In today’s immigration news: Two-thirds of judges’ rulings in asylum cases grant protection; more roadblocks ahead for asylum seekers; Minnesota’s Driver’s Licenses for All implementation; more.
Seeking asylum is legal. U.S. law allows asylum seekers to apply for safe haven regardless of how they entered the country. Immigration opponents say that most asylum seekers are not really facing persecution, that their claims are not real. The evidence of the past ten years says they are wrong. When asylum seekers manage to get a day in court, most of them are found deserving of protection.
[Syracuse University TRAC] “The latest Immigrant Court records show that over the past decade (FY 2014 to April 2024) Immigration Judges have adjudicated just over one million removal cases in which the immigrant filed an asylum application. Out of these 1,047,134 cases, Judges determined that 685,956 immigrants were legally entitled to remain in the United States because they merited asylum or another form of relief from deportation. Another 332,552 immigrants were ordered removed, and an additional 28,626 immigrants were issued voluntary departure orders. Thus, in total, only about a third (34%) of immigrants in removal proceedings who filed asylum applications were ordered deported while two-thirds (66%) were allowed to remain in the country. …
“Most of the thousands of immigrants seeking asylum who have been ordered deported by Immigration Judges have not had any actual Court hearing on their asylum claims. This is due in large part because they have not been able to obtain legal representation. Thus, we do not know how many of these in fact had legally valid asylum claims.”
The Biden administration announced new plans to speed up asylum hearings for new arrivals. The aim is to reach a decision in cases of single adults who have crossed the border without authorization and are headed for Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, or New York City.
[CNN] “Thursday’s announcement is reminiscent of a similar move targeting migrant families in 2021 — and previous attempts to quickly hear cases under the Obama and Trump administrations. Immigrant advocates and attorneys have previously raised concerns over rushing asylum cases and undermining due process. …
“Around 10 immigration judges have been assigned to start working on these dockets, as soon as this week, according to another administration official.”
Applying for asylum is extremely complicated. Asylum seekers who have legal representation have a far better chance of presenting their cases in the format the law requires and getting asylum. Those who do not have lawyers are likely to fail. Finding an immigration attorney is harder now than in past years.
[New York Times] “Without professional legal help, many asylum seekers like the Duráns with legitimate claims face a real risk of deportation back to their home countries, where many of them face potential arrest, assault or even death.
“Only about 30 percent of migrants are now able to find a lawyer to represent them in legal proceedings, compared with 65 percent five years ago, according to an analysis by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a research group at Syracuse University. …
“Migrants who must hire a lawyer can pay anywhere from $1,000 to $7,000 to file an application for asylum, and much more for what may be years of court appearances and other filings. Ms. Grenier said it often took an experienced lawyer up to 75 hours just to prepare an asylum application.”
In the face of legal wrangling and political name-calling, the real people seeking asylum sometimes get lost. One Chinese asylum seeker’s story of finding a haven of religious freedom in New York City reminds us of what is at stake.
[CNN] “A simple act of walking into a mosque with his wife and two children in New York City is what made the past six months of struggle worth it for Ye Chengxiang – even if not everyone is celebrating his arrival.
“’It’s only been over two months here, but we can feel the spirit of freedom, inclusiveness,and equality,’ he said over a bowl of noodles. It was his only day off from working 12-hour shifts at a Chinese restaurant in New York City.
“The slim former restaurant owner left China last October. The ruling Communist Party’s crackdown on his Hui Muslim ethnic group and growing restrictions on personal life gave his family no choice, he says. ‘When I was in China, I had a pent-up feeling in my heart,’ he said of living as a Muslim in China, where his children were banned from entering a mosque. …
“Recently, growing restrictions on freedoms in China and its stuttering economy have led to this new influx of disillusioned Chinese citizens. More than 37,000 Chinese citizens were picked up by law enforcement crossing illegally from Mexico in 2023, US government data shows. That’s up from around 3,800 people the year before, and many of them were headed to New York City, according to experts.”
And in other news
San Diego County in California is the new busiest area for border crossings by asylum seekers from around the world. As U.S. and Mexican border enforcement intensifies in one place, border crossings shift to other places. That kind of shift has been happening for decades. What’s new is the increasing diversification of migrants, with more coming from around the world.
[Los Angeles Times] “At dawn came a dozen men, women and children from Nepal. Following in the twilight was a cluster of families from Peru, Ecuador and Colombia, along with half a dozen Chinese men.
“Behind them were men from India and couples from Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan carrying infants.
“Scattered migrants kept arriving at the top of a steep dirt road to surrender to U.S. border agents in order to claim asylum.
“’I am finally here, in America,’ Justin Agbobli, 30, who had traveled from Togo in West Africa, proclaimed in French. ‘Today is a dream come true!’ …
“Once they cross the border, most migrants these days don’t run from the Border Patrol. They seek out agents to give themselves up to claim asylum — and eventually have a chance at legal residency in the United States. Many are unaware that a Biden administration policy change last year means that people who cross illegally are presumed ineligible for asylum.”
In the first six months of Drivers Licenses for All, the number of people taking the written driver’s license test in Minnesota increased by 44 percent. The biggest increase was in people taking the Spanish language test, with smaller increases in Vietnamese, Somali and Hmong language tests.
[MPR] “The Driver’s License for All law was backed by law enforcement, faith and business groups and immigrant rights advocates, who maintained it would improve public safety by ensuring that all drivers are licensed and insured.
“’The positive thing about seeing an increase in numbers is how many people really want to make sure they are licensed and driving legally, that people see that as an important thing for themselves to do now that they’re able to,’ said Julia Decker, policy director at the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota.”
Migrant farm workers are essential to the nation’s food supply. This week, eight migrant farm workers died and more than 40 were injured when the bus taking them to their day’s work crashed. Their deaths come weeks after six other immigrant workers lost their lives while working on the Francis Scott Key bridge in Baltimore.
[America’s Voice] “[I]mmigrants shouldn’t have to die to have their work recognized. Their essential work should be respected every day.
“This should also be true in Florida, where an estimated “105,759 men and women work in nurseries and crop agriculture statewide over the course of the year,” Rural Neighborhoods said. In 2022, these workers helped make Florida number one in the U.S. in the value of production of bell peppers, sugarcane, tomatoes, and watermelons, just to name a few items. Florida is also one of the top producers of all oranges.
“In fact, before the state’s famous citrus industry was affected by hurricanes and other environmental factors, no matter where in the U.S. you were eating an orange, the overwhelming likelihood was that it was harvested by a farmworker in Florida. …
“But let’s not forget that it’s the farmworkers on the ground, the men and women (and oftentimes children) who, through their sweat, grit, and skilled labor, carry out the backbreaking work that sustains the agricultural industry and feeds the nation, which are critical to that great American comeback. If anyone knows what it’s like to persevere through adversity, it’s an immigrant worker.”
In a new book, Silky Shah outlines the case for abolition of immigrant detention. The case of Jesse Jerome Dean epitomizes the argument against immigrant detention.
[Teen Vogue] “On December 31, 2020, in the waning days of the Trump administration, a 58-year-old man from The Bahamas named Jesse Jerome Dean Jr. was set to be released from prison. Dean had been arrested and charged with drug trafficking in Florida in 1995, but he maintained his innocence and refused a plea bargain, which resulted in a thirty-year prison sentence. Over the course of more than two decades of incarceration, Dean was transferred to several federal prisons until he finally ended up at a privately operated immigrant prison in Baldwin, Michigan.
“Upon his release, Dean was looking forward to reuniting with his family in The Bahamas, including his son, who had been only eight years old when his father was first taken into the custody of the US government. But Dean wasn’t a US citizen. Instead of being freed that December day in 2020, he was transferred yet again to a county jail in Battle Creek, Michigan, where Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) rents bed space, to await deportation. During his thirty-five days in ICE custody, Dean’s health deteriorated. He complained twenty-seven times about abdominal pains and lost seventeen pounds. Staff ignored his protests for medical attention. One nurse threatened him with a citation for “interfering with staff duties.” On January 30, 2021, he told medical staff, “I feel like I’m going to die.” And five days later, twenty-six years after he was first imprisoned by the federal government, Dean passed away.”
Speakers at a forum sponsored by Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy said immigration will be at the center of the 2024 political campaign season. The politics of fear continues to draw voter attention.
[CW39] ““It has never happened in the history of Gallup that immigration is the main issue driving people to the polls for multiple months in a row. The second issue, the economy, isn’t even close. This is very much an immigration election, and the stakes could not be higher,” said Jeremy Robbins, executive director of the American Immigration Council.
“Almost half of Republicans polled say they’re more concerned about increased immigration than the state of the economy, compared to only 8 percent of Democrats. …
“‘It’s about fear, it’s about anxiety, frustration [….] and instability. Sometimes it’s about, ‘Hold on, why am I not hearing English when I go to the grocery store. This is America. Why am I not able to understand people in my own country?’’ Robbins said. …
“Images of throngs of people crossing the southern border are being “weaponized” by some politicians to motivate the electorate, speakers said. Emotions are getting in the way of a rational debate on how to lawfully take in people fleeing oppression who could help an economy with unfilled jobs.”
Immigration news 