Veena Iyer, director of the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota, offers a personal perspective on the part that restrictive immigration laws play in deaths on our borders.
[Sahan Journal] “My parents love to reminisce about how cold it was the night I was born. My mother went into labor at a New Year’s Eve party, and they drove through the bone-chilling cold to the suburban Twin Cities hospital where I was born. It’s hardly the backdrop that two natives of southern India could have imagined for the arrival of the first child of a new generation.
“I often think about the combination of grassroots advocacy, individual determination, and sheer happenstance that resulted in my being born a citizen in this frozen tundra. ….
“I’ve been thinking about—and questioning—this combination of circumstances even more in light of the tragic deaths of Jagdish Patel, 39; his wife, Vaishali Patel, 37; their daughter, Vihangi Patel, 11, and their son, Dharmik Patel, 3, who froze to death at the Minnesota-Canada border.
“Why did this family—unlike my father—feel they had no choice but to come to the United States? Political persecution? Economic hardship? Natural disasters? Family reunification? A combination?”
While the deaths on the border rightly focused attention on the dangers of the journey to the United States, arriving here does not bring safety. Deportations continue, with asylum seekers sent back to places that even the U.S. government acknowledges are dangerous to them.
The Biden administration STILL deports Haitians back to the danger and dysfunction of their home country. Deportations continue despite the Biden administration’s grant of Temporary Protected Status to Haitians already in the United States on Jul 29, 2021, recognizing that they faced grave danger if sent home.
[Washington Office on Latin America] “The Biden administration hit a sad and stunning milestone today. Aboard its 198th flight deporting or expelling people to Haiti this morning was the 20,000th migrant sent back to the Caribbean nation since Inauguration Day 2021.
“According to Witness at the Border, a group that tracks U.S. government expulsion and deportation flights, 161 of those 198 planes, carrying 17,900 people, have flown in just the 5 months since September 19. That was when over 10,000 mostly Haitian migrants appeared on the banks of the Rio Grande in Del Rio, Texas, asking for asylum or other forms of protection….
“’Haiti simply cannot safely accept the repatriation of its nationals, which is why we are so deeply concerned with the large-scale removals and expulsions of individuals back to Haiti,’ reads an excellent February 16 letter signed by 100 U.S. senators and representatives. ‘To that end, we are concerned that the Administration’s use of the Title 42 authority is depriving legitimate asylum seekers the opportunity to pursue their claims, contrary to our obligations under international and domestic law.’”
Even being legally admitted to the United States does not guarantee a future. Delays and slow-downs in granting or renewing work permits endanger immigrant families and cost the nation skilled and willing workers.
[Vox] “Biraj Nepal, a Nepali asylum seeker living in Woodland, California, has been working as a software engineer in the IT department of a bank for the last four years. Nepal went on unpaid administrative leave starting on January 26 because his work permit expired and the government has yet to process his renewal application. That has left his employer in a lurch: There’s long been a shortage of IT workers, and the pandemic accelerated that trend as companies went remote. Now, nearly a third of IT executives say that the search for qualified employees has gotten ‘significantly harder.’ …
“’It’s a critical situation here. I’m in a financial crisis,’ Nepal said. ‘We are being punished by the government without doing any crime.’
“It only takes about 12 minutes for an official to review an application for a work permit, but an overstretched USCIS still hasn’t been able to keep up. It’s a symptom of broader dysfunction in America’s legal immigration system, which has not seen major reform in decades and was a target of former President Donald Trump….
“It’s taking so long to issue new permits that, according to the latest available data from the agency, the backlog stood at more than 1.48 million pending applications as of the end of September. The agency doesn’t track the number of people who have lost their jobs as a result.”
And in other news
Fear is a daily reality, even for U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents.
[NBC] “About half of immigrant Latinos (51 percent) reported worrying about their own or someone else’s deportation, a higher share compared to 28 percent of U.S.-born Latinos. …
“Immigrants make up about one-third of the U.S. Latino population and about half of all Latino adults.”
Republicans continue to block all meaningful immigration reform. The only road forward: executive action, which can offer some limited protection but cannot change immigration law.
[Roll Call] “Many are ramping up calls on President Joe Biden to use executive action to deliver immigration relief through temporary protected status, a designation that provides legal protections to immigrants fleeing countries in crisis.
“The move could provide stability, for the interim, to hundreds of thousands of immigrants — and give the Democrats something to tout in the midterm elections. Immigrants who hold temporary protected status are protected from deportation. They’re eligible to apply for work authorization, and can travel outside the U.S., but do not have a guaranteed path to permanent residency or citizenship.”
The Biden administration terminated a punitive rule proposed by the Trump administration but blocked by courts. Now they propose codifying the standards used prior to the Trump administration.
[CBS] “Under the proposal, U.S. immigration caseworkers would only consider participation in income assistance programs like Social Security Income and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, as well as long-term government-funded institutionalization, when determining whether immigrant applicants could become a “public charge,” or economic burden, on the country.
“The proposed rule, which will be open to comments from the public, would effectively codify guidance issued by the Clinton administration that limited public charge determinations to government cash assistance and long-term institutionalization financed by the government.”
Besides helping immigrants, Sister Donna Markham must now defend against vitriolic attacks from the right, fueled by Fox News misinformation.
[America Magazine] “‘It’s Matthew 25,’ Sister Markham added. ‘And Catholic Charities in particular has been doing this since 1910. This is really our identity, and we don’t have any intention of stopping this ministry.
“’Our work is humanitarian,’ she added. ‘It is not political. It is grounded in our faith.’
“Fueling the furious phone calls have been recent coverage and commentary from Fox News and other media, which purport that C.C.U.S.A. and other faith-based humanitarian groups encourage migration to the United States by providing aid at the border. The attacks include commentary from a Texas member of Congress who charged that C.C.U.S.A., which he called the ‘biggest villain of them all,’ has been engaged in what amounts to human trafficking.”
Immigration news 