In today’s immigration news: NYT blames Biden administration for border crossings as administration plans new bars to asylum; multiple court cases challenging state immigration laws; new reports on Operation Lone Star abuses; more
In today’s New York Times newsletter, David Leonhardt attacks the Biden administration, specifically for its humanitarian parole programs and for failing to (illegally) deny asylum to anyone not entering via ports of entry. He says Biden administration policies are responsible for the surge in immigration, though he acknowledges that country conditions also play a part.
Leonhardt ignores the fact that the “clear message” that borders were open came from Republican propaganda, exploited and amplified by cartels. He calls for ending humanitarian parole and severely restricting asylum. And the Biden administration appears poised to adopt at least some of these restrictions.
The administration is reportedly planning an executive order that would “shut down the border” to asylum seekers under certain conditions. That order would be impossible to execute without the cooperation of the Mexican government. But would Mexico agree to accept thousands of non-Mexican migrants from the United States?
[NBC] “President Joe Biden directed top aides to develop plans to stem illegal migration months ago, and they are eyeing a presidential authority in the U.S. Code known as Section 212 (f), which would let the president unilaterally ‘suspend the entry’ of specific groups of migrants whenever the number of attempted border crossings grew too great.
“The administration hopes to unveil that and other executive actions in June, and it has been working with Mexico to get its cooperation on some key provisions, according to multiple officials familiar with the negotiations. No final decisions have been made, and the timing could shift.”
And in other news
On Wednesday, a federal judge temporarily blocked the part of Florida’s anti-immigrant law that makes it a felony to transport immigrants. On Thursday, he seemed to change his mind, leaving everyone confused.
[WFLA] “Judge Roy Altman, a Trump-appointee, granted a preliminary injunction blocking the enforcement of Section 10 of SB 1718 ‘until otherwise ordered.’
“The Farmworkers Association of Florida, the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Florida, Americans for Immigrant Justice, American Immigration Council and the Southern Poverty Law Center sued Gov. Ron DeSantis, Attorney General Ashley Moody, and state attorneys for all 20 judicial circuits.
The group argued that states can’t control the transport of immigrants because federal immigration law preempts state law. Altman agreed. …
“Three individuals also sued, claiming the law made them afraid to see their own families or do their jobs. Altman said all three people would face ‘irreparable injury’ without an injunction.”
[Miami Herald] “In a rare move, a federal judge on Thursday appeared to reverse his own ruling blocking the enforcement across Florida of one of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ major immigration policies that criminalizes anyone who transports undocumented immigrants into the state.
“Just hours after Judge Roy K. Altman made clear that his injunction issued Wednesday was meant to apply statewide, he issued a separate, conflicting order in which he pondered whether his own ruling from a day earlier was too broad — sparking confusion among immigration attorneys and advocates.”
The Department of Justice has already sued Iowa and Texas over their unconstitutional anti-immigrant laws. Now it has added Oklahoma to the list.
[AP] “’Oklahoma cannot disregard the U.S. Constitution and settled Supreme Court precedent,’ U.S. Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brian M. Boynton, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Division, said in a statement. ‘We have brought this action to ensure that Oklahoma adheres to the Constitution and the framework adopted by Congress for regulation of immigration.’”
A new report from the ACLU documents the ongoing abuses of Operation Lone Star. The report found that the overwhelming majority of Operation Lone Star arrests for drug offenses, weapons charges, and human trafficking were arrests of U.S. citizens.
[TPR] “The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Texas released a new report showing that Operation Lone Star (OLS), a state immigration law enforcement program initiated by Gov. Greg Abbott, has mostly arrested people for misdemeanor charges since launching in 2021.
“The report also said that many of those who go before a judge after being arrested under OLS are for trespassing charges and that those arrested are disproportionately people of color. …
“The report added that the program spends billions of dollars to ‘racially profile and arrest people who pose no threat to public safety, then forces them into a separate and unequal legal system run by the state.’
“That legal system, the report said, only accounts for 13,306 of the 38,030 people the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) says it arrested. The report said this possibly means that DPS and the Office of the Court Administration of the Texas Judicial System (OCA) are collecting different data and that many of those people arrested are not appearing before a judge.”
From razor wire in the river to denial of access to a public park, Eagle Pass, Texas offers a clear picture of the excesses of Operation Lone Star. Eagle Pass has become the locus of Legal battles between Texas and the federal government now focus on Eagle Pass, which is located across the river from the Mexican town of Piedras Negras.
[USA Today] “Unlike other northern Mexican border towns, where groups like the Sinaloa and Noreste cartels kidnapped and killed migrants with impunity, Piedras Negras offered a relatively safer crossing, Isacson said. It became a destination for asylum-seekers from countries less traditionally seen as border-crossers: Cuba, Venezuela, Colombia and Haiti. …
“Aside from legal challenges, there have been an unusually high number of migrants hospitalized, including young children, in Eagle Pass after coming into contact with the razor wire. In January, a woman and two children drowned in the Rio Grande.
“Aside from migrants, deployments can be deadly for the troops sent there. During a 13-month period ending in October 2022, 10 National Guard soldiers died during their OLS deployments, and at least four of the deaths were determined to be suicides. The Texas Military Department now includes a page on its website related to suicide prevention.”
Minnesota needs more workers, and especially more highly skilled workers. Beginning with the story of her mother, a licensed and trained midwife from Somalia, Halima Hamud explores the barriers that keep refugees and immigrants from putting their training and expertise to work in Minnesota. She identifies promising programs and pathways that exist as well as needed policy changes.
[Sahan Journal] “This year in the Legislature, a bill that would have given foreign-trained doctors a path to practice in the state died without reaching the floor. Measures like this highlight a pressing issue in Minnesota — the need for skilled immigrants to have access to more job opportunities. …
“[A] Chilean immigrant, Melissa Rieger … came to the U.S. in 2010, after earning her Ph.D. and spending three years in Spain doing cancer research. But she has spent more than a decade trying to get a medical residency. Finally, she found BRIIDGE, a nine-month pathway program that helped her prepare and apply for a U.S. residency. Meanwhile, she could have been working on a cure for cancer, research or delivering care to families in that decade.
“We can invest in a host of solutions to avoid this “brain waste” in refugee and immigrant communities. Mentorship, networking, language, and skills training all help. We also can invest in cultural competency training and engaging employers, and in upgrading job-specific skills and work-related English requirements for state licenses.”
Aid workers in San Diego see the changing face of immigration, and the continuing needs of immigrants.
[The Guardian] “Jacqueline Arellano is driving up and down the 15 freeway in southern San Diego county on a recent morning in mid-April, boxes of donated clothing and safety gloves in her trunk.
“She stops in a Home Depot parking lot and hands a man the spare stroller she grabbed from her house. He’d mentioned to her earlier that day how tiring it was to move around the city with his toddler in his arms.
“Arellano is director of US programs for Border Kindness, a non-profit migrant relief organization that runs weekly Day Laborer Outreach programs in San Diego and Imperial counties. Organizers hand out donations in spots where migrants congregate, and while doing so listen to people’s stories and answer their questions, as best as they can.
“‘Within the last couple of years, we’ve seen global migration reflected in the community,’ she said. First they saw an increase in people arriving from Haiti, then people from all over the world. The people arriving now speak languages other than Spanish, she said, and they have more recently arrived on US soil. Crucially, they are not trying to avoid immigration enforcement authorities. Rather, they have filed for asylum and want to see their cases work their way through the system.”
In rural Indiana, the DuBois County school system is a leader in multilingual education. As students receive education in both their native language and another language, they learn from their peers as well as their teachers. Studies show that students who are educated in two languages at an early age have better focus and logical reasoning.
[Daily Yonder] “To meet the gold standard, students in the dual language immersion program receive 50% of their instruction in English and 50% of their instruction in Spanish. Fifty percent of the program is made up of students whose native language is Spanish and the other half is made up of native English speakers. The program is currently offered from kindergarten through third grade, with plans to expand to fourth and fifth grade. …
“Rural English learners sit at the intersection of overlapping structural problems in public education. The national teacher shortage is worse in nonmetropolitan places, and it’s most problematic in racially diverse and high-poverty rural schools. Nationally, there aren’t enough bilingual educators, or educators certified to teach English as a second language (ESL).
“According to recent research, while English-learner populations are growing in rural places, rural multilingual learners are less likely to receive instruction in their native languages. And while federal guidelines require that all non-native English speakers receive specialized instruction, in rural places only a little more than 60% actually do.”
Immigration news 