shelter and transition of those seeking refuge and asylum in this country,” Grijalva said.

Westerman said 35% of the land along the U.S. Southern border is Native American land.

Jose, whose tribal nation shares a 62-mile border with Mexico, said the Tohono O’odham Nation spends about $3 million each year “to help meet the U.S. border security responsibilities.”

The Tohono O’odham Nation police force spends more than a third of its time working on border issues, “including the investigation of immigrant deaths, illegal drug seizures and human smuggling,” Jose said.

The types of border security measures implemented on the Nation’s lands include:

A High Intensity Drug Trafficking Task Force.
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement office and Customs and Border Protection forward operating bases.
An ICE tactical patrol unit called the “Shadow Wolves.”
Vehicle barriers “that run the entire length of the Tribal border and a patrol road that parallels it.”
A CBP checkpoint on the Nation’s major highway.
A surveillance tower system.

“The Nation shares the federal government’s concerns about border security, and we believe that the measures we have taken to assist CBP and our own law enforcement efforts are necessary to protect the Nation’s members specifically and the United States generally,” Jose said.

Trash and drugs on federal lands

Republican members said they were concerned about trash accumulation at the border.

Rep. Juan Ciscomani, an Arizona Republican who is not a member of the committee, joined the hearing to speak with the witnesses. Ciscomani’s congressional district sits along the U.S.-Mexico border and contains areas of federal land.

Ciscomani asked French for statistics on the amount of trash picked up on national forest lands along the Southern U.S. border.

French said he was not “not entirely sure,” and that his agency did not have specific data on the amount of trash picked up this year compared to previous years. He said about 40,000 individuals were apprehended on National Forest System lands so far this year.

“What I can tell you is that this has been a continuous problem,” French said.

Subcommittee Chairman Paul Gosar, an Arizona Republican, asked French about the illegal marijuana growing sites operating on national forests. The Republican committee members said these growing sites are linked to international cartels.

French said that in the previous five years, the USFS has remediated 336 grow sites, and removed about 350 miles of irrigation pipes. About 300,000 pounds of trash have been removed from the grow sites. French said that toxic and banned substances have also been removed.

Nores, who co-founded the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Marijuana Enforcement Team, said in the team’s first five years, it “destroyed 3 million toxically tainted cannabis plants” and about 29 tons of “toxically tainted processed cannabis for sale and distribution.”

Nores said the team also made nearly 1,000 felony arrests.

Nores raised concerns about black market cannabis operations “not only on public lands, but on rural private land as well.”

Tohono O’odham Nation border wall concerns

Jose said his community has concerns about the construction of the border wall, which he said is ineffective in the desert Southwest.

He said the border wall has damaged sacred tribal areas, including the destruction of human burial sites, and has affected cultural practices.

“The Nation wholeheartedly agrees with GAO that the federal agencies must do a better job coordinating with each other and with the Nation on a strategy to mitigate the harm that a wall has caused,” Jose said.

Independent immigration court system advocated in U.S. Senate hearing

Ariana Figueroa — Wed, 18 Oct 2023 19:54:29 +0000

Immigrants wait overnight Jan. 7 next to the U.S.-Mexico border fence to seek asylum in the United States, as viewed from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. As of August, there is a backlog of more than 2.6 million pending immigration cases, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a research center at Syracuse University. (John Moore/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — An immigration judge and lawyer told a U.S. Senate Judiciary panel on Wednesday that an independent immigration court would help ease a backlog of more than 2 million pending cases.

Because the immigration court system is an arm of the U.S. Justice Department — the Executive Office for Immigration Review — each presidential administration has set immigration policy, and often those courts are subject to political interference, said Mimi Tsankov, an immigration judge, and Jeremy McKinney, an immigration attorney.

In the immigration court system, judges hold formal court proceedings to determine whether someone who is a noncitizen should be allowed to remain in the United States, or should be deported.

“Every administration has interfered with the courts. This undermines the courts’ integrity, and many of the executive branch’s manipulations of judges and their dockets simply backfire,” said McKinney, the former president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

Tsankov, the president of the National Association of Immigration Judges, said in order to alleviate the backlog of immigration court cases, Congress should establish an independent immigration court under Article I of the U.S. Constitution.

“An independent board will begin the process of healing this broken system,” she said.

As of August, there is a backlog of more than 2.6 million pending immigration cases, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, known as TRAC, a research center at Syracuse University. TRAC also found a 19% increase for the month of August in new immigration court cases, to 180,000 just for that month.

Congress has created other such entities in the past, such as the U.S. tax court in 1974, which is independent from the executive branch.

The chair of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, and Border Safety, Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla of California, agreed that Congress should legislate to make immigration courts separate from the Department of Justice.

“This means that with each new administration, the immigration courts and the attorneys appearing before them experience a whiplash of policy changes and political decisions,” Padilla said.

He acknowledged that it would be an uphill battle, with the House controlled by Republicans and Democrats holding a slim majority in the Senate.

Padilla added that Congress should provide funding for immigration judges to have sufficient clerks and staff to help with caseloads.

There are about 650 immigration judges located in 69 immigration courts and three adjudications centers across the U.S.

Another issue is that not every state has an immigration court. Only 28 states do, meaning immigrants who have pending cases might have to travel thousands of miles to show up for their court dates.

McKinney said many of his clients have to travel two to five hours to get to their court hearings.

States that do not have an immigration court include Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Delaware, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

The witnesses also argued that many people going through the immigration system lack legal representation, which can greatly impact their outcome.

The top Republican on the Senate panel, John Cornyn of Texas, argued that most cases are without merit, as opposed to asylum cases, which are based on a credible fear of death or harm. He said that people are “clogging the courts” and are aware the severe backlogs will allow them to stay in the country. Some courts have backlogs until 2027.

Sen. Mazie Hirono, Democrat of Hawaii, pushed back.

“People who have attorneys are 10.5 times more likely to be granted relief,” she said. “So it is when they have attorneys that they can proceed with their asylum claims.”

She added that another issue is that many children who are unaccompanied, even some toddlers, are expected to legally represent themselves.

“There is no guarantee that children will also have a lawyer, and this is alarming because children are some of the most vulnerable people in our immigration system,” she said.

Cornyn said he did not believe that “the taxpayer should be on the hook” for paying for legal fees and representation.

McKinney said that those who have representation and are not detained are five times more likely to gain relief. Immigrants who are detained and have legal representation are 10 times more likely to be granted relief than those who do not have representation.

“The point is that representation ensures due process,” he said. “It also makes the system more efficient when all the parties know the rules and know how to present a case. Cases move faster.”

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

Biden’s go-ahead for added border wall draws criticism from Democrats in Congress

Ariana Figueroa — Mon, 16 Oct 2023 21:36:36 +0000

The criticism comes after the Biden administration moved to use funds appropriated during the Trump administration to allow for 20 miles of additional border wall along the South of Texas, in the process waiving 26 federal laws (Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — U.S. congressional Democrats are frustrated with the White House’s decision to allow for the construction of additional border wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

“Walls don’t work. It’s that simple,” Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal of Washington state wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “If we really want to take steps to solve the situation at our border, we must invest in real solutions to process migrants and refugees.”

In a Federal Register notice, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security noted that the additional construction of the border wall in Starr County, Texas is part of a busy U.S. Border Patrol sector seeing “high illegal entry.”

About 245,000 illegal entries have been recorded in the region for the 2023 fiscal year, according to DHS data.

Some of those federal laws DHS waived include the Clean Air Act, Safe Drinking Water Act and the Endangered Species Act.

The Biden administration has struggled to manage the high number of migrants at the Southern border that has also led Democratic mayors in major cities such as New York, Washington, D.C. and Chicago to ask for federal assistance for newly arrived immigrants.

Many of those migrants are awaiting their asylum hearings, and the immigration courts already have a 2.6 million case backlog, according to Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University.

The administration has tried to help those cities by expanding protected status to nearly half a million Venezuelan nationals, allowing them to live and work in the United States. Due to federal law, migrants have to wait six months to apply for permission to work after they file their asylum applications.

The strain on those cities has come after Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has sent buses of migrants to those cities, often without warning local officials.

The U.S. Border Patrol encountered more than 300,000 migrants nationwide as of August during this fiscal year, compared to more than 251,000 for the previous fiscal year for the same month, according to CBP data.

Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chair Nanette Barragán, Democrat of California, said in a statement that the decision to continue with construction along the border was disappointing. She argued that the decision “is not in line with the current Administration’s commitments to end border wall construction.”

“Republicans remain committed to building border walls that are ineffective, a poor use of taxpayer funds, and a strain on the local environment, endangering families and children who are fleeing from dangerous conditions and that seek legal asylum in the United States,” Barragán said. “There are better methods to address our immigration system in America, and we encourage the Biden Administration to pursue practical solutions.”

Biden immigration policies

One of Biden’s first priorities when he came into office was halting the national emergency at the Southern border and halting funds to build the wall. The U.S.-Mexico border runs about 2,000 miles across four states – California, New Mexico, Arizona and Texas.

In a Jan. 20, 2021 proclamation, Biden said that “building a massive wall that spans the entire southern border is not a serious policy solution. It is a waste of money that diverts attention from genuine threats to our homeland security.”

Biden also repeatedly criticized building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border while he was campaigning in the 2020 presidential election.

On top of the announcement for construction of the border wall, the Biden administration also announced it would resume deportation flights for Venezuelans, sparking anger among pro-immigration Democrats.

“That is simply unacceptable,” New Jersey Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez said in a statement. “I will not remain silent as Venezuelan nationals who deserve our humanitarian protection remain in limbo while we wring our hands over semantics. These are human beings who deserve refuge in the United States.”

The White House has defended itself on the border wall, arguing that it’s following the law.

“These funds were appropriated in fiscal year 2019 under Republican leadership, and DHS is required by law to use the funds for … appropriated purpose,” White House secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said during a White House press briefing on Oct. 5.

“This is something that we were required by law, and we are complying,” she continued. “This is an administration that does believe in the rule of law.”

According to a White House pool report, President Joe Biden on Oct. 5 said that he “had no choice.”

“I can’t say I don’t like, it, I’m not going to do it.” Biden said, according to the pool report.

Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas said in a statement that the “notice is being taken out of context and it does not signify any change in policy whatsoever.”

Mayorkas also argued that “the law requires the government to use these funds for this purpose, which we announced earlier this year.”

“We have repeatedly asked Congress to rescind this money but it has not done so and we are compelled to follow the law,” he said. “This Administration believes that effective border security requires a smarter and more comprehensive approach, including state-of the-art border surveillance technology and modernized ports of entry. We need Congress to give us the funds to implement these proven tools.”

‘Sticking our heads in the sand’

Florida Democratic Rep. Maxwell Alejandro Frost, a freshman, said in a statement that building “a border wall is equivalent to sticking our heads in the sand.”

Frost, a member of the CHC and vice chair of the Progressive Caucus, said that a border wall will not deter migrants from making the journey, “it just makes their treacherous journey in search of freedom even more painful and dangerous.”

“To expand the border wall would be to continue the harmful, despicable immigration practices of the previous administration,” he said. “The answer to the crisis at the southern border cannot be to renege on our promise of pursuing a compassionate, comprehensive immigration system.”

Environmental groups and immigration advocacy organizations also shared their disappointment.

Laiken Jordahl, the southwest conservation advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement that Starr County provides a vital habitat for wildlife in the area “and now bulldozers are preparing to rip right through it.”

“It’s disheartening to see President Biden stoop to this level, casting aside our nation’s bedrock environmental laws to build ineffective wildlife-killing border walls,” Jordahl said. “This is a horrific step backwards for the borderlands.”

Immigrant Legal Resource Center Policy Director Sameera Hafiz said in a statement that the allowing for additional construction of the border wall is going back to Trump-era immigration policies.

The Trump administration built 52 miles of new border wall, according to PolitiFact.

“The Biden administration has shown a lack of courage and true leadership and that its only immigration stance is to turn its back on immigrants,” Hafiz said. “Biden must stop giving into hateful rhetoric and anti-immigrant lawmakers who don’t want you to hear the truth about vibrant border communities.”

As migrants arrive, some schools need more buses, books and bilingual teachers

Elaine Povich — Tue, 10 Oct 2023 14:37:21 +0000

School buses wait in 2021 outside Thomas Hart Benton Elementary School in Columbia (Rudi Keller/Missouri Independent).

On a pretty fall day in Massachusetts last week, Morad Majjad began work by checking in with a middle school nurse to see if he was needed as a translator.

By the time the day was over, Majjad — whose title is family liaison for the West Springfield school district but who is better described as ‘”interpreter-in-chief” — had translated for a misbehaving elementary school child, explained to a librarian’s class in another language how to check out and return books, dropped into a kindergarten class with newly arrived refugees who had trouble understanding what they had to do, and jumped onto a rowdy school bus to discuss proper behavior with a group of immigrant kids new to riding the bus.

“At the end of the day, I’m exhausted, but it makes me fulfilled,” said Majjad, a native of Morocco who speaks five languages — Arabic, Berber (a language spoken by many people in Morocco and Algeria), French, Spanish and English — and who is learning Portuguese. “Last year, I helped 300 families. This year, I think I will be able to affect the lives of many, many more kids.”

The West Springfield, Massachusetts, school district has seen an overwhelming influx of immigrants in the past couple of years, as have other towns in Massachusetts.

Democratic Gov. Maura Healey declared a state of emergency in August because of the rising number of migrant families and called on the federal government for help. She announced in August that Boston and the state will share a $1.9 million grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to expand shelters and transportation for the new immigrants. But that did not include money for schools.

An increase in immigrant kids has created challenges for schools in areas that have seen a recent wave of migrants, from Texas to Illinois, Massachusetts to Florida.

Julie Sugarman, associate director for K-12 education research at the Migration Policy Institute, a nonprofit research group, said while many school districts have been dealing with English learners and migrants previously, the wave of the past few months means states are trying to provide guidance to schools without knowing exactly when and from where new students are coming.

“Finding [educators] with the right credentials can be challenging,” she said. “Having students come throughout the year is incredibly challenging.”

Take Chicago, for example. A census of the Chicago Public Schools, updated last week, showed that the “English learners” population grew nearly 11% from last fall to this fall, increasing 7,810 to reach 79,833, according to information provided by the district.

In a typical school year, the district said, there are about 3,000 new English learners, though not all are from migrant families.

The Chicago school district is ramping up recruitment and hiring of educators with bilingual skills. As of the 2022-23 school year, it has about 850 teachers with bilingual credentials and 2,100 teachers with both bilingual and English as a second language credentials, the department reported, up from about 2,100 in 2017.

In the Miami-Dade County School District in Florida, 7,519 new students from other countries had enrolled this year as of Sept. 9, spokesperson Ana Rhodes said in an email. That compares with 13,941 from other countries who enrolled throughout last school year, and 7,436 in 2021-22, she said.

This fall in New York City, a reported 20,000 new migrant students enrolled in public schools.

Increased costs

A large infusion of new immigrant families adds to the costs of schools but not greatly to the tax base that funds them, said Steve Camarota, director of research for the Center for Immigration Studies, a national research and advocacy group that favors reduced immigration. In general, schools are financed by local property taxes, though states and the federal government contribute. In some cases, he said, the increased costs are marginal — buying more equipment and books, for example — but others require capital expenditures such as new school buildings.

In addition to language issues, there is a “lack of familiarity with American culture, American education, American ideals,” he added. Those aspects all play into school employees’ work, such as the translations Majjad does in West Springfield. Camarota noted that while the kids generally pick up a new language quickly, parents and other family members acquire language more slowly.

West Springfield Superintendent Stefania Raschilla said the stock of materials she buys every year is based on a set number of students. “With the influx of refugees, it’s been a challenge because the state and agencies don’t know how many are coming, they don’t know the grades they are in, they just show up here,” she said in an interview.

She said space in classrooms, space in buildings, transportation and more than 50 different languages students speak at home are among the other challenges.

She hired a few more English as a second language teachers, anticipating the wave.

Massachusetts and New York City attract many immigrants because of mandates requiring that all people have access to shelter. New York Democratic Mayor Eric Adams recently asked a judge to suspend the requirement, in the face of overwhelming immigration.

Access to education

Every kid in the U.S. is entitled to an education, no matter how they came to live here. That’s because of a Supreme Court ruling about 40 years ago, in Plyler v. Doe, that said all children are entitled to a free public education, regardless of immigration status.

In 2022, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, suggested that the ruling might be ripe for overturning. In comments on Texas radio and to local media, he said that states either should be able to set their own immigration policies, or the federal government should pay for the public education of children without legal status.

In Liberty County, a northeast exurb of Houston, where the immigrant population more than doubled between 2017 and 2022, the Cleveland Independent School District has been unsuccessful in trying to get bond issues passed to build new schools. Undaunted, the school district is seeking $125 million with a bond question this fall.

Matt Bieniek, spokesperson for the school district, which serves Liberty County, said the district now has 66 portable classrooms and may have to order more. He said because a state law requires the bond question to be described as a “property tax increase,” people were put off by it, even though it won’t affect property tax rates. But he is hopeful that it might pass this time if there’s better voter turnout.

He said most of the new immigrant population lives in a residential development comprising several subdivisions called Colony Ridge, which has been the subject of discussion by Abbott and the legislature. Abbott suggested that the large number of immigrants buying homes there might become one of the topics to be addressed in a special legislative session planned for later in October.

But immigration status cannot be a reason to deny someone the right to buy property, noted Allison Tirres, a visiting professor at the Santa Clara University School of Law, who teaches immigration law. She said those immigrants who are buying homes are contributing to the tax base that funds schools. She said the “knee-jerk” anti-immigrant reaction is to “go scapegoating” when schools get crowded.

The school district’s Bieniek said some resentment in the community comes because “you have some pushback from the community who want things to be the way they always were. We are doing everything we can to continue the small-town feel,” he said, “while getting our community adjusted to the change in the district.”

States hope finding jobs for migrants will help clear shelter overload

Tim Henderson — Fri, 06 Oct 2023 18:11:44 +0000

Kimberly Carchipulla, center, and her 5-year-old son, Damien Salinas, right, walk in New York City in September. Carchipulla and her family emigrated from Ecuador in June and have been living in a room at the historic Roosevelt Hotel, converted into a city-run shelter for newly arrived migrant families hoping to find work, a new home and a better life (Andres Kudacki/The Associated Press).

NEW YORK CITY — States and cities are taking advantage of expedited work authorizations for a flood of new migrants, seeking to match them with jobs so they can support their families while they wait for asylum hearings.

Allowing migrants to work might enable many of them to leave shelters in cities that were already strained by local homeless populations but have been further overwhelmed by the newcomers.

New York Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul said this week that the state Labor Department had identified 18,000 potential jobs for migrants around the state. Hochul had already called on National Guard troops to help with work authorization paperwork.

“Migrants and asylum seekers came here to work — so let’s put them to work,” Hochul said in a statement. “Right now, we have a migrant crisis and a workforce crisis … we can solve them both.”

New York and other states got a big win when the Biden administration announced last month that it would give temporary legal status, which includes permission to work, to Venezuelan migrants who arrived before August. The administration also pledged faster action on work permits for other migrants seeking asylum. About 44,000 of the 107,000 migrants who entered New York City between spring 2022 and August 2023 are from Venezuela.

Also this week, New Jersey said it would spend $2.5 million to connect migrant workers with employers through a new website. Illinois Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker said that he was “thrilled” by the Biden administration’s promises of new work authorization for Venezuelans, who make up the largest share of Chicago’s new arrivals. But Pritzker urged the federal government to speed up authorizations and waive fees “for those who cannot afford them and just want to be able to work and build a better life.”

The question of how to handle an influx of migrants is a quandary in states and cities around the country. A labor shortage has employers scrambling to find workers, while city shelters are overflowing with newcomers who can’t work legally to support themselves.

“People are seeking freedom and protection, but we also have a big ‘Help Wanted’ sign out there. There’s a push and a pull [bringing immigrants here],” said Abel Nuñez, director of the nonprofit CARECEN, which works with new migrants in Washington, D.C.

Among those seeking work is Edgardo Marín, a 34-year-old forklift operator who fled Venezuela with his wife and small children and now lives in a Manhattan shelter in New York City. Marín, who was getting asylum advice at a Methodist church in the city on a recent day, said he had to leave his home country because he had been identified as a dissident by a “colectivo,” a far-left paramilitary group aligned with the government.

“We had to flee Venezuela because I am against the government,” Marín said, speaking in Spanish. “I always hated it. It produces nothing but poverty and steals everything for itself. I was part of a group marching against the colectivo, trying to put pressure on them. They came after me and tried to kill me and my family — my mother and my brother-in-law were imprisoned because of all this.”

The colectivos are part of a pattern of violence in Venezuela that blurs the line between politics and crime, said Héctor Arguinzones, a Venezuelan native who fled in 2015 and now works with new migrants in New York City.

“There’s a very fine line between political oppression and gang crime in Venezuela, and that’s a big reason why Venezuelans are fleeing,” Arguinzones said. “Sometimes the gangs get control of the government and use it to threaten people. Sometimes the government uses the gangs to control the population.”

Gang violence is a valid asylum claim, but federal law is complicated. About 29% of asylum cases from Venezuela were granted in fiscal 2023, according to the latest federal statistics.

State help

California, Colorado and Minnesota have been most active in helping immigrants without regard to legal status, said Eric Figueroa, a senior manager at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington, D.C. States have shown they can give access to health insurance, driver’s licenses and resident college tuition discounts, he said.

A Minnesota law allowing driver’s licenses went into effect Oct. 1. Illinois has many of the same benefits for migrants, regardless of immigration status, but had to cut back on health care benefits in a recent budget crunch.

“What people really need is federal legislation to normalize their status, but if that’s not going to happen, the states can do something to step in and ease their way a little bit,” Figueroa said. “You can help millions of people live better with something like driver’s licenses, a mundane thing for you and me, but it’s a huge deal for unauthorized people.”

In New York, a 31-year-old woman who asked to be identified only as Judy said she and her family are eager to work when they get permission. She can cook and clean houses to get started, she said.

Judy said she fled Colombia because her business as a street food vendor was ruined by escalating gang demands for protection payments gang members called a “vacuna,” or vaccination.

“They wanted money and food for all of them, and they threatened to beat us when we couldn’t pay,” Judy said. She, her husband, a baby daughter and 6-year-old son made a perilous journey with friends on foot to the United States, using the last of their money in Piedras Negras, Mexico, on bus fare to the U.S. border. Drug dealers on the bus stole the last of their possessions, she said.

“We got here with nothing,” said Judy, who lives in a New York City shelter.

Marín said his family also made the arduous journey on foot through the jungles of Panama, seeing bodies of migrants by the path and finding a Venezuelan flag left at a resting spot.

“It was horrible. Four days in the jungle,” Marín recounted. He said he would like to make money and get out of a city shelter but hasn’t been able to find work. “They ask me for papers and a Social Security card, and I don’t have them,” he said.

A surge of immigrant arrivals

About 2.2 million migrants crossed the United States’ southern border from October 2022 through this past August, up about 3% from the same period the previous year and up more than fivefold from 2020. Recent asylum-seekers are concentrated in New York City, Miami, Los Angeles, Houston and Chicago, according to an analysis by TRAC at Syracuse University based on immigration court filings from March 2021 to May 2023.

At least a dozen Republican states have sent National Guard troops to the Texas-Mexico border to attempt to deter illegal border crossings. They include Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia. Ohio sent state highway patrol officers to the border in Texas.

Last year, Republican Govs. Greg Abbott of Texas and Ron DeSantis of Florida — a presidential candidate — made headlines by busing newly arrived migrants to Democratic-controlled cities and states such as Washington, D.C., California and New York. This year, Arizona Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs also put migrants on buses, saying she wanted to help get them closer to their final destinations.

The resulting tide of families has overwhelmed many cities. Nuñez, the CARECEN director, said earlier waves of migrants only used Washington as a transfer point to reach family and friends elsewhere.

“We then also began to deal with the fact that 10% to 20% also wanted to make D.C. their home, to integrate into our city,” said Nuñez, speaking at a September conference on immigration policy.

“When you’re the actual final destination, it creates a whole host of other issues,” he said. He recalled how migrants arriving at a D.C.-area bus station found themselves walking through a tent encampment in search of help.

“Our inability to house people, period, was a challenge. Most of them have been on this arduous journey. It breaks your heart to hear some of their stories. They think once they made it over the border, they’re on easy street. And we have to tell them, ‘No, the journey continues.’”

Shutdown would mean even more delays in overwhelmed U.S. immigration courts

Ariana Figueroa — Fri, 29 Sep 2023 16:14:21 +0000

Migrants from Haiti stand at a gap in the U.S.-Mexico border wall after having traveled from South America to the United States on Dec. 10, 2021 in Yuma, Arizona (John Moore/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — A looming partial government shutdown will put added pressure on an already strained system — U.S. immigration courts.

Canceling or rescheduling court cases that many immigrants have awaited for years will cause even more backlogs, immigration attorneys and judges have warned.

“Where we’ll really kind of see the backlog continue to build will be in the non-detained docket, so these are folks who have been released, who are living in their communities, working and have to appear before the immigration court when they’re hearing notice to appear,” said ManoLasya Perepa, policy and practice counsel at the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

Immigration court cases on the non-detained docket cases will be reset for a later date when federal funding resumes, because those courts will not be open should a partial government shutdown commence when the federal fiscal year ends at midnight Saturday.

The only exceptions are courts that are operating in detention centers, according to a Department of Justice contingency plan in the event of a government shutdown. There are more than 35,500 migrants in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers.

The Justice Department office that oversees the immigration courts, the Executive Office for Immigration Review, does not have an updated contingency plan should a partial government shutdown happen.

“The Executive Office for Immigration Review would continue to process all immigration cases and appeals involving detained respondents including individuals subject to electronic monitoring,” an EOIR official said in a statement to States Newsroom. “All non-detained cases would need to be rescheduled for each week of a shutdown and would not occur until funding is restored.”

Most cases are already scheduled out to 2025, and it’s unclear how long a partial government shutdown will last, Perepa said.

“Fitting in where these rescheduled folks should go is really kind of living in uncertainty for the people who are hoping to have their day in court now,” she said. “It’s also a lot of burden and extra work for immigration court staff to figure out, where is the time in the schedule to put these folks on the calendar again in the future.”

There are about 650 immigration judges located in 69 immigration courts and three adjudications centers across the U.S.

Immigration judges can typically get through a handful of cases a day, said Hon. Mimi Tsankov, president of the National Association of Immigration Judges.

Tsankov herself hears four cases a day, but she works at one of the busiest immigration courts in New York and has thousands of cases on her docket.

“Imagine if you can’t get to a few weeks worth of cases, those are going to be pushed out to the end of the docket. And that just means that these people will really not get their day in court. Their cases become stale, new evidence has to be prepared, assembled, presented,” she said. “It’s inefficient.”

Hoping for a short shutdown

Perepa is hoping that the shutdown will be short, and is not as long as the 35-day shutdown during the Trump administration.

“It takes a long time, I think, to claw out the things that are stopped during a shutdown,” she said.

The shutdown in 2018 caused nearly 43,000 court cases to be canceled, according to a report by TRAC.

“Individuals impacted by these cancellations may have already being waiting two, three, or even four years for their day in court,” according to the TRAC report.

So far, Congress has not passed any of the 12 appropriations bills into law, which need to be in place by the end of the fiscal year on Saturday. A group of far-right Republicans is pushing for steeper cuts to nondefense federal spending, even after several months ago House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Joe Biden struck a deal.

In order to give lawmakers enough time to finish the annual spending bills, a continuing resolution, or CR, is passed, but lawmakers in the House and Senate have been unable to agree on a CR so far.

The Biden administration, in its budget request to Congress, asked for $1.4 billion for fiscal 2024 to help reduce its backlog by using funds to hire more judges and court staff.

And not every state has an immigration court. Only 28 states do, meaning immigrants who have pending cases might have to travel thousands of miles to show up for their court dates.

That means, taking off time for work, finding child care or elder care options, Perepa said.

Kansas county scuttles talk of converting Leavenworth jail to ICE detention center

Allison Kite — Thu, 21 Sep 2023 13:30:03 +0000

CoreCivic's Leavenworth Detention Center was a hotbed for drugs and violence before it closed in 2021 (Allison Kite/Missouri Independent).

Leavenworth County officials voted unanimously Wednesday to halt discussions over whether to convert a former private federal jail into a detention center for immigration enforcement.

For years, CoreCivic, the nation’s largest private prison operator, ran a federal pretrial detention center in Leavenworth for individuals charged with — but not convicted of — federal crimes from Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa and western Missouri. It closed at the end of 2021 under an executive order banning renewal of federal contracts with private prisons.

County officials have been approached several times over the last two years about converting the facility to hold detainees of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. The county would potentially act as an intermediary between the company and federal agency.

But members voted Wednesday to “immediately stop negotiations” with CoreCivic and ICE about serving as a party to an agreement between the company and federal agency.

It’s not clear that the county’s participation would be necessary under federal rules.

The vote comes after two years of speculation about the future of the CoreCivic facility, called the Leavenworth Detention Center. ICE told KCUR in 2021 it was not pursuing a contract for the Leavenworth facility.

CoreCivic said earlier this month that the federal agency was in the midst of procuring space for detainees in the Midwest but declined to comment further on an active contracting process.

On Wednesday, the company’s spokesman, Ryan Gustin, said in an email that CoreCivic would “continue to have an open dialogue with Leavenworth County commissioners and the City of Leavenworth to address any concerns that they might have regarding this opportunity.”

The vote came after the city expressed opposition to county officials.

Opposition to the idea of CoreCivic becoming an ICE facility ran the spectrum from anti-immigration sentiments about releasing “illegal aliens” into the community to immigration attorneys and civil rights advocates’ concerns about the facility’s history of violence and safety issues.

When CoreCivic’s Leavenworth facility held pretrial detainees under a contract with the U.S. Marshals Service, the private jail struggled with staffing crises, rampant drug use and persistent violence. It’s being sued by a former inmate whose lawsuit includes allegations of at least 10 stabbings in 2021 and two deaths by suicide.

In 2019, CoreCivic settled with 500 detainees for $1.45 million for illegally recording phone calls with their defense attorneys and providing them to prosecutors.

The facility closed at the end of 2021 when CoreCivic’s contract with the U.S. Marshals Service expired. President Joe Biden, in his first week in office, signed an executive order barring the Department of Justice from renewing contracts with private criminal detention facilities.

But ICE falls under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas said in a statement that it was glad the commission realized allowing CoreCivic to house ICE detainees “would be an unsafe, inhumane decision.”

“Kansans and the Leavenworth community expect better than allowing a company to continue operations in this state,” the organization said, “after CoreCivic has maintained a long and proven track record of flagrant human and civil rights violations of the people in its custody.”

States see influx of migrants from India, Venezuela and China

Tim Henderson — Tue, 19 Sep 2023 17:52:17 +0000

A child watches on the South Lawn during the arrival ceremony for India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the White House in Washington, D.C., in June. About 130,000 new immigrants from India arrived in the United States between 2021 and 2022 (Andrew Harnik/The Associated Press).

NEW YORK — A late-pandemic surge of new arrivals from India, Venezuela and China, reflecting people with legal visas and those fleeing across the United States’ southern border seeking asylum, helped bring more than 900,000 new immigrants to the U.S. between 2021 and 2022, according to a Stateline analysis of new census data to be released Thursday.

Florida received the most migrants, according to available data, followed by Georgia, Texas, Maryland and North Carolina.

New immigrants have helped fill jobs and stem population shrinkage in larger cities, as suburbs and smaller cities attract more movers within the country since the pandemic. In some cases, they’ve also strained schools and shelters from Texas to New York.

The U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey data shows 46.2 million immigrants living in the U.S. in July 2022, compared with 45.3 million in July 2021, an increase of 912,000.

That includes an increase of about 130,000 from India, a 5% increase in one year; about 122,000 from Venezuela, a 22% increase; and about 86,000, a 4% increase, from China. The survey data includes U.S. citizens, permanent residents, and immigrants and migrants living in the country either legally or illegally.

Florida saw the largest one-year increase with 208,000 new immigrants, a 5% jump. That included an increase of 65,000 from Venezuela, a 30,000 increase from Haiti, and about 18,000 more from Peru. Detailed country of birth data was released only for 28 states with enough immigrant population to measure with the American Community Survey household survey.

There also were large one-year increases in immigrants in Georgia (up 85,000), Texas (up 77,000), Maryland (up 51,000) and North Carolina (up 47,000).

Immigrant population dropped in California and Hawaii (down 24,000 in each) and Colorado (down 13,000), while there were smaller drops in Alaska, Delaware, Kentucky, Louisiana, Nebraska, Rhode Island, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

Countries of origin

Arrivals from India and China are more likely to use legal visas, while those from Venezuela and other countries in Central and South America, are more likely to cross the border on foot and claim asylum, living a “quasi-legal” existence while they file claims that can take years to come up in clogged courts, said Julia Gelatt, associate director for the U.S. Immigration Policy Program at the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, D.C.

Immigration court backlogs are at an all-time high, with Florida, Texas, California and New York having the most cases pending.

Immigrants from India and some from China likely were mostly high-skill workers and their families with education and investor visas commonly used in both countries. In 2022, some controversial investor visas were overhauled to support more job creation in U.S. rural and high-unemployment areas. Some real estate developers have been accused of defrauding Chinese investors seeking the visas.

There also have been recent accounts of migrants from India and China crossing the southern border and seeking asylum, for reasons ranging from sexual orientation to sectarian violence.

Immigrants from India, including long-time residents and recent arrivals, are concentrated in California (about 580,000), Texas (340,000), and New Jersey (270,000). The largest county population is in Silicon Valley’s Santa Clara and Alameda counties (about 250,000 combined) in California, where many are recruited for high-skill visas.

Many migrants from Venezuela, typically fleeing political and economic turmoil, come by foot through the jungles of Colombia and Panama to reach the U.S. border and apply for asylum. As of 2022, almost half of the Venezuelan-born U.S. residents are in Florida, about 330,000 of the national 668,000 total, mostly in South Florida’s Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties. Another 100,000 Venezuelans live in Texas, mostly in Harris County, where Houston is located.

The numbers don’t reflect the past year; border crossings remained high during several months from mid-2022 to mid-2023.

Strained resources

Some asylum-seekers have been traveling to New York, the District of Columbia and Chicago on voluntary buses supplied either as a service or as a protest by Republican governors, though many riders move on to other, less costly destinations or get off along the way.

Today Venezuelan asylum-seekers can receive humanitarian parole and eventually work authorization if they pass screening at border checkpoints. But many find the process too long and confusing, and end up living on charity while waiting for asylum cases, said Héctor Arguinzones, co-founder of a New York nonprofit helping Venezuelans and other new immigrants.

“It’s worse this way, because now people think they’re just coming here to make money, when all they really want is just to get some food and supplies for their families and put a roof over their head,” Arguinzones said.

New York Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul has proposed state-level work authorization for migrants, which she recently called “the only way to help asylum seekers become self-sustaining, so they can move into permanent housing.”

New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, has said the migrant influx will cost the city $12 billion over the next three years, as the city provides shelter, other services and education for thousands of new children.

Likewise, schools face a funding crisis in Liberty County, Texas, between Houston and Beaumont. There, the immigrant population more than doubled to about 15,000 between 2017 and 2022, including an increase of more than 2,000 between 2021 and 2022, almost all from Latin America. About 20% are U.S. citizens. The American Community Survey did not report individual countries of birth for that county.

The Cleveland Independent School District in Liberty County has a $125 million bond resolution on the November ballot to build more schools, but voters have rejected similar resolutions in the past, said Superintendent Stephen McCanless. It’s impossible to hire enough licensed teachers to handle the crush, he said, so the district has an arrangement to put employees with two-year degrees into classrooms with teachers supervising them.

“We went out on a limb creating this program but we had no choice, and it’s proven to be so successful it surprised even us,” McCanless said. Enrollment doubled to about 11,000 between the 2017-18 and 2021-22 school years, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

Students are still pouring into the district, McCanless said. More than 1,300 new students showed up during the first four weeks of school this year. Without funds for new buildings, the district is buying portable classrooms that may end up filling sports practice fields temporarily, he said.

India became the No. 1 country of immigration in Michigan (displacing Mexico) and Virginia (displacing El Salvador). The only other change was in Pennsylvania, where the Dominican Republic became the top country, overtaking India.

There also were large increases in immigrants born in Honduras, up 76,000, or 10%, and Afghanistan, up about 71,000, or 57%. Some Afghans who helped the United States during the war in their country have been offeredhumanitarian parole with legal residency and work permission through the Operation Allies Welcome and the Enduring Welcome programs starting in late 2021.

Immigration from Nicaragua was up 15%, or 39,000. But immigration from Mexico, the nation’s largest immigrant group at nearly 11 million, was down by about 19,000 since 2021 and has dropped by almost 600,000 since 2017.

India and China are the second- and third-largest nationalities, respectively, both at about 2.8 million since 2021.

Over the longer run, Indian immigration is up 9% since 2017, or 229,000, but the Chinese immigrant population is still down slightly from 2017, by about 11,000, less than 1%.

Shuttered private jail in Leavenworth could become ICE detention center

Allison Kite — Wed, 06 Sep 2023 16:47:19 +0000

CoreCivic's Leavenworth Detention Center, which previously held pre-trial detainees charged with federal crimes could become a detention facility for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE (Allison Kite/Missouri Independent).

A private pre-trial detention center in Leavenworth beset with violence when it closed in 2021 could house individuals detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.

For years, Nashville-based CoreCivic operated the Leavenworth Detention Center, which held individuals charged — but not convicted — with federal crimes from Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa and western Missouri. Now, it could reopen to house undocumented immigrants facing removal.

“We haven’t even made a decision because we can’t until we are in an open meeting and we debate and we figure out what we do want to do or not,” said Leavenworth County Commission Chair Vicky Kaaz.

She emphasized in an interview that the commission had yet to even hear the details of a possible arrangement.

When CoreCivic’s Leavenworth facility held pre-trial detainees under a contract with the U.S. Marshals Service, the private jail struggled with staffing crises, rampant drug use and persistent violence. It’s being sued by a former inmate whose lawsuit includes allegations of at least 10 stabbings in 2021 and two suicides.

In 2019, CoreCivic settled with 500 detainees for $1.45 million for illegally recording phone calls with their defense attorneys and providing them to prosecutors.

But ICE falls under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

The future of the CoreCivic facility has been the subject of speculation for almost two years, but ICE had previously said it was not pursuing a contract for the Leavenworth facility, KCUR reported in 2021.

CoreCivic spokesman Ryan Gustin said in an email that ICE is in the process of procuring detention services in the area.

“Out of respect for the integrity of the process, we do not elaborate on any proposals that may have been submitted in response to active procurements,” Gustin said.

ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Since CoreCivic closed in 2021, the company has reached out to the county several times about efforts to reopen the facility, County Administrator Mark Loughry said during a Leavenworth County Commission meeting Wednesday.

But Loughry said such efforts have never gotten far with the federal government, though that “may have changed” in the last month.

Loughry updated commissioners on the possible arrangement Wednesday after rumors began circulating on social media over the weekend.

“It’s not an agenda item, and it may never be an agenda item,” Loughry said. “But because of the false narratives that are out there, I just wanted to kind of put out what we know.”

Kaaz said she had gotten angry notes from residents over the possibility since Kansas Rep. Pat Proctor, R-Leavenworth, posted on Facebook this Saturday urging followers to reach out to commissioners, “if you don’t want immigration bringing their self-induced border crisis to our doorstep.”

Loughry said reopening the facility would create 350 jobs, and the county could receive an administrative fee between $600,000 and $800,000 for acting as an intermediary. The value of the facility would also rebound if it opened again, Loughry said, meaning CoreCivic’s property tax bill to the county would rise.

The facility, Loughry said, could house between 500 and 900 detainees — all adults. They would be individuals who had been detained in the Midwest, not people who had just come across the border.

Commissioner Mike Stieben proposed a motion for the commission to refuse to entertain a possible arrangement.

“I don’t want to see us go down this road of wasting weeks of staff time having to hear from people when I think this is a totally bad idea,” he said.

The motion failed 2-3. Commissioners voting against Stieben said they didn’t want to turn down any arrangement before hearing the details.

The ACLU of Kansas decried the possibility of CoreCivic operating an ICE facility in a news release Wednesday. Sharon Brett, the chapter’s legal director, said the company was “plainly unable to run a facility that meets even the bare minimum of standards afforded by our Constitution.”

“CoreCivic demonstrated a consistent and deliberate indifference to mitigating the dangerous and unconstitutional conditions in the Leavenworth facility, as it has elsewhere in the country,” Brett said.

She said Leavenworth County “should not invite CoreCivic back to once again abuse individuals’ human and civil rights.”

Michael Sharma-Crawford, an immigration attorney in Kansas City, said he was concerned attorneys wouldn’t be able to get in touch with their clients easily at a CoreCivic facility.

Right now, Sharma-Crawford works with clients in custody at the Chase County Jail in Cottonwood Falls, Kansas, where he said families and clients have better access to legal counsel. The proposed arrangement would “greatly impede a noncitizens’ ability to seek help when they need it most,” he said.

“If access to counsel and due process are to mean anything,” he said, “perhaps ICE should reconsider their efforts to thwart both by their current efforts to use (CoreCivic) as a holding facility.”

Nearly half the states now allow in-state tuition for immigrant students

Elaine Povich — Wed, 16 Aug 2023 16:00:52 +0000

The University of Missouri-Columbia's iconic columns, remains of the school's first building, stand in front of Jesse Hall, which houses administrative offices (University of Missouri photo).

When Cristian Dubon Solis was getting ready to graduate from a Boston high school in 2020, he started planning to apply to college. It was only then he realized that as an immigrant lacking permanent legal status, he wouldn’t qualify for in-state tuition at Massachusetts state universities, nor for state-sponsored financial aid.

With no way to afford a four-year school to pursue his dream major, environmental science, he put those plans on hold.

“I took a few gap years afterward,” said the now 21-year-old from East Boston, a community where about half the residents are Hispanic or Latino. Solis now advocates for young immigrants as a student coordinator for a nonprofit group called SIM, which formerly stood for Student Immigration Movement.

One of four siblings, Solis came to the United States from El Salvador at age 3. His three younger sisters were born in the U.S., he said. Family and friends didn’t discuss their immigration status, so he never heard about the tuition restrictions.

“In families of the immigrant community it’s very hush-hush, you don’t talk about it,” he said. “It’s hard to figure out what options I had or didn’t have, because nobody talked about it.”

But now Solis is about to apply to colleges in Massachusetts, including UMass-Boston.

Campus diversity will be a struggle without race-based admissions, history shows

Democratic Gov. Maura Healey signed the state budget this month with a provision that will allow certain immigrants without permanent legal status — those who have attended high school in Massachusetts for at least three years or who have earned a GED certificate — to pay in-state tuition rates at public universities. The law takes effect immediately.

The idea has bipartisan appeal, with some conservative supporters this year saying it helps reduce workforce shortages and boost tax revenue.

In June, Nevada Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo enacted a law allowing immigrants who have been granted status under the federal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Act, or DACA program, to qualify for in-state tuition after living in Nevada for 12 months. That action expanded on a law that allowed high school graduates lacking permanent legal status to do so.

And in Florida this year, state lawmakers rejected a proposal from Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis to scrap in-state tuition for students without permanent legal status. He had wanted to include it in a bill to tighten restrictions on immigrants living in the country illegally.

But critics of the in-state tuition changes argue states are facing an influx of immigrants and already are stretched thin to pay for needed housing and services. Missouri Gov. Mike Parson, a Republican, in June signed a 2024 budget that included a boost for higher education funding but prohibited students without permanent legal status from getting in-state tuition or state scholarships.

Massachusetts became the 24th state to grant immigrants without legal status access to in-state tuition, according to the Higher Ed Immigration Portal, a website run by a coalition of 18 higher education and immigration organizations to provide information and resources to immigrant students.

In-state tuition is generally thousands of dollars less per year than for out-of-state students. For example, the undergraduate tuition and fees at Massachusetts state schools averaged $10,036 for state residents and $28,813 for out-of-state residents in the 2022-23 school year, according to College Tuition Compare, a nationwide college evaluation website.

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

Seventeen of the states granting in-state tuition also allow the students to be eligible for financial aid, as does the District of Columbia, according to the Higher Ed Immigration Portal.

Four states — Delaware, Iowa, Michigan and Pennsylvania — restrict the number of public universities at which immigrants without permanent legal status are eligible for in-state tuition, according to the portal.

Five states — Arkansas, Idaho, Maine, Mississippi and Ohio — provide that tuition discount only to young immigrants who have DACA status. The Obama-era DACA program allows immigrants who were brought to the United States as children and who meet other qualifications to avoid deportation and obtain work permits. New applications for the program are on hold while long-running court battles play out.

By contrast, nine states specifically block access to in-state tuition or state financial aid for residents lacking permanent legal status, the immigration portal found. They are: Indiana, Missouri, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Tennessee, Wisconsin, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina. The last three have laws that prevent students without permanent legal status from even enrolling in all or some public colleges, though there may be some exceptions for students with DACA status, according to the portal.

Opponents of extending in-state tuition argue that scarce state resources should not be spent on immigrants living in the country illegally, particularly when states are dealing with a wave of new immigrant families that strains the states’ safety net.

While the Massachusetts law garnered wide support in the Democratic-controlled state, some Republican opponents pointed out that the Healey administration recently called for the federal government to speed funding to provide shelter and services for immigrants in the state and encouraged state residents to take families into their homes.

“It’s the wrong priority at this date and time,” said Republican state Sen. Ryan Fattman in an interview with Stateline. “The governor declared a state of emergency for migrant influx into the state. We have a lot of shelters that are overrun. [At the same time,] we are providing a lot of benefits to people who are not lawfully in Massachusetts, in-state tuition being one of them.

“The question is can we continue to afford this?” Fattman said.

But advocates for granting in-state tuition say the state must educate young immigrants if it wants to make up for the number of residents who are leaving the state and taking tax revenue with them. Massachusetts lost 110,900 people to out-migration from April 2020 to July 2022, according to the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, a nonpartisan research group. In-migration in 2022 was about 43,000, the organization found.

YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE.

“What Massachusetts did is good for the people of Massachusetts, it’s good for the ‘Dreamers’ who get a chance to go to school and pay in-state tuition,” said Don Graham, a founder of TheDream.Us, an organization that gives scholarships to students who came to the U.S. illegally before age 16 and before Nov. 1, 2017. (“Dreamers” refers to young people brought to the United States illegally as children by family; the term stems from never-passed congressional legislation called the DREAM Act.)

“They become a health care worker, they become a teacher, they become a computer programmer. Seems to me that’s good for the ‘Dreamers’ and good for the state,” said Graham, who also is chair of the board of the Graham Holdings Company and former publisher of The Washington Post.

Miriam Feldblum, co-founder and executive director of the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration, a group comprised of university leaders, said consideration of in-state tuition for students without legal status has become increasingly important in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision to end affirmative action programs on campuses.

“As colleges and universities look at how to attract diverse populations, it is incumbent upon all institutions to look at immigrant students,” she said in an interview with Stateline. “It is one important strategy to attract a diverse and talented crop of students.”

Court allows Biden rule limiting asylum at the border to be kept in place for now

Ariana Figueroa — Fri, 04 Aug 2023 15:16:01 +0000

Migrants wait throughout the night on May 10, 2023, in a dust storm at Gate 42, on land between the Rio Grande and the border wall, hoping they will be processed by immigration authorities before the expiration of Title 42 (Corrie Boudreaux for Source NM).

WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court on Thursday decided to allow the Biden administration to keep in place a temporary two-year rule that restricts asylum at the U.S. border, while the legal challenges to a lower court’s ruling play out.

The decision from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals aids the Biden administration, which argued that the rule is needed as an immigration enforcement policy after the end of Title 42. That pandemic-era tool was used by the administration to bar migrants from claiming asylum and to quickly expel them.

Thursday’s order was a 2-1 decision by Judges William Fletcher and Richard Paez, who ruled in favor of the stay — both appointed by President Bill Clinton — and Judge Lawrence VanDyke, who was appointed by President Donald Trump, dissenting.

The order also expedites a hearing on the Biden administration rule, with both sides expected to send their arguments to the court by Sept. 14. A date for the hearing has not been scheduled yet.

Fletcher and Paez did not give any reasoning for their decision, but VanDyke in his dissent argued that the rule seemed similar to a Trump-era rule that was also struck down by the same appeals court.

“The Biden administration’s ‘Pathways Rule’ before us in this appeal is not meaningfully different from the prior administration’s rules that were backhanded by my two colleagues,” he wrote. “This new rule looks like the Trump administration’s Port of Entry Rule and Transit Rule got together, had a baby, and then dolled it up in a stylish modern outfit, complete with a phone app.”

Under the Biden administration’s rule, in order for migrants to claim asylum in the U.S., they would first have to schedule an appointment at a U.S. port of entry and apply for a legal pathway in the country they traveled through.

The number of asylum cases is at a historic high, with more than 1.5 million pending, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University.

Once the rule went in place, it was quickly challenged by civil rights groups and immigration advocates, who argued that it mirrored a Trump-era immigration policy that was a near-total ban on asylum.

In late July, a federal judge blocked the Biden rule on the grounds that it violated federal law that allows for anyone to claim asylum on U.S. soil. That same judge also struck down the Trump-era rule that banned asylum.

Katrina Eiland, deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, who argued the case, praised the decision from the appeals court.

“The stay ruling doesn’t say anything about the legality of the ban, and we are confident that we will prevail when the court has a full opportunity to consider the claims,” Eiland said.

“We are pleased the court placed the appeal on an expedited schedule so that it can be decided quickly, because each day the Biden administration prolongs its efforts to preserve its illegal ban, people fleeing grave danger are put in harm’s way.”

Biden border policies ripped by U.S. House GOP as impeachment threats ramp up

Ariana Figueroa — Wed, 26 Jul 2023 22:58:06 +0000

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas testifies on Wednesday before the House Judiciary Committee. (Screenshot from committee webcast)

WASHINGTON — U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Wednesday faced off with Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee, who did not directly call for his impeachment but strongly criticized his oversight of the agency.

“I know that today Secretary Mayorkas is going to try to paint a rosy picture of this disastrous mismanagement of our border. But nothing about the Biden administration’s policy is safe, orderly, or humane,” Chair Rep. Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican, said. “The numbers don’t lie.”

House Republicans have held multiple hearings about immigration at the Southern border as part of their broader strategy to impeach Mayorkas on the grounds that he has failed to enforce U.S. law. Multiple impeachment resolutions have been introduced and co-sponsored by dozens of Republicans.

House GOP members have also floated the idea of impeaching President Joe Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland. During an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Monday, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican, suggested that House Republicans could be headed toward impeachment hearings for Biden.

On Tuesday, McCarthy again floated the idea that impeachment of Biden could be considered in light of questions Republicans are raising about Biden family finances, The Associated Press reported.

Democrats spent much of the five-hour-plus Judiciary hearing pushing back against Republicans’ claims about migration at the U.S. Southern border and defending DHS practices.

The top Democrat on the committee, Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York, said Republicans used the hearing as a “baseless attempt to impeach Secretary Mayorkas.”

“To be clear, Republicans have not established any legitimate grounds to impeach Secretary Mayorkas, they’ve not uncovered evidence of wrongdoing or malfeasance of any kind,” Nadler said. “They have policy disagreements with this secretary.”

Mayorkas argued that the Biden administration’s policies at the border are working to deter unauthorized immigration, citing the use of parole programs for certain nationals and a new policy established after the end of pandemic-era immigration enforcement tool known as Title 42 that restricts asylum. A federal judge Tuesday blocked that policy, and the Department of Justice has appealed the decision.

“Under President Biden’s leadership, we have led the largest expansion of lawful, safe and orderly pathways for people to seek humanitarian relief under our laws, at the same time imposing tougher consequences on those who instead resort to the ruthless smuggling organizations that prey on the most vulnerable,” Mayorkas said.

There has been a decline in recent months in unauthorized border crossings, with the most recent data from May showing a 15% decrease compared to May 2022, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data

Fentanyl crisis

Democratic Rep. Madeleine Dean of Pennsylvania said that each day hundreds of people die from overdoses, with a majority of those from illicit fentanyl. Mayorkas said that DHS has focused on seizing fentanyl at ports of entry.

“We have a serious problem,” Dean said. “We don’t have folks on the other side of the aisle serious about solving it.”

The National Center for Health Statistics at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has found that deaths “involving synthetic opioids other than methadone (primarily fentanyl) continued to rise with 70,601 overdose deaths reported in 2021.”

“We are leading an unprecedented effort to interdict the flow of fentanyl into our communities, which has escalated for more than five years,” Mayorkas said.

Republican Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado told Mayorkas that his constituents consider Mayorkas a “traitor” because of the fentanyl crisis.

Republican Rep. Thomas Tiffany of Wisconsin accused Mayorkas of having an “open border policy,” and asked him if that has led to an increase in fentanyl in the U.S.

“We have interdicted more fentanyl at the ports of entry than in the prior administration,” Mayorkas said, adding that there is not an open border policy.

Outdated immigration system

Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida and Jordan grilled Mayorkas on his directive that focuses on removing undocumented people with a criminal record.

The Supreme Court in June overwhelmingly agreed that the Biden administration has the legal authority to prioritize arresting and deporting noncitizens who have recently crossed the border without authorization and noncitizens who pose a threat to public safety.

“So long as you don’t commit a crime, you get to stay here and burden our schools, burden our social services, burden our jails,” Gaetz said.

Mayorkas said because there are anywhere between 11 and 12 million undocumented people in the country, it would not be feasible for the agency to focus its resources on deporting people who have not committed a crime. He added that the agency has deported more than 1.4 million people who did not have legal status.

Democratic Rep. Hank Johnson of Georgia pushed back and said that “MAGA Republican extremists want to sell us on an apocalyptic fantasy,” and “want us to believe that the border is out of control.”

“But in reality, the greatest threat facing our homeland is white nationalist ideology,” Johnson said.

Republican Rep. Dan Bishop of North Carolina asked Mayokras if under his tenure the cartels have “become stronger or weaker.”

“Our efforts have weakened those cartels by the investigations and prosecutions that we have conducted with our international partners,” he said.

Democrats argued that there is only so much that DHS can do, because Congress has failed to update immigration laws.

“Our colleagues across the aisle have made clear with their tone and questions today that their primary interest is in scapegoating you and the Biden administration for the consequences of Congress failing for decades to address either the root causes of immigration at our Southern border … and (the) all but complete collapse of the U.S. immigration system,” Democratic Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon of Pennsylvania said.

Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington said with the issues Mayorkas inherited from the Trump administration and Congress’ inability to pass immigration reform, it’s led to record levels of backlogs in the immigration system.

She asked Mayorkas about the impact of expanding legal pathways such as the parole systems that allow up to 30,000 migrants each month from Cuba, Haiti and Nicaragua who have U.S.-based financial sponsors and pass a background check.

“Our approach is to expand lawful pathways so that individuals who qualify for relief under the laws of this Congress do not have to place their lives and their life savings in the hands of unscrupulous smugglers,” Mayorkas said.

Questions about speech online

Several Republicans such as Reps. Mike Johnson of Louisiana, Andy Biggs of Arizona and Thomas Massie of Kentucky pressed Mayorkas about the DHS Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

CISA was formed in 2018. The agency is tasked with improving the government’s cybersecurity against private and foreign hackers, along with overall strengthening of the government’s cyber infrastructure across all agencies.

Johnson charged that CISA suppresses speech online, mainly that of conservative voices. He cited a case filed by former Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt,in which a federal judge earlier this month prohibited the Biden administration from communicating with social media platforms about “protected speech.”

Mayorkas said the agency does not “censor free speech,” and that the purpose of the CISA is to identify and track adverse nations that weaponize disinformation, which is when someone purposely spreads false information.

Massie asked Mayorkas if it was illegal to “undermine public trust in government institutions.”

Mayorkas said that DHS does not get involved in speech surrounding ideology, only if that ideology is connected to violence. He said the agency does evaluate certain ideologies.

“What we get engaged in is a connectivity to violence,” he said. “It is our responsibility to prevent violence from occurring.”

An example he gave was the conspiracy theory that 5G cell towers were connected to the coronavirus. DHS became involved and issued warnings to the telecom industry because they believed there could be attacks to cell towers.

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Federal judge blocks Biden rule that limits asylum for migrants at the border

Ariana Figueroa — Tue, 25 Jul 2023 19:47:15 +0000

Immigrants wait overnight next to the U.S.-Mexico border fence to seek asylum in the United States on Jan. 7, 2023 as viewed from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico (John Moore/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Tuesday blocked the Biden administration’s rule that restricts migrants from seeking asylum if they arrive at the U.S.-Mexico border without first seeking protection in another country or applying for an asylum appointment online.

Judge Jon S. Tigar, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, wrote in his decision that the rule violates federal law that allows for anyone on U.S. soil to claim asylum.

But he granted the Biden administration’s request to delay the decision from taking effect for two weeks. Hours after the decision, the Department of Justice filed an appeal, which would go to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

“The Justice Department disagrees with the district court’s ruling today in the East Bay case and intends to appeal the decision and to seek a stay pending appeal,” a DOJ spokesperson said in a statement to States Newsroom. “We remain confident in our position that the Circumvention of Lawful Pathways rule is a lawful exercise of the broad authority granted by the immigration laws.”

Tigar is a judge in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

Tigar wrote that the Biden administration’s rule “is contrary to law because it presumes ineligible for asylum noncitizens who enter between ports of entry, using a manner of entry that Congress expressly intended should not affect access to asylum.”

“The Rule is also contrary to law because it presumes ineligible for asylum noncitizens who fail to apply for protection in a transit country, despite Congress’s clear intent that such a factor should only limit access to asylum where the transit country actually presents a safe option,” he wrote.

Two months ago, the Biden administration implemented a temporary two-year rule as an immigration enforcement tool in preparation for the end of Title 42, a pandemic-era tool used to bar more than 2 million migrants from claiming asylum and instead expel them without an asylum hearing.

The number of asylum cases is at a historic high, with more than 1.5 million pending, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University.

The Biden administration had argued its rule was needed in anticipation of numerous migrants at the Southern border following the end of Title 42. There were narrow exceptions to the rule, such as for children and teens who are unaccompanied and for asylum seekers who are facing an imminent threat to their lives or have a medical emergency.

Since the policy was put in place in May, encounters at the Southern border have dropped significantly. In May there were more than 200,000 encounters, compared to June, when there were more than 144,000, according to data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

But the policy also imposed harsh penalties. If a migrant did not claim asylum in another country or try to make an appointment through the CBP One mobile app, they would be removed and subjected to a five-year ban from requesting asylum and would be ineligible to apply for other parole programs available to nationals from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

The groups who sued the Biden administration in May include the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Northern California, Center for Gender & Refugee Studies and the National Immigrant Justice Center.

“The court’s ruling is welcome and expected, since the new policy simply rehashed prior rules that restricted access to asylum based on similar grounds, which courts already rejected. U.S. laws protect the rights of people fleeing persecution to come to this country and pursue asylum, full stop,” Keren Zwick, director of litigation at the National Immigrant Justice Center, said in a statement.

The policy has also drawn scrutiny from Democrats in Congress, who have argued that the policy mirrors the Trump-era so-called “transit ban.”

“The ruling is a victory, but each day the Biden administration prolongs the fight over its illegal ban, many people fleeing persecution and seeking safe harbor for their families are instead left in grave danger,” Katrina Eiland, deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, who argued the case, said in a statement.

This is a familiar ruling for Tigar, who struck down the Trump administration “transit ban.” Tigar argued that the Trump administration’s policy ignored Congress’ decision to allow immigrants to apply for asylum.

Public schools banned from sheltering migrants under bill passed by U.S. House

Ariana Figueroa — Thu, 20 Jul 2023 13:25:46 +0000

Immigrants wait overnight next to the U.S.-Mexico border fence to seek asylum in the United States on Jan. 7, 2023 as viewed from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico (John Moore/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — The U.S. House on Wednesday night passed a bill to bar the use of public K-12 school facilities to provide shelter for migrants seeking asylum.

The bill, approved 222-201, is known as the “Schools Not Shelters Act” and is a rebuke of the Biden administration’s immigration policy.

If enacted into law, public schools and public higher education institutions would risk losing federal funding if they provide shelter to migrants who have not been admitted into the country.

The bill, H.R. 3941, is likely to die in the Senate, where Democrats have a slim majority. The White House also issued a statement on Wednesday that vowed President Joe Biden would veto the bill should Congress pass it because it “would supersede local control, interfering with the ability of States and municipalities to effectively govern and make decisions about their school buildings.”

“The bill would do this by prohibiting certain educational institutions that receive Federal funding … from using their facilities to shelter noncitizens seeking asylum in the United States, as such noncitizens are permitted to do under the law,” the White House said.

The House in late June passed a resolution that condemned the use of elementary and secondary schools to provide shelter for immigrants not admitted into the U.S. All Republicans present and seven Democrats voted for the resolution, 223-201.

Migrants bused from Texas

Wednesday’s bill, introduced by Republican Marc Molinaro of New York, stems from a May decision by New York City officials to convert several current and former school gyms to temporarily house about 300 migrants.

Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has sent buses of migrants to several sanctuary cities such as Chicago, New York City and Philadelphia as political statements, often without communicating with the local governments about their arrival.

Abbott has also sent buses to Washington, D.C., dropping off migrants, sometimes in the cold and without proper clothing, outside the residence of Vice President Kamala Harris, who has been tasked by Biden to address the root causes of migration along the Southern border.

Democrats during debate on the House floor on Tuesday and during a House Rules Committee hearing on Monday said that the bill does not address school safety such as gun violence, which is the leading cause of death for children in America, and that Republicans were focusing on “culture war” issues.

Republicans said that the bill is meant to ensure student safety and that public facilities should not be used to house migrants.

The chair of the Education and Workforce Committee, Virginia Foxx, told the Rules Committee the measure “sends a full throated message to the Biden administration” that education facilities should be used only for education purposes.

“The academic success and safety of students should always be put first, no exceptions,” Foxx, a North Carolina Republican, said.

The top Democrat on the House Rules Committee, Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, called the bill “deeply unserious,” and said what Congress should be doing is directing funds to help states and local governments set up shelters and care for migrants.

The bill has an exemption for short-term sheltering, such as a disaster declaration made by the state or federal government. An amendment from Republican Rep. Andy Ogles of Tennessee defined “short term” as no more than 72 hours. It was the only amendment adopted by a voice vote during Tuesday’s floor debate on the bill.

The bill also applies to schools in the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.

Culture wars

The top Democrat on the House Education and Workforce Committee, Bobby Scott of Virginia, said the bill “gives people the opportunity to disparage immigrants,” and does nothing to address the epidemic of school shootings.

“This Congress, House Republicans have focused entirely on culture wars,” he said.

This year, the House passed a bill to bar transgender girls from competing in school sports that align with their gender identity and passed another bill that many Democrats argued would lead to book bans, but Republicans called it a “Parents Bill of Rights.”

Republican Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina during the committee meeting criticized the Biden administration for its immigration policy and pushed back against Democrats’ argument that the shelter bill is inhumane.

“What’s illegal, inhumane, is what this Biden administration is doing,” he said. “There is no wall being built.”

Democratic Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon of Pennsylvania, who has worked as an immigration attorney and represented asylum seekers, argued that migrants admitted into the U.S. are “under some status,” such as those who are seeking asylum and have pending cases.

Democratic Rep. Joe Neguse of Colorado said the bill was a “back door” to defunding public education, but Foxx disagreed.

“We’re going to withdraw funds if you break the law,” Foxx said.

Neguse asked her if she supported getting rid of the Department of Education because she voted on an amendment earlier this year that would abolish the agency.

“If the Lord put me in charge, I would get the federal government out of education in a heartbeat,” she said.

New York City criticized

During Tuesday’s floor debate, the sponsor of the bill, Molinaro, said schools should be used “for a single purpose.”

“They are not shelters,” he said. “Our kids have already lost too much, and schools should be used for the purposes of educating and empowering kids in our neighborhoods.”

He called out New York City for being a sanctuary city.

“The city of New York chose, chose to declare that schools within New York City could be used as shelters,” he said. “We wouldn’t be in this position if the city of New York worked affectively to address the crisis within the city.”

Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has also considered using empty dorms on the State University of New York campuses, which has drawn criticism from Republicans.

Democratic Rep. Suzanne Bonamici of Oregon said the bill was cruel and the continuation of a trend to “delegitimize public schools.”

“It would punish public schools and colleges and their students for showing humanity,” she said.

She also questioned how the law would even be put in place, especially during an emergency.

“What would public schools have to do? Check everyone for citizenship before offering shelter to those in need?” she said, adding that if schools did that and lost federal funding, “that hurts all students.”

DACA recipients’ Medicaid eligibility slammed by U.S. House Republicans

Ariana Figueroa — Wed, 19 Jul 2023 11:00:43 +0000

Supporters of the DACA program rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court (Robin Bravender/ States Newsroom).

WASHINGTON — A panel on the U.S. House Oversight and Accountability Committee on Tuesday grilled a Biden administration official about the White House’s decision to allow undocumented people in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program to enroll in Medicaid or private insurance provided under the Affordable Care Act.

The chair of the subcommittee, Republican Rep. Lisa McClain of Michigan, argued that the policy decision to allow those under DACA to gain access to health care coverage is “rewarding illegal immigrants at the expense of (the) American citizen.”

“The proposal will incentivize further illegal immigration,” she said.

The hearing comes after the Biden administration in April announced rulemaking that would change the definition of “lawful presence” to include DACA recipients in Medicaid and Affordable Care Act coverage. Medicaid is a joint federal-state program that provides health coverage to low-income Americans and people with disabilities.

Democrats on the panel argued that the hearing was an attack on DACA recipients and an opportunity for Republicans to criticize the Biden administration’s immigration policy.

“Somehow, letting people who legally live in the United States buy health care is going to create a border crisis,” the top Democrat on the committee, Rep. Katie Porter of California, said. “It’d be funny to watch this bad argument fall apart if it weren’t such a waste of time.”

The sole witness was Ellen Montz, the deputy administrator and director of the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Montz said the proposed rule would allow about 129,000 DACA recipients to access coverage for Health Insurance Marketplaces, the Basic Health Program and some Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Programs. If finalized, the rule would go into effect Nov. 1.

“The COVID–19 public health emergency further highlighted the need for this population to have access to high-quality, affordable health coverage,” she said.

Montz said about 200,000 DACA recipients were considered essential workers during the early stages of the pandemic.

“During the height of the pandemic, essential workers were disproportionately likely to contract COVID-19,” she said. “These factors emphasize how increasing access to affordable health insurance would improve the health and well-being of many DACA recipients currently without coverage.”

There are about 600,000 DACA recipients, and they are protected from deportation and deemed lawfully present in the U.S.

Applications for the DACA program have been halted since 2021 following an injunction by a Texas judge, who will also determine whether the program is legal.

Even if applications could be accepted, immigration advocates have criticized that thousands of undocumented youth are not eligible for the program, some because they were not even born yet. To qualify, an undocumented youth needs to have continuingly resided in the U.S. since 2007.

Immigration policy

Republicans on the panel argued that because of the Texas decision, DACA is considered unlawful, and therefore health care should not be extended to those recipients.

The program has not been deemed unlawful — the Texas judge found the Obama administration memorandum that created the program illegal, so the Biden administration went through the formal rulemaking process that now is before the Texas judge.

That decision is expected in the coming months and if DACA is deemed unlawful, the case is expected to go to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2024.

McClain took issue with HHS rewriting immigration policy. She said immigration reform should be up to Congress.

Montz said that the agency was not crafting immigration policy and has the authority to set definitions.

“Do we owe a legal duty to provide health care to DACA recipients over American citizens?” McClain asked Montz.

Montz said that DACA recipients are considered lawfully present in the country and therefore the Affordable Care Act would be extended to them.

“What this rule does is extend eligibility, it does not restrict eligibility for any other category,” Montz said.

Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Greg Casar of Texas said they found the hearing inappropriate, coming off the news of a joint investigation by the Houston Chronicle and the San Antonio Express-News that reported Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott directed border troopers to push migrant children into the Rio Grande and deny migrants water. Wire running along the water was also installed and it led to many migrants being injured.

“We are having this hearing on the heels of Gov. Abbott in Texas issuing an order to Texas troopers to push children and infants into the Rio Grande River. And now we’re having a hearing today about why we should push people brought here as children off health care coverage,” Ocasio-Cortez said.

Ocasio-Cortez said that DACA recipients pay about $9 billion in taxes each year.

“I do not know a group of people that oftentimes are more patriotic to this country than DACA recipients,” she said. “They give and they give and they give to a country that does not love them back.”

Republican Reps. Glenn Grothman of Wisconsin and Eric Burlison of Missouri said the new rule would be too costly.

“At the end of the day, health care costs a lot of money,” Burlison said. “And this nation is nearly broke.”

Recruit the parents. Deport their kids. This is the fate of 200,000 legal immigrants

Bhavey Jain — Mon, 26 Jun 2023 10:45:24 +0000

The value of residency documentation for an immigrant family on the eve of one son’s ‘self deportation’ deadline. (Getty Images)

One day in November 2022, I received a phone call from my mom urging me, excitedly, to come home for the weekend. She had a surprise. As a junior computer science major at Purdue University living two hours away from my family, I quickly booked a bus ticket for that Friday.

When I arrived home, my mom had laid out four thick envelopes on the dining room table; one addressed to each member of the family – my dad, my mom, my younger brother and me. We knew what they were – our green cards.

My family has lived in the United States since 2008, when my dad’s consulting company recruited him to leave our native India for a position in Columbus, Indiana. I was 6 and my brother was 2. As we grew up, we enjoyed the typical American rites of passage – sleepovers, football games, and school dances. But these joys were also accompanied by a nagging fear. Our green card applications stalled amid government bureaucracy. If my brother and I turned 21 before our family received permanent residency, the two of us would be forced to self deport. When my mom called me that November day, I was less than a year away from this deadline.

Receiving these envelopes was a miracle we didn’t think would happen. For applicants from highly populated countries like India, the wait time for green cards is estimated to be anywhere from decades to over a century, according to the Cato Institute. When I held that tiny plastic card in my hand, relief washed over me.

But I also felt survivor’s guilt. Most young people in my situation do not get their green cards in time and must self-deport or find temporary ways to stay in the country. We call ourselves documented Dreamers, and there are some 200,000 of us across the nation. It’s outrageous that American companies recruit our parents to bolster the economy, but American policy forces us to leave when we “age out” of our dependent visas at 21.

A lot of people don’t know about this policy. That’s why, through the youth-led advocacy group Improve the Dream, I spent this past summer pleading our case to our lawmakers in D.C. The good news: there’s a bipartisan solution on the table. It’s called the America’s Children Act and it offers a pathway to permanent residency for the children of legal immigrants. It was reintroduced last week, and I’m urging our nation’s leaders, including Representative Jim Baird and Senators Todd Young and Mike Braun, to support this bill that would keep families united, end the deportation of home-bred American talent and ultimately strengthen our economy.

Getting a green card just months before my twenty-first birthday was a random, lucky break that most documented Dreamers don’t get. Deciding who gets to stay in this country shouldn’t be haphazard. The America’s Children Act brings order and efficiency to this process, allowing long-term immigrants to put down roots and give back to the communities that raised them.

The irony of the current system is that it hurts everyone – immigrant families and the American communities that have poured so many resources into helping raise kids like me. Think about it: American companies recruit top talent from abroad. American communities then invest tax-payer dollars and public school resources into educating and raising their children. And then, just as this young talent reaches working age, America ships them off to foreign competitors. Who benefits from this policy? Certainly not the United States.

On top of that, documented Dreamers tend to enter professions that our country desperately needs. Like our parents, more than 99 percent of us enroll in higher education and about 87 percent pursue STEM-related careers, according to an Improve the Dream survey. I know of so many documented Dreamers who are going into short-staffed industries like medicine or biomedical engineering. Take Merry Joseph, a second-year medical student who grew up in Utah since she was 6 months old. Merry is 23, so has technically “aged out” of her dependent visa. She’s only authorized to stay here right now on a short-term international student visa. Once she graduates, she’ll need to secure one of the limited annual visas available for highly skilled workers. If she can’t get one of those, she’ll be forced to self deport. And this is a future doctor—someone who could help fill our nation’s persistent healthcare shortages.

In the moments before my family opened our envelopes, we prayed together. We gave thanks, and my mom implored us to “never forget what life was like before this moment.” I haven’t, and that’s why I’m writing this op-ed. Even though I’m now safe from deportation, so many of my friends are not, including more than 8,000 right here in Indiana. They are anxious about what the future holds – forced separation from their families and having to start over in an unfamiliar country, only this time, all alone.

Having grown up here, I know my neighbors in Indiana care about family unity as much as they do the economy. I can’t imagine any of them agreeing with the current policy. That’s why I’m urging all Hoosiers to call our representatives and ask them to support the bipartisan America’s Children Act. The time to act is now.

This article was initially published in the Indiana Capital Chronicle, a States Newsroom affiliate.

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US Supreme Court turns down push by states to challenge Biden deportation policy

Ariana Figueroa — Fri, 23 Jun 2023 21:05:58 +0000

Immigrants waited overnight next to the U.S.-Mexico border fence to seek asylum in the United States on Jan. 7, 2023 as viewed from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. (John Moore/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday overwhelmingly ruled that Texas and Louisiana lacked the legal standing to challenge the Biden administration’s deportation guidelines, granting a win to the White House on immigration policy.

The states objected to the White House’s directive to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to prioritize arresting and deporting noncitizens who have recently crossed the border without authorization and noncitizens who pose a threat to public safety. Missouri and 17 other states supported Texas and Louisiana in an amicus brief.

The White House wanted those guidelines in place rather than a focus on deporting the millions of undocumented people who have lived in the U.S. for years — a departure from a Trump-era policy.

In an 8-1 decision in the case, United States v. Texas, Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote the opinion for the majority, calling the suit Texas and Louisiana brought “an extraordinarily unusual lawsuit.”

“They want a federal court to order the Executive Branch to alter its arrest policies so as to make more arrests,” Kavanaugh wrote. “Federal courts have not traditionally entertained that kind of lawsuit; indeed, the States cite no precedent for a lawsuit like this.”

There are an estimated 11 million undocumented people in the U.S. who have lived in the country for years and sometimes decades. In the DHS guidelines, Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said the agency did not have the resources to deport every undocumented person in the nation.

Kavanaugh was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., and the court’s three liberals, Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett also agreed, but for different reasons. Justice Samuel Alito Jr. was the lone dissent.

“DHS looks forward to reinstituting these Guidelines, which had been effectively applied by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers to focus limited resources and enforcement actions on those who pose a threat to our national security, public safety, and border security,” Mayorkas said in a statement following the decision.

“The Guidelines enable DHS to most effectively accomplish its law enforcement mission with the authorities and resources provided by Congress.”

States and feds

During oral arguments in November, Judd Stone, the solicitor general with the Texas attorney general’s office, argued that the federal government is required by U.S. immigration law to deport any undocumented immigrant, regardless of a lack of resources.

Elizabeth B. Prelogar, solicitor general with the Department of Justice, argued that the Biden administration’s memo does not ignore enforcement laws, but is “prioritizing limited resources” in its enforcement measures.

Muzaffar Chishti, an attorney and director of the Migration Policy Institute office at New York University School of Law, said in an interview with States Newsroom that the court’s decision “has certainly put a dent in the ability of states to bring any action against the federal government on immigration.”

“Whether the standing principles today that the Supreme Court has laid out will apply equally in all future (cases) that states bring to the Supreme Court, we don’t know,” he said.

Lena Graber, senior staff attorney for the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, said in a statement that the decision should “shut down further attempts by states from suing the federal government whenever they do not like a federal policy.”

Graber said the ruling affirms that the Biden administration has the “discretion to determine when to arrest or deport immigrants and when not to.”

“Now, the Biden Administration must reinvest in prosecutorial discretion and prioritize ending immigration arrests, detention, and deportations,” Graber said. “The Biden Administration must stop the destructive impact that policing, surveillance and immigration enforcement and detention has on communities.”

Agent discretion

The guidelines were first issued in 2021, and the White House gave U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents discretion on whether enforcement actions were needed. ICE agents were told to focus on noncitizens who were suspected terrorists, had already committed crimes or were recently arrested at the border.

“In exercising our discretion, we are guided by the fact that the majority of undocumented noncitizens who could be subject to removal have been contributing members of our communities for years,” according to the memo written by Mayorkas.

“They include individuals who work on the frontlines in the battle against COVID, lead our congregations of faith, teach our children, do back-breaking farm work to help deliver food to our table, and contribute in many other meaningful ways,” he continued. “The fact an individual is a removable noncitizen therefore should not alone be the basis of an enforcement action against them.”

Texas sued and a Texas district court judge halted the policy, determining that it violated federal policy. The Biden administration appealed, but a unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit in New Orleans kept the block in place.

The Biden administration submitted an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court to block the ruling by the Texas judge, Drew B. Tipton, a Donald Trump appointee. The justices then voted 5-4 to keep the policy on hold until the case could be heard last year before the court.

Jeremy McKinney, the former president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said in an interview with States Newsroom that the Supreme Court’s decision made it clear that Texas did not have standing.

He said that eight justices agreed that the court could not remedy the harm, known as redress, and therefore the states don’t have standing.

“They basically said that the courts can’t fix this problem, Texas, it’s a policy dispute, and that’s something that you settle through the political process and not in court,” he said.

McKinney added that the decision could play into another immigration-related case that will determine whether a program to protect undocumented people brought without authorization into the country will be protected.

Those more than 500,000 undocumented people referred to as Dreamers are currently waiting for a Texas judge to determine whether the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program is legal. It’s a case that many immigration attorneys are expecting to make its way to the Supreme Court by 2024.

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‘We’re just trying to live our lives’: DACA hits 11-year mark still mired in the courts

Ariana Figueroa — Thu, 15 Jun 2023 17:10:43 +0000

Protesters in front of the Senate side of the US Capitol urged Congress to pass the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, in December 2017 in Washington, DC. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Thursday marks the 11th anniversary of a program that was created during the Obama administration to temporarily protect undocumented children from deportation.

But congressional inaction and legal challenges have led to more than a decade of limbo for the 600,000 people enrolled, with no end in sight. They are often called “Dreamers,” based on never-passed legislation in Congress called the Dream Act.

The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that was meant to be a temporary stopgap is now the only tool that protects those brought to the U.S. as children from deportation. A pending court case out of Texas will determine whether DACA is legal — and what happens next.

“It’s a little bit of a kick in the gut,” Salma Vizcaino Garcia, a 25-year-old DACA recipient who lives in Ellenwood, Georgia, said of the court case.

Vizcaino Garcia, who is preparing to apply to medical school, said she and many DACA recipients aren’t hopeful about the outcome of the Texas case. She said she’s focusing her efforts on advocacy, and educating people about the program.

She said she hopes that through collective action, enough people will urge state and federal lawmakers to create a permanent pathway to citizenship.

“I genuinely am of the opinion, if I was able to talk to every person that was against us, that I could change their minds,” she said. “We’re just regular people. We’re just trying to live our lives.”

Stalled in Congress

For more than two decades, Congress has tried and failed to pass immigration reform.

With the current divided Congress, the only recent bipartisan piece of legislation is from six U.S. House lawmakers called the Dignity Act. The bill doesn’t specifically address DACA recipients, but is aimed at creating a legal pathway to citizenship for the estimated more than 11 million undocumented people in the country.

If the bill manages to clear the House on a bipartisan vote, it would still need to reach the 60-vote threshold in the Senate. The last time Congress passed major immigration legislation was during the Reagan administration in 1986.

A case in Texas threatens the legality of the DACA program, prompting immigration advocates and attorneys to lobby the Biden administration to exert its authority to use Deferred Enforced Departure, which is not a specific immigration status, but allows those covered to be exempt from deportation for a certain period of time.

The Texas challenge is likely to reach the Supreme Court, which has a conservative majority. A decision likely would come in the spring of 2024, or later.

President Joe Biden issued a DACA statement on Thursday urging Congress to act.

“While Vice President Harris and I will continue fighting to pass legislation to protect Dreamers and create a path to citizenship, only Congress can provide permanent and lasting stability for these young people and their families,” Biden said. “Congress must act to protect our Dreamers.”

On Thursday evening, the White House is hosting a screening with DACA recipients and immigration advocates of the movie “Flamin’ Hot,” a directorial debut from Latina actress Eva Longoria that tells the legendary origin story of “Flamin’ Hot Cheetos,” a popular snack in the Latino community. The L.A. Times has debunked the tale, but it’s still a popular rags-to-riches story.

“The Biden-Harris administration continues its effort to lift up and engage the Latino community by showcasing their stories and celebrating their contributions to our country,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Wednesday during a press briefing.

‘Unknowns and uncertainty’

Jaime Rangel was part of the first wave of DACA applicants when the program was created. There was a lot of apprehension about applying, but eventually he submitted his high school transcript and went through a background check to enroll.

“There was just a lot of unknowns and uncertainty, but we went for it because it provided me an opportunity to have some lawful presence in the country,” Rangel said. “It was better than being in the shadows.”

Rangel, who is the regional government relations director for a pro-immigration lobbying group called FWD.us, argues that DACA recipients are in every industry across the U.S. and the nation would feel the effect of an immediate loss of hundreds of thousands of employees.

In his home state of Georgia, there are about 20,000 DACA recipients who contribute $100 million in state and local taxes. DACA recipients contribute more than $1.2 billion a year in federal, state and local taxes, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a nonpartisan tax policy organization.

A DACA recipient for more than a decade, Rangel is now 32 and married to another DACA recipient. They have a 3-year-old son.

“It’s great that we can celebrate 11 years, as DACA recipients, of celebrating our contributions to this country, celebrating all that we have achieved in 11 years. But at the same time, we cannot just stick to celebrating on a program that’s ultimately is going to end and go away,” he said of the Texas court case. “We need Congress to act.”

Despite the fight to keep DACA in place, many immigration policy experts have called the program outdated because there are now thousands of undocumented youth who are not eligible for the program, some because they were not even born yet. To qualify, an undocumented youth needs to have continuously resided in the U.S. since 2007.

“Congress’ continued inaction has led to multiple court challenges to DACA, which put DACA recipients and DACA-eligible youth in limbo,” Juliana Macedo do Nascimento, the deputy director of federal advocacy for United We Dream, said in a statement.

United We Dream is one of the largest youth immigrant-led advocacy groups.

Macedo do Nascimento said that because the program is outdated, it’s led to more than 100,000 undocumented high school graduates who will not be able to qualify for DACA.

Texas case

The same federal judge who ruled in 2021 that the program the Obama administration created was illegal — preventing any new applications — continues to preside over the case.

It’s estimated that there are 95,000 applicants that are blocked due to a judge’s order blocking new applicants from being accepted, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services data.

In addition, it’s estimated that there are 400,000 eligible undocumented youth who are unable to meet DACA eligibility requirements because they came to the U.S. too recently, according to FWD.us research.

U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen initially determined that the program was illegal because the Obama administration failed to follow proper rulemaking procedures when it created the program in 2012 through a memorandum.

The Department of Justice appealed the case, and the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans sided with Hanen. But because the Biden administration was putting forth a new DACA regulation to replace the Obama-era memo that was set to go into effect in October, the appeals court decided that the case should be returned to Hanen.

Hanen on June 1 heard oral arguments about whether the Biden administration’s new rule, which is nearly identical to the memo creating DACA, is lawful.

The Obama-era memo is being challenged by nine Republican-led states who argue the White House overreached in creating a program that should have been left to Congress. Those nine states also argue that under the Biden administration, they were harmed financially by incurring costs for DACA recipients’ health care and education.

Those states are Alabama, Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, South Carolina, Texas and West Virginia.

This Texas case is not the first time the DACA program has been challenged. In 2017, the Trump administration also tried to end the program. Three years later, the Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision that the White House inappropriately ended DACA, keeping it in place.

U.S. continues to take DNA samples from asylum seekers at the border

Danielle Prokop — Fri, 09 Jun 2023 13:10:23 +0000

A fresh wave of nervousness and excitement washes over the Maldonado family as the line for CBP One appointments begins to advance (Corrie Boudreaux for Source NM).

CIUDAD JUÁREZ – It was well before dawn Sunday morning, when Olga Maldonado, her nieces Yulisa, Marcela Maldonado and Kevin Hernandez and the children, ages 3 to 10-years old, rose to prepare for their asylum meeting with the U.S. Customs and Border Protections.

“Nervous, but excited,” was how Olga described her feelings, slipping on plain black sandals, before combing her daughter’s hair and checking the bags with all of their papers again.

After months of trying, the family of eight Hondurans who fled San Pedro Sula in the past year, received one of the coveted 1,000 daily slots allowing asylum-seekers to get an appointment with immigration officials through the CBP One app.

After a bumpy ride from Anapra into downtown Ciudad Juárez, the family shared a tearful goodbye with Pan de Vida shelter director Pastor Ismael Martinez. They joined the line of over 200 people stretching along the fence before the entrance to the Paseo Del Norte at 6:45 a.m., as the sky began to glow bright yellow.

All CBP One appointments are scheduled for 7 a.m. at the El Paso crossing at the Paseo Del Norte Bridge, said Roger Maier, the CBP spokesman for New Mexico and El Paso. He said CBP can receive people crossing as early as 6:30 a.m. and said most appointments are confirmed, and “escorted to the CBP lobby by 7:30 a.m.”

“There are very few no-shows,” Maier wrote in an email.

On Sunday, Mexican officials allowed people to start lining up on the pedestrian bridge just after 7:10 a.m. The Maldonados, in the center of the line, showed documents and entered into the U.S. just after 7:45 a.m. Dozens of people waited behind them.

The sun crested over the edge of the horizon as they waited on the bridge. The children gazed out as the reflection blazed in the shallow pools on the Rio Grande, marveling at a pack of cyclists on the banks below.

“I’m so happy,” Marcela said. “We’re finally here, arriving in El Paso, realizing our dream, it’s the most beautiful feeling.”

The appointment

Yulisa Maldonado helps her son reach the sink to brush his teeth as they get ready to depart the Juárez shelter where they’ve lived for nearly a year (Corrie Boudreaux for Source NM).

In an interview after the appointment, Olga Maldonado said the family received a COVID-19 vaccine, despite all of them having three rounds of the shot. All of the adults also gave a DNA sample from a cheek swab. The children, below the age of 14, were not required to give a sample.

DNA samples have become common at different agencies since 2019 said, attorney Sophia Genovese with the New Mexico Immigrant Law Center.

“CBP has been collecting DNA for a few years at the border, and the U.S. (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) has also been doing it at the local ICE office in Albuquerque,” she said.

The family was released on parole Sunday afternoon, with a court date set for 2025.

Privacy and technology concerns

There are two programs to test DNA of people in the U.S. immigration system, and both are relatively new.

One applies to people ages 14-79 and sends samples to the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, for input into the federal Combined DNA Index System, called CODIS.

The other is the use of rapid-testing to determine parent-child relationships, which started under the Trump administration and continued into the Biden administration.

Olga Maldonado said she isn’t concerned about failing that test.

“We were not worried because none of us have a [criminal] record,” she said in a What’sApp message Tuesday.

But privacy and immigration advocates said these kinds of policies raise safety concerns for vulnerable people on the border, while also posing serious privacy questions for both the border and interior.

Saira Hussain is a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an organization focusing on technology and the law. Hussain’s expertise is examining immigration, race and surveillance in the U.S.

Privacy concerns are threefold, Hussain said. First, there’s the collection of a physical sample – and how that’s used and if it can be used again in the future without consent. Second, is how that data is stored, whether it is private and secure. Finally, it’s how the data is shared. Some databases, like CODIS have extra privacy requirements and training, but other databases that access the same information could be less secure.

Taking DNA samples to use for CODIS adds a risk to people exercising their legal right to seek asylum, she said.

“The collection of DNA from people who are already marginalized as it is, is very concerning,” Hussain said. “Especially when you consider who that information can be shared with, including foreign governments that people may be trying to escape persecution from.”

Even though immigration detention is administrative and not criminal in nature, collecting DNA “adds a layer of criminality,” she said, despite the fact that asylum is legal under international and federal law.

In 2019, the Department of Justice put forward a big rule change. The department removed an exception to a 2005 law to submit samples to the FBI, due to operational constraints. The new rules removed that exception for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees CBP and ICE.

In 2020, DHS said it would collect DNA from anyone ages 14-79 in custody, who is arrested, facing charges, convicted, or detained by CBP or ICE (this can include non-citizens, lawful residents and U.S. citizens).

In a May 23 report from the Government Accountability Office, CBP officials told the agency the DNA sample collection will generally not include the exceptions — like non-citizens entering legally or being processed for lawful admission.

Since the program was launched in 2020, DHS has been rapidly sending DNA samples over to the FBI. In the first year, the agency sent 5,641 samples. In fiscal year 2022, that ballooned to 634,422 samples, or about 37% of the total people they encountered.

CBP officials did not respond by press time to a detailed list of questions about DNA testing people seeking asylum through CBP One appointments, including if the agency has any guidelines since their news release in 2020.

A second program, which first started in 2000, was expanded in 2019.

DHS granted a $5.2 million dollar contract to Bode Cellmark Forensics for a project to rapid DNA test parents and children to determine if they are related within a matter of hours. According to the CBP, the tests are destroyed after testing.

Hussain said there are serious questions about the accuracy of the technology with rapid DNA testing, and whether people could truly consent to getting their DNA taken.

“There was an understanding that if you refuse to submit your DNA to this test, then it could factor into whether a parent and child were detained together or separately,” she said.

In press releases DHS officials claimed this would prevent child-smuggling.

However, Hussain and others found that most of the people tested were related. A further look at the non-related tests often showed kinship relationships Hussain said. Step-parents or adopted families had little to no recourse to challenge the tests.

“Underlying all this is the idea of what is the family and who qualifies as family,” she said. “And is the way that the government is interpreting who is family, is that sufficient to start taking DNA from people?”

The current state of that program is murky.

CBP officials did not respond to questions about the status of the program. Last week, Republican congressional lawmakers wrote letters requesting Sec. of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas to continue the program after reports that it ended on May 31, 2023.

Hussain said expanding surveillance on the border has consequences for the rest of the country, pointing to the “creep” of just collecting DNA from prior arrests or convictions to immigration custody, to lawfully going through asylum proceedings.

“Closer attention does need to be paid to the uses of technology to surveil and collect information from communities at the border,” she said. “Because what happens at the border has repercussions for what happens in the interior.”

This story was produced by Source New Mexico, a States Newsroom affiliate. Corrie Boudreaux contributed to the reporting of this article.

U.S. House committee approves bills on whole milk, condemns sheltering migrants in schools

Ariana Figueroa — Tue, 06 Jun 2023 22:12:16 +0000

Democrats argued that several of the bills approved on Tuesday were outside the scope of the committee (Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — The U.S. House Education and Workforce Committee on Tuesday passed several bills that are a rebuke of not only the Biden administration’s policies on immigration, child nutrition and health care, but regulations from the Obama era.

The committee passed a resolution that condemns the use of public schools to shelter undocumented people, a bill that would require whole milk made available in public schools and two bills that would make changes to employer provided health insurance.

The bills are likely dead on arrival in the Senate, where Democrats have a slim majority.

“The safety and education of our school children should be paramount,” Republican Chair of the committee Virginia Foxx of North Carolina said. “This Democrat public facility asylum policy is unsafe and anti-education.”

Democrats argued that several of the bills were outside the scope of the committee, including H. Res. 461, which deals with immigration policy and H.R. 1147, which would be a standalone child nutrition bill that goes around Congress’s process of making changes to statutes under the child nutrition reauthorization.

The top Democrat on the committee, Rep. Bobby Scott of Virginia, said the bills the committee passed fuel culture wars and undermine the Affordable Care Act, sometimes called Obamacare.

“Ultimately, these four bills fall short of our promise to protect students, strengthen child nutrition, and ensure access to affordable, quality health coverage,” Scott said. “If we are serious about fulfilling our promise of helping students, we can work together to end gun violence in schools.”

Public schools as shelters

The resolution, introduced by Republican Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Iowa, specifically calls out New York City. In May, the city temporarily converted several current and former school gyms to house about 300 migrants.

The resolution also criticizes the Biden administration for ending a pandemic-era immigration restriction known as Title 42 that immediately expelled migrants due to the COVID-19 public health emergency. Republicans said in the resolution that using public schools to house migrants takes away resources and endangers students.

Scott said public schools have a long history of being used as emergency shelters, particularly when there is a natural disaster. He added that FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security lists schools, places of worship and community centers as designated shelters in emergencies.

“This resolution is another example of the majority creating a platform for their culture war,” Scott said. “This resolution provides the majority an opportunity to discuss immigration policy, which is not in the jurisdiction of the committee.”

Democratic Rep. Suzanne Bonamici of Oregon, said the resolution was offensive, especially the insinuation that housing migrants in school facilities posed a risk to students.

“It’s factually and morally wrong to operate on the assumption that an asylum seeker or migrant, typically people of color, are dangerous,” she said. “A resolution based on that premise and endangers people in our own communities who have faced spikes and hate crimes and racially motivated violence.”

An amendment by Republican Rep. Bob Good of Virginia was introduced to strip federal funding from any public institutions that shelter non-citizens.

“If your city is going to illegally harbor aliens,” he said, “you should not get taxpayer dollars to bail you out for the costs and the problems that inevitably ensue.”

Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington took issue with Good’s characterization of migrants, arguing the phrasing that immigrants are “invading” has white supremacist overtones.

“I think it’s very important to understand that words have meaning,” she said. “The person who issued a racist manifesto, right before he went on a deadly mass shooting spree in El Paso, specifically used the words ‘immigrant invasion.’ So I would respectfully urge my colleagues on the other side to not use words like that, because whether they intend them or not to be utilized in violent ways, they are utilized in that way.”

The resolution passed by a vote of 22-16, and the amendment from

Good passed by a vote of 20-16.

Whole milk

Republican Rep. Glenn Thompson of Pennsylvania, put forward his bill to include whole milk as an option for students, who he said have been denied whole milk under guidelines set during the Obama administration.

“Out-of-touch federal regulations have imposed dietary restrictions on the types of milk that students have access to in school meals,” said Thompson, who chairs the U.S. House Agriculture Committee.

He criticized a proposed rule from the U.S. Department of Agriculture that offers two options for milk.

The first would limit flavored milk to high school students and the second would maintain the current standard, which “allows all schools to offer fat-free and low-fat milk, flavored and unflavored, at school lunch and breakfast.”

Democratic Rep. Jahana Hayes of Connecticut gave her support to the bill because it doesn’t require students to drink whole milk, but gives them another option.

“We can have as many statistics, as much data on what kids need as dietary dairy intake, but if they’re not drinking it, then it’s all for naught,” she said. “I also think it’s very important to note that this is just an option. It’s not like every milk choice is going to be replaced with whole milk.”

Scott said the bill is not something Congress should be discussing, but health professionals should make those determinations.

“I have insisted that the decision on this be made not by politicians in the legislative branch; but by experts who know what they’re doing and can review the science, come forth and make the right decision based on science,” he said.

The bill passed out of committee with a 26-13 bipartisan vote.

Health care amendments

The bill, H.R. 2813, introduced by Good, would amend the Internal Revenue Code to exclude stop-loss insurance from the definition of health care insurance.

The bill would override state laws that have set tighter regulations for stop-loss insurance, which allows business, or self-insured employers, to set a cap on employee medical bills or catastrophic claims.

“Some state laws unfairly limit small businesses from accessing the self-insured market based solely on the size of their operations,” Good said. “Small employers should have the right to access self-insured plans in the same way that large employers do.”

Scott said the bill would undermine the Affordable Care Act because certain consumer protections required in the ACA would not be applied to stop-loss insurance, such as emergency services, mental health services and maternal newborn care.

The bill passed out of committee by a vote of 24-18.

The other bill, H.R. 2868, introduced by Republican Tim Walberg of Michigan, would amend the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 “to clarify the treatment of certain association health plans,” which are health insurance plans that are tailed for people with a “commonality of interest.”

“Workers and small businesses deserve better health care,” Walberg said. “This innovative bill cuts health care insurance costs (and) evens the playing field.”

Scott said the bill would undercut a key principle in Obamacare that provides Americans with health care coverage at the relative same cost, regardless of pre-existing conditions.

“Associations can charge employers with workers that cost more to cover such as women, older people, people with chronic illnesses and pre-existing conditions and people with disabilities and charge them more,” Scott said.

That bill passed with a vote of 23-18.

New bipartisan immigration legislation proposed in U.S. House

Ariana Figueroa — Tue, 23 May 2023 19:59:53 +0000

Parents-to-be from Haiti stand at a gap in the U.S.-Mexico border wall after having traveled from South America to the United States on Dec. 10, 2021 in Yuma, Arizona (John Moore/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — A bipartisan group of six U.S. House lawmakers on Tuesday described details of proposed legislation that would create a legal pathway for citizenship for undocumented people through work requirements, and would also fund border security measures.

The two Latinas who spearheaded the bill, Reps. Veronica Escobar, a Texas Democrat, and María Elvira Salazar, Republican of Florida, said their Dignity Act aims to target the more than 10 million undocumented people in the country and ease the way for legal employment of workers in industries such as agriculture that are experiencing labor shortages.

Salazar said she is planning to talk to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., about the bill and to pitch it to her GOP colleagues.

The other Republicans at the press conference were Reps. Mike Lawler of New York and Jenniffer González Colón of Puerto Rico, who does not have a vote in Congress due to the colonial status of the island. The bill text is not yet available, but Salazar previously introduced her own version of the bill last Congress.

The other lawmakers at the presser included Democratic Reps. Kathy Manning of North Carolina and Hillary Scholten of Michigan.

“It’s our intention to bring dignity to many sectors in this country who are under duress,” Salazar said.

Escobar said the only way for the U.S. to meet the challenges of immigration is to do so in a bipartisan way.

“Waiting for either side’s idea of what is perfect, is exactly what’s gotten us into the situation we face today,” she said.

Multiple immigration issues

Escobar said the bill tackles three immigration issues. It would address the plight of the millions of undocumented people who are already working and living in the U.S.; reform the border process to bring a humanitarian approach to processing migrants; and create processing centers in other countries to help migrants understand “the high hill there is to climb for true asylum claims.”

“This bill represents a breakthrough, a true breakthrough, and a true compromise, and again, if we continue to wait for the perfect, we will continue to wait decades into the future,” Escobar said. “The challenges will get much worse, and we will have abdicated our responsibility and not perform our role as serious legislators.”

The Biden administration is currently working with Colombia and Guatemala to open processing centers in those countries to ease migration at the U.S. – Mexico border.

Under the bill, asylum cases would be processed within 60 days.

If an undocumented person had been in working on the country for more than five years without a criminal record, they could apply to be in a “dignity program” created under the legislation. They would be protected from deportation but also would be barred from federal assistance and required to pay for their own health insurance.

The bill would also require an undocumented person to pay $700 each year for seven years, on top of 1.5% that would be taxed from their paycheck, known as the “dignity levy.”

Salazar said it was not much money to pay “in exchange for living out of the shadows.”

She said that adds up to about $5,000 per undocumented person, and accounting for an estimated 10 million undocumented people, it would equal around $45 billion.

Salazar said that the $45 billion would go toward border security, such as the hiring of officials, upgraded technology, asylum officers and humanitarian services. She said this would ensure that any money collected from taxes does not go toward border security.

Funding from the dignity program would also go toward a program aimed at fighting anti-immigrant sentiments. Salazar said it would allow any “American who believes that he or she has lost his opportunities job opportunity to an undocumented” person to be retrained or reeducated.

“No one can say that the undocumented are stealing anything away from you,” Salazar said of that specific provision.

After those seven years, if an undocumented person wants to become an American citizen, they could apply for another program known as the redemption pathway, where they would have to pay another $5,000 over the course of five years, or $1,000 a year, under the proposal.

An undocumented person would be required to learn English and pass a civics exam, and “then you go back to the end of the line,” to become a citizen, Salazar said.

“But in the meantime, you are living in a dignified life,” she said.

Border security

There are several caveats in the bill that aim to quell GOP objections, such as a requirement that for anyone to become an American citizen, the Government Accountability Office – a non-partisan agency – needs to issue a report that concludes that the border has been secure for one year. Salazar said those parameters would be up to GAO’s discretion.

Salazar also stressed that the bill has harsher penalties for unauthorized immigration than the bill that House Republicans earlier this month passed though she did not go into detail.

House Republicans passed a border security bill that reinstated Trump-era immigration policies, such as the continuation of the construction of a border wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and detainment of families.

It would also strip funding from nonprofits that aid migrants, beef up staffing of Border Patrol agents and restrict the use of parole programs that the Biden administration has used to allow nationals from Haiti, Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela to work temporarily in the U.S.

The symbolic measure was in rebuke of the Biden administration winding down a pandemic-era tool known as Title 42 that allowed the U.S. to prevent people from claiming asylum and expelling migrants due to a public health emergency such as the coronavirus. It has no future in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

As for the Dignity Act, whether it’s passed by itself or attached as a rider on another piece of legislation, Salazar said, “That’s up to God.”

Expiration of Title 42 border rule prompts much rhetoric, less action

Tim Henderson — Wed, 17 May 2023 20:49:25 +0000

Venezuelan migrants wait for food at a hotel provided by a local charity in El Paso, Texas. An increase in border crossings has created a backlash in some states as a pandemic-era policy known as Title 42 expires (Joe Raedle/Getty Images).

The end of a pandemic-era policy that allowed U.S. border authorities to quickly turn back some migrants has prompted a mixed reaction from state and local governments, including new restrictions on immigrant workers, beefed up border enforcement and entreaties for more federal help.

But unlike the 2010s, when conservative states such as Alabama, Arizona and Georgia enacted a series of strict anti-immigrant policies, the reaction from most red-state officials has been long on rhetoric and short on concrete action. Their reluctance reflects the influence of agricultural interests and other employers who rely on migrant workers and are wary of shutting off the spigot amid a nationwide labor shortage.

Another factor that is giving some states pause is that the courts ultimately struck down the earlier anti-immigrant laws.

“[The 2010s were] a high-water mark and it had since subsided because courts found that states can play only a very limited role,” said Muzaffar Chishti, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute. But increased illegal border crossings have fueled enough outrage in some states to draw some state and local governments back into the immigration fight.

Surprisingly, border crossings have decreased by half since Title 42 procedures expired last week. Nevertheless, fears of a surge prompted some states to act.

In Texas, for example, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott last week announced the creation of a new tactical border force to supplement the National Guard soldiers and state troopers he first deployed to the border in 2021 to intercept immigrants crossing illegally, drugs and arms. Equipped with Blackhawk helicopters and C-130 Hercules aircraft, the new force is charged with repelling large groups of migrants, according to Abbott’s office.

Also last week, the Texas House passed a bill that would make illegal border-crossing a state crime and create new law enforcement agencies and courts focused on immigration.

Meanwhile in Florida, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis last week signed legislation limiting social services for undocumented immigrants and stiffening requirements for businesses to verify employees’ eligibility to work. The Florida measure also provides $12 million for the DeSantis administration to transport migrants to other states, and mandates that hospitals that accept Medicaid inquire about patients’ immigration status.

“If Florida and Texas are any guide, then it’s clear that state leaders are favoring the interests of those who pay the price of this historic mass illegal migration over the interests of the employers and NGOs who profit from it, and this is a new development,” said Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies for the conservative Center for Immigration Studies.

But Chishti said agricultural interests successfully watered down some parts of the Florida package. The legislation DeSantis signed allows the transportation of migrants within the state, for example, and it preserves in-state tuition breaks for undocumented students.

In Texas, some supporters of beefed-up border security also worry about the labor shortage. Democratic state Rep. Eddie Morales represents nine of the state’s 14 border counties and is a co-sponsor of the bill the House approved last week. But in a letter to Abbott last year, Morales asked the governor to expand ports of entry to facilitate trade with Mexico and create a program that would allow migrant workers to work legally for Texas employers that need them.

In Congress, House Republicans from agriculture-heavy districts cited similar concerns earlier this month in delaying the eventual passage of a broad GOP border security bill, which would eventually require employers to electronically verify the work status of their new hires.

Republican U.S. Rep. David Valadao of California, who is a dairy farmer, said he voted for the bill only after receiving assurances from GOP leaders that they would address the farm labor shortage. “Many industries in the Central Valley, including agriculture, rely heavily on immigrant labor,” Valadao said in a statement. “While these workers play an essential role in feeding America, many of them live in fear.”

Many Republican governors criticized the Biden administration for allowing Title 42 to expire. Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds called it “our most effective tool to slow this invasion of our country,” while Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte called the end of Title 42 a “disastrous milestone … throwing gasoline on the fire that is the crisis at our southern border.”

North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum said “the security risk grows even worse with the expiration” of the policy. At the same time, however, Burgum called for expanding business hours at the state’s 310-mile border with Canada, shortened during the pandemic, to “better facilitate legal cross-border traffic that supports our economy and friendship with our Canadian neighbors.”

For their part, Democratic governors mostly have expressed support for migrants but also dismay at the flood of people crossing the border looking for asylum. Since mid-2021, U.S. officials have reported roughly 200,000 border encounters with migrants each month, compared with about 50,000 in 2020.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul declared an emergency days before the expiration of Title 42 and called out National Guard troops for “logistical and operational support” as New York City transfers some migrants to suburban shelters. Hochul offered $1 billion in state funding for shelters, health care, legal help and voluntary relocation.

But some local leaders are resisting such efforts. Republican officials in Rockland County, New York, a suburb of New York City, sent sheriff’s deputies to stop any buses headed for a local hotel to be used as a migrant shelter.

The Biden administration’s plan for controlling the border after Title 42 “does not adequately address this crisis,” Arizona Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs wrote last month to federal officials, asking for more help for border communities trying to house and feed asylum-seekers. California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom also has asked for more federal help with migrants. “We cannot continue to do this work alone,” Newsom said.

The Biden administration has followed the expiration of Title 42 with new border restrictions aimed at stopping asylum-seekers from rushing over uncontrolled border areas. Now asylum-seekers will have to use a phone app from outside the country to make appointments at ports of entry. Anybody crossing the border between ports of entry will be denied asylum, a move that’s already drawn fire from the American Civil Liberties Union and other immigration advocates who are suing to stop it.

Republicans favored Title 42 because it offered an “expeditious” way to turn back migrants from Mexico and Central American countries, Chishti of the Migration Policy Institute said. But Mexico had to agree to the expulsions and would not accept the return of many people from outside Central America, causing a rush to the border by people who knew they could not be returned under the policy, such as Cubans, Haitians and Chinese migrants, Chishti said.

“It outgrew a lot of its usefulness. There are exceptions and now you have to interview people to find out if they’re exceptions, and that takes time. Now it’s not so expeditious,” Chishti said.

U.S. House passes bill to reinstate Trump-era immigration policies

Ariana Figueroa — Fri, 12 May 2023 11:30:34 +0000

The U.S. Capitol on Dec. 18, 2019 in Washington, D.C. (Samuel Corum/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — U.S. House Republicans on Thursday pushed through a border security package that mirrors Trump-era immigration policies, aiming criticism at the Biden administration for ending a pandemic-era public health measure used to expel millions of migrants from the country.

The House passed the measure in a 219-213 vote. Only two Republicans voted in opposition, Reps. Thomas Massie of Kentucky and John Duarte of California. All Democrats voted against it.

The symbolic legislation, H.R. 2, has no future in the Senate, but it demonstrates GOP resistance to the Biden administration’s winding down of Title 42, which blocks migrants from claiming asylum during a public health emergency such as the coronavirus.

President Joe Biden has declared he would veto the GOP immigration package should it reach his desk.

“Today, as the Biden administration allows Title 42 to expire, House Republicans are taking action to address the chaos at our nation’s borders by delivering legislation that will support our Border Patrol agents, block the flow of fentanyl into our country, and put an end to the Biden Border Crisis,” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican, said in a statement following the bill’s passage.

Title 42 will end at midnight Thursday because President Joe Biden has declared the end of the COVID-19 public health emergency.

The GOP bill, introduced by Republican Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart of Florida, would resume hundreds of miles of construction of a border wall, strip funding from nonprofits that aid migrants, beef up staffing of Border Patrol agents and restrict the use of parole programs that the Biden administration has used to allow nationals from Haiti, Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela to work temporarily in the U.S.

“Allowing (Title) 42 to end (with) no plan to secure our border is not only negligent, but it severely jeopardizes the national security interests of our country,” Díaz-Balart said.

Troops at the border

Leading up to the expiration of Title 42, Biden ordered 1,500 troops to the Southern border and U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Wednesday that the Biden administration is doing the best it can within the system that exists and Congress needs to pass immigration reform.

During a Thursday White House press briefing, Mayorkas said after Title 42 expires, migrants will be processed under Title 8, which will carry harsh consequences for people who do not follow some of the legal pathways to immigration the U.S. has set up, such as applying for parole programs, using an app to set up asylum interview appointments and requesting asylum in another country they travel through.

“If anyone arrives at our Southern border after midnight tonight, they will be presumed ineligible for asylum and subject to steeper consequences for unlawful entry,” Mayorkas said.

Under those Title 8 penalties, a migrant would be immediately removed from the U.S., subjected to a five-year ban from claiming asylum and could potentially face criminal charges if they try to re-enter the U.S. without authorization.

“I want to be clear, our borders are not open,” Mayorkas said.

But House Republicans have argued that under President Donald Trump, the U.S.-Mexico border was secure, and that the Biden administration needs to revert to those immigration policies.

GOP lawmakers also blamed the administration for the uptick in child labor violations, given that many of the children the Department of Labor found working in meatpacking plants were undocumented, and said the bill would address the issue by keeping better track of unaccompanied migrant children.

“The legislation we have before us would be a giant step toward ensuring that we can hold this administration accountable, to make sure that we secure our border, protect our citizens and protect migrants who seek to come here,” Republican Rep. Chip Roy of Texas said during Wednesday’s debate on the House floor.

House Democrats slammed Republicans and said the party is united in opposition.

“This bill is a resurgence of failed MAGA border policies that promise harsh enforcement and nothing more,” Democratic Rep. Linda Sánchez of California said on Wednesday during a press conference where Democrats unveiled their own immigration bill, the Citizenship Act of 2023.

During debate on Thursday, Republican Rep. Cliff Bentz of Oregon said he was supportive of the bill because it was the first step in fixing the country’s immigration system.

He described it as an “essential and necessary step to provide a foundation for a comprehensive revision of our immigration system.”

E-Verify

Democrats also expressed frustration at not having the complete bill text because of work requirements in the bill that drew some GOP objections and were changed.

Republicans hold a small majority, and a sticking point of E-Verify requirements in the bill delayed debate for hours on Wednesday. E-Verify is used by employers to confirm employees are eligible to work in the U.S.

The bill would require U.S. employers to use an E-Verify program to check the immigration status of their employees, and several GOP lawmakers raised concerns that those requirements could have a negative impact on the agricultural sector, which relies heavily on undocumented and temporary workers on work visas.

There was a change to the bill that would require DHS to study the impact of E-Verify on the agriculture sector. Massie said on Twitter that a special carve-out for agriculture workers was included, but the main requirement is still in the bill, and Massie tweeted that is the main reason why he voted against it.

The E-Verify program is run by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and it’s currently voluntary, but some states have passed laws to require its use.

Democrats argued that making it mandatory would hurt farmers and ranchers.

During debate on Wednesday, Democratic Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon of Pennsylvania said the E-Verify provision “has the potential to wipe out half of our agricultural workforce (and) cause huge disruptions in our nation’s food system.”

Democratic Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández of New Mexico said if the bill were passed, it would harm ranchers and her state’s agricultural sector.

“We do not have enough farmworkers to harvest our crops,” she said on the House floor Wednesday.

Trump policies

Republican Rep. Bob Good of Virginia said Biden should have kept in place Trump immigration policies.

“What this bill will do is to codify into law the effective policies under the previous administration that left this president with a secure border,” Good said.

Hours before the House vote, a handful of Senate Republicans held a press conference outside the U.S. Capitol and pushed for the Biden administration to implement Trump-era policies when Title 42 ends, such as finishing the construction of the border wall and reinstating the controversial “Remain in Mexico” policy.

The “Remain in Mexico” policy requires asylum seekers to remain in Mexico while they wait for an asylum hearing for U.S. immigration court. The Biden administration ended the controversial policy that various civil rights and immigration advocates sued over, arguing that requiring asylum seekers to remain in Mexico put them at risk of violence.

Some of those Senate Republicans included Rick Scott of Florida, Joni Ernst of Iowa, Deb Fischer of Nebraska, Ted Budd of North Carolina, Dan Sullivan of Alaska and Bill Hagerty of Tennessee.

Those senators said while they don’t come from border states, because of the wide spread of opioids and fentanyl overdoses, “every state is a border state,” Ernst said.

They praised the House for moving to pass a border bill and expressed disappointment that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York, won’t take it up.

There’s another effort in the Senate to address immigration by independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, who on Thursday said that border states are not prepared for the end of Title 42 and called on her colleagues to pass a bill that would temporarily grant the Biden administration the authority for two years to expel migrants in the same capacity as Title 42.

Nonprofits

Democrats raised concerns that the House GOP bill would prevent nonprofits like Red Cross and Catholic Charities from aiding migrants, because those organizations would be barred from providing transportation, legal services and lodging.

Democratic Rep. Seth Magaziner of Rhode Island said during Wednesday’s debate that the bill is cruel because it criminalizes nonprofit organizations.

The bill would strip federal funds to nongovernmental organization that help undocumented migrants.

Title 42 nears an end, marking a shift in U.S. immigration policy at the border

Ariana Figueroa — Wed, 10 May 2023 17:45:19 +0000

An asylum seeker from Mexico (R) waits outside the San Ysidro Port of Entry, which he hopes to cross to plead for asylum in the U.S., on March 22, 2022 in Tijuana, Mexico (Mario Tama/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — A pandemic-era measure that allowed for the swift expulsion of millions of migrants at the Southwest border is set to end Thursday, and the Biden administration and state officials across the U.S. are bracing for a potential increase in asylum seekers.

At the same time, House Republicans this week are pushing through a border security package that reflects hard-line immigration policies used during the Trump administration, including a return to construction of a border wall.

The Biden administration has tried to grapple with immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border through various parole programs and processing centers in Central America that encourage an orderly immigration process, as well as sending thousands of personnel to the border. But Republicans, Democrats representing border states and state officials have criticized the White House for a lack of federal preparedness for when Title 42 ends.

President Joe Biden on Tuesday admitted that once the policy ends, “It’s going to be chaotic for a while.”

Title 42 is a public health policy used to expel migrants during a health emergency, such as the coronavirus pandemic. It was initially employed by the Trump administration and continued through the Biden administration under federal court orders. More than 2.5 million migrants were expelled under the policy.

Several cities in Texas — Brownsville, Laredo and El Paso — in anticipation of the end of Title 42 have already declared a state of emergency, and Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs of Arizona released a strategy on Monday that permits emergency resources to be tapped if needed.

In the U.S. Senate, lawmakers from both parties are attempting to pass a bill that would temporarily grant the Biden administration the authority for two years to expel migrants in the same capacity as Title 42. Backers include Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Democrat Joe Manchin III of West Virginia.

The bill is unlikely to meet the 60-vote threshold.

House Republicans are also moving to pass their own border-related legislation. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said passage of the bill, known as the Secure the Border Act of 2023, is expected Thursday, when Title 42 is set to expire.

“We are trying to find solutions,” McCarthy, a California Republican, said on Tuesday about the bill. “We’re trying to be responsible. We’re trying to be sensible.”

The bill, H.R. 2, is a symbolic rebuke against the Biden administration that would limit the use of an app that migrants use to make appointments to apply for asylum, resume construction of a building a wall that runs 900 miles along the U.S.-Mexico border and appropriate millions for retention bonuses for border patrol officials and for hiring of 22,000 officers.

The White House has vowed to veto it, and it also likely has little future in the Senate.

DHS says it is preparing

During a Wednesday press conference, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas stressed that the agency has prepared to transition back to its Title 8 policy when Title 42 ends on Thursday. He said the Title 8 policy will carry harsh consequences for migrants who do not follow some of the legal pathways to immigration the U.S. has set up, such as applying for parole programs, and requesting asylum in another country they travel through.

Mayorkas said that more than 83,000 migrants have been able to schedule asylum interview appointments through the CBP One app.

With Title 42, if a migrant is expelled, they are not barred again for trying to claim asylum or disqualified from applying to parole programs, but under Title 8 they would be immediately removed from the U.S. and subjected to a five-year ban from claiming asylum. They could face criminal charges if they try to re-enter the U.S. without authorization.

“Our overall approach is to build lawful pathways for people to come to the United States, and to impose tougher consequences on those who choose not to use those pathways,” Mayorkas said.

Mayorkas said that officials are already seeing a large increase of migrants in certain areas at the border and that the federal government has distributed an additional $332 million to support affected communities.

He added that DHS is limited in its ability to manage migration at the U.S.- Mexico border and that Congress needs to provide additional resources and to pass immigration reform. The last time Congress passed a major immigration measure was during the Reagan administration in 1986.

“The solutions we are implementing are the best available within our current legal authority, but they are short-term solutions to a decades-old problem,” Mayorkas said.

In the week leading up to the end of Title 42, senior administration officials, who spoke to reporters on background, pushed back on the narrative that the Biden administration has not prepared for the winding down of Title 42.

“We have been … preparing for the lifting of Title 42 public health emergency measures at the border for well over a year now,” a senior administration official said on a Tuesday call with reporters.

A senior administration official said the Biden administration has hired an additional 1,000 asylum officers to conduct credible fear interviews for asylum seekers. A credible fear interview is when a noncitizen has the opportunity to establish that they have a fear of persecution, torture or fear of returning to their home country, and that individual may qualify for asylum in the U.S.

The government has also hired another 1,000 new Border Patrol processing agents, and 1,400 medical and support staff, along with enlisting 400 volunteers, to help with an increase of asylum requests at the border.

There are also 24,000 Border Patrol agents and field officers from U.S. Customs and Border Protection deployed at the border, a senior administration official said.

The officials said they are “working in a legal framework that is broken and outdated,” and are operating with limited resources. They said that Congress has not overhauled the U.S. immigration system to deal with current immigration issues that have displaced more than 20 million people in the Western Hemisphere.

“The COVID-19 pandemic and political insecurity and climate change have exacerbated what was normally pushing people to migrate, (including) already significant levels of violence, and corruption and lack of economic opportunity,” a senior administration official said.

The senior administration officials added that on top of the parole and family reunification programs the Biden administration has implemented, the administration is planning on following through with harsh penalties for migrants who do not follow some of the legal pathways set up by the administration.

“We know the next couple of days will be difficult, but we believe the plan that we’re putting in place is sustainable and will really set an example to the rest of the world,” a senior administration official said.

Arizona, Colorado concerns

Criticism of the administration’s strategy has even come from progressive Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego of Arizona, who is running for Sinema’s Senate seat. He argues that border officials are not equipped to handle the increase of people seeking entry into the country.

In a May 4 letter to Biden, he raised his concerns about a lack of federal coordination and communication with border town mayors and officials in Arizona “to address a potential influx of migrants.”

Trying to address such complaints, the White House has directed the Department of Defense to send 1,500 troops to the Southwest border for 90 days.

“DoD personnel will be performing non-law enforcement duties such as ground based detection and monitoring, data entry, and warehouse support,” DHS officials wrote in a statement. “DoD personnel have never, and will not, perform law enforcement activities or interact with migrants or other individuals in DHS custody.”

Colorado Democratic Gov. Jared Polis and Denver Mayor Michael Hancock wrote similar concerns in a letter to Mayorkas, saying that non-border jurisdictions are not receiving federal support in anticipation of the large number of migrants coming in.

Texas Democrats are also making preparations. U.S. Reps. Joaquin Castro and Greg Casar expedited more than $38 million in funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to provide shelter and food for migrant families in San Antonio.

While there is national focus on the winding down of Title 42, more migrants are being removed under Title 8. For fiscal 2023, the total number of Title 8 removals outpaced the number of Title 42 removals on the Southwest border, with 636,173 compared to 419,147, according to data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Coordination with Mexico

Biden on Tuesday spoke with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico about the joint effort between the U.S. and Mexico to “manage unprecedented migration in the region.”

“Toward that end, they discussed continued close coordination between border authorities and strong enforcement measures, in preparation for the return to full reliance on Title 8 immigration authorities at the U.S.-Mexico border, which carry steeper consequences for those removed than expulsion under Title 42,” according to a readout of the meeting provided by the White House.

Both men also discussed expanding joint efforts to address the root cause of migration, according to the White House.

“The president is using the tools he has in front of him because Congress refuses to act,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said during a Tuesday briefing with reporters.

One of those tools is a rule that would ban nearly any migrant who traveled through another country on their way to the U.S. from claiming asylum. Mayorkas said this rule will immediately go into effect once Title 42 ends.

Many Democrats and immigration advocates and legal experts have decried the policy as cruel and unlawful, and say it mirrors a Trump-era policy known as a “transit ban” that federal courts struck down.

More than 51,000 public comments were submitted on the proposed regulation.

The new regulation comes with a steep penalty that mirrors Title 8 consequences. If a migrant does not schedule an appointment at a U.S. port of entry, apply for a legal pathway in the country they traveled through and does not establish a “reasonable fear of persecution or torture,” they are immediately removed to Mexico and subjected to a five-year ban from requesting asylum.

They also become ineligible to apply for other parole programs the administration has established for nationals from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

One of the parole programs allows up to 30,000 migrants each month from Cuba, Haiti and Nicaragua who have U.S.-based financial sponsors and have passed a background check to enter the country legally; they then are allowed to work temporarily for two years. However, if those migrants do not follow those procedures and try to cross the border without authorization, they are immediately expelled to Mexico.

The White House said because of those parole policies, there has been “a 95 percent drop in border encounters of individuals from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela.” A separate program was established for Venezuelans.

Recently, the White House announced the use of processing centers in Colombia and Guatemala to create legal pathways for migrants in anticipation of the ending of Title 42.

The U.S. also plans to allow as many as 100,000 nationals from Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador to qualify for a family reunification parole processes that DHS recently announced.

GOP border package

But congressional Republicans have advocated to keep Title 42 in place.

Nearly a dozen Senate Republicans sent a letter to the White House asking the Biden administration to reverse its decision to end Title 42. They’ve also held press conferences, urging the administration to keep the policy in place, arguing that officials at the border will be overwhelmed.

Throughout the year, House Republicans have held multiple hearings about immigration at the border, vowing to bring forth border security-related legislation when Title 42 was set to end in May, and threatening to introduce articles of impeachment for Mayorkas.

In a statement, the administration said the Secure the Border Act of 2023 under debate in the House “makes elements of our immigration system worse,” and “does nothing to address the root causes of migration, reduces humanitarian protections, and restricts lawful pathways, which are critical alternatives to unlawful entry.”

“The bill would cut off nearly all access to humanitarian protections in ways that are inconsistent with our Nation’s values and international obligations,” according to the White House.

Asylum limits, more border security funds proposed in U.S. House GOP immigration bill

Ariana Figueroa — Fri, 28 Apr 2023 13:56:57 +0000

Children play in the makeshift shelter camps for Central American migrants while awaiting the US authorities to allow them to enter to begin their process of asylum into the country, on March 26, 2021 in Tijuana, Mexico (Photo by Francisco Vega/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — Top U.S. House Republican leaders on Thursday unveiled an immigration package of bills that appropriates millions in funds for border security and imposes sweeping restrictions on asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border.

The plan is in sharp contrast with an announcement earlier Thursday by the Biden administration on how it would begin to handle legal migration through processing centers in Colombia and Guatemala.

“Since we took the majority, we have been hard at work putting together a strong border security package,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana said during a press conference.

Republicans plan to put the bill on the House floor for a vote in May, the same time when a pandemic-era tool used to expel millions of migrants, known as Title 42, is set to expire. Even if passed by the House, the GOP plan will not be taken up in the Senate, where Democrats hold a slim majority.

The package combines bills from the House Judiciary and House Homeland Security committees.

GOP leaders who joined Scalise included House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan of Ohio, House Homeland Security Chair Mark Green of Tennessee, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Michael McCaul of Texas, and House Homeland Security Vice Chair Michael Guest of Mississippi.

“We think it’s a strong bill that will correct the … problems we have seen now, the entire two years of this administration,” Jordan said.

The bill from the House Homeland Security Committee would:

Resume building a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Hire 22,000 border agents.
Appropriate $100 million in retention bonuses to agents.
Appropriate $110 million in grants to local police.
Limit the use of an app that migrants use to make appointments to apply for asylum.

Green said that the bill takes away money from certain areas in order to cover some other areas.

The bill removes funds for nongovernmental organizations to support migrants and ends funding for the Department of Homeland Security to process migrants arriving at U.S. ports of entry.

It also does not allow funding for the Shelter Service Program, which allocates $800 million to the Customs and Border Patrol “to transfer to FEMA to establish a new Shelter and Services Grant Program (SSP) to support CBP in effectively managing migrant processing and preventing the overcrowding of short-term CBP holding facilities.”

The bill from the House Judiciary Committee would:

Expand migrant family detention.
Increase penalties for immigration violations.
Increase requirements for employment verifications.
Allow for the expedited removal of unaccompanied migrant children unless they are a victim of trafficking or can prove a credible threat to their lives.

Scalise said Republicans welcomed the Biden administration to join them in creating a legal pathway for immigration.

“What we’re saying is, let’s get back to the legal system,” he said.

Under the Biden plan unveiled Thursday, migrants will be screened in Colombia and Guatemala — and if found eligible — referred to programs like the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, parole programs, family reunification or existing labor pathways.

Migrants who do not apply through those legal pathways and cross the U.S.-Mexico border will be subject to swift deportation “in a matter of days” and barred from applying for asylum for five years, senior administration officials said.

Scalise called those “failed policies” — the policies have not yet gone into effect — and said the processing centers would just make matters worse.

He was critical of “this idea that you just create more opportunities for people to come here illegally and then look the other way.”

“That’s what created this new problem, is that they’re encouraging people to come into America legally knowing they don’t have valid asylum claims.”

Biden administration to use processing centers in Latin America to handle migration

Ariana Figueroa — Thu, 27 Apr 2023 19:03:47 +0000

An asylum seeker from Mexico (R) waits outside the San Ysidro Port of Entry, which he hopes to cross to plead for asylum in the U.S., on March 22, 2022 in Tijuana, Mexico (Mario Tama/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration Thursday announced the use of processing centers in Colombia and Guatemala to create legal pathways for migrants, in preparation for the ending of a pandemic-era tool used to expel migrants that is expected to cease in May.

The migrant processing centers will open shortly and be run by international organizations. Migrants will be screened — and if found eligible — referred to programs like the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, parole programs, family reunification or existing labor pathways, a senior administration official told reporters on a call.

The processing centers will also offer “local options” for migrants, a senior administration official said, but did not offer additional details as to what those local options are.

“These will be primarily nationals of the Western Hemisphere and Caribbean countries,” the senior administration official said.

Spain and Canada have also agreed to accept referrals from those processing centers, the senior administration official said.

“It’s this sort of partnership and collaboration that will help address the challenges of irregular migration and forced displacement in the hemisphere,” a senior administration official said.

The Department of Homeland Security will establish new family reunification parole processes for El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Colombia, and the “United States will commit to welcoming thousands of additional refugees per month from the Western Hemisphere,” according to a DHS fact sheet.

“These processes, once finalized, will allow vetted individuals with already approved family-based petitions to be paroled into the United States, on a case-by-case basis,” according to the fact sheet.

Senior administration officials did not give an exact location for the processing centers, or say how many would be available, but said more information would be released in the coming weeks.

Title 42 coming to an end

With a May 11 end date to Title 42, U.S. officials will rely on Title 8, which allows the government to process and remove migrants to their home country if they do not establish that there is a credible threat to their lives.

Senior administration officials on the call reiterated that the ending of Title 42 “does not mean the border is open,” which is a common criticism from GOP lawmakers. U.S. House Republicans have held multiple hearings on the issue.

There will also be an additional hiring of 300 U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers, the senior administration official said.

DHS has primarily used Title 42 as its main enforcement policy in recent years, using it to expel more than 2.5 million migrants back to Mexico or their home countries since 2020.

Democrats and immigration advocates have pressured the Biden administration to end the policy, but attempts to end the program have been blocked by federal courts due to lawsuits brought by Republican officials. The dispute made its way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, which decided to keep the policy in place until it ends on May 11.

The senior administration officials said these initiatives are modeled on parole programs for migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

Senior officials also said the administration is expanding the use of the CBP One App, which was initially used for commercial trucking companies to schedule inspections at U.S. ports of entry, but is being used to screen asylum seekers and for those migrants to schedule appointments at an official U.S. port of entry.

Migrants located in Central and Northern Mexico will have access to the app, DHS said in a fact sheet.

The Biden administration in January announced duel immigration strategies in an attempt to limit migration across the U.S.-Mexico border. That policy allows up to 30,000 migrants each month from Cuba, Haiti and Nicaragua who have U.S.-based financial sponsors and have passed a background check to enter the country legally. If approved, they are then allowed to work temporarily in the U.S. for two years.

However, if they do not follow those procedures and try to cross the border without authorization, they are immediately expelled to Mexico.

Congressional Democrats criticized that policy, calling it a “transit ban,” and reminiscent of a Trump administration immigration policy that banned migrants from claiming asylum if they travel through another country.

Sen. Bob Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat who chairs the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, recently released an immigration plan to help manage migration in the Western Hemisphere, urging the Biden administration to follow his “four pillars to effectively manage migration in the Americas.”

“My plan provides a set of policies that will secure our borders without sacrificing our domestic and legal obligations to asylum seekers by working with partners in the region to give people alternative options to illegal smuggling networks,” he said in a statement.

Protesta en St. Louis se enfoca en el uso de grilletes para solicitantes de asilo

Cristal Sanchez — Tue, 25 Apr 2023 15:36:32 +0000

Ángel Flores Fontánez, organizador comunitario del Comité Interreligioso para América Latina, dirige un cántico durante una protesta en el centro de San Luis contra la tecnología de vigilancia utilizada para rastrear a los solicitantes de asilo (Rebecca Rivas/Missouri Independent).

Cuando Adelaida, una guatemalteca, cruzó la frontera entre México y Estados Unidos en McAllen, Texas para solicitar asilo, los agentes de immigración poco le explicaron antes de colocarle un grillete en el tobillo.

“Ahí fue cuando me asusté, porque nunca en mi vida había visto yo un grillo”, dijo Adelaida, quien pidió que no se revelara su apellido por temor a represalias. “Cuando me presenté con inmigracion aquí en St. Louis, Missouri, me llevaron al ISAP y me dijeron que allí me iban a quitar el grillete”, dijo Adelaida. “Y cuando yo saqué el pasaporte nomás me recibieron el pasaporte y me ignoraron”.

Cuando su abogado presentó un caso de defensa para que el grillete fuera removido, Adelaida ya lo había llevado puesto por un año y dos meses.

El grillete le dificultó a Adelaida, cabeza de familia y madre de dos niños, la búsqueda de trabajo en restaurantes y hoteles, por lo que se tuvo que dedicar a trabajar en obras de construcción.

También se le pidió la entrega de su pasaporte, lo cual implica no tener ningún tipo de identificación, y que tenía que estar disponible un día completo para una visita domiciliaria, ambos requerimientos le dificultaron mantener su trabajo. Cuando el grillete se enganchó en un pedazo de madera y ella se cayó, la lesión en el tobillo le hizo perder su trabajo en construcción.

“Pues a mi la verdad me afectó demasiado”, dijo ella. “Porque yo soy madre soltera yo tengo que tener un sueldo, una mensualidad para poderme sostener con mis hijos”.

El lunes, Adelaida estuvo entre las docenas de personas que protestaron contra las prácticas usadas por el Programa de Supervisión Intensiva de Inmigración y Aduanas (ISAP) de EE.UU. El programa usa tecnología de vigilancia de contratación privada para rastrear los movimientos de los inmigrantes que esperan sus juicios de asilo.

Migrantes Unidos, el grupo de defensa que apoya solicitantes de asilo en ISAP como Adelaida, organizó la protesta frente a la oficina del ISAP en el centro de St. Louis

Cantando “¡Queremos justicia!”, el grupo dice que el uso de los grilletes es errático y abusivo, y que debe terminar. También creen que la oficina local del ISAP tiene el poder de hacer que sus prácticas sean más humanas, lo cual incluye eliminar el requisito de quedarse en casa durante todo un día dentro de la semana laboral y el del entrego de sus pasaportes .

Más de 280,000 personas en el país están inscritas en el programa Alternativas a la Detención de ICE, según las estadísticas de esta entidad publicadas el 8 de abril. La gran mayoría están siendo rastreadas a través de la tecnología del ISAP.

El departamento no revela las cifras por estado, pero hubo 15, 216 en la región del medio oeste estadounidense, la cual incluye Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Kentucky, y Kansas.

En esta región, 256 personas tienen grillete y 13, 819 han sido vigiladas usando la aplicación de monitoreo móvil llamada SmartLINK, que usa el reconocimiento facial y de voz para registrarse con los administradores de su caso.

SmartLINK fue designada por BI Incorporated, una subsidiaria de GEO Group, la compañía de prisiones privadas más grande de EE. UU., dicho grupo tiene una oficina en St. Louis.

Debido a que ISAP es manejado en gran medida por compañías privadas de vigilancia, el programa ha sido criticado por carecer de responsabilidad y transparencia.

“Ha sido demasiado difícil comprender cuáles instrucciones ISAP está recibiendo de ICE”, dijo Nicole Cortez, abogada y co-directora del Proyecto de Acción Comunitaria y Migrantes, “y que cantidad de supervisión se está brindado”.

Las Demandas de Migrantes Unidos

Maria Torres Wedding, organizadora comunitaria de Migrantes Unidos, marcha con unas 100 personas durante una protesta en el centro de San Luis contra la tecnología de vigilancia utilizada en el seguimiento de solicitantes de asilo (Rebecca Rivas/Missouri Independent).

El año pasado, tres organizaciones de defensa de inmigrantes presentaron una demanda contra ICE por la aplicación de monitoreo SmartLINK en el Tribunal de Distrito de EE. UU. del Norte de California en Oakland. La demanda exige que un juez requiera que el departamento provea información sobre los datos que están siendo colectados sobre las personas, y cómo los datos son usados.

En marzo, ICE publicó su primera “evaluación de impacto en la privacidad“, la cual respondió a algunas de las preocupaciones expresadas por las organizaciones.

De acuerdo con el reporte, “La aplicación de monitoreo no está monitoreando continuamente la ubicación del participante”, esto indica que los administradores solo pueden rastrear su ubicación en el momento de los chequeos.

Asimismo, revela que la aplicación está diseñada para prohibir el acceso a otros datos en el dispositivo móvil personal del participante.

Sin embargo, el informe también reconoce que el gobierno federal tiene una supervisión limitada sobre las empresas contratadas por ISAP.

“Existe un riesgo de que organizaciones privadas y no gubernamentales no sean debidamente auditadas ni rindan cuentas porque el Departamento de Seguridad Nacional tiene una supervisión limitada”, afirma el informe.

Debido a que cada contratista tiene mucha libertad en la forma en que implementa el programa, Migrantes Unidos cree que las oficinas locales pueden abordar sus inquietudes e implementar sus demandas sin el requerimiento de que leyes sean aprobadas.

Entre las preocupaciones están las estancias obligatorias en casa y la retención del pasaporte.

Adelaida dice que le requirieron estar en casa los miércoles de 8 a.m. a 3 p.m. para las visitas domiciliarias, esto le complicó el poder mantener su trabajo de tiempo completo. También le dijeron que entregara su pasaporte para que le quitaran el grillete. La falta de un documento de identificación ha sido un desafío por varias razones.

Adelaida no tuvo teléfono móvil durante los seis meses posteriores a su registro en la aplicación de SmartLINK, aunque el reporte de marzo de ICE indica que el programa provee dispositivos si los participantes los necesitan, por lo cual ella tuvo que usar el teléfono de su hermana para ser rastreada. Si no podía atender las llamadas del ISAP, ellos continuarian a interrogarla.

“Me hablaban de una manera que me hacía llorar”, dijo ella.

Migrantes Unidos está protestando contra el uso de grilletes, el abuso verbal de oficiales, y las estancias en el hogar requeridas durante las horas de trabajo. Piden eliminar estas prácticas, y que les devuelvan los pasaportes a los participantes.

En Abril del 2021, la organización personalmente entregó una carta describiendo estas solicitudes al oficial de ICE Martín García, quien ellos creían era el supervisor de los oficiales del ISAP. Las preocupaciones nunca fueron abordadas, dijeron los líderes del grupo.

“Se otorga una cantidad increíble de discreción a las oficinas locales sobre cómo implementar este programa de ISAP”, dijo Cortes. “¿Es humano, o es funcional, o cumple algún propósito que acordamos colectivamente que es necesario?”.

Adelaida ya no tiene puesto el grillete, y ya no está siendo rastreada a través de la aplicación de GPS SmartLINK. Un oficial de ICE le dijo que podía eliminar la aplicación y que ya no le colocarían otro grillete. La única condición es que se registre anualmente verificando su dirección.

Sin embargo, ella continúa peleando por los demás que están bajo el programa, para que “las demás personas ya se sientan con una libertad aquí y que no oigan más injusticias”.

El Independent’s Rebecca Rivas contribuyó a esta historia.

St. Louis protest targets use of ankle monitors, passport confiscation for asylum seekers

Cristal Sanchez — Mon, 24 Apr 2023 16:27:20 +0000

Ángel Flores Fontánez, community organizer with the Inter-Faith Committee on Latin America, leads a chant during a protest downtown St. Louis against surveillance technology used in tracking asylum seekers (Rebecca Rivas/Missouri Independent).

When Guatemalan-native Adelaida crossed the Mexican-American border at McAllen, Texas, to seek asylum, immigration officials told her very little before they attached a GPS monitor to her ankle.

“I was scared because never in my life had I seen an ankle monitor,” said Adelaida, who asked that her last name be withheld out of fear of retribution for speaking out. “They told me that when I arrived at the immigration office in St. Louis they would take it off. But that’s not what happened.”

She wore the monitor for a year and two months before her attorney made the case for its removal.

The monitor made it difficult for the single mother of two children to get jobs at restaurants and hotels, so she ended up turning to construction work.

She was also required to turn in her passport, which meant she had no form of identification, and had to be available one full day a week for a home visit. Both made it difficult to keep a job, culminating when the ankle monitor caught on a piece of wood and she fell, injuring her ankle and costing her the construction job.

“Honestly, it affected me so much,” she said. “Because I’m a single mother and I have to earn a monthly salary to be able to care for my children.”

Adelaida was among dozens on Monday who protested against practices used in the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Intensive Supervision Appearance Program (ISAP). The program uses privately-contracted surveillance technology to track the movements of immigrants awaiting their hearings for asylum.

The advocacy group Migrantes Unidos, which supports asylum seekers in ISAP like Adelaida, organized the protest outside the ISAP office in downtown St. Louis.

Chanting “Queremos justicia!” (we want justice), the group says the use of ankle monitors is erratic and abusive, and it needs to end. They also believe the local ISAP office has the power to make their practices more humane, including ending the requirement to stay home for a full day during the work week and taking participants’ passports.

More than 280,000 people nationwide are enrolled in ICE’s Alternatives to Detention program, according to ICE’s statistics as of April 8. The vast majority are being tracked through ISAP’s technology.

The department does not break the numbers down by state, but there were 15,126 in the midwest region that includes Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Kentucky and Kansas.

In the midwest region, 256 people were wearing GPS ankle monitors, and 13,819 were surveilled using the mobile monitoring app called SmartLINK, which uses facial and voice recognition for check-ins with their case managers.

SmartLINK was designed by BI Incorporated, a subsidiary of GEO Group, the largest private prison company in the U.S. — and the group has an office in St. Louis.

Because ISAP is largely run through private surveillance companies, the program has come under fire for lacking accountability and transparency.

“It’s been really hard to understand what instructions ISAP is receiving from ICE,” said Nicole Cortes, attorney and co-director for the Migrant and Community Action Project, “and what amount of oversight is being provided.”

Migrantes Unidos’ Demands

Maria Torres Wedding, community organizer with Migrantes Unidos, leads a chant during a protest downtown St. Louis against surveillance technology used in tracking asylum seekers (Rebecca Rivas/Missouri Independent).

Last year, three immigrant advocacy organizations filed a lawsuit against ICE over the SmartLINK monitoring app in the U.S. District Court of Northern California in Oakland. The lawsuit wants a judge to require the department to provide information on what data is being collected on individuals and how that data is used.

In March, ICE published its first “privacy impact assessment,” which responded to some of the concerns raised by advocates.

“The monitoring app is not continuously monitoring the participant’s location,” according to the report, stating that case managers are only able to track their location at the time of check-ins.

And it states that the app is designed to prohibit access to other data on a participant’s personal mobile device.

However, the report also acknowledges that the federal government has limited oversight over the companies contracted for ISAP.

“There is a risk that private, nongovernmental organizations will not be appropriately audited and held accountable because the Department of Homeland Security has limited oversight,” the report states.

Because each contractor has a lot of leeway in how they implement the program, Migrantes Unidos believes the local office can address their concerns and implement their demands without laws being passed.

Among the concerns is the required home stays and taking their passports.

Adelaida says she was required to stay home on Wednesdays from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. for home visits, which also made it difficult for her to sustain a full-time job. She was also told she had to surrender her passport in order to get her monitor taken off. Not having identification has been challenging for many reasons.

The Migrant and Immigrant Community Action project in St. Louis aids immigrants with family naturalizations, asylum-seeking difficulties and removal defense cases. The office is located at 1600 S. Kingshighway Blvd., and is open Monday to Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Contact the office at (314) 955-6995.

Adelaida didn’t have a phone for six months after she was put on the SmartLINK app — though ICE’s March report states the program would provide devices if participants need them — and she had to use her sister’s phone to be tracked on. If she was not able to take ISAP’s calls, they would continue to question her.

“They spoke to me in a way that made me cry,” she said.

Migrantes Unidos is protesting the use of ankle monitors, officers’ verbal abuse, as well as the required home stay during work hours. They are asking to eliminate these practices, and return the passports to participants.

In April 2021, the organization hand-delivered a letter outlining these requests in detail to ICE officer Martin Garcia, who they believed to be the supervisor of ISAP officers. The concerns were never addressed, group leaders said.

“There is an incredible amount of discretion given to local offices about how they implement this ISAP program,” Cortes said. “Is it humane, or is it functional, or does it accomplish some purpose that we collectively agree is necessary?”

Adelaida is no longer on an ankle monitor and is no longer being tracked through the GPS application SmartLINK. An ICE officer told her she could delete the app and would not be placed on an ankle monitor. The only requirements are that she check-in annually verifying her address.

However, she continues to fight for others who are still in the program, so they “feel at liberty here and do not suffer any more injustices.”

The Independent’s Rebecca Rivas contributed to this story.

Labor exploitation of unaccompanied migrant children probed at U.S. House hearing

Ariana Figueroa — Wed, 19 Apr 2023 11:15:16 +0000

An immigrant mother from Cuba sits with her sons after crossing the border from Mexico, as they await processing by the U.S. Border Patrol, on May 19, 2022 in Yuma, Arizona (Mario Tama/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — U.S. House members in a hearing on Tuesday questioned the head of a federal agency in charge of unaccompanied migrant children about multiple reports of their exploitation as workers in U.S. meatpacking plants and elsewhere.

Republicans and Democrats on the House Oversight & Accountability Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs agreed that immigration policy needs to be improved in connection with unaccompanied kids, but they differed when it came to solutions and in placing blame.

Republicans faulted the Biden administration for recent reports of exploited migrant children, arguing that it’s due to the administration’s approach on immigration.

Democrats pushed back, arguing that child labor laws should be tightened — even as 11 states move to roll back those protections — and the companies that take advantage of unaccompanied migrant children should be held accountable.

Robin Dunn Marcos, the director of the Office of Refuge Resettlement at the Department of Health and Human Services, or ORR, was the sole hearing witness.

“Child labor exploitation has no place in our society,” she said.

A year-long investigation by the New York Times found hundreds of unaccompanied migrant children working dangerous jobs in violation of child labor laws, which several of the lawmakers referred to in their questioning of ORR’s vetting process for sponsors.

The Department of Labor recently issued civil fines for Packers Sanitation Services Inc., a company that cleans meatpacking plants, for $1.5 million for employing children as young as 13 to work in dangerous conditions.

Dunn Marcos defended ORR, saying it works quickly to match unaccompanied children with their relatives, and vets sponsors through background checks. She added that the agency and the Department of Labor are working together and sharing information to “prevent and respond to child labor issues.”

The subcommittee chair, Glenn Grothman of Wisconsin, said the Biden administration’s immigration policies at the U.S.- Mexico border “have led to historic encounters of unaccompanied alien children that have overwhelmed ORR and endanger migrant children,” and also criticized the agency for not properly scrutinizing sponsors who take in unaccompanied children.

Grothman questioned Dunn Marcos on how frequently the agency has contact when children are placed with sponsors.

She said the agency does provide “well-being calls,” but that the agency’s “custodial custody ends when they are discharged (to sponsors).”

The top Democrat on the panel, Rep. Robert Garcia, a California freshman who as a child was an immigrant, said that Congress needs to make sure ORR is fully funded, so it can continue to reunite families and place children with sponsors in the U.S. who are their relatives.

“We also need to have a serious conversation about how we make sure that we’re fully enforcing our labor laws and holding corporations accountable when they knowingly and illegally profit from child labor,” Garcia said.

The most recent state to revise child labor laws is Iowa, where after an all-night debate on Monday, the state Senate passed a bill that allows 14- to 17-year-olds to work in industries currently prohibited for minors such as roofing, demolition and manufacturing as a part of an employer or school training program.

Democratic freshman Rep. Maxwell Frost of Florida also asked Dunn Marcos about sponsors in relation to an immigration package that House Judiciary members are planning to mark up this week. A section of that bill would mandate that ORR share information about a sponsor’s house address and name with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Frost asked her how that bill would impact ORR’s ability to carry out its responsibilities.

“Steps like that create a chilling impact on sponsors coming forward,” she said, adding that the agency believes the best practice is to place an unaccompanied child with their families.

One Republican, Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, asked the director why the agency was not recommending criminal charges for parents of unaccompanied children. Perry said he considers unaccompanied minors to be abandoned, which many states consider a felony or misdemeanor.

ORR is not a law enforcement agency, Dunn Marcos said, and reiterated that the main purpose of the agency is to reunite separated families and place unaccompanied children with vetted sponsors.

Rep. Katie Porter, a California Democrat who is running for a U.S. Senate seat, said that the Department of Health and Human Services needs to do more because the number of unaccompanied minors has increased since 2016.

The number of unaccompanied children has actually been increasing since 2008, according to migration data from Syracuse University.

From October 2021 to September 2022, there were about 130,000 unaccompanied youth who were released to sponsors in the U.S., according to data from ORR.

Porter added that she is also concerned about “who isn’t on this panel,” referring to the Department of Labor investigations.

“Corporate America needs to be held accountable for putting children in danger to boost their profits,” Porter said.

Some Republicans such as Clay Higgins of Louisiana and Andy Biggs of Arizona questioned whether all unaccompanied migrant children are really children, since some are teenagers, even though people under 18 generally are considered children under U.S. immigration law.

“As compassionate children of God, every American wants to just hug that child and care for that child, but that’s not the reality, America. What they’re talking about here is not a lost and abandoned and frightened small child,” Higgins said. “The vast majority of the so-called children, unaccompanied children, are actually undocumented, illegal young adults.”

According to fiscal year 2022 HHS data, unaccompanied children ages 0-12 account for 15% of cases, those ages 13-14 account for 13% of cases, those ages 15-16 account for 36% of cases and those who are 17 account for 36% of cases.

DACA recipients to gain health coverage under new plan from Biden administration

Ariana Figueroa — Thu, 13 Apr 2023 16:21:34 +0000

DACA recipients and their supporters rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court on June 18, 2020 (Drew Angerer/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden announced Thursday that he will direct his administration to allow undocumented people in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program to enroll in Medicaid or private insurance provided under the Affordable Care Act.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will issue a proposed rule on the policy by the end of the month, according to a fact sheet from the White House.

“Health care should be a right, not a privilege,” Biden said of the policy in a video announcement on Twitter. “Today’s announcement is about giving DACA recipients the same opportunity.”

Specific language for the new policy was not yet available Thursday. But the fact sheet from the White House says HHS will publish a rule that amends the definition of “lawful presence” to include DACA recipients in Medicaid and Affordable Care Act coverage.

Medicaid is a joint federal-state program that provides health coverage to low income Americans and people with disabilities.

If the rule is finalized, “DACA recipients will be able to apply for coverage through the Health Insurance Marketplace, where they may qualify for financial assistance based on income, and through their state Medicaid agency,” according to the White House fact sheet.

“Like all other enrollees, eligibility information will be verified electronically when individuals apply for coverage,” according to the fact sheet.

It’s unclear how long a new rule could take to implement — potentially, it could take years and legal challenges could also delay implementation. There are about 800,000 undocumented people in the program begun during the Obama administration, often referred to as Dreamers.

DACA recipients, and an estimated 10 million undocumented people, do not have access to Medicaid or coverage provided through the ACA, and were left out of federal aid during the peak of the coronavirus pandemic even though many were essential workers.

Biden also called on Congress to create a pathway for citizenship for DACA recipients. Senate Democrats made a last-ditch effort at the end of 2022 when they still controlled the House, but were unable to secure 10 Republican votes needed to reach the 60-vote threshold.

Those in the DACA program are also awaiting a Supreme Court decision that could determine the legality of the program that has existed for more than a decade. If a conservative court determines that the program is unlawful, it’s unclear what will happen to those in the program.

Applause from Democrats

Congressional Democrats welcomed the health coverage announcement.

U.S. Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada praised the Biden administration in a statement, and said that DACA recipients should have access to health care.

“DACA recipients are an essential part of our community in Nevada and they deserve access to quality, affordable health care,” she said.

U.S. Democratic Rep. Joaquin Castro of Texas said the policy would help give DACA “recipients access to the same care as their neighbors and build healthier communities for all of us.”

“For more than ten years, hundreds of thousands of young Americans have been unfairly excluded from the affordable health insurance they need,” Castro said. “In the wake of a pandemic that disproportionately affected immigrant and frontline families, this long-overdue expansion is welcome news.”

In 2021, Castro, along with 90 House members, urged Biden to extend ACA benefits for DACA recipients during the COVID-19 pandemic. More than 1 million people in the U.S. died from the virus.

Noncitizens allowed to vote in some local elections around the country, spurring GOP backlash

Zachary Roth — Wed, 15 Mar 2023 10:40:32 +0000

A press conference promoting a national campaign against noncitizen voting was organized by Americans for Citizen Voting, which was founded by the Missouri Republican strategist Christopher Arps and helps states amend their constitutions to ban noncitizen voting (Mario Tama/Getty Images).

A few cities and towns around the U.S. are letting noncitizens vote in local elections, and more could follow. In response, Republicans see a chance to turn opposition to noncitizen voting into a national rallying cry.

On March 14, Washington, D.C., became the latest city to approve noncitizen voting, when a bill allowing the District’s roughly 42,000 noncitizens, including those who are undocumented, to vote in municipal elections became law after a bid by congressional Republicans to overturn it fell short.

A day earlier, a group of prominent conservative voting activists held a Washington, D.C., press conference to promote what they called a national campaign to “protect voting at all levels of government as the exclusive right of citizens.” Republicans also have introduced legislation in Congress that would withhold election funding to states where local governments have enfranchised noncitizens. And a separate GOP measure would amend the Constitution to ban the practice.

This crusade is designed in part to push back against efforts to give noncitizens the right to vote, an idea that generally polls badly with most voters. But it could also reinforce a broader set of fears, stoked in recent years by former President Donald Trump and other party leaders, that American elections are threatened by illegal voters.

The District of Columbia isn’t alone in embracing noncitizen voting. In January, the Vermont Supreme Court greenlit the practice for two Vermont cities, including the state capital, Montpelier, rejecting a Republican lawsuit.

And on March 9, the state’s largest city, Burlington, voted to allow noncitizen voting, though the state legislature still needs to approve the change. Since 2016, San Francisco has let noncitizens vote in school board elections. Eleven Maryland towns also enfranchise noncitizens, the most recent in 2018.

Other cities, including Boston and Los Angeles, have seen efforts to do the same in the last few years. In 2021, New York City passed a bill that would have allowed by far the largest single number of noncitizens to vote, but it was struck down by a court as unconstitutional last year, after another GOP lawsuit. Appeals are ongoing.

A Democratic state lawmaker in Connecticut has introduced a bill to allow noncitizens to vote in state elections, though he has said he knows it won’t pass, and the goal is simply to spark debate.

Opponents amend state constitutions

A hand casting a vote in a ballot box for an election in Missouri (Getty Images).

This push for noncitizen voting rights has spurred a vigorous response from opponents.

Since 2020, five states — Alabama, Colorado, Florida, Ohio, and, in December, Louisiana — have amended their constitutions to make clear that only citizens can vote in elections at any level. Arizona, Minnesota, and North Dakota have similar language.

In Missouri, Republican lawmakers hoping to make it harder to amend the state constitution through the initiative petition process have included language seeking to ban on noncitizens voting — despite the fact that the state constitution is already clear that only citizens are allowed to vote in Missouri.

Democrats have accused their Republican colleagues of attaching the provision as “ballot candy” in order to fool voters into believing they must make changes to the initiative petition process in order to prevent noncitizens from voting.

The clash over the District of Columbia’s bill, which was passed in October, has been among the fiercest.

“Our noncitizen residents are paying taxes, enrolled in school, working here in the District of Columbia, and involved in community affairs,” said Councilmember Brianne Nadeau, the bill’s sponsor. “And without this legislation, they don’t have a voice in our elections, which is essentially one of the most fundamental things in our country.”

But in a letter to District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser, several GOP members of the House of Representatives said the legislation “fundamentally violates American sovereignty,” calling it “a disgraceful episode in the District’s history.”

In February, the U.S. House passed legislation 260-162 to overturn the District’s measure, which Congress is empowered to do under the 1973 District of Columbia Home Rule Act establishing the city’s autonomy. It was the first time the House had voted to overturn a District bill since 2015. Forty-two Democrats voted with Republicans.

But the U.S. Senate didn’t take up the House’s measure, and on March 14, Congress’ 30-day window to overturn a District bill expired, meaning the law went into effect.

In arguing against the District bill, Republican leaders often focused on its potential to enfranchise employees of foreign governments.

‘Ballot candy?’ Missouri GOP adds citizen-only voting into initiative petition changes

“Today, in D.C., somebody who is a Russian citizen working at the (Russian embassy) can vote in D.C. elections,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., told reporters on March 8. “A CCP member working at the Chinese embassy can vote in D.C. elections. That shouldn’t be the case.”

In some instances, opponents in Congress have misstated the effects of the bill.

“Does anybody in this country think that someone working for the Chinese embassy here in Washington, D.C., should be voting in the presidential election?” asked House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., in a Feb. 8 Fox News appearance. “Absolutely not. It’s insane, what they did.”

In fact, the District law applies only to local elections. Federal law bars noncitizens from voting in federal elections. Emmer’s office didn’t respond to an inquiry about the misstatement.

The District debate has played out amid a broader conflict between Congress and the city.

The Senate on March 8 cleared a House-passed bill that would overturn the District’s rewrite of its criminal code, which had been a product of a years-long review and would have reduced penalties for some crimes, among other steps. President Joe Biden has said he’ll sign Congress’ overturn bill, angering District leaders and many Democrats.

“Our disenfranchisement is on full display right now,” said Nadeau. “So we’re expanding voting rights here while our autonomy is under attack. It’s a pretty spectacular juxtaposition.”

A long history of noncitizen voting

It might seem like a new idea, but noncitizen voting has been around as long as the Republic, though state laws governing it have swung back and forth several times.

Both before and after the Revolution, all property-owning white men could vote, and many noncitizens did so. The practice was then phased out in many places, but it saw a resurgence in the middle of the 19th century, when at least 16 states passed measures to allow noncitizen voting, often to incentivize workers to move to less populous, Western states.

Then, beginning in the 1870s and lasting into the first decades of the 20th century, states gradually began repealing these laws. This retreat from non-citizen voting came amid a wider push in the Northeast to restrict voting by recently arrived Catholic and Jewish immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe, regardless of citizenship status, who were seen as less educated and responsible than the white Protestants who until then had predominated.

During the same period, Southern whites were passing Jim Crow laws to crack down on voting by recently enfranchised Black citizens. Nebraska was the last state to repeal its noncitizen voting law in 1926.

In this century, the issue has resurfaced in some communities where the number of noncitizens has grown quickly. In New York City, it took on a new level of urgency during the COVID-19 pandemic because so many frontline workers were noncitizens, said Nora Moran, the policy and advocacy director for United Neighborhood Houses, which advocated for the bill there.

“Largely, the people who were working in our hospitals, delivering our food, keeping people safe, had no ability to vote on the policies that lawmakers were making that directly impacted their health and safety,” said Moran. “So COVID underscored the importance of the bill for us.”

This resurgence has given Republicans the chance to expand the issue onto the playing field of national politics.

On March 2, Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-N.Y., who founded and chairs the House Election Integrity Caucus, introduced a resolution calling for a constitutional amendment barring noncitizens from voting in elections at any level.

Three days earlier, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, sent a letter to Speaker Kevin McCarthy urging Congress to pass five conservative voting measures, including a constitutional amendment banning noncitizen voting. Since 2021, Raffensperger has been pushing for a similar amendment to Georgia’s constitution.

And an oversight plan approved in late February by the Republican-led U.S. Committee on House Administration included a pledge to “investigate how states and localities that allow noncitizens to vote ensure that federal funds are not used to facilitate noncitizen voting.”

That built on sweeping elections legislation introduced in July by Rep. Rodney Davis, R-Ill., that contained a provision penalizing states where local governments allow noncitizens to vote, by cutting their share of federal election funding by 30%. Davis’ measure also would require that these states keep separate voter rolls for state and federal elections, and would bar them from using federal funds to maintain state rolls containing noncitizens.

The March 13 press conference promoting a national campaign against noncitizen voting was organized by Americans for Citizen Voting, which was founded by the Missouri Republican strategist Christopher Arps, and helps states amend their constitutions to ban noncitizen voting.

Arps was joined by three leaders of the broader conservative push for stricter voting rules: Hogan Gidley, a former Trump campaign spokesman who runs the elections arm of the America First Policy Institute, a Trump-aligned think tank; Christian Adams, whose organization, the Public Interest Legal Foundation, has often sought to raise the alarm about illegal voting by noncitizens; and Ken Cuccinelli, the former attorney general of Virginia, who chairs the Election Transparency Initiative, which supports tighter voting policies and opposes reforms to expand access.

As that lineup suggests, these efforts appear designed in part to fold the practice of legal noncitizen voting in local elections into the existing Republican campaign to raise concerns about rare cases of illegal voting in state and federal elections, including by noncitizens.

On Jan. 31, Emmer and other congressional Republicans sent a letter to Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon asking him to “to investigate claims that DACA recipients and other non-citizens are voting in Minnesota’s elections.”

At times, opponents of noncitizen voting have sought to conflate the two issues.

“When illegal aliens and felons vote, when identity thieves cast votes of registered voters, or cast them on behalf of people long deceased, the votes of legitimate voters are diluted or diminished,” Arps wrote in a 2019 op-ed launching Americans for Citizen Voting.

Moran, of United Neighborhood Houses, said her group has encountered this kind of conflation as it has advocated for the New York City bill. But, she added, noncitizens in fact tend to be especially anxious to follow the law.

“The people who are following voting rules most closely are often noncitizens,” Moran said. “Because they don’t want to do anything that could jeopardize their ability to pursue citizenship or other kinds of status down the line.”

Still, Moran added, since the New York City bill passed, her organization has heard from local advocates across the country looking for guidance on how to craft their own bills. The calls have come not only from big cities like Los Angeles and Chicago, she said, but also from a group of small towns in Maine that are resettling refugees.

“So for us, it’s been very heartening,” Moran said, “that, at a time when there’s a lot of backlash against voting rights, when there’s a lot of rhetoric around migration and who is coming to this country, that there are groups who are interested in making sure that new people coming to our country can participate in civic life and make their communities better.”

Mizzou students launch project to provide bilingual news to state’s Latino communities

Clara Bates — Wed, 01 Mar 2023 19:00:07 +0000

University of Missouri-Columbia students Sharon Quintana Ortiz, Cristal Sanchez, Erik Galicia, and Lauren Hubbard, pictured Feb. 27, 2023 in Columbia. (Clara Bates/Missouri Independent)

Four journalism students at the University of Missouri-Columbia have launched a project to provide bilingual news through social media platforms to mid-Missouri’s Latino population.

“There is so little Hispanic or Latino news,” said Lauren Hubbard, president of MU’s National Association of Hispanic Journalists chapter and one of the project’s organizers. “But also there’s so little news that’s in Spanish for them to understand and consume.”

“Because of that, they might not know what’s going on in the communities that they’re living in.”

Their project, called De Veras, aims to increase the accessibility of information about immigration legal services, education and health to Missouri’s Latino community, among other services.

They entered the project in the 2023 Reynolds Journalism Institute’s Student Innovation Competition — where this year’s focus is on addressing a local need through service journalism — and are now finalists.

The students — Erik Galicia, Lauren Hubbard, Cristal Sanchez, and Sharon Quintana Ortiz — have traveled to three mid-Missouri towns with significant Latino populations to spread the word about the project and learn about residents’ needs.

In Milan, a small town roughly 100 miles north of Columbia, 42% of the population is Hispanic, as of the 2020 census.

Meatpacking plants came to the region in the mid-nineties, which aggressively recruited workers from Mexico and from towns along the US-Mexico border. Many stayed.

Sanchez, who experienced “culture shock” moving from the more-diverse Chicago to Columbia for college, was surprised to see the grocery stores and restaurants owned by Latinos “at every corner” in Milan.

“You do not hear about this in Missouri,” Sanchez said, “at least from the media I’ve consumed in Missouri.”

The students said the residents they spoke to were largely receptive to their project, though not all had had positive experiences with journalists.

Sanchez said the owner of a small grocery store in Milan told them journalists had visited and “promised to write stories about issues that were going on in the community, but they didn’t show up afterwards.”

Based on what they heard from community members, they designed “phase one” of their project to build trust in the communities, the students said.

And they believe they can do that by starting off with social media posts to help connect the community with social services. The students hope eventually to write longer stories about the communities and issues confronting them.

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“It’s not only that we have to provide service journalism for this community,” Sanchez said, “but it’s also that we have to build relationships with them, we have to keep showing up.”

The students hope to provide information on free health care clinics, for instance — after hearing from Latinos having difficulty navigating the insurance system — along with information for newly-arrived immigrants on how to access legal services and understand their rights.

The Missouri Independent will serve as the media partner for the students’ new venture, reposting information on its Instagram. It will also work with De Veras on in-depth reporting projects in the future.

Their end goal is to offer bilingual news content to media outlets throughout the state.

The group was inspired by a statewide bilingual newspaper called Adelante that Mizzou students and Columbia community members formed in 2000 and that folded about six years later. They spoke with Adelante’s former editor, Tracy Barnett, before launching De Veras.

Regardless of how they fare in the competition, the group is committed to working with their fellow National Association of Hispanic Journalists members at Mizzou and the university to keep the project going.

Galicia, vice president of the NAHJ chapter, hopes the project is a first step to “recuperate those relationships” between journalists and Latino communities in the state.

“I don’t know if we’re doing enough as journalists to build those bridges with communities,” Galicia said.

“For me, that’s what this is. Going to these communities and showing our faces, and asking people: What is it that you need? What can we do for you?”

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Biden administration proposes major new limits on asylum at the border

Ariana Figueroa — Tue, 21 Feb 2023 22:34:56 +0000

Immigrants wait overnight next to the U.S.-Mexico border fence to seek asylum in the United States on Jan. 7, 2023 as viewed from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico (John Moore/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration is rolling out a proposed rule that for two years would bar migrants from applying for asylum at the Southern border if they have not first asked for protection in a country they traveled through.

The administration is seeking to limit asylum requests at the U.S.-Mexico border as a pandemic-era immigration measure is set to end this summer. But the policy change brought immediate criticism from immigration advocates and Democrats in Congress.

The proposal, which will officially publish in the Federal Register on Thursday, is reminiscent of Trump-era immigration policies, critics said.

In its proposal, the Department of Homeland Security said a high number of migrants at the Southern border “would put an enormous strain on already strained resources; risk overcrowding in already crowded U.S. Border Patrol (“USBP”) stations and border ports of entry in ways that pose significant health and safety concerns; and create a situation in which large numbers of migrants — only a small proportion of whom are likely to be granted asylum — are subject to extreme exploitation by the networks that support their movements north.”

For a migrant to claim asylum in the U.S., they would first have to schedule an appointment at a U.S. port of entry and apply for a legal pathway in the country they travelled through.

The rule would apply to single adults and families seeking asylum, but there would be an exception for children and teens who are unaccompanied.

There are also exceptions for asylum seekers who are facing an imminent threat to their lives or have a medical emergency.

However, those asylum seekers who “do not establish a reasonable fear of persecution or torture in the country of removal will be promptly removed,” according to a DHS fact sheet.

And those asylum seekers who are ordered removed would be subjected to a five-year ban from requesting asylum and would be ineligible to apply for other parole programs available to those nationals from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

“We are strengthening the availability of legal, orderly pathways for migrants to come to the United States, at the same time proposing new consequences on those who fail to use processes made available to them by the United States and its regional partners,” U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas said in a statement.

‘Deeply disappointed’

Immigration advocates and Democrats pushed back on the announcement, and asked the Biden administration to reconsider the proposed rule.

“We are deeply disappointed in the Biden administration’s proposal to limit access to asylum,” House Judiciary Committee ranking member Jerrold Nadler of New York and Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement Subcommittee ranking member Pramila Jayapal of Washington said in a joint statement.

“We should not be restricting legal pathways to enter the United States, we should be expanding them,” they said.

Nadler and Jayapal argued that asylum law is protected by federal law, and that this new proposal violates that protection.

Immigration advocates made similar remarks.

“It is deeply disappointing to see the Biden administration recycle immigration policies from the Trump administration that inflict harm on those seeking safety,” said Efrén C. Olivares, deputy legal director for immigrant justice at the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The Trump-era policy barred migrants from claiming asylum in the U.S. if they lived or traveled through other countries before coming to the U.S. The policy was struck down by federal courts.

Public comment on the new Biden administration proposed rule will be open for 30 days after it is published in the Federal Register. The administration said the proposal is in “anticipation of a potential surge of migration at the southwest border,” once Title 42 ends on May 11.

Title 42 is a public health policy that allows the U.S. to expel any noncitizen during a health crisis, such as the coronavirus pandemic.

Since the Trump administration enacted the policy in March 2020, more than 2 million asylum seekers have been expelled under Title 42. The Biden administration is moving to end the public health emergency on May 11, which will also end the policy.

White House targets economic development in Central America to reduce migration

Ariana Figueroa — Mon, 06 Feb 2023 20:38:12 +0000

Immigrants wait overnight next to the U.S.-Mexico border fence to seek asylum in the United States on Jan. 7, 2023 as viewed from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico (John Moore/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — The White House Monday announced nearly $1 billion in investments to address economic causes of migration in several Central American countries, an effort being spurred by Vice President Kamala Harris.

Spread over several years, 10 private companies from Target to Nestlé are pledging $950 million to create economic development in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. The plan is an attempt to curb economic-related migration at the U.S.-Mexico border by creating opportunities in those countries, senior administration officials said on Monday during a call with reporters.

“These efforts to address the root causes of migration represent a long-term development effort that will take time, but we’re already beginning to see some positive trends,” a senior administration official said.

In the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic in April 2020, people from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Mexico made up a majority of migrants at the Southern border.

But that is not the case now and a majority of migrants — 63% — since November 2022 were from other countries such as Colombia, Cuba, Nicaragua, Peru and Venezuela, according to the Pew Research Center.

The Biden administration has continued the use — through court orders — of the controversial Title 42 policy, which was implemented by the Trump administration in the early stages of the pandemic to bar migrants from claiming asylum.

As a result, more than 2 million migrants have been turned away at the U.S. border, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data. The U.S. Supreme Court later this month will decide whether to keep the policy in place.

Initiative totals $4.2B

Monday’s announcement builds from a May 2021 initiative Harris launched, known as the Call to Action, bringing the total amount of public-private partnership investments to $4.2 billion from 47 companies, senior administration officials said.

The Call to Action has six main focus areas. They include supporting long-term development of the region such as promoting a reform agenda; digital and financial inclusion; food security that takes into account climate change for resilient agriculture and clean energy; education and workforce development; public health access; and strengthening democracy and combating corruption.

Harris was also scheduled to meet later Monday with private sector leaders and government officials to strategize next steps, senior administration officials said.

The companies in the new announcement include Chegg, an online learning platform; the Columbia Sportswear Company; Microwd, which offers microloans to women entrepreneurs; Millicom, a telecommunications services in Latin America; Nestle, Nespresso’s parent company and Nescafé; Nextil, a garment manufacturing company; Protela-Colombia, a textile manufacturer; Root Capital, a nonprofit social investment fund in rural areas to grow agricultural businesses; Target; and Viamericas, which offers money transfers.

Factors in migration

Economic factors are not the only cause of migration. It also can stem from climate change, political instability and violence, according to research from the Migration Policy Institute, which studies migration patterns across the world.

The administration has directed the U.S. Agency for International Development to help reduce gender-based violence in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. For example, in January, the Department of State launched a $3 million project for programs to support survivors and invest in education to combat violence in six municipalities in northern Honduras.

Senior administration officials said while there has been increased migration from people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, the administration’s immigration policy for those countries has been based on a parole system rather than economic initiatives, because of the inability to return those migrants to their home countries due to oppressive regimes or violence.

Senior administration officials also noted that there has been a decrease in migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela at the Southern border, due to those newly announced parole programs.

In early January, the administration announced dual immigration strategies that would increase expulsions of migrants who attempt to cross the Southern border, while also expanding opportunities for up to 30,000 migrants each month from Cuba, Haiti and Nicaragua who have U.S.-based financial sponsors and have passed a background check to enter the country legally and would allow them to work temporarily for two years.

‘Ballot candy?’ Missouri GOP adds citizen-only voting into initiative petition changes

Jason Hancock — Fri, 03 Feb 2023 14:59:58 +0000

Rep. Jamie Burger, R-Benton, seated, listens as Speaker Pro Tem Mike Henderson, R-Bonne Terre, answers a question on Feb. 1, 2023 (Tim Bommel/Missouri House Communications).

Missouri Republicans have long argued a successful 2018 initiative petition establishing a nonpartisan redistricting process duped voters by pairing it with politically popular proposals like limits on lobbyist gifts to legislators.

Two years later, the GOP got in on the act, pushing its own ballot measure repealing the nonpartisan plan by tying it to a complete ban on lobbyist gifts.

Now the debate over so-called “ballot candy” — pairing a popular idea with a more controversial one in a ballot measure as a way to win over voters — is back.

The Missouri House passed legislation this week aimed at making it harder to amend the state constitution through the initiative petition process. The Republican-backed bill would increase the threshold needed for voter approval of a proposed constitutional amendment from a simple majority to 60%.

But the change needs voter approval, and the first bullet point in the summary crafted by Republican lawmakers that would be placed on the statewide ballot doesn’t mention initiative petitions at all.

Instead, it asks Missourians whether the constitution should be amended to “allow only citizens of the United States to qualify as legal voters.”

That one line dominated House debate this week.

“We know it’s put in there to be deceptive to voters,” said House Minority Leader Crystal Quade, D-Springfield.

Republicans deny they are attempting to trick anyone. But they don’t offer much in the way of explanation for the ideas’ prominent placement.

“I couldn’t tell you,” said House Speaker Dean Plocher, R-Des Peres, when asked Thursday why the citizen-voting question was placed at the top of the ballot summary.

“I mean, it’s something we believe in strongly,” he said.

Missouri House gives initial approval to raising bar for voters to amend the constitution

Democrats call the proposal a cynical ploy to exploit anti-immigrant sentiment in order to trick voters into accepting an otherwise unpopular idea. Adding to their angst is the fact that election experts say the state constitution is already clear that only citizens are allowed to vote in Missouri.

“Article VIII, Section 2 of the Missouri Constitution limits the right to vote to U.S. citizens,” said Travis Crum, professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis.

The right to vote for immigrants in Missouri who had declared their intent to become citizens was removed from the state constitution in 1924.

Missouri Secretary of State Jay Aschroft’s office has previously clarified that current state law also says “you have to be a citizen to register to vote.”

“There is zero evidence of wide-scale non-citizen voting in Missouri,” Crum said. “The specter of non-citizens voting has been a boogeyman for years around the country, and no one who’s pushing this theory has come up with any proof that it’s a systemic problem.”

Frank Bowman, an emeritus professor at the University of Missouri School of Law, said the Republican legislation “does nothing more than repeat the suffrage requirements of the existing Missouri constitution.”

Anyone who is not a citizen of the United States, Bowman said, “cannot vote. Period.”

Rep. David Tyson Smith, D-Columbia, said he has asked Republicans — in committee, as well as during floor debate — why the citizenship question needed to be the first bullet point in the summary.

“They won’t answer the question,” Smith said. “Everyone in this building knows what’s going on. They know that they’re just trying to get this through, and this is the way to do it. And it’s wrong and it’s misleading.”

Republicans say the change is a needed constitutional clarification, from “all citizens” are allowed to vote to “only citizens.”

During debate, some GOP legislators pointed to examples like San Francisco, where in 2016 voters passed an ordinance allowing non-citizen parents of children in schools to vote only in school board elections.

A local judge overturned that ordinance last year, saying it violated California’s constitution. That ruling is currently before an appeals court.

Republican Rep. Mike Henderson of Bonne Terre, who sponsored the proposed changes to Missouri’s initiative petition process, said that even without his legislation, non-citizens are already unable to vote in Missouri.

But he insisted the provision should be included, and he opposed Democratic efforts to move the citizen-only language lower in the ballot summary. He said the language has been vetted by attorneys in order to ensure it could withstand a legal challenge. And he reminded Democrats this year’s version is the same as has been passed by the House in previous years.

“We’ve worked hard on this ballot language,” he said, “and I’d like to keep it right where it is.”

The summary appearing on the ballot is capped at 50 words, Plocher said, and he doesn’t think Missouri voters will stop reading after the first bullet point.

“It’s only 50 words,” Plocher said. “It’s not hard to read 50 words. I think citizens will read all 50 words. I mean, what do you go to the ballot box for, to just read the first two words? Because if that’s the case, the first person on the ballot would win every time.”

The change is crucial, Plocher said, to “better articulate who should be able to vote in the initiative petition process. It is essentially part and parcel to everything we’re trying to accomplish.”

And ballot candy doesn’t always work. Missouri voters soundly rejected a gas tax hike in 2018 despite it being sold as a way to increase funding for law enforcement.

Missouri realtors vow to fight GOP push to make it harder to amend state constitution

The push to make it harder to amend the state constitution has been a GOP priority for years.

Over the last decade, the initiative petition process has been used to make an end run around the legislature to successfully amend Missouri’s constitution to raise the minimum wage, expand Medicaid eligibility and legalize marijuana.

Plocher said the current version of the Missouri Constitution has changed more than 60 times since it was written in 1945. In comparison, he said, the U.S. Constitution has been amended only 17 times since 1791.

“Our constitution is meant to be a sacred document,” he said, “but is now one that has grown dramatically in size because of out-of-state interests that have spent millions of dollars here in Missouri to change our way of life,”

Henderson said he trusts Missourians to make the final decision on his bill.

“We’re going to ask the people to vote,” Henderson said. “The people of Missouri will decide if we are right or wrong. We are not overstepping the people. We are going to the people and asking them to say what is your opinion of this? Should it be changed to 60%?”

Republicans are trying to trick Missouri voters with the citizenship language, Quade said, but it won’t work. She noted voters rejected similar proposals in Arkansas and South Dakota by overwhelming margins.

“We know all across the country, “she said, “where they have tried to go after the ballot initiative process, voters are with us in saying that they want to continue to have a voice in democracy.”

U.S. House Judiciary’s debut hearing on the border centers on blame for fentanyl crisis

Ariana Figueroa — Thu, 02 Feb 2023 12:30:58 +0000

Bags of heroin, some laced with fentanyl, are displayed before a press conference (Drew Angerer/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — U.S. House Republicans on the Judiciary Committee blamed the Biden administration for fentanyl drug smuggling at the U.S.-Mexico border during a Wednesday hearing.

Chair Jim Jordan of Ohio also blamed U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for the number of migrants at the border, and said there are already hundreds of fentanyl-related deaths this year.

Democrats on the committee pushed back on the rhetoric from their Republican colleagues, arguing that most fentanyl is seized through U.S. Customs and Border Protection at ports of entry through screenings, and is not brought by migrants who are fleeing violence or economic hardship. Democrats instead advocated for bipartisan immigration reform.

Fentanyl is a powerful opioid that is one of the leading causes of overdose deaths in the U.S., increasing in recent years. In 2014, about 14% of opioid deaths were related to fentanyl, and in 2017, nearly 60% of deaths were related to fentanyl, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

It’s also not the drug that is most commonly seized at ports of entry. For example, in CBP fiscal year 2022, more than 70,000 pounds of cocaine were seized and more than 175,000 pounds of methamphetamine were seized, compared to nearly 15,000 pounds of fentanyl, CBP statistics show.

The top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York, said that most drugs are seized at ports of entry, and not from individual migrants.

“The evidence does not show that asylum seekers are bringing drugs to our shores,” Nadler said.

This is the first of many hearings that House Republicans plan to hold relating to immigration and the U.S.-Mexico border. GOP lawmakers have also already started to lay the groundwork for impeaching Mayorkas.

In January, when Republicans won control of the House, they introduced a resolution impeaching Mayorkas “for high crimes and misdemeanors.” There are currently 39 Republican co-sponsors. The House Oversight and Accountability Committee is set to hold its own hearing on immigration on Feb. 7.

Nadler, defending the Biden administration policy, said while many migrants seeking asylum have come to the border, the White House has continued to keep in place a controversial Title 42 policy since 2020 that has expelled more than 2 million migrants from entering the country and claiming asylum.

Fentanyl seizures

The Drug Enforcement Administration, an agency within the Department of Justice, seized more than 379 million deadly doses of fentanyl last year. According to the DEA, most of the fentanyl was mass-produced in labs in Mexico, with chemicals largely sourced from China.

Jordan introduced one of the witnesses, Brandon Dunn, whose 15-year-old son, Noah, died of a fentanyl overdose. Dunn now runs an organization, the Forever 15 Project, to spread awareness of the fentanyl overdose crisis.

Dunn, who lives in Texas, said he is aware that every year CBP has record-setting fentanyl captures, but asked lawmakers, how “many pounds of fentanyl are coming across the thousands of miles of sparsely policed or monitored southern border?”

Reps. Chip Roy of Texas and Andy Biggs of Arizona, among other Republicans, inaccurately stated the Biden administration had an “open border” policy at the U.S.-Mexico border, and inaccurately claimed that the administration was not enforcing the border.

Title 42 has been in place throughout Biden’s tenure, leading to migrant expulsions. Democrats and immigration advocacy groups have criticized the Biden administration’s continued use of Title 42, calling the policy cruel and inhumane, and a violation of U.S. law that allows for a non-citizen to claim asylum. The Supreme Court is set to decide this year whether to strike down Title 42.

One of the Judiciary witnesses, Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels, said the Biden administration was not properly addressing the border and said that Vice President Kamala Harris, who was tapped by President Joe Biden to address border issues, has not done a sufficient job.

According to the Arizona Mirror, Dannels has known ties to the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, which is labeled as an anti-government extremist organization by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks domestic extremism. Arizona has become ground zero for an extremist, anti-government sheriff movement, the Mirror has reported.

Migrant support

One of the witnesses, Ricardo Samaniego, a county judge in El Paso, detailed to lawmakers how his county established a Migrant Support Services Center to help connect migrants with relatives and sponsors and provide safe passage for those migrants to reach their sponsors.

“No migrant is placed on a bus and shipped to another city without coordination and a sponsor waiting at the receiving city,” he said in his opening statement.

He said through this process, migrants are processed quickly, and he pushed back on the narrative that El Paso was overwhelmed with migrants and that there was no orderly process.

“There is no open border,” Samaniego said. “There is no invasion, nor are there hordes of undocumented immigrants committing crimes against citizens or causing havoc in our community.”

Samaniego said that narrative used to describe migrants is false and perpetuates violence. His community experienced a hate crime in 2019 when a white supremacist targeted a Walmart, killing 23 people and wounding 23 others because he believed a white nationalist and anti-immigration manifesto, and specifically targeted Latinos.

Rep. Lance Gooden, a Texas Republican, took issue with Samaniego’s statement, and said that “you’ve called several of us racists,” and also took issue with several Catholic charities that advocate for immigrants.

“Migrants are absolutely invading this country,” Gooden said.

Samaniego did not call any of the Republicans on the committee racist, or call out any particularly party. He said false narratives that argue numerous migrants are “invading” the country are racist and can lead to violence.

“What I said is using those narratives, creates more racism in a community,” Samaniego said.

More criticism of Mayorkas

Rep. Jeff Van Drew, a New Jersey Republican, said that no Republican on the committee was anti-immigration and that was not the purpose of the hearing.

He said that the issues at the U.S.-Mexico border need to be looked at because Mayorkas cannot be trusted and is not upfront about what is happening.

“The guy’s a liar,” he said about Mayorkas. “When he tells me he’s going to look at something, he doesn’t. When he tells you he’s going to do something, he doesn’t.”

Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon, a Pennsylvania Democrat, said Republicans on the committee have the radical plan to close off asylum to anyone.

“What I find particularly pernicious is the attempt to conflate the issues of migrants seeking legal asylum through our legal processes with the very real scourge of fentanyl trafficking,” she said.

Lengthy timeline for DACA legal fight puts lives on hold for years

Ariana Figueroa — Mon, 30 Jan 2023 15:00:32 +0000

DACA recipients and their supporters rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court on June 18, 2020 (Drew Angerer/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — Karen Judith Briseno Ortiz mailed in her application for a program meant to protect undocumented children from deportation, one day after her twin sister’s application.

Her sister was accepted into the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, but Briseno Ortiz, who grew up in Dallas, was not. Now her application is in limbo due to an injunction placed by a Texas federal judge, who determined the Obama-era program was unlawful.

“That opportunity got taken from me,” she said of Texas District Judge Andrew Hanen’s decision, which prevented the government from accepting new applicants into the program, but allowed it to remain for current participants as it undergoes litigation.

Multiple immigration attorneys who spoke with States Newsroom said they expect a decision on the legality of DACA, when it eventually goes to the U.S. Supreme Court, to not be issued until 2024. Congress appears unlikely to take action, although immigration advocates have suggestions about policy initiatives the Biden administration could study for DACA recipients.

In the meantime, they must wait.

One legal to work, one not

Briseno Ortiz and her sister, now 20, live together and attend Texas A&M University.

One twin is allowed to work, because DACA gives her access to work permits and a Social Security number.

But Briseno Ortiz, a chemistry major, cannot get work permits and will likely have to leave her home state to attend medical school, since there is only one medical school in Texas that admits DACA students.

The program, which has protected more than 800,000 undocumented children from deportation since 2012, is at risk of being deemed unlawful, leaving recipients in limbo and uncertain if they will be protected from deportation.

Briseno Ortiz is the only one of her three siblings not in the program, despite being eligible for DACA. The Migration Policy Institute, a think tank that tracks migration, estimates that as of December 2021, there are 1.5 million undocumented people who are DACA-eligible but not enrolled.

“It’s frustrating because we’re just waiting,” Briseno Ortiz said of her application and others that are still pending due to the injunction.

DACA legal challenges

The Trump administration tried to rescind the program in 2017. That is the same year the twins turned 15, making them eligible for DACA.

When the Supreme Court in June 2020 deemed the Trump administration’s actions were unlawful, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services should have begun to accept first-time DACA applications, but the Trump administration didn’t.

It wasn’t until December 2020 that USCIS complied and opened up applications for first-time applicants, which is when Briseno Ortiz and her sister sent in their applications. Her twin’s paperwork was sent on Dec. 22 and hers on Dec. 23, 2020.

They sent their applications one day apart to avoid any confusion with immigration officials or hold-up with their applications because they share the same birthday and first and last name.

Briseno Ortiz’ twin was accepted in DACA in June 2021, just before Hanen’s decision, which barred future applications, but allowed for renewals. This stems from a lawsuit brought by Republican-led states that argue the program is burdensome to states and the government overreached its power in creating the program.

Briseno Ortiz said she feels helpless waiting for the court to make a decision.

The Biden administration appealed that July 2021 decision to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, headquartered in New Orleans. A three-judge panel said that the Obama administration did not have the authority to create the program in 2012 and sent the case back to Hanen.

The panel asked the judge to look at the new version of a rule on the program issued by the Biden administration in August 2022, which was set to take effect on Oct. 31.

As of now, the lower court is hearing arguments about whether the Biden administration’s new rule, which is nearly identical to the memo creating DACA, is lawful. A schedule for that case has not been set yet.

“But advocates are not very hopeful that the decision coming out of this court will be positive or in favor of DACA,” said Veronica Garcia, an attorney at the Immigrant Legal Resource Center.

She said the best case scenario is if DACA gets struck down, renewals will be allowed to continue while the case then goes to the Supreme Court.

Some hopes

Muzaffar Chishti, an attorney and director of the Migration Policy Institute office at New York University School of Law, said he believes the Biden administration has given DACA more legal standing by writing a rule on the program, rather than having it as a memo, which the Obama administration crafted.

“That doesn’t mean that it will not be ruled unlawful, but it’s in a much better legal footing,” he said, pointing out that when Hanen first looked at the Obama-era program he decided that the administration overreached its power in creating the program through a memo, rather than proper rule making.

Chishti said that in many ways, the Biden administration has already responded to Hanen’s arguments by going through the rule making process in creating DACA.

He added that briefs in the case can be filed through April, meaning that a date for oral arguments won’t be set until after that.

“I don’t think we’re looking at a decision in this case till at least the summer,” Chishti said.

Then, once the case is appealed to the 5th Circuit, as expected, and then the Supreme Court, Chishti said he doesn’t expect a decision until the spring of 2024 or later.

“So that means there’s nothing imminent wrong potentially happening to the existing DACA recipients,” he said.

DACA ‘is outdated’

Juliana Macedo do Nascimento, the deputy director of federal advocacy of United We Dream, said DACA could be ended as early as next year by the Supreme Court, during the Biden administration, “which would just be a shame given his history, and his legacy with the program.”

United We Dream is a nonprofit youth immigration advocacy group.

“DACA was never enough, and it’s outdated,” she said, adding that there are 11 million undocumented people in the country who also need protections.

Macedo do Nascimento pointed out that undocumented youth who would be eligible for the program can’t qualify because they were not born by 2007. In order to qualify for DACA, undocumented youth had to have continuingly resided in the U.S. from 2007.

“We know that immigrant youths who are turning 15, 16, who would otherwise be eligible for it, are no longer eligible because they weren’t even alive in 2007,” she said.

So far, the only thing that would change DACA is an act of Congress, she said.

Congress stalled

Briseno Ortiz said she doesn’t have much hope that Congress will take legislative action to protect DACA recipients, and sees the only course of action to get involved in immigration advocacy groups.

Even when Democrats controlled the U.S. House last year, Democrats in the Senate did not have the votes to overcome the 60-vote threshold requirement.

Last year, Senate Democrat leaders set a December deadline of passing any bipartisan legislation to create a pathway to citizenship for DACA recipients.

With the House majority won by Republicans in the 2022 midterm elections, Democrats only had a couple of months to pass any legislation protecting DACA before they lost the House.

There were some talks of a bipartisan agreement with Sens. Kyrsten Sinema, a Democrat from Arizona who’s now become an independent, and Thom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina, but nothing solidified.

Even with Congress gridlocked, Macedo do Nascimento said, the Biden administration still has some policy initiates it can take to protect those in DACA, such as through Temporary Protected Status, which is granted to those who are already residing in the U.S. but whose home country is deemed unsafe for return, and allows those recipients to stay in the U.S. temporarily, or Deferred Enforced Departure.

DED is not a specific immigration status, but allows those covered to be exempt from deportation for a certain period of time.

The administration could also include countries with a high number of DACA recipients for TPS, such as Mexico, Macedo do Nascimento added.

“The parole authority that the administration has is really powerful, and they can use that to protect people,” she said.

New parole program

Early this year, the Biden administration announced a new parole program that would expand opportunities for migrants from Cuba, Haiti and Nicaragua to legally enter the United States.

The program will allow up to 30,000 migrants each month from those countries who have U.S.-based financial sponsors and have passed a background check to enter the country legally. They would be allowed to work temporarily for two years.

Macedo do Nascimento said the Biden administration could work to implement a similar parole program for those under DACA.

“We’re hopeful that they’re looking into these other options on how to use different tools to … protect people,” she said.

Democrats and immigration advocates welcomed the new parole program, but criticized the administration’s continued use and expansion of Title 42, which is a controversial policy that immediately turns away migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border during a health crisis, such as the coronavirus pandemic.

However, those parole programs that the Biden administration has implemented are already facing legal challenges from Republican-led states.

The White House did not respond to States Newsroom’s requests for comment on its plans pertaining to the potential ending of DACA.

Democrats in Congress condemn Biden administration expansion of Title 42

Ariana Figueroa — Fri, 27 Jan 2023 12:30:43 +0000

Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., speaks at a U.S. Capitol press conference on the Title 42 immigration policy, with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Rep. Greg Casar, D-Texas, Jan. 26, 2023 (Ariana Figueroa/States Newsroom).

WASHINGTON — Nearly 80 Democratic members of Congress sent a letter to the White House expressing their “great concern” that the Biden administration is walking back on its promise to restore migrants’ access to asylum.

In the letter, they also condemned the administration’s expansion of a controversial policy that immediately turns away migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border, known as Title 42, and does not allow them to claim asylum.

During a Thursday press conference outside the U.S. Capitol, New Jersey Democratic Sens. Bob Menendez and Cory Booker argued that asylum was a right granted by Congress. The administration initially promised to end the use of Title 42, a health policy put in place to prevent non-U.S. citizens from entering the country during a health crisis such as the coronavirus pandemic, they said.

“We are seeing the extension of Title 42 that, ultimately, is putting people in crisis and in danger of facing persecution and violence,” Booker said.

The policy has been in place since 2020, and more than 2 million migrants have been turned away at the U.S. border, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data.

The letter to President Joe Biden acknowledges the new legal pathways created by the Biden administration for Cubans, Haitians and Nicaraguans, modeled off the current parole programs for Venezuelans.

But Democratic lawmakers expressed concern that those legal pathways “come at the expense of the legal right to seek asylum at the southern border.”

Right to seek asylum

The right to seek asylum was codified into international law after the Holocaust, the mass murder of European Jews and other groups by the Nazi Germans before and during World War II.

The U.S. passed the Refugee Act of 1980, which allows people fleeing persecution based on the “account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion,” to claim asylum and ensures that those seeking asylum in the U.S. or at its border do not get sent back to the place they are facing persecution.

In early January, the administration announced dual immigration strategies that would increase expulsions of migrants who attempt to cross the southern border, while also expanding opportunities for migrants from several countries to legally enter the country.

In an attempt to limit migration at the border, the new policy will allow up to 30,000 migrants each month from Cuba, Haiti and Nicaragua who have U.S.-based financial sponsors and have passed a background check to enter the country legally and would allow them to work temporarily for two years.

However, if migrants do not follow the new procedures and try to cross the border without authorization, they will be immediately expelled to Mexico.

“We are therefore distressed by the deeply inconsistent choice to expand restrictions on asylum seekers after your administration determined it was no longer necessary for public health,” members of Congress said in the letter.

Democratic Rep. Cori Bush of Missouri also criticized the administration for employing Title 42, arguing that she doesn’t believe the administration is using it to prevent COVID-19.

Humanitarian crisis

Freshman Democratic Rep. Greg Casar of Texas, the House Progressive Caucus whip, said the expansion of Title 42 will not solve the humanitarian crisis at the border, where in his home state, 53 migrants, including five children, were found dead in a tractor trailer.

He said that in his community of San Antonio, because of the expansion of Title 42, fewer and fewer migrants are going through the orderly process of seeking asylum at a port of entry.

“Those folks that are fleeing disaster, that are spending night after night on the top of trains crossing hundreds or thousands of miles, fleeing for their lives, will now be forced to risk drowning in the river, to risk crossing in the desert or to get in the back of a tractor trailer,” he said. “It will not solve the humanitarian crisis. This decision has been driven by the politics of (the) extreme right wing.”

Lawmakers in their letter also expressed concern over the Biden administration’s announcement to begin the rule-making process to require those seeking asylum to first apply for “asylum in a transit country, instead of allowing them to seek their legal right to asylum at our southern border.”

“This, in effect, is a transit ban,” they wrote.

Menendez, who chairs the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, urged Biden to not go through with that proposal, and instead continue to fight in the courts to end Title 42 and work with Congress on immigration reform.

“The administration also cannot have it both ways when they claim to be committed to restoring access to asylum, and then they callously block access to asylum and posing a transit ban policy that forces migrants to first seek humanitarian protection in a third country,” Menendez said.

A district court judge struck down the use of Title 42 in November, but a month later the U.S. Supreme Court decided to keep the policy in place until the justices can review whether the pandemic-era program should be lifted or continue.

The court is expected to hear oral arguments on the case in February.

Lawsuit alleges Roundup cancer settlement denied because of citizenship status

Sky Chadde — Mon, 23 Jan 2023 20:23:56 +0000

Roundup’s manufacturer, the multinational Bayer, has faced myriad lawsuits related to the weed killer. Roundup’s main ingredient likely causes cancer, according to numerous reports and studies (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

This story was originally published by Investigate Midwest.

Litigation over Roundup — the main ingredient of which, glyphosate, likely causes cancer — has had a long tail. And the latest lawsuit involving the once ubiquitous household weed killer dropped Thursday.

In 2020, Bayer announced a $10 billion settlement over claims Roundup caused cancer. One claimant was a farmworker in Virginia, according to the lawsuit filed by Public Citizen, a nonprofit organization focused on corporate and government accountability. She said she was exposed while working for years with the weed killer on tree farms.

Originally, she was given the chance to settle using the same program that many plaintiffs used to receive payments from Bayer, but she was then rebuffed, according to the lawsuit. Because she was not a U.S. citizen, like many farmworkers, she did not qualify, according to the lawsuit.

Seven months after signing onto the settlement program, she was dropped by her lawyers and was ineligible for a settlement, according to the lawsuit.

Public Citizen said her civil rights have been violated because she was deemed not eligible because of her citizenship status.

“Those harmed by unlawful conduct are entitled to compensation no matter their immigration status,” Michael Kirkpatrick, an attorney with Public Citizen Litigation Group, said in a press release. “This lawsuit calls out discrimination by both Monsanto and some trial lawyers and will help put an end to such practices.”

Bayer said the lawsuit had “no merit.”

The farmworker’s “own former legal counsel agreed to the terms of the settlement agreement which included proper venue and state law considerations with respect to foreign litigants,” spokesperson Susan Luke said in a statement. “(She) later voluntarily dismissed her case and refiled her personal injury claim, as she was entitled to do under the settlement agreement, in July 2022 in the Missouri Circuit Court for St. Louis County where it is currently pending. The treatment is no different than any other plaintiff who did not meet the terms of their settlement agreement. Bayer believes strongly in an inclusive, equitable and diverse culture and has no tolerance for racism or discrimination of any kind.”

There have been years of litigation related to Roundup. It was originally produced by Monsanto but is now produced by Bayer after the German pharmaceutical company bought Monsanto in 2018.

In 2020, Black farmers sued Bayer over Roundup, alleging Monsanto and then Bayer did not adequately warn farmers about the risk of its weed killer.

Roundup isn’t the only product from Monsanto over which Bayer has faced litigation.

Farmers have spent years criticizing the herbicide dicamba for “drifting” over from where it was sprayed and killing crops that were not resistant to the herbicide. The herbicide was intended to be used on crops that Monsanto had produced the seeds for.

Despite knowing dicamba would cause widespread damage, Monsanto decided to release the product anyway, Investigate Midwest reported in 2020.

Investigate Midwest is an independent, nonprofit newsroom. Its mission is to serve the public interest by exposing dangerous and costly practices of influential agricultural corporations and institutions through in-depth and data-driven investigative journalism. Visit online at www.investigatemidwest.org.

Ukrainians by the thousands arrive in states, but with a time limit

Ashley Murray — Fri, 20 Jan 2023 17:21:52 +0000

A person from Ukraine holds their Ukrainian passport before being allowed to cross the San Ysidro Port of Entry into the United States to seek asylum on March 22, 2022 in Tijuana, Mexico. Nearly 200,000 Americans have applied to sponsor those fleeing the war. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — As the one-year anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine approaches next month, Ukrainians who were welcomed to the United States under a special program offering an escape from war are watching another timeline.

The temporary Uniting for Ukraine program, sometimes called U4U, offers a two-year stay in the U.S., given that individuals or families find someone, or an organization, to financially sponsor their stay. After that two years, the Ukrainians’ pathway to citizenship is unclear, if attainable at all.

Nearly 200,000 Americans have applied to sponsor those fleeing the war, with the majority of applicants from New York, Illinois, California and Washington, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services data from early January.

But a States Newsroom analysis finds thousands of sponsors from other metro areas also have stepped up, including from Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware; Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro in Oregon and Washington; Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach in Florida; Cleveland-Elyria in Ohio; and Detroit-Warren-Dearborn in Michigan.

Private sponsorship expanded

Even as Ukrainians are being accepted into the U.S., the State Department this week also announced that Americans will soon be able to privately sponsor any refugee’s journey to the United States in what the agency called “the boldest innovation in refugee resettlement in four decades.”

The new State Department pilot program, dubbed Welcome Corps, aims to expand capacity for refugees entering the U.S. It resembles the program for Ukrainians, but offers a permanent stay.

Rather than the government solely relying on nonprofit agencies to provide initial assistance for refugees, the new program will allow groups of at least five U.S. citizens or permanent residents to raise money to fund a refugee’s first 90 days in the U.S. and help the individual or family find housing, enroll in school and find essential services, according to the State Department.

Volunteer sponsors will receive no financial incentives, and an oversight mechanism will be in place to prevent any abuses, a senior State Department official said Thursday.

The private sponsorship model has been a feature of recent U.S. humanitarian parole initiatives — including Uniting for Ukraine, Operation Allies Welcome for Afghans and most recently for Venezuelans — but has only offered temporary stays in the U.S., mostly in response to urgent situations.

Welcome Corps “incorporates lessons learned from other emergency initiatives launched over the past year,” according to a State Department press release Thursday.

This is the first time the U.S. will extend private sponsorship to those it defines as refugees — a person unable or unwilling to return to their own country because of persecution. Refugees have a pathway to permanent immigration status upon arriving in the U.S.

That is not the case for humanitarian “parolees,” a top concern for individuals and organizations who helped people in those groups — urgently evacuated Afghans after the U.S. withdrawal or the Ukrainians fleeing war through Uniting for Ukraine.

“HIAS was the first resettlement agency to augment network capacity through ‘welcome circles,’ partnering with American synagogues to receive Afghans and, later, Ukrainians,” said Mark Hetfield, president and CEO of HIAS, one of the refugee resettlement agencies that contracts with the U.S. government.

“We were, however, troubled that these newcomers entered the U.S. as temporary ‘parolees’—without the legal protections enjoyed by refugees, such as pathways to family reunion and a green card,” Hetfield continued in a statement Thursday.

“The Welcome Corps solves that problem by allowing groups outside of traditional resettlement networks to receive refugees with peace of mind — with pathways to family unity, green cards, and citizenship.”

However, it won’t solve the problem for current parolees, like those who fled the war in Ukraine. Welcome Corps will be distinct from any temporary humanitarian parole arrangements already in place, a senior State Department official said on a call with reporters Thursday.

Long-term prospects

While immigration experts say the Uniting for Ukraine process has allowed for a quicker path to the U.S., they also remain concerned about the long-term welfare of Ukrainians in the U.S.

“We have had significant concerns about the efficacy of bringing people in with humanitarian parole with no plan in place to allow them to adjust their status and stay if they cannot go home,” said Naomi Steinberg, vice president for U.S. policy and advocacy at HIAS.

Ukrainian parolees’ options are narrow and case-by-case when their two-year stay is up.

Ukrainians with relatives who are legal citizens may be able to pursue a family-based pathway to remain in the U.S. Those who were able to secure a job could pursue an employment-based pathway.

Others could try to apply for asylum, but they must prove fear of persecution in their home country based on race, religion, nationality or other protected grounds.

Depending on the timeline, some Ukrainians who were living in the U.S. or who arrived outside the U4U program can stay under Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, until Oct. 19. The U.S. extends the status to certain populations who can’t return home due to armed conflict.

Launched after invasion

The Biden administration launched U4U about two months after Russia’s invasion, a similar pathway to the one established for Afghans needing to rapidly flee following the U.S. withdrawal.

Communities across the country have welcomed 102,000 Ukrainians so far under U4U, according to the latest figures from the Department of Homeland Security, the agency managing the temporary humanitarian parole process.

Another roughly 38,000 have been authorized to book commercial air travel from Ukraine for their stay in the U.S. — meaning their financial sponsors were confirmed, and they completed all background checks and other required preparation steps.

Those looking to help as sponsors range “from everyday Americans living in everytown, USA, to big civic institutions, to national and international companies,” said Anya McMurray, president and COO of Welcome.us, an online platform that connects potential sponsors with Ukrainians seeking a way to the U.S.

The young nonprofit, originally established to help after the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, has made roughly 1,300 pairings between sponsors and Ukrainians, and it’s revamping its online tool to connect Venezuelans and other populations.

“We wanted to bring those things together, that desire of Americans to help in their community and the transformational experience of welcoming a newcomer,” McMurray said. “Our fundamental belief is that by doing that we create greater capacity for America to welcome more people.”

The temporary parole process, based on a private sponsorship model, differs from the traditional route by which clearly defined refugees – those persecuted for reasons including race, religion or nationality — are resettled by the U.S. Department of State.

But while the temporary program offers limited benefits (though many benefits expanded under the supplemental aid package signed by Biden in May), the numbers of Ukrainians who have landed in the U.S. for humanitarian parole far outpace the permanent refugee placements that provide automatic pathways to obtaining a green card and citizenship.

Last fiscal year — from October 2021 to September 2022 — the U.S. permanently resettled just 25,465 refugees from 56 different countries, according to the latest Department of State data.

Southwest border crossings

The administration plans to expand the temporary humanitarian parole process to certain groups as a way to stem Southwest border crossings while the U.S. continues to enforce the pandemic-era Title 42 policy, which allows law enforcement to expel migrants at the border based on public health emergency powers.

Biden announced in early January that the U.S. would extend this case-by-case parole process “modeled on the successful Uniting for Ukraine” program to up to 30,000 Haitians, Cubans and Nicaraguans per month in an effort to decrease land entries at the U.S.-Mexico border, according to DHS.

A similar program for Venezuelans was already underway.

HIAS criticized the expansion as a “deeply flawed and outrageously inequitable plan to expand Title 42 border expulsions of asylum seekers, while allowing up to 30,000 people from Cuba, Haiti, and Nicaragua who have sponsors in the U.S. to enter the country temporarily as humanitarian parolees — but only if they fly to U.S. airports.”

The organization fears a swell of parolees — those from Ukraine, Afghanistan, and the Caribbean — living in “legal limbo.”

Congress failed to pass necessary legislation last session to give Afghan parolees permanent status in the U.S.

The brutal invasion in Ukraine displaced millions, with most — roughly 7.9 million — fleeing to surrounding European countries, according to the United Nations.