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In today’s immigration news: New Census Bureau report on immigrants; plea to Biden administration to parole undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens; state and local court challenges to federal policies; more.
A new Census Bureau report shows that more than half of all immigrants in the United States live in New York, California, Texas, and Florida. (Together, the four states have about one-third of the population of the United States.) More than half of the immigrants in the United States are U.S. citizens.
[AP] “Half of the foreign-born residents in the U.S. were from Latin America, although their composition has shifted in the past dozen years, with those from Mexico dropping by about 1 million people and those from South America and Central America increasing by 2.1 million people.
“The share of the foreign population from Asia went from more than a quarter to under a third during that time, while the share of African-born went from 4% to 6%. …
“Around two-thirds of the foreign-born population came to the U.S. before 2010.
“The foreign-born population has grown older in the past dozen years, a reflection of some members’ longevity in the U.S., with the median age increasing five years to 46.7 years. They also became more educated from 2010 to 2022, with the rate of foreign-born people holding at least a high school degree going from more than two-thirds to three-quarters of the population.”
A coalition led by American Families United and American Business Immigration Coalition Action is urging the Biden administration to take executive action to shelter spouses of U.S. citizens from deportation and allow them to obtain work permits. They ask that the administration use its parole authority to grant relief.
[Nevada Current] “Existing immigration policy, they argue, is tearing apart loving families and forcing American citizens to make impossible decisions, like divorcing a person they love or leaving the country to live in exile with them. It also has a negative economic impact, keeping potential workers out of the job market during a time of labor shortages.
“An estimated 1.1 million U.S. citizens are in a mixed-status marriage, according to the advocacy group American Families United. An estimated 4.9 million U.S. citizen children have at least one parent who is undocumented, according to the advocacy group FWD.us. …
“Liza, a flight attendant from Atlanta who chose not to use her whole name, said she and her husband of 12 years began the legal immigration process the week they were married.
“’Three years later, we hit the ultimate roadblock,’ she said. ‘We were advised my husband could be subject to a lifetime bar from the U.S. should he leave to attend his visa interview in Mexico. Imagine our devastation that day when instead of finally reaching the end of the arduous immigration process we discovered there was no end in sight.’
“Liza, her husband, and their two children are now ‘stuck living in the shadows’ — in constant fear of him being deported and having their family separated.”
And in other news
A Trump-appointed federal judge in Florida said the state can sue to overturn federal immigration parole policies. That ruling appears to contradict a U.S. Supreme Court decision in a similar case, holding that Texas and other states do not have standing to sue. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has ordered briefing in an appeal of the district judge’s order.
[CBS] “After the U.S. Supreme Court decision, the appeals court in February directed Wetherell to consider again whether he had ‘jurisdiction’ in the Florida challenge. Plaintiffs must show standing before judges have jurisdiction to decide cases. So if Florida didn’t have standing, Wetherell couldn’t have ruled in its favor.
“Wetherell, a former state appellate judge who was appointed to the federal bench by former President Donald Trump, quickly issued a decision supporting his earlier rulings that Florida had standing.”
El Paso county commissioners voted to join with Douglas County in a legal challenge to Colorado state laws on immigration.
[KOAA] “One of the laws at issue was passed in 2019. House Bill 19-1124 prohibits officers from arresting or detaining someone based solely on their immigration status. It also prevents probation officers from sharing someone’s personal information with federal immigration authorities. …
“The other law targeted in the suit was passed last year. House Bill 23-1100, made it illegal for state and local governments to make deals to hold people for federal immigration purposes.”
Iowa joined Texas, with a new law making it a state crime for undocumented persons to enter the state. The law takes effect on July 1. About six percent of Iowa residents are immigrants, and the state capital, Des Moines, is 1,100 miles from the U.S. southern border.
[KIMT] “The bill in Iowa faces the same questions of implementation and enforcement as the Texas law, since deportation is a ‘complicated, expensive and often dangerous’ federal process, said immigration law expert Huyen Pham of Texas A&M School of Law.
“In the meantime, Iowa’s immigrant community groups are organizing informational meetings and materials to try to answer people’s questions. They’re also asking local and county law enforcement agencies for official statements, as well as face-to-face meetings.
“At one community meeting in Des Moines, 80 people gathered and asked questions in Spanish, including: ‘Should I leave Iowa?’
“Others asked: ‘Is it safe to call the police?’ ‘Can Iowa police ask me about my immigration status?’ And: ‘What happens if I’m racially profiled?’”
As Mexico increases enforcement at various places along the border, asylum seekers cross at more remote sites, and have more difficulty finding Border Patrol officers to turn themselves in. They wait in places with no protection, shelter, food, water, or medical care beyond that provided by volunteers.
[New York Times] “It was 1:53 a.m., and Peter Fink was on a barren mountain plateau near Campo, Calif., passing out blankets to people from four continents who had arrived there under the cover of night.
“This was a nocturnal ritual for the 22-year-old, dressed in a ball cap and a wool overshirt, whose perch — just over 300 yards up a rocky incline from the United States-Mexico border wall — had become a round-the-clock boarding space for people who had crossed unlawfully onto American soil. …
“At this site and others along the border, migrants have waited for hours or sometimes days to be taken into custody, and a Federal District Court judge ruled last week that the Border Patrol must move ‘expeditiously’ to get children into safe and sanitary shelters. But unlike outdoor waiting areas that had arisen in more populated areas, Mr. Fink’s site had no aid tents or medical volunteers, no dumpsters or port-a-potties — just a hole that he had dug as a communal toilet, and Mr. Fink himself. …
“He did not create this mountaintop camp; he found it. A local man had noticed fires burning on the plateau each night, and Mr. Fink, a wildland firefighter and avid camper who was traveling through the region, volunteered to spend the night on the plot in a tent to see what transpired. Within hours, over 200 migrants came on foot — among them pregnant women, children and elderly people — huddled together in the biting wind.”
Increasing numbers of people seek asylum in Mexico. More than 140,000 people applied for asylum last year, including more than 44,000 Haitians.
[El Pais] “‘We’ve never seen this before — and I’ve been working here all my life,’ says Eduardo Gómez, an 84-year-old merchant, who has spent more than 60 years dedicated to the buying and selling of food, at both wholesale and retail prices. He’s referring to the presence of dozens of migrants and asylum seekers of Haitian origin. These men and women work as forklift drivers and loaders, but also as dispatchers and clerks in the numerous warehouses and in the endless corridors of the Central de Abasto. But not only there: recently-arrived Haitian immigrants have found work in flea markets, grocery stores and food trucks across the city. …
“’There are no jobs, we don’t have a president, nor do we have peace. What else can we do other than get out of there?’ laments Edith Ossias, 35, while telling EL PAÍS about the reasons why she left her native Cap-Haïtien to settle in Mexico City. Here, she works part-time in Mrs. Chole’s streetside kitchen, inside the cavernous La Merced market, a concrete hulk embedded in the city. It was declared a world heritage site by UNESCO in 1987. This is the same market where, in the late-19th and early-20th century, thousands of Spanish, Jewish and Lebanese migrants arrived to work and make a living. Haitians are doing the same today, with Cubans and Venezuelans following suit, albeit to a lesser extent.”
ICE is detaining more than 36,000 people. In addition, more than 183,000 non-detained migrants are electronically monitored, with ankle monitors, smart phones and smartwatches.
[DocumentedNY] “It’s important to note that out of the total of 36,931 individuals that ICE is detaining, 23,745 —or 64.3% — had no criminal record. Additionally, many others had only minor offenses, including traffic violations.”
Immigration news 