All posts tagged Immigration (U.S.)

U.S. Immigration: Lacking Lawyers, Newcomers Join the Undocumented

By Dennis Stinchcomb

Immigration court backlog

Pending cases from the Northern Triangle in U.S. immigration courts. These cases now account for over 53% of the total backlog. / Note: FY 2018 data is through July 31. / Data source: TRAC, “Immigration Court Backlog Tool,” http://trac.syr.edu/phptools/immigration/court_backlog/.

As Central Americans swell the backlog of cases in U.S. immigration courts, the tens of thousands of them who do not have lawyers are joining the ranks of the country’s undocumented population.

  • The immigration court system lacks the resources to keep pace with the influx of unaccompanied children and families from the “Northern Triangle” countries of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. The backlog of cases has more than doubled since 2013 – from 350,000 to over 764,000 as of August – with cases involving people from these three countries now accounting for more than half of them.  The wait for a hearing is now several years, and pro bono or low-cost attorneys are overburdened.
  • Many thousands of other newcomers – lacking information and the ability to overcome linguistic and cultural barriers and fear – are not looking for legal assistance, and they remain unaware that representation is critical to their chances of legally staying in the United States. Migrants without an attorney are far less likely to appear in court, and many – nearly 40 percent (or 103,000) of all Central Americans whose cases were filed in 2013-17 and have been decided– are ordered deported “in absentia” just for failing to appear at a scheduled hearing.  Immigrants with an outstanding removal order who are apprehended are subject to expedited deportation without judicial review, meaning that – again, without a lawyer – they will be returned to their home countries without ever having the legal merit of their claims evaluated.

Nonprofit community-based organizations across the country are mobilizing resources – often in collaboration with local governments and pro bono partners – to address these people’s legal needs, but a report* by CLALS reveals that access to counsel varies widely.

  • Access remains inadequate even in large receiving destinations like the Washington, DC, metropolitan area, where robust legal service infrastructures have developed in response to decades of immigration. In less traditional destinations, like North and South Carolina, only around a quarter of juveniles are represented in immigration proceedings.  In addition to geographical disparities, newcomers face differing odds of securing an attorney depending on their nationality.  Less than half of Central American minors nationwide have an attorney.  Based on a review of decided cases initiated in 2013-17, Salvadoran juveniles were more than twice as likely to be represented than their Guatemalan and Honduran counterparts, probably a reflection of the extent their communities are organized.

President Trump is justified in claiming that the immigration courts are inefficient – cases take an average of almost two years – but his proposal (tweeted on June 24) is to restore “Law and Order” and to “immediately, with no Judges or Court Cases, bring [migrants] back from where they came.”  His deeper dissatisfaction appears to be with a legal process that requires the impartial application of U.S. law – which for the majority of Central Americans fortunate enough to have an attorney results in a grant of legal status.  While this outcome may be unacceptable to the president, many localities across the United States have recognized the social and economic costs of destabilizing families and communities, and of depriving immigrant community members of due process.  Trump may hope that denying due process will dissuade individuals from entering or remaining in the United States, but the crisis in the U.S. immigration adjudication system is likely to remain serious, and tens or even hundreds of thousands more newcomers are likely to join the millions of immigrants already living in the shadows.

October 16, 2018

*The full report, “Newcomer Central American Immigrants’ Access to Legal Services,” is available for download here.  No registration is necessary.  The report is the first in a series generated as part of the project by CLALS in collaboration with the University of Houston, “The Impact of Central American Child and Family Migration on U.S. Communities,” led by Eric Hershberg and Jodi Berger Cardoso.

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by clalsstaff on October 16, 2018  •  Permalink
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U.S. Immigration Policy: New Obstacles to Asylum

By Jayesh Rathod*

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions. / Glenn Fawcett / U.S. Customs and Border Patrol / Flickr / Creative Commons

The Trump administration’s decision to reverse established U.S. policy to grant asylum to certain victims of domestic violence increases the importance of – and challenges to – experts called on to demonstrate the credible threat applicants face if denied asylum and deported.  U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions on June 11 issued the opinion, which rescinded precedent that had paved the way for survivors of such violence to receive asylum.  More generally, the case – known as Matter of A-B- – creates additional legal roadblocks for asylum applicants who fear harm at the hands of private (non-state) actors, such as gangs and intimate partners.

  • Federal regulations permit the Attorney General to refer immigration cases to himself for decision, in order to revisit a decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) and issue a new opinion that creates binding nationwide precedent. Sessions has made frequent use of this special procedure, certifying four cases to himself since the beginning of the year.  Each of these cases is poised to limit the rights and protections afforded to asylum seekers and others facing removal proceedings.  For example, Sessions vacated the BIA’s decision in Matter of E-F-H-L-, which had held that asylum applicants are entitled to a full merits hearing, including the opportunity to present oral testimony. The vacatur opens the door to summary denials by Immigration Judges.

In Matter of A-B-, Sessions explicitly overruled the BIA’s 2014 decision in Matter of A-R-C-G-, which provided a legal road map for asylum-seekers fleeing domestic and gang violence.  Under applicable case law, an applicant – such as a domestic violence survivor or target of gang violence – who fears persecution by a private actor may qualify for asylum, provided they can prove that their home country government is “unable or unwilling” to control the private actor.

  • Courts had previously expressed distinct views on how to interpret this standard, yet most embraced a plain-language reading of “unable or unwilling.” In Matter of A-B-, however, Sessions – in language that many legal scholars judge to be meandering and slightly inconsistent – suggests applicants must meet a higher standard and show “that the government condoned the private actions,” that those actions “can be attributed to the government,” or that the government “demonstrated a complete helplessness to protect the victims.”  Sessions opines that “[n]o country provides its citizens with complete security from private criminal activity,” implying that deficiencies in law enforcement efforts will not necessarily translate into a successful asylum claim.

The unclear language in Matter of A-B- has left some wondering about the precise legal standard that is now in place.  What is certain, however, is that Matter of A-B- presents a smorgasbord of reasons for skeptical immigration judges to deny asylum claims from the Northern Triangle of Central America.  While a CLALS-hosted workshop underscored that country conditions evidence has always been critical to these cases, adjudicators will now pay even closer attention to country experts, and will demand more evidence regarding efforts by home country governments to control private violence, and of the relationship between those governments and private actors.

  • The new requirements stack the deck against asylum-seekers. The governments in the Northern Triangle of Central America – with Washington’s strong financial and political support – have long argued they’re making efforts to curb gang violence.  Before Matter of A-B-, the “unable or unwilling” standard allowed asylum claims to succeed while permitting these governments to save face under the theory that they were trying, albeit imperfectly, to control violent private actors.  By demanding even more unfavorable evidence regarding these home country governments, Matter of A-B- sets up a likely conflict between the legal standard for asylum and the preferred messaging of those governments and the Trump administration.  Facing an array of entrenched interests, it will be difficult for country experts to show that governments commit or condone the violence against asylum-seekers or that authorities are “completely helpless” to protect victims.

July 10, 2018

* Jayesh Rathod is a professor at the Washington College of Law and founding director of the school’s Immigrant Justice Clinic.

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by clalsstaff on July 10, 2018  •  Permalink
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U.S.-Latin America: “Zero Tolerance” Makes Zero Progress

By Ernesto Castañeda *

Children and adults stand in a line

Central American migrant children and their parents. / Pride Immigration Law Firm PLLC / Wikimedia

U.S. President Donald Trump’s family separation policies, despite his June 20 executive action ending them, will have long-term negative consequences and will do nothing to stem the flow of migrants into the United States.

  • Hundreds of families remain separated. Families are detained indefinitely for applying for asylum or crossing into the United States.  Political outrage in the United States may be new, but these policies are not.  Millions of families have been separated across U.S. borders for many years.  After growing up without their parents, children who did not originally accompany migrating parents often attempt to reunify with them in the United States, resulting in the increase of unaccompanied minors that we have seen since 2014 and the surge in violence in Central America.
  • The Trump Administration’s policies fail to address the underlying causes of migration – violence, impunity, corruption, and poverty in sending countries and high U.S. demand for low-cost workers – which show no sign of abating. Many Mexicans and Central Americans are fleeing kidnappings, extortions, and death threats as they explain during credible-threat interviews that give them valid claims for asylum.  U.S.-backed militarized responses to drug trafficking have produced much of the violence and corruption in Mexico and Central America, generating asylum-seekers.  Beyond the traditional economic and social reasons, many recent immigrants are escaping violence, as they did during the Mexican Revolution and the political violence in Central America in the 1980s.

Family separation and the detention of unaccompanied minors in shelters are not new practices either.  What was new in recent months was the separation of families that come to the United States seeking asylum.

  • These forced separations cause the children lifelong trauma. The American Psychiatric Association recently stated that “the evidence is clear that this level of trauma also results in serious medical and health consequences for these children and their caregivers.”  Separation inflicts trauma on adults too; parents suffer from being away from their children due to their decision to migrate.

The logic behind “zero tolerance” is to discourage migration by making conditions as miserable as possible for intending migrants – building psychological walls as well as the physical wall that Trump has pledged to build along the border with Mexico.  By ignoring the underlying causes of these movements of people, this approach is not only cruel but unlikely to be successful.  The concern is also misplaced, despite the increasing visibility of refugees and asylum-seekers in the media, as border apprehensions show a steep downward trend.

  •  The U.S. Congress has so far rejected solutions to the issue of family separation, such as creating larger guest worker programs, strengthening asylum courts, passing the DREAM Act, and demilitarizing responses to drug trafficking. Until the underlying causes of migration are addressed, Washington will be squandering its money prosecuting and causing lasting trauma for innocent children and parents.  Contrary to Trump’s claim that immigrants hurt U.S. culture, my research shows that immigrants are skillful at integrating into American life.  New pathways for legal immigration are the only way ahead to reduce undocumented migration.

 July 3, 2018

 * Ernesto Castañeda is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at American University and author of A Place to Call Home: Immigrant Exclusion and Urban Belonging in New York, Paris, and Barcelona (Stanford, 2018).

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by clalsstaff on July 3, 2018  •  Permalink
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El Salvador: End of TPS Will Challenge Government and Society

By Jayesh Rathod and Dennis Stinchcomb

People wade through knee-deep water

Flooding in Jiquilisco, El Salvador / Global Water Partnership / Flickr / Creative Commons

The Trump Administration’s end of Temporary Protected Status for Salvadorans in the United States next year potentially will drop some 200,000 people into an environment in which basic needs, including personal security, cannot be met.  TPS for Salvadorans was first granted in 2001 after earthquakes caused “environmental disaster and substantial disruption of living conditions,” but subsequent 18-month extensions have been based on a broad range of factors.  On 11 occasions over the past 16 years, Washington has cited the lack of infrastructure, food, housing, and health care and slow economic growth as reasons for continuing TPS for Salvadorans.  Violence, corruption, and impunity as well as limited state capacity to combat them were also key reasons.  Statements by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announcing the policy change this week make limited mention of these factors, but numerous experts, including those contributing to a recent joint report by CLALS, The Washington College of Law, and the Instituto Centroamericano de Estudios Fiscales (ICEFI), concluded that El Salvador remains unable to adequately handle the return of its nationals.

  • Despite a decline in its national homicide rate, El Salvador remains the most violent country in the hemisphere. While the government espouses a narrative of progress, other indicators make clear that improvement on the security front has been limited, if not altogether absent.  Extraordinary security measures have coincided with increased allegations of extrajudicial killings perpetrated by both security officers and civilian self-defense groups.  Citizens’ pursuit of safety has made El Salvador the second-ranking country in the world of new displacements relative to population size.  Widespread corruption and weak rule of law contribute to impunity and abuse.
  • El Salvador remains extremely vulnerable to natural disasters – experiencing three major earthquakes since July 2016 and deadly torrential rains throughout 2017. El Salvador consistently remains Central America’s slowest growing economy, and under-employment affects more than one quarter of the labor force.  (That percentage will increase to roughly a third if TPS beneficiaries return to their homeland.)  The country has the highest deficit in adequate drinking water in the region.  Six out of 10 families who live there lack adequate housing.

The Salvadoran government is trying to put the best possible face on decision to terminate TPS, which it had previously lobbied against forcefully.  On January 8, the Foreign Ministry expressed “thanks to the government of the United States” for “postponing” the end of TPS for 18 months because it acknowledged the contribution of Salvadorans to the U.S. economy, culture, and society.  The government also thanked various non-governmental actors for supporting the “renewal” of TPS.  In closing, however, the government reiterated its commitment to push “alternatives” in the U.S. Congress that would promote Salvadorans’ “migratory stability” in the United States.

  • Think tanks and humanitarian organizations in Washington have condemned the Trump measure. The Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) said ending TPS is a “senseless and inhumane policy.”  The Inter-American Dialogue notes that the Salvadoran MS-13 gang – one of President Trump’s most-stated enemies – will be a “primary beneficiary.”  Some fear that returnees, because of their perceived wealth, will be targets for extortion and other criminal activity at the hands of gangs.  A number of observers say that the resulting increase in instability in El Salvador will trigger more illegal migration into the United States.

Ending TPS for Salvadorans casts a shadow of uncertainty over the lives of 200,000 law-abiding, tax-paying migrants – half of whom have lived in the United States for more than 20 years and a third of whom have homes with mortgages, according to estimates.  That same uncertainty extends to TPS beneficiaries’ families, which include 192,000 U.S. citizen children. The Salvadoran government’s statement dodges the key issues of whether it can accommodate the influx of returnees and the loss of a significant portion of the roughly $4.5 billion (equivalent to 17 percent of El Salvador’s GDP) they send home each year.  There is no evidence that it can provide even basic protection for the returnees.  The Foreign Ministry’s unctuous thanks for Washington’s “extension” of TPS until the Salvadorans lose their status in 18 months suggests a mysterious confidence that the U.S. Congress will carve out exceptions for its compatriots in the United States.  However desirable that scenario might be, there’s precious little evidence that the U.S. legislature’s current leaders, who have shown support for most of Trump’s anti-migrant agenda, will help avoid the train wreck that Trump has now set in motion.

Click here for an in-depth review published by CLALS, The Washington College of Law, and ICEFI on the rationale behind TPS since 2001 and continuing need for protection.

January 10, 2018

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Mexico: Migrants Getting Political but Not Driving Reform

By Michael S. Danielson*

A large group of people gathers in an airport.

Returning Mexican migrants are greeted upon their arrival in Mexico by Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto. / Presidencia de la República Mexicana / Flickr / Creative Commons

Mexican migrants who currently live in the United States or have returned home after spending many years abroad have become an important social and political constituency in the Mexican polity, but they do not uniformly enhance local democracy.  A growing body of research indicates that migrants affect the politics of their home towns and home countries through both direct and indirect channels.  Their departure releases pressure on prevailing authorities to reform, and the prospect of future migration causes citizens to disengage from the political process.  Friendships, alliances, and other contacts allow migrants to become intimately involved in their home communities from abroad as they communicate their attitudes and ideologies among themselves and friends and relatives back home.  Returning home with accumulated social, political, and economic capital also enables them to become influential leaders there.

  • Analysis of the municipalities to which U.S.-based migrants provide financial support, for example, shows that migrants are more likely to contribute where migrant civil society has become more deeply institutionalized at the state level and in municipalities and states with longer histories of migration.
  • A survey of more than 400 mayors in Oaxaca shows that migrants returning to their home communities who become mayors are more likely to be members of the popular classes than their non-migrant counterparts, suggesting that migration might be a pathway to power for non-elite individuals. But the same data also show that migrant mayors are just as likely to align with dominant political groups as with opponents of the status quo, suggesting the limits of their transformative and democratizing potential.

Field research shows different outcomes in different states.  In Oaxaca – where the exclusion of migrants from influence has alienated them from the governing party (an attitude further fueled by their experiences of exploitation and resistance as migrants in Mexico and California) – returnees tend to enter the political fray in opposition to dominant powers.  In contrast, the returning migrants who have been most influential in the states of Guanajuato and Zacatecas have tended to be mobilized by and act in support of the dominant parties in their states.  The institutionalization of the state-migrant relationship in these states facilitates migrant social and political engagement with governing parties.

  • Ethnographic data in 12 high-migration municipalities in Oaxaca, Guanajuato, and Zacatecas indicate, moreover, that the political engagement of returning migrants resulted in increased political competition that, in all but one case, caused factionalism and a divided opposition at best and deep, violent social conflict at worst. In the remaining six municipalities, dominant political actors either incorporated migrants into the prevailing system by establishing neocorporatist equilibria or successfully blocked the influence of migrant actors all together, despite high levels of migration.

Returning migrants’ political influence will only increase.  The historic flow – some 16 million Mexicans entered the United States in the 50 years since 1965 – has been reversed, as more migrants are returning to Mexico than entering the United States.  The economic, social, cultural, and political ties forged between communities on both sides of the border are growing, and the futures of the two countries are more intertwined than ever.  The economic and social importance of migration in some municipalities helps migrant political actors gain influence back home, and it can open up a pathway to local power for historically excluded social groups, even if – as in the cases that I have examined – this influence has only rarely translated into fundamental changes in the way that politics are done.  The engagement of millions of Mexican migrants in their home towns has not resulted in thousands of political earthquakes, but rather the Mexican political system is incorporating these new actors without instituting fundamental changes to the way that politics are done.

 January 4, 2018

*Michael S. Danielson is CLALS Research Fellow and Visiting Professor at the University of California Washington DC Program.  His new book, Emigrants Get Political: Mexican Migrants Engage Their Home Towns, was published by Oxford University Press.  He has also participated in CLALS’ North America Research Initiative as a Pastor Scholar.

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by clalsstaff on January 4, 2018  •  Permalink
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Trump’s Wall Funding Proposal Violates Conservative Principles

By Ezra Rosser*

A large border fence and the blue sky as seen from a street in California

A portion of the existing border fence between Mexico and the United States in California. / Rey Perezoso / Flickr / Creative Commons

More than two years after U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump first boasted that he would “build a great, great wall on our southern border and … make Mexico pay for that wall,” his main proposal to fund it appears to remain blocking transnational remittances  – in contradiction of neoliberal capitalist principles he embraces.  In a letter that now-President Trump sent last month to U.S. House and Senate Leaders he said the border wall was necessary to protect “our national security and public safety” because the “porous southern border … is exploited by drug traffickers and criminal cartels.”  He was ambiguous, however, about who was going to pay for the wall, simply arguing that the country must “ensure funding for the southern border wall and associated infrastructure.”  Trump offered to make a deal to protect the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program – the “Dreamers” – only if Congress passed harsh immigration policies and funded the wall.

  • Under pressure during the campaign to explain how he would make Mexico pay for the wall, Trump claimed he could hold remittances sent by Mexican immigrants to family members in Mexico hostage until Mexico agreed to pay. President Obama noted at the time that the implications of ending immigrant remittances would be “enormous,” difficult to implement, and likely push more people to leave Mexico for the United States.  Senders would likely resort to informal channels, and Trump’s proposed selective taxation of money sent to Mexico would raise legal issues because of the discriminatory nature of such a program.
  • Trump has been quietly backing away from his repeated campaign promise to make Mexico pay. When Mexican President Peña Nieto told him in a phone call last January that “my position has been and will continue to be very firm saying that Mexico cannot pay for that wall,” Trump responded with much less bluster.  He noted simply that “you cannot say that to the press.  The press is going to go with that and I cannot live with that.”  This acknowledgement that the issue was largely about political optics suggested that Trump knew that, in the memorable words of former Mexican President Vicente Fox, Mexico was “not going to pay for that f***ing wall.”

Trump has not withdrawn, however, his threat to block remittances.  Such a policy would cause hardship for millions; most remittances are spent on basic necessities such as food.  But by undermining the free flow of capital, a core feature of our modern globalized world, Trump is also attacking a central component of neoliberal capitalism.  Trump also takes positions that reflect anti-globalization and protectionism – such as his characterization of NAFTA as the “the worst trade deal ever signed in the history of our country” and his claim that globalization “left millions of our workers with nothing but poverty and heartache” – but tying capital flows with labor flows would arguably turn the values of the global order on their head.

  • The notion that there is an imbalance in the treatment of workers and capital is ordinarily associated with the radical left. Harvard Law Professor Roberto Mangabeira Unger, for example, highlighted this imbalance in his 1998 book, Democracy Realized: The Progressive Alternative, in which he wrote, “The architects of the new world economic order have built a system in which capital and goods can roam the world while labor remains imprisoned in the nation-state or in blocs of relatively homogeneous nation-states.”  For Trump and other Republicans, linking remittances and immigration would normally be anathema.  If the U.S. Congress decides not to fund the wall, we may discover that taxing cash transfers may be an autocratic strategy that crosses ideological lines.

 November 27, 2017

* Ezra Rosser is Professor of Law at the Washington College of Law, where he has taught Property, Federal Indian Law, Poverty Law, Land Use, and Housing Law.

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Migrants Make Family Back Home Critical of Government

By Clarisa Pérez-Armendáriz and David Crow*

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A mural depicting the transnational migrant experience. / Max Herman / Flickr / Creative Commons

Latin American citizens who discuss politics and belong to a transnational household – a household in which at least one member lives abroad – are more critical of their democracy than those who discuss politics but have no household members abroad.  In our recently published report, we use data from 2006-08 Americas Barometer surveys in 20 Latin American countries to demonstrate that among transnational household members (THMs) with an emigrant living in the United States, assessments of how democratic their country is, satisfaction with their country’s currently existing democracy, and pride in their democratic system all decline as discussions about politics become more frequent.

THMs talk about politics with their emigrant household members across international borders.  When they hear about the political and social system in the U.S., they become more aware that they have reason to be critical of their system’s performance, and judge their own democracy more harshly.  Skeptics counter that migrants and their children – particularly ethnoracial minorities – are marginalized, second-class members of receiving societies, which would logically alter the impact of their communications with THMs.  Public opinion polls show, however, that immigrants embrace and adopt their host country’s political beliefs and behaviors within as little as two years and that their social, political, and religious organizations give them a feeling of civic engagement they did not have back home.  Furthermore, even when conditions abroad are difficult, civil liberty protections in the U.S. enable immigrants to mobilize politically and to demonstrate a greater sense of personal efficacy – two traits that THMs respect.

  • Even absent cross-border political discussions, having a household member abroad shifts THMs’ sense of political community to include co-nationals living both at home and abroad. In turn, THMs expect their government to deliver the goods of democracy to its citizens wherever they live.  Data from the Mexico, the Americas, and the World survey in 2014 provide initial support for this claim.  Among Mexican THMs, 65 percent described “protecting nationals abroad” as a very important foreign policy objective, compared to 52.8 percent of non-THMs.  Furthermore, this policy emphasis indirectly influenced negatively their feelings toward President Enrique Peña Nieto, giving him a slightly lower “thermometer score.”
  • To the extent that THMs’ everyday talk (with other THMs or non-THMs living in Latin America) about politics revolves around this transnational sense of community (in contrast to the narrower national identity of non-THMs) THMs become aware that they have even more reasons to be critical of their government’s performance than do fellow citizens without migrant connections. Our analysis of this rests entirely on the case of Mexico, but we believe it holds elsewhere in Latin America since, of all the countries in the region, Mexico provides the most extensive range of services to its citizens abroad.

The 2006-08 Americas Barometer data that we used predates major shifts in U.S. immigration policy during President Obama’s term and, in particular, the hard shift in rhetoric, roundups of undocumented migrants, and deportations during these first months of the Trump Administration.  The sense of political efficacy that democratic rights to mobilize and protest produces among immigrants may decline in impact if, as reported, migrants are keeping a low profile out of fear of capture or harassment.

July 5, 2017

 *Clarisa Pérez-Armendáriz is an Assistant Professor at Santa Clara University. Her research, which focuses on how immigrants influence politics in their origin countries, has appeared in Comparative Political Studies and Studies in Comparative International Development.  She is also a participant in the Robert A. Pastor North America Research Initiative.

*David Crow is an Associate Professor of International Studies at CIDE (Mexico City). He is co-PI (and past director) of the Americas and the World survey on international relations and the Human Rights Perceptions Polls, and formerly Associate Director of the Survey Research Center at UC Riverside.  His research has appeared in Comparative Politics, Comparative Political Studies, Political Psychology, Human Rights Quarterly, and elsewhere.

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Haiti: Yet More Challenges Ahead for President Moïse

By Emma Fawcett*

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A group of peacekeepers from the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) prepare for departure from the island. / UN Photo / Isaac Billy / Flickr / Creative Commons

Haiti’s new president, Jovenel Moïse, has helped the country overcome the long political crisis that preceded his election, but he faces losing two long-running forms of support from the international community.  MINUSTAH, the UN peacekeeping operation that has been in place for 13 years – successor to similar missions since 1994 – will depart this autumn, necessitating an expansion in Haiti’s domestic police force.  The U.S. Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program, providing temporary legal residency to some 58,000 Haitians in the United States since the 2010 earthquake, appears likely to end in January 2018.

  • MINUSTAH has long been the backbone of Haitian internal security, for which Haiti’s own forces lack competence and credibility. The UN’s demobilization began in May, when units from Chile, Uruguay, and Peru returned home.  Brazilian units remain in the country to oversee the return of equipment and disassembly of base facilities.  Operations will officially cease on October 15.  MINUSTAH is one of the United Nation’s longest running peacekeeping missions, and its loss will have a significant impact even though its operations have been plagued by tragic (and criminal) missteps.  It was responsible for bringing cholera to Haiti; the epidemic has since killed more than 10,000 people.  In addition, an Associated Press investigation revealed nearly 2,000 accounts of sexual abuse and exploitation by UN peacekeepers, including about 300 perpetrated against minors.  While the UN has a “zero tolerance” policy against sexual exploitation, it does not have the power to prosecute perpetrators – and holding troops accountable is the responsibility of their home governments.  Sri Lanka has declined to investigate more than 100 of its soldiers, who were sent home in 2007 after sexual abuse allegations.
  • The Haitian government requested an 18-month extension to the TPS program, but U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security John F. Kelly opted to extend by just six months. While Kelly said the program will be reevaluated before the current extension expires, his statement has effectively signaled the end of the program, noting that the short extension “should allow Haitian TPS recipients … time to attain travel documents and make other necessary arrangements for their ultimate departure from the United States” and give the Haitian government time to prepare for their repatriation.  The Haitian government has argued that it is ill equipped to manage an influx of returnees, and that the remittances provided by those in the TPS program are vital to Haiti’s continued recovery.

More than seven years after the deadly earthquake, Haiti’s recovery remains elusive, and the departure of MINUSTAH and potential end of the TPS program portend a rocky road ahead for a new government that is just barely getting some traction.  The end of both forms of support for Haiti represent donor fatigue – not Haitian achievement of benchmarks of progress.  Port-au-Prince couldn’t reasonably expect the UN to continue providing it security support for another 20 years, but Moïse is about to bear the brunt of series of predecessors who failed to prepare the nation for the UN’s departure.  The support Haiti has received from the international community has always fallen short of promises; nearly $10 billion in pledges for post-earthquake assistance never materialized.  But donors also point out that Haiti has often failed to uphold its end of the bargain; the protracted election crisis caused many to withdraw budgetary support.  While both the UN peacekeeping mission and U.S. immigration policy have been at times poorly executed, their absence will be a major blow, if nothing else because changes on both fronts are proof that Haiti is no longer anyone’s priority.  Moïse’s administration has much to tackle – bolstering the national police force and preparing for the arrival of potentially tens of thousands of TPS returnees without adequate resources for either task – while he addresses 14 percent inflation and a bloated civil service.  Looking for homegrown solutions would be a huge challenge for any country, especially one struggling with as many fundamentals as Haiti.

May 31, 2017

* Emma Fawcett is an Adjunct Professorial Lecturer at American University and a monitoring and evaluation specialist with an international NGO.  Her doctoral thesis focused on the political economy of tourism and development in four Caribbean countries: Haiti, Dominican Republic, Cuba, and the Mexican Caribbean.

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by clalsstaff on May 31, 2017  •  Permalink
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Posted by clalsstaff on May 31, 2017

https://aulablog.net/2017/05/31/haiti-yet-more-challenges-ahead-for-president-moise/

Mexico: Racing Against Trump’s Immigration Crackdown

By Carlos Díaz Barriga*

Border crossing Mex-US

Southwest border crossing. / U.S. Customs and Border Protection / Flickr / Creative Commons

U.S. President Donald Trump’s failure in his first 100 days to fulfill his most aggressive campaign promises affecting bilateral relations may have calmed nerves in Mexico, but the Peña Nieto Administration is moving ahead with efforts to mitigate the impact of thousands of returning immigrants.  Trump apparently has given up on making Mexico pay for his proposed border wall, and the U.S. Congress doesn’t want to foot the bill either.  He has also toned down his threats to pull out of NAFTA – “the worst trade deal ever” – and seems to be edging toward a more modest renegotiation.  But one pledge the Administration seems eager to meet is ramping up deportations of undocumented immigrants from Mexico.  Trump is not immediately deporting the millions of “bad hombres,” as he initially promised, but he is steadily deporting thousands, including many who do not have criminal records in the U.S.  There are even stories of Trump supporters shocked at the deportation of law-abiding and tax-paying business owners.  Moreover, while he assured Dreamers – youths brought to the United States as children – to “rest easy,” there are reports of U.S. immigration detaining some of these working and tax-paying youth.

The threat of mass deportations involving millions still looms large, and Trump’s unpredictability to settle on a course of action is increasing pressure on Mexican officials to act fast to mitigate the impact of the returning immigrants.

  • At its consulates in the United States, the government is actively helping those at risk of being deported, providing legal services to ensure due process in locales as far-ranging as Indianapolis and New Orleans. Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray continues to confidently declare that Mexico will fight for immigrants and stand up to U.S. immigration authorities.  (He has also cast it as a human rights issue, spurring accusations of hypocrisy from critics concerned about Mexico’s treatment of Central American migrants.)
  • President Peña Nieto has enacted a reform to the General Law of Public Education facilitating Dreamers’ entry into Mexico’s education system, accrediting their U.S. education and helping those without proper Mexican documentation. Critics have called his public appearance with deportees opportunistic, a ploy to get much-needed positive media coverage, but the measures like those in education have real benefit for returnees.
  • Specific industries in Mexico are looking for specialized workers in the returning immigrants. The Mexican Association of Armored Vehicles (AMBA) estimated the availability of 50,000 thousand jobs for deportees in the areas of private security, armored car manufacturing, and transportation of valuables.  As violent crimes have risen again in Mexico, this industry is in need of workers.  Call centers are also actively recruiting.  Their only requisite is fluency in English; no other experience is necessary.

Many Mexicans’ perception of Trump as unpredictable and erratic tempers any optimism about bilateral relations even though Foreign Minister Videgaray seems to have established a viable dialogue with Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.  The return of the deported immigrants is an area in which the government is being given a second opportunity to show compassion for citizens.  The migrants left Mexico for concrete reasons, however, and some are questioning whether Peña Nieto’s administration will be able to address them.  Providing legal assistance to those at risk of deportation and facilitating education for Dreamers are important gestures, but they do not offer a viable long-term strategy.  The bigger picture is still suddenly having millions of Mexicans back in the country with no job prospects.  Trump’s delays on the border wall and mass deportations give the Mexican government time to come up with effective solutions, but such a massive disruption, especially coupled with the uncertainty over the future of NAFTA and the Mexican economy, is probably too much for any government to handle.

May 12, 2017

* Carlos Díaz Barriga is a CLALS Graduate Fellow.

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by clalsstaff on May 12, 2017  •  Permalink
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Posted by clalsstaff on May 12, 2017

https://aulablog.net/2017/05/12/mexico-racing-against-trumps-immigration-crackdown/

U.S. Immigration Policy Propels an Invigorated Sanctuary Movement

By Alexandra Délano Alonso*

SANCTUARY_SYMBOL+SSS_BLACK

A new logo for the sanctuary movement. / Public Domain

The Trump administration’s expansion of an already enlarged deportation apparatus and its attempt to establish a ban against immigrants from targeted countries has intensified the Sanctuary Movement and driven it to explore new ways of protecting undocumented migrants and other groups that are under attack.  The new policies have generated a wave of protests and institutional responses from activists, lawyers, and immigrant-serving organizations as well as in higher education across the country.  Just days after the November election, hundreds of thousands of students, faculty, and staff at over 190 schools, colleges, and universities supported petitions calling on their respective administrations to declare their campuses sanctuaries.  The campaigns want schools to commit to withhold information from immigration enforcement authorities and disallow the presence of those authorities on campus without a court order or warrant, as well as establish institutional support to ensure that students with precarious migration status have access to the resources they need.  At the same time, there are almost three hundred sanctuary cities, counties, and states, which are at the center of Trump’s promises to cut federal funding to any local or state government that adopts this stance of defiance.  Republican Members of Congress in January introduced a bill (HR 483) to cut funding to universities that declare sanctuary.

  • The Sanctuary Movement has historical roots. In the 1980s, 400 religious congregations around the United States helped refugees from Central American wars enter the country.  In addition to challenging discriminatory U.S. immigration practices, the movement condemned U.S. support for the governments prosecuting those wars.  Years of effort led to legislation granting Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to Central American refugees.
  • More recently, a New Sanctuary Movement emerged in 2007 in response to mass deportations of undocumented immigrants. It emphasized raising public awareness about the individual lives at stake and pressing for legislative reform.  Today’s resistance is an outgrowth of the George W.  Bush and Barack Obama Administrations’ raids, deporting almost 3 million individuals, and the massive immigrant detention system that they expanded.

Many cities, universities, and NGOs have backed away from the concept of sanctuary in response to Trump’s threats, arguing that the risk of losing federal funding or of putting themselves in the spotlight is too high, or that the sanctuary concept promises more than it can really offer.  As Lewis and Clark College Professor Elliot Young has written, “Sanctuary is an aspiration, a statement of values rather than a statement of fact.”  Indeed, one of the arguments against the proclamation of sanctuary by universities is the misunderstanding of the term:  The undocumented community and its defenders have varied interpretations of what it means in practice, whereas the legal limitations on what can be done in the face of a court order are very clear.  Yet, the ambiguity of the term leaves a space for creative interpretation and should be seen as an opportunity rather than a limitation.

  • Most universities, including my own, The New School, have issued a standard statement that they will not share information or cooperate with immigration authorities without a court order, but they have shied away from using the term sanctuary – even though the term is a significant form of resistance to unjust policies, a moral stance, and a message of solidarity to the larger university community.

Reviving the concept of sanctuary in this political context provides an opportunity to open a debate about the rights and protections that marginalized groups need, and how universities and other institutions that have joined the sanctuary movement in the last months (restaurants, art spaces, among others) can support and extend it.  The time we are living in requires us to reexamine existing frameworks and concepts and mobilize them in effective ways when the principles and values we stand for are under attack.  Declarations of sanctuary campus send a clear message of support to vulnerable individuals within the community.  They also nurture transnational networks of solidarity – not just through churches, shelters, and civil society groups – but also including universities in Mexico, Central America, and other countries, to help individuals returning to their origin countries (deported or voluntarily) live better lives, including overcoming significant barriers to continuing their education. Migrants’ need and right to protection and education does not end when they cross the border, and universities’ ability to help them begins by taking a stance and making our campuses accessible, safe and open; in other words, making them sanctuary.

April 18, 2017

* Alexandra Délano Alonso is an Assistant Professor of Global Studies at The New School.  She is the author of Mexico and Its Diaspora in the United States: Policies of Emigration since 1848 (Cambridge University Press, 2011) and co-editor of Borders and the Politics of Mourning (Social Research, 2016) with Benjamin Nienass. She is also a participant in the Robert A. Pastor North America Research Initiative.

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by clalsstaff on April 18, 2017  •  Permalink
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Posted by clalsstaff on April 18, 2017

https://aulablog.net/2017/04/18/u-s-immigration-policy-propels-an-invigorated-sanctuary-movement/

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