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Although countries in Latin America, led by Mexico, continue to be the source of most of the immigrants applying for entrance at the southern border, the number of immigrants from India, Turkey, Russia, and Romania are all up in year-to-date 2021 as compared to the same period in 2020.

Romania led all countries outside of Latin America with 3,435 people seeking entry to the U.S. so far this year, up from 276 in 2020.

“They are aware that President Biden has promised to treat migrants more humanely than Trump, and there may be a perception of an opportunity arising now to come to the U.S.-Mexico border,” Jessica Bolter, an associate policy analyst of U.S. immigration policy at the Migrant Policy Institute, told Newsweek. Here, migrants attempting to cross into the U.S. from Mexico are detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection on May 21, 2021 in San Luis, Arizona.NICK UT/GETTY IMAGES

“We’re now seeing record numbers,” Jessica Bolter, an associate policy analyst of U.S. immigration policy at the Migrant Policy Institute, told Newsweek. “The main reason for ‘why now’ really has to do with a combination of the economic effects of the pandemic, as well as the messaging emerging, or the narrative emerging, about opportunities at the U.S.-Mexico border.”

As the United States continues down a path of economic and public health recovery, Bolter said America presents itself as a place of opportunity.

“The US, especially in the last six months or so, has really gotten its legs under it and is clearly on a pathway to recovery, both economically and health-wise,” Bolter said. “So, I think that maybe the lack of opportunity in home countries compared with the growing opportunities in the U.S. can’t be understated.”

She said the economic, social, and health effects of the pandemic made life even more difficult for people living under challenging circumstances abroad. News continues to circulate characterizing the border as being less hostile under the Biden administration, which Bolter said plays a role in people’s perceptions.

“They are aware that President Biden has promised to treat migrants more humanely than Trump,” Bolter said, “and there may be a perception of an opportunity arising now to come to the U.S.-Mexico border.”

While crossings at the border took their first major jump to nearly 72,000 in October under the Trump administration, President Biden’s increasing of the refugee cap and processing of those enrolled in the Migrant Protection Protocols are a departure from the previous administration’s policies of deterrence.

But there is something more fundamental than a perception of a friendlier America driving the migrant tide, she said.

“The pandemic has kind of exacerbated conditions that have existed in some countries for years, driving people to the U.S.,” Bolter told Newsweek.

Outside of people journeying from Central America, South America, and the Caribbean, Romanians represent the largest demographic encountered by CBP this year. Bolter said many of these Romanians are ethnic Romani, referred pejoratively as Gypsies, who’ve experienced decades of discrimination in both Romania and Europe as a whole, being both enslaved until the 19^th century and murdered during the Holocaust.

Here, a refugee child waits for a security check after crossing the Macedonian border into Serbia on January 29, 2016.ARMEND NIMANI/AFP/GETTY

Given the relatively low numbers of migrants coming from other European and Asian countries, Bolter declined to speculate on the social conditions they may be facing. However, like the Romanians, most Russians were encountered as family units.

Bolter said that migrants fleeing with their families tend to be fleeing hostile political environments.

“Typically single adults tend to be more likely fleeing for more economic reasons,” Bolter said. “When migrants are fleeing as families, they tend to be fleeing more dire conditions and imminent persecution.”

In contrast, most Turks and Indians were encountered as single adults, which she said points toward economic migration. Yet, the economic situations these individuals face look different from both the Central American migrants journeying north and the poorest individuals they’re leaving behind in their home countries.

“Those who can afford flights do tend to have more economic resources available to them,” Bolter told Newsweek. “At the same time, it can almost seem a little counterintuitive, because if they’re coming to the U.S. for economic reasons but can afford the flight over, why do they need to come to the U.S.?”

As a possible explanation, Bolter said that these individuals, given their resources, may feel constrained in their home countries, as they may find their social and political freedoms being abridged. She said they view emigrating to the U.S. as an avenue toward being able to use the skills and resources they might have.

Josiah Heyman, director of the Center for Inter-American and Border Studies at the University of Texas, El Paso, studies human rights at the border. Like Bolter, he told Newsweek these individuals face intense pressures, both economically and politically.

“There they are people who are at high risk and are under pressure,” he said, “pressure in terms of persecution, pressure in terms of economic suffering.”

“When migrants are fleeing as families, they tend to be fleeing more dire conditions and imminent persecution,” Jessica Bolter, an associate policy analyst of U.S. immigration policy at the Migrant Policy Institute, told Newsweek. Here, migrants attempting to cross into the U.S. from Mexico are detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection on May 21, 2021 in San Luis, Arizona.NICK UT/GETTY IMAGES

Heyman said the migrants coming to the U.S.-Mexico border from these non-western hemisphere nations represent a small total of those fleeing these nations. Visas to the U.S., Canada, and Europe are restrictive, so these individuals may need alternative means to reach their destination. Here is where Heyman said human smugglers play a role in directing these migration flows.

Ecuador stands as an important platform for smuggling organizations, Heyman said. It also requires a visa from few countries. Smugglers with connections to Ecuador or similar Central American nations may offer their services and connections to those looking to flee.

While the individuals fleeing may not have originally intended to undertake such a long journey, Heyman said they make the decisions with intention, which may motivate them to fly across the Atlantic, traverse Central America, then through Mexico, and finally to the United States.

“Smugglers get people from unusual locations to this border,” Heyman told Newsweek. “I think people are interested in migrating. They themselves may not be perfectly well informed, but they have some ideas about what they intend to do.”

Source: https://www.newsweek.com/under-biden-more-european-asian-migrants-seek-entry-us-mexico-border-1609061

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Source: https://www.erienewsnow.com/story/43254476/its-frustrating-thousands-of-migrants-sit-in-mexico-desperate-for-answers-from-the-biden-administration

The post ‘It’s frustrating’: Thousands of migrants sit in Mexico desperate for answers from the Biden administration first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The opening salvo would herald a 10-day blitz of executive actions as Biden seeks to act swiftly to redirect the country in the wake of Donald Trump’s presidency without waiting for Congress.

On Wednesday, following his inauguration, Biden will end Trump’s restriction on immigration to the US from some Muslim-majority countries, move to rejoin the Paris climate accord, and mandate mask-wearing on federal property and during interstate travel. Those are among roughly a dozen actions Biden will take on his first day in the White House, his incoming chief of staff, Ron Klain, said in a memo to senior staff.

Other actions include extending the pause on student loan payments and actions meant to prevent evictions and foreclosures for those struggling during the pandemic.

“These executive actions will deliver relief to the millions of Americans that are struggling in the face of these crises,” Klain said in the memo. “President-elect Biden will take action — not just to reverse the gravest damages of the Trump administration — but also to start moving our country forward.”

President-elect Joe Biden has outlined his plans for immediate action following his inauguration in Washington.CREDIT:AP

“Full achievement” of Biden’s goals will require Congress to act, Klain wrote, including the $1.9 trillion ($2.47 trillion) virus relief bill he outlined on Thursday. Klain said that Biden would also propose a comprehensive immigration reform bill to lawmakers on his first day in office.

Providing a path to citizenship for millions of immigrants in the US illegally will be part of Biden’s agenda, according to people briefed on his plans. Ali Noorani, president of the National Immigration Forum and among those briefed, said immigrants would be put on an eight-year path. There would be a faster track for those in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which shields people from deportation who came to the US as children, and for those from strife-torn countries with temporary status.

On Thursday, the new president’s second day in office, Biden would sign orders related to the COVID-19 outbreak aimed at reopening schools and businesses and expanding virus testing, Klain said. The following day, Friday, will see action on providing economic relief to those suffering the economic costs of the pandemic.

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Announcements circulating on social media claim that a migrant caravan is heading for the US southern border. Following two massive hurricanes causing devastation across Central America, it’s understood that thousands of migrants from Chile, Cuba, Guyana, Honduras, Paraguay, and other Central American nations ravaged by storms are headed for the USA.

A report published by Bloomberg claims that one group of migrants is set to leave Honduras’ second-largest city, San Pedro Sula ‘in the next few days’, with rumors that a second group will follow in January.

Coordinator of non-governmental organization, the Guatemala Red Jesuita con Migrantes, Jose Luis Gonzalez, said: “There are going to be caravans, and in the coming weeks it will increase. People are no longer scared of the coronavirus. They’re going hungry, they’ve lost everything and some towns are still flooded.”

Change in US government

“When there is a change in government in the US or Mexico, caravans start to move because they are testing the waters to see how authorities respond. What they see is that the one who said he was going to build a wall and hated Latinos is on his way out,” Gonzalez added.

Just two weeks apart, Central America was struck by hurricanes Eta and Iota, which ripped through the region and caused major damage to infrastructure, homes, and crops. In Honduras, 100 people are thought to have died.

The migrant caravan is likely to cause tensions, especially amid the coronavirus pandemic. Authorities in Guatemala have already stated that people passing through the region on route to the United States will need a passport and must return a negative coronavirus test before being allowed to enter the country.

Test for Biden

News of a migrant caravan bound for the US has been described as ‘the first test’ of Biden’s promises on immigration to the US. The President-elect has vowed to overturn many of Trump’s controversial immigration policies, but without signaling that the borders will be flung wide open.

However, during a recent event, Guatemala’s President, Alejandro Giammattei said: “If we don’t want hoards of Central Americans looking to move to other countries with better living conditions, we have to make a wall of prosperity in Central America.”

Meanwhile, the Cuban government claimed that America only has itself to blame for its continued migration crisis, saying that Washington had provoked migrants by reducing the number of immigrant and tourist visas issued annually.

For Cubans in particular, the number of non-immigrant visas issued has slumped from 16,335 in 2017 to just 6,959 a year later. Meanwhile, the US also suspended its Cuban Family Reunification program.

Invasion

A previous migrant caravan bound for the US back in October 2018 was described by Donald Trump as an ‘invasion’. The outgoing US President has previously urged Mexico to stop migrants from reaching the US border.

Upon hearing of a migrant caravan heading to the US, made up of hundreds of people from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, Trump tweeted: “I have instructed the Secretary of Homeland Security not to let these large Caravans of people into our Country. It’s a disgrace. We are the only country in the World so Naive! WALL”

News of the latest migrant caravan comes after the US recently extended its Temporary Protected Status immigration program, which allows migrants from disaster-hit or war-torn nations temporary entry into the US.

Source: https://workpermit.com/news/migrant-caravan-heads-us-southern-border-20201211

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Those policies implemented by President Donald Trump helped define his legacy, fulfilling some of his campaign promises while enraging many Americans and further isolating the U.S. from the world. President-elect Joe Biden has vowed to reverse most of those restrictionist policies, but it could take months, or even many years, to do so.

In all, the Trump administration enacted more than 400 policy changes that have shrunk legal and illegal immigration channels into the United States. The process of overturning many of them will be straightforward — Biden can sign executive orders and his agency heads can issue memos or directives overriding Trump policies. Some changes, however, could take much longer to unwind due to long bureaucratic processes or legal challenges in court from states or groups that oppose the policy shifts.

Untangling the moves will be even more difficult given that so many of them overlap, forcing the Biden administration to carefully peel them back one by one without overwhelming the immigration system or encouraging a new wave of migrants. That conundrum can be seen most clearly along the southern border.

One Trump policy requires migrants to request asylum in Guatemala or Mexico before they reach the United States. Another Trump policy limits the number of people who can legally request asylum each day at U.S. ports of entry. And yet another Trump policy requires asylum seekers to remain in Mexico while their immigration case is decided.

The end result has been about 25,000 migrants currently living in dangerous, makeshift camps in Mexican border towns. If the Biden team rescinds all those Trump orders, it will have to develop a new plan to handle those asylum seekers.

“Detangling everything Trump did at the southern border may be Biden’s biggest headache on immigration,” said Sarah Pierce, policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based, non-partisan organization that researches immigration policy.

President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden debate in September at Case Western University in Cleveland. Patrick Semansky, AP Images

The Biden team will also face intense pressure from immigration advocacy groups to grant entry to the tens of thousands of people who have been blocked from entering the U.S. by dozens of other changes made by Trump. His administration has blocked legal residents, relatives of U.S. citizens, refugees, asylum seekers, foreign workers, and others for a variety of reasons, including national security and public health throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

“You can come in on day one and…issue memos that will reset the world,” said Karen Tumlin, founder, and director of the Justice Action Center, a group that represents immigrants in court. “But can you unring the bell? Can you undo the damage?”

Biden will face a polarized nation when he’s sworn in, meaning he’ll likely face intense pushback in his attempts to reverse Trump’s immigration policies. And if Republicans maintain control of the Senate — which won’t be decided until two runoff elections in Georgia in January — he’ll likely be forced to act alone through executive actions.

“Some of (Trump’s policies) will remain in effect because the Biden administration will realize they are useful policies, or because they will not be able to undo them quickly because of wanting to avoid a political disaster of an influx at the border or because they receive so much push back in the form of litigation and just the fact that there is a certain amount of inertia with any government regulation,” said Jessica Vaughan, policy studies director at the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that favored many of the policy changes implemented by the Trump administration.

Here’s a look at some of the key immigration policy changes Biden could attempt in his first 100 days in office, and the documents he will have to strike down in the process:

Eliminating the travel ban

The policy: Sept. 24, 2017, executive order signed by Trump to implement a travel ban, his third attempt to enact the ban.

Demonstrators hold signs and chant in the baggage claim area during a protest against President Donald Trump’s executive order banning travel to the United States by citizens of several countries Sunday, Jan. 29, 2017, at Detroit Metropolitan Airport. Jeffrey M. Smith, AP

After vowing on the campaign trail to implement a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims from entering the United States,” the president signed an executive order that did just that, temporarily barring people from seven majority-Muslim countries and completely halting the refugee program.

The first version was shot down by several federal judges. Trump then signed a second travel ban that was also eventually blocked by federal judges, including the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, which concluded that the order was “steeped in animus and directed at a single religious group.”

The Supreme Court was in the middle of considering multiple challenges to the ban when Trump signed a third version of the travel ban in September 2017 that barred people from eight countries, including North Korea and Venezuela. That version was initially blocked by federal judges but ultimately upheld by the Supreme Court and remains in force today.

The Trump administration maintained that the ban was needed to overhaul the process used to vet foreigners to ensure that the country isn’t allowing terrorists to sneak into the country through existing legal channels. But critics have continued fighting it through legal challenges and public pleas decrying what they still refer to as the “Muslim ban.”

Marielena Hincapié, who has fought against the travel ban in court as executive director of National Immigration Law Center, said rescinding the travel ban is not a “first 100 days” goal for a Biden administration but a “day one” move.

“It really is about restoring who we are as a nation and making sure that we once again see immigrants as a strength to the nation,” said Hincapié, who co-chaired the immigration section of a “Unity Task Force” created this summer by allies of Biden and his former Democratic challenger Sen. Bernie Sanders, D-Vt., to develop ideas and policies for a potential Biden administration.

How Biden could change it:

Biden can issue a new executive rescinding the ban and order the Department of Justice to stop defending the Trump ban in federal court.

Halting wall construction

The policy: Jan. 25, 2017, executive order Trump signed calling for the federal government to “plan, design, and construct a physical wall along the southern border.”

Building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and making Mexico pay for it was Trump’s number one campaign promise.

Trump signed an executive order five days after taking office calling for the planning, designing and construction of a border wall. But Mexico’s president repeatedly said Mexico would never pay for the wall. And Congress refused to fund the $13.2 billion the Trump administration requested to pay for border wall construction.

As of July, the Trump administration had secured $15 billion for border construction, according to the Migration Policy Institute. But only about $4.4 billion came from funding enacted by Congress, according to a Congressional Research Service report. The remaining 60% came from funds the Trump administration diverted from Pentagon accounts for military projects to construct new and replacement fencing along the southern border. In February 2019, Trump declared a national emergency over the border crisis to secure money from military projects to fund border barrier construction.

There were 653 miles of border barriers in place when Trump took office in 2017, which covered roughly a third of the length of the southern border. Of the 653 existing miles of barriers, about 350 miles was fencing designed to block pedestrians and about 300 miles was barriers designed to block vehicles.

Since then, the Trump administration has completed about 400 miles of new and replacement fencing as of the end of October, with plans to complete a total of 450 miles by the end of 2020. Most of the new fencing is 18- to 30-foot high “bollard” fencing — long steel slats filled with cement.

How Biden could change it:

Biden told NPR that although he would not tear down any of the border barriers already built “there will not be another foot of wall constructed on my administration.” But some border construction projects may still get built after Biden takes office because contracts may have already been signed. Biden will likely direct the head of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the agency overseeing the border fencing project, to conduct an analysis to decide which projects are worth completing, scaling back or terminating from a financial and border security stand-point.

“President Trump may have boxed in Biden, which could require that Biden has to complete certain portions of the wall whether he likes it or not,” said Scott Amey, general counsel for the nonprofit group Project on Government Oversight.

Reviving refugee system

The policy: Oct. 28, 2020, presidential determination signed by Trump capping refugee admissions at 15,000 for fiscal year 2021.

One of Trump’s first acts as president was to suspend the entire refugee program, and indefinitely block all Syrians from entering the United States, in the name of national security. The program was restarted in October 2017 but halted again in March in the name of public health as the COVID-19 pandemic spread.

All along, the president has warned about the dangers of refugees, who he views as national security threats and drains on the U.S. economy. “It’s a disgrace what they’ve done to your state,” Trump said during a campaign stop in Minnesota in October, referring to refugees living there.

Presidents have the power to set the number of refugees the U.S. will accept each year, and Trump has established record lows every year he’s been in office. The refugee cap has fallen from 110,000 in President Barack Obama’s final year in office to 50,000 during Trump’s first year in office, falling all the way to a 15,000 refugee cap announced by Trump in October, the lowest since the program was created in 1980.

The continuous reductions in refugee admissions have also led to layoffs and office closures at the nine humanitarian organizations that help relocate and assimilate refugees. Even if Biden raises the cap on refugees, it would take time for those organizations to rehire the staff needed to help refugees transition to the United States.

How Biden could change it:

Presidents usually set the refugee cap in the fall, just before the start of the new fiscal year. But Jacinta Ma, vice president of policy and advocacy for the National Immigration Forum, a Washington, D.C.-based group that advocates for immigrants, said Biden could immediately raise the refugee cap through an executive order. Trump set that precedent in March 2017 when he signed an executive order lowering the refugee cap to 50,000.

Protecting DACA

The policy: Sept. 5, 2017, memo signed by then-Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke terminating the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

Demonstrators who marched from New York City to Washington, D.C., arrive in front of the U.S. Supreme Court on Nov. 10, 2019, to support the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program and Temporary Protected Status (TPS). JOSE LUIS MAGANA, AFP Via Getty Images

After expressing support for undocumented immigrants illegally brought to the country as children during his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump announced in September 2017 that he was ending the Obama-era DACA program. Nearly 650,000 undocumented immigrants participated in the program, which protected them from deportation and allowed them to legally work in the U.S.

The Trump administration said it would end the program and gave Congress six months to pass a law to permanently protect the so-called Dreamers. The ensuing congressional battle resulted in a political slugfest that culminated in a temporary government shutdown, but no deal was struck.

The Dreamers were saved at the last minute by a federal judge, who ruled that the Trump administration used a flawed process to terminate DACA. That legal battle reached the U.S. Supreme Court in June, where Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the liberal wing of the Court in a 5-4 decision that allowed the program to endure. The court also ordered the administration to start accepting applications again.

That decision led to widespread relief for Dreamers who depend on the program to work, go to school and live without the constant fear of being detained and deported. Soon after the ruling, Trump threatened to try and end the program once again.

How Biden could change it:

Preserving the program would be simple: Biden’s Department of Homeland Security could issue a new memorandum rescinding the 2017 memo that attempted to terminate the program. But Biden will also be urged by some Democratic lawmakers and pro-immigration activists to grant protections for Dreamers who were denied the ability to apply for the program during the two-year legal fight under Trump. He will be urged to expand the number of people eligible for DACA and to push Congress to pass a law to put DACA recipients on a path to citizenship.

Restoring the asylum system

The policy: June 11, 2018, decision signed by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions limiting who can apply for asylum in the U.S.

An asylum-seeking boy from Central America runs down a hallway after arriving from an immigration detention center to a shelter in San Diego on Dec. 11, 2018. Gregory Bull, AP

The Trump administration has tried a variety of tactics to limit or halt asylum requests along the southern border, with federal judges striking down several of them. But they have been forging ahead on their goal of redefining, and limiting, who can apply for asylum in the United States.

Asylum is granted to people who fear persecution in their home countries based on their race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or their political opinion. For years, that has included victims of domestic abuse and gang violence. But the Trump administration is trying to cut those groups out, which would be a particular blow to women and people in the LGBTQ community.

In 2018, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions intervened in the asylum case of a Salvadoran woman who had been repeatedly abused by her husband and could not seek help from the Salvadoran government. Sessions issued a 31-page order that claimed only victims of systemic repression by a foreign government, not “private” crimes committed by relatives or gang members, qualify a person for asylum.

“The asylum statute is not a general hardship statute,” he wrote.

Immigration attorneys challenged that memo in court and federal courts have responded with conflicting rulings, some bashing the Sessions directive and others upholding it. Blaine Bookey, the legal director for the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies who has represented the Salvadoran woman in court, said the memo has rendered asylum rulings in the U.S. a matter of chance.

“It still depends on the judge that you draw,” she said.

The Trump administration is trying to lock in Sessions’ directive through a new regulation, which has been moving through the rule-making process and could become a finalized federal rule in the coming weeks. Bookey describes the Sessions ruling, and the proposed rule, as “part of the administration’s larger web of cruel and unlawful policies that have resulted in denial of protections and a return to dangerous conditions and even death.”

How Biden could change it:

Biden’s attorney general could quickly rescind the Sessions memo, reverting U.S. asylum policy to how it stood before Trump took office. But if the regulation implementing that policy becomes final before Biden takes office, it would take months to propose a new rule and get it finalized because U.S. law requires new rules to go through a prolonged process of public comments, reviews, and final publication.

Allowing more migrants to request asylum 

The policy: Customs and Border Protection policy that restricts the number of people who can request asylum each day at U.S. ports of entry.

Asylum seekers in Tijuana, Mexico, listen to names being called from a waiting list to claim asylum at a border crossing in San Diego on Sept. 26, 2019. Elliot Spagaf, AP

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials began limiting the number of undocumented immigrants requesting asylum at ports of entry in Southern California in 2016 under the Obama administration, said David Bier, immigration policy analyst at the Cato Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based libertarian think tank.

The Trump administration continued the so-called “metering” policy in 2017 and then expanded it to ports along the entire southern border in 2018 after groups of mostly Central American migrants began traveling through Mexico in caravans and arriving at ports of entry. Under the metering policy, only limited numbers of migrants requesting asylum are allowed into the United States daily at each port to be processed. The number of asylum seekers allowed in each day is based on available space at U.S. holding facilities. The number varies daily from port to port, but generally fewer than 50 asylum seekers have been processed daily at each port and often less.

Those not allowed in are placed on informal waitlists and  “turned back” to wait in Mexico. At times, the number of asylum-seekers waiting at ports has ballooned into the thousands. Some asylum seekers have reported waiting weeks and sometimes months.

The policy is intended to address an unprecedented rise in the number of migrants and migrant families arriving at the border seeking asylum. It’s also intended to address health and safety concerns resulting from overcrowding at ports of entry and CBP holding stations.

A class-action lawsuit filed in 2017 challenging the metering policy accused the Trump administration of trying to deter people from exercising their right to seek asylum under U.S. law. Critics also say metering pushes asylum seekers to cross the border illegally between official ports of entry, putting them in danger.

Under U.S. immigration law, people who arrive without legal authorization may seek asylum protections in the United States if they demonstrate a credible fear of persecution or torture if returned to their home country.

How Biden could change it:

Biden suggested during a Oct. 23 presidential debate with Trump that he would end the metering policy and return to allowing asylum seekers who arrive at the border to “make your case” based on the following premise, “why I deserve it under American law,” instead of “sitting in squalor on the other side of the river.”

To amend or end the policy, Biden would direct his U.S. Customs and Border Protection commissioner to issue a memo to CBP directors at ports of entry.

Ending ‘Remain in Mexico’ plan

The policy: Jan. 25, 2019, memo signed by then-Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen ordering asylum applicants to return to Mexico while their case is decided.

A woman reads a newspaper inside her tent as migrants camp out on the street outside an overflowing sport complex on Nov. 28, 2018, where more than 5,000 Central American migrants are shltering in Tijuana, Mexico. REBECCA BLACKWELL, AP

In late 2018, the number of Central American migrants reaching the southern border of the U.S. skyrocketed due to raging violence, food insecurity and misconceptions fueled by smuggling organizations that the United States was allowing in parents who arrived at the border with children. Many were requesting asylum, a claim that Trump administration officials repeatedly questioned.

To help stem that flow, administration officials tried to broker a deal with Mexico to house asylum seekers. When those talks faltered, then-Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen forged ahead on her own, signing the Migrant Protection Protocols, better known as the “Remain in Mexico” plan, which forces asylum seekers to return to Mexico while their asylum case proceeds in U.S. immigration court.

The result was chaotic: migrants began creating makeshift camps in Mexican border towns, straining local resources and fostering unsafe living conditions for more than 60,000 migrants at its highest point. With no protection and no formal government response from Mexico, migrants complained of robberies, kidnappings, and unsanitary living conditions.

Nielsen and other Trump officials defended the plan, saying it was necessary to slow the flood of asylum seekers trying to enter the country. And they claimed it was needed because migrants who are released into the United States while their asylum cases proceed rarely appear at their court appearances.

But immigration advocates — and immigration court data — refute those claims. More than 80% of migrants who requested asylum from September 2018 to May 2019 attended all of their court hearings, according to a report from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), a research group at Syracuse University in New York. In the immigration plan that Biden pushed during his presidential campaign, Biden claimed he would end the Remain in Mexico plan within his first 100 days to “restore our asylum laws so that they do what they should be designed to do – protect people fleeing persecution.”

How Biden could change it:

The process to rescind the policy is simple — a Homeland Security official could simply issue a new memorandum rescinding Nielsen’s 2019 memo. But with tens of thousands of migrants waiting in Mexico because of the policy, the administration would need to develop a new system to allow them into the country and process their asylum requests.

Reopening the southern border

The policy: March 20, 2020, order signed by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield suspending entry of people from countries where a communicable disease exists.

Dulce Garcia, right, carries a cup of coffee as she crosses the border from Mexicali, Mexico, to Calexico, Calif., on July 22, 2020. Like many in Mexicali, Garcia lives in Mexico but works in Calexico. “Everybody’s scared of the pandemic but we have to cross,” Garcia said. “We have to survive.” Gregory Bull, AP

After limiting international travel from sections of China in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, the Trump administration largely sealed off the northern border with Canada and the southern border with Mexico in March.

To do so, federal immigration agents relied on a law that allows the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to halt admission of foreigners if their home country is suffering from a communicable disease.

Through September, Customs and Border Protection agents have forced nearly 200,000 migrants — some requesting legal entry to the U.S., some trying to cross the border illegally — to return to Mexico by citing Title 42. Those expulsions affect all migrants — adults, unaccompanied minors, family units — and can be carried out in just a couple of hours.

During a trip to Arizona, CBP Acting Commissioner Mark Morgan praised the order as a way of slowing the spread of COVID-19 in the U.S. He described the nearly 50,000 migrants caught along the southern border in August, as “50,000 potential carriers of a deadly disease.”

Immigration activists have objected to the blanket denial of would-be migrants, accusing the administration of using the COVID-19 pandemic as an excuse to achieve its long-standing goal of cutting off legal and illegal immigration from Mexico, Central America and South America.

How Biden could change it:

The CDC order must be renewed every 30 days, meaning Biden’s CDC director could decide to simply let the most recent order sunset or could issue new guidance limiting the use of Title 42.

Pulling back ICE agents

The policy: Jan. 25, 2017, executive order signed by Trump allowing immigration agents to target all undocumented immigrants for arrest.

One of Trump’s first actions after taking office was to eliminate the “enforcement priorities” established under Obama, which ordered Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to focus on undocumented immigrants with criminal records and to avoid so-called “collateral arrests,” or picking up undocumented immigrants who they happened to come across each day.

Trump’s order allowed ICE agents to arrest any undocumented immigrant they encountered, even if the person only had immigration violations on their record. The result was noticeable: in the final months of the Obama presidency, nearly 90% of undocumented immigrants arrested by ICE had a criminal record. That figure fell to 64% by 2019.

The Trump administration also resurrected the practice of large-scale work-site raids, used often by President George W. Bush but largely abandoned under Obama. Under Trump, the largest was a raid of seven poultry plants in central Mississippi in August 2019 that led to 680 arrests of undocumented workers, at least two who were still breastfeeding when they were arrested.

Overall ICE arrests increased from 110,000 in 2016 to 143,000 in 2019.

How Biden could change it:

He could sign a new executive order that voids Trump’s directives and re-institutes the “enforcement priorities” for agents to target undocumented immigrants with criminal records.

Ending private immigration detention centers

The policy: Jan. 25, 2017, executive order signed by Trump that orders Homeland Security to “allocate all legally available resources” to add more immigration detention centers.

California’s Adelanto U.S. Immigration and Enforcement Processing Center operated by GEO Group, a Florida-based company specializing in privatized corrections. California passed legislation last month that will stop the use of private prisons (including for the operation of detention centers) in the state by 2028. Chris Carlson/AP

The federal government has long used private prisons companies to operate immigration detention centers, but Trump dramatically expanded the practice, leading to a record number of migrants detained and record profits for private prison companies.

The stocks of GEO Group and CoreCivic — the nation’s two largest prison companies — doubled in the days after Trump’s election. And in the four years since, ICE has signed contracts to open 19 new immigration detention centers run by private companies.

Critics have pleaded with ICE to cut its relationship with private prison companies given the widespread reports of abuse against detainees and substandard care for them. Biden has vowed to halt that practice, arguing that “no business should profit from the suffering of desperate people fleeing violence.” But that could be one of the most difficult immigration policies to change due to contractual obligations and the government’s reliance on the industry.

Over the past year, ICE has begun signing long-term contracts with private prison companies, cementing the relationship through several future administrations. In California, for example, ICE signed 15-year contracts with private facilities in San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego, meaning it would be difficult for a Biden administration to sever those contracts.

A USA TODAY analysis in 2019 found that more than 75% of the detainees held by ICE are housed in privately-run facilities. ICE only runs five detention centers, relying on state and local jails for the rest.

John Sandweg, who headed ICE in the Obama administration, said those numbers show that it would be impossible to simply cut off the private companies because ICE wouldn’t have anywhere to put the tens of thousands of detainees usually housed there. Instead, Sandweg said Biden would have to completely rethink the idea of immigration detention, relying more on supervised release programs and less on long-term detention.

“You cannot just turn those off,” Sandweg said. “The better question is, ‘How do we end detention as we know it?'”

How Biden could change it:

Biden could sign an executive order rescinding Trump’s detention-expanding directive and banning any new private prison contracts. But terminating existing contracts would take far longer and could require systemic changes — and congressional approval — that limits the number of migrants detained by the federal government.

Speeding up family reunifications

The policy: April 6, 2018, memo signed by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions ordering a “zero-tolerance policy” to criminally prosecute all illegal border crossers.

Trump’s public charge rule will make it harder for immigrants to become legal residents. Getty

The Trump administration’s public charge rule change would have allowed immigration officials to consider the use of food stamps, Medicaid, public housing vouchers and other forms of public assistance to deny green cards to immigrants.

The rule was part of the Trump administration’s overall efforts to reduce legal immigration. Administration officials said the change would ensure that legal permanent residents could support themselves, and hence not become a “public charge” dependent on government assistance. Critics called it a wealth-test that discriminated against working-class immigrants.

The rule has faced legal challenges and has been winding through the courts.

A federal judge blocked the rule five days before it was to take effect on Oct. 15, 2019. But the Supreme Court ruled in January that the government could begin implementing the rule except in Illinois due to other court rulings. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said the rule would take effect on Feb. 24, 2020, just as the coronavirus pandemic was beginning to hit the United States.

The new rule raised fears that immigrant families would avoid seeking medical attention because it could prevent them from getting green cards in the future. The Trump administration later amended the rule to say that COVID related medical care would not be considered by immigration officials when assessing green card applications.

In November, a federal judge struck down the public charge rule saying the Trump administration violated the Administrative Procedure Act, the law that governs the process for issuing new regulations. But an appeals court judge stayed the lower court’s decision pending an appeal. It’s possible that another court ruling could place the public charge rule on hold before the Jan. 20 presidential inauguration.

How Biden could change it:

Biden’s attorney general could drop the appeal, letting stand the federal judge’s ruling that the Trump administration unlawfully created the public charge rule, said Jesse Bless, director of federal litigation for the American Immigration Lawyers Association, a group representing 15,000 law professionals. Biden’s Department of Homeland Security may also try to create a new public charge rule that replaces Trump’s version with one more favorable to immigrants, Bless said. That would require following the same bureaucratic rule-making process that Trump used. The downside is that the rule-making process could take six months or longer before the new rule is finalized. A new public charge rule also could face legal challenges, Bless said.

Source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/11/12/how-biden-reverse-trump-immigration-policies/6228892002/

The post Biden might need years to reverse Trump’s immigration policies on DACA, asylum, family separation, ICE raids, private detention and more first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

A few months after President Donald Trump’s 2016 election, official Texas State business brought me to two ICE immigration detention centers in South Texas. As a manager in the Texas Department of Public Safety’s Intelligence and Counter-terrorism Division, I had been coming to these normally noisy, filled-to-capacity facilities for years to interview detainees.

But the South Texas ICE Processing Center in Pearsall stood about as empty and silent as a ghost town, besides the Pakistanis and Somalis I’d come to see who’d been in for a while already. Same situation at the larger, usually packed-to-capacity Port Isabel center near Brownsville a few weeks later.

The empty hallways and cells at that moment were stark manifestation of a phenomenon that became known as the “Trump Effect“. ICE intelligence officers at the facilities explained it to me at the time: Populations throughout Latin America, after hearing candidate Trump swear to build a wall, hike deportations, and otherwise crack down on illegal border entries, chose to shelter in place rather than cross the border. Apprehensions fell more than 70 percent for a time.

But now, the nation may face the equal but opposite “Biden Effect” should there be a change in administrations.

A Biden Effect could look like a sustained migrant crisis of the sort the United States and Europe have experienced from time to time. In this case, hundreds of thousands of Central Americans and others from around the world who have by now fully absorbed Biden’s campaign promises — a reversal of virtually all Trump immigration policies, an end to most deportations, free medical care, access to other welfare benefits, and various amnesties — could cross through Mexico once again. If unopposed, the first migrants — some in caravans, others travelling individually — would swamp U.S. border asylum systems, and detention facilities. This is not without precedent, like the 2014-2015 unaccompanied-minor crisis and the 2018-2019 Central American caravans crisis.

Additional migrants, seeing the vanguard caravans succeed unhindered, would likely continue for as long as they, too, were unopposed. The swell — nearly a million came over just in 2019 before Trump tamped it down with a medley of policies Biden promises to reverse — would take up long-term illegal residence in cities across the country. They would do so believing that the new administration would do nothing to deport them and everything to sustain them indefinitely until eventual amnesty and citizenship.

An Unreasonably Dystopian Prediction?

If the Trump Effect proved anything, it was that economically distressed foreign populations closely monitor a humming social media communications grapevine about when and how American policies and practices make illegal immigration easier or harder, and therefore make their chances to permanently embed inside the United States higher or lower. Economic migrants are more willing to join caravans or pay big smuggling fees if they feel they can both get in and stay in. They stay home if they perceive they probably will be thrown back, their effort and payments for naught.

While Trump did much to decrease the chances for migrants successfully embedding in the U.S., Biden has messaged policies that all but guarantee success, starting with the reversal of Trump immigration policies by executive order, and going even further. For instance, one message heard very loud and clear was his March 2020 promise of a deportation moratorium on all illegally present aliens — to include even most criminal aliens — during his first 100 days in office, to be followed by a permanent extension for everyone but the most hardened criminal alien felons (“I don’t count drunk driving as a felony,” he even said).

Biden’s online immigration platform offers a powerful incentive for resumptions of caravans that brought a million migrants in during 2018-2019 before Trump finally broke their momentum with a slew of different policies. Biden has promised to end the highly effective “Remain in Mexico” push-back policy that keeps largely ineligible asylum claimants from disappearing into the American interior after they lose or abandon their claims.

During one primary debate, Biden was among those who raised his hand when the moderator asked which of them would favor providing illegal immigrants with free access to the nation’s medical care system.

The shiniest gold ring Biden has dangled before the poor of Latin America and beyond is likely his promise to prioritize “a road map to citizenship for nearly 11 million undocumented immigrants”. Regardless of the details of any such legislation, it would serve as a powerful incentive, sending the message that anyone who manages to get over the border would stand a good chance of securing permanent legal status.

All of this is more than merely pleasant music to the ears of people aspiring to live and work in the United States and to human smugglers and caravan organizers only too happy to facilitate. Taken altogether, it is reasonable to predict a sustained migrant crisis in the event of a change in administrations.

I reported early clues suggesting this prognosis during a January 2020 reporting trip to the Mexico-Guatemala border, where I interviewed migrants who, to my surprise, repeatedly told me that, because their chances of reaching the United States and staying had fallen to unacceptable lows under Trump, they would wait in Mexico, expecting him to lose reelection and a successor to remove the barriers. Tens of thousands like them were applying for Mexican asylum at the time because the Mexican national guard blocked all the roads north (at Trump’s insistence) and Mexico was threatening to deport them unless they applied for Mexican asylum. As one of many of the Central American migrants and Mexican officials told me, of the decision to hang out in Mexico until Trump lost: “I’ll wait for that because it would make things easier to get in.”

An El Salvadoran woman coming to Mexico with a child said she’d chosen to live in Mexico, too, on the gamble that “Once Trump is defeated and the Democrats take over, things are going to get better.”

Alma Delia Cruz, head of Mexico’s asylum office in the southern state of Chiapas, told me she knew the majority of 70,000 asylum applicants her office was processing (up from just 76 the year before) had no intention of staying in Mexico for long.

“This is just their first chance to get into the United States, of course,” she told me. “I don’t know what’s on the minds of these people exactly, but the threats from Trump can’t deter them from eventually getting into the U.S.”

Other reporting has since confirmed the use of Mexican asylum as a temporary tactic, such as this April 2020 El Paso Times report quoting migrants equivocating as to whether they’ll settle for the great Mexican Dream or head to the U.S. border even if they get Mexican asylum.

The tide of Central Americans applying for Mexican asylum continues to build as the American election draws nearer. And the applicants are not only Mexican but from all over the world. Thousands of Haitians, Africans, Cubans, and Middle Eastern migrants also are applying for Mexican asylum, adding to those likely to head for the U.S. the moment American defenses begin to falter.

What Would Mexico Do?

In June 2019, Trump threatened Mexico President Andrés Manuel López Obrador with ruinous economic trade tariffs on all U.S.-bound exports if he did not halt the migrant caravans crossing his country’s southern border with Guatemala. Obrador complied by deploying some 6,000 Mexican National Guard troops on more than 50 roadblocks throughout Mexico’s border states, essentially bringing northbound migrant traffic to a halt.

Caravans have regularly battered themselves apart against the bulwark of the rather implacable Mexican national guard troops, who rounded them up by the thousands and bused them back to Central American countries. But they keep forming, relentlessly probing and testing this one most effective defensive perimeter, looking for the moment of opportunity when it goes away.

If a President Biden chose not to maintain Trump’s tariff threat, Mexico would likely redeploy its troops elsewhere. Overnight, Mexico could return to its traditional role as a migrant-transit superhighway to the U.S. border.

Still, predicting migration flows isn’t the kind of bet on which to place real money, since trends can be notoriously unpredictable and susceptible to unforeseeable factors. The Trump Effect eventually wore off once migrant communities noticed that campaign promises were taking quite a long time to actually be implemented and then, when some of them were, contributed to a rush on the border in 2018 that Trump had to counter in ways no one could have envisioned at the time (such as threatening Mexico trade tariffs). Likewise, a Biden administration, seeing an initial rush on the border in the wake of Democratic victory, might not follow through for quite some time with its policy promises and, ultimately, if the new president decides mass migration must be stopped, he may be forced to leave some of Trump’s policies in place.

Source: https://cis.org/Bensman/Will-We-See-Biden-Effect-Border

The post Will We See a ‘Biden Effect’ at the Border? first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Policies put in place by the administration of US President Donald Trump have cut off access to asylum in the United States during the coronavirus pandemic, sent COVID-19-positive people back to Latin American countries — where outbreaks are now spiraling — and exacerbated an already dire situation for asylum seekers at the US-Mexico border.

The post Briefing: Coronavirus and the halting of asylum at the US-Mexico border first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

• Alexandria Ocasio Cortez labels ruling ‘shameful’
• Opponents argue it is essentially a ‘wealth test’

US supreme court building is seen in Washington. Photograph: Will Dunham/Reuters

The US supreme court has allowed the Trump administration to block immigrants seeking permanent residency in America on the basis of their likelihood to use public benefits such as housing assistance, healthcare, and food stamps even for short periods of time.

In response, the New York Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez labeled the Monday ruling “shameful” and said: “The American Dream isn’t a private club.”

The hardline policy, an expansion of the so-called public charge rule, has been litigated in lower courts by a collective of Democratic-leaning states and migrant rights activists, leading to several nationwide injunctions. The supreme court ruling lifts such blocks, allowing the policy to go into effect as litigation continues.

The justices voted 5-4 along ideological lines, with the conservative majority including chief justice John Roberts and the two judges appointed by Donald Trump, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh, carrying the ruling.

Opponents of the policy, announced last August, argue it is essentially a wealth test that disproportionately affects non-white applicants for lawful permanent residency.

“America shouldn’t have a wealth test for admission,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted. “It’s a place where millions of people are descendants of immigrants who came w[ith] nothing [and] made a life. The American Dream isn’t a private club with a cover charge – it’s the possibility of remaking your future.”

The Trump administration lauded the decision and argued the lower court injunctions were an example of judicial overreach.

“It is very clear the US supreme court is fed up with these national injunctions by judges who are trying to impose their policy preferences instead of enforcing the law,” said Ken Cuccinelli, acting deputy secretary at the US Department of Homeland Security.

The policy, which dramatically expands the public charge rule that previously covered applicants likely to need substantial and lengthy assistance, is the latest hardline immigration policy the supreme court has allowed to go into effect.

The court approved Trump’s travel ban on mostly Muslim majority countries; has allowed the use of $2.5bn in defense funding to construct a wall along parts of the southern border, and has allowed a rule to stop asylum seekers from Central America entering the US.

A 2019 survey by the Urban Institute found that the Trump public charge rule was already deterring people from seeking benefits for US citizen children, for fear of harming their own immigration status. Benefits for family members are not considered under the rule.

In a concurring opinion written by Gorsuch and joined by Clarence Thomas, the court criticized the use of nationwide injunctions.

“It has become increasingly apparent that this court must, at some point, confront these important objections to this increasingly widespread practice,” Gorsuch stated.

“As the brief and furious history of the regulation before us illustrates, the routine issuance of universal injunctions is patently unworkable, sowing chaos for litigants, the government, courts, and all those affected by these conflicting decisions.”

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jan/28/immigrants-residency-benefits-ruling-supreme-court-trump-policy

The post Supreme court allows Trump to enforce new hardline immigration policy first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

A day after unveiling the administration’s merit-based immigration reform proposal amid a national emergency on the southern border, President Donald Trump tweeted a warning for illegal immigrants: “do not make yourselves too comfortable, you will be leaving soon!”

President Trump’s early Friday morning tweet read:

“All people that are illegally coming into the United States now will be removed from our Country at a later date as we build up our removal forces and as the laws are changed. Please do not make yourselves too comfortable, you will be leaving soon!”

The tweet came amid others that called on Democrats to help in reforming immigration and a call for Congress to end “catch and release.”

Trump started his tweetstorm:

“The Democrats now realize that there is a National Emergency at the Border and that, if we work together, it can be immediately fixed. We need Democrat votes and all will be well!”

And finished it with hope:

“Will the Democrats give our Country a badly needed immigration win before the election? Good chance!”

But in between came the trumped-up hardline immigration stance, including saying illegals are being caught and “registered” before release under current laws:

The post Trump to Illegals: Don’t Get Comfy, You’re ‘Leaving Soon’ first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.