Tag: Asylum Seekers

JHISN Newsletter 04/05/2025

Posted on April 5, 2025 by - News, Newsletter

Dear Friends,

Greetings in a time of emergency and resistance. Across the nation today and in all 50 states (including Bryant Park, Weehawken, and Staten Island) at 1:00 PM the people are demonstrating to demand: an end to the billionaire takeover and rampant corruption of the Trump administration; an end to slashing federal funds for Medicaid, Social Security, and other programs working people rely on; and an end to the attacks on immigrants, women, workers, trans people, and other communities.

The breadth and speed of the Trump regime’s assault on immigrants has been stunning, but not unexpected. Starting immediately after the election, immigrant justice advocates began to regroup. They are looking for ways to draw community allies closer, filing defensive lawsuits, pushing for protective legislation, and conducting intensive “know your rights” campaigns. In our first article, we review the anti-immigrant steamroller of federal actions. In our second article, we look at state and local legislation proposed by local progressive politicians and prioritized by grassroots immigration activists. We conclude with a partial timeline of the deportation machine that is growing ever bolder.

Newsletter highlights
  1. The stunning number of attacks and deportations
  2. Pro-immigrant legislation working its way through our state legislature
  3. A timeline of disturbing deportation actions

1. 76 Days Later: The Cruelty and The Deprivation

“The second Trump administration began with a slew of executive orders designed to terrify and devastate immigrants, their families, and communities across the United States.”—National Immigration Law Center

After trying to make Americans fear immigrants as invaders, the Trump administration is now leveraging the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 in the same way it was leveraged during World War II to round up US Citizens of Japanese descent, steal their homes and property, and imprison them in concentration camps. AI has been used to identify and revoke the visas of academics for their campus protests over Gaza. Long-time green card holders are suddenly losing legal status and facing deportation. The citizenship of people born in the US is being challenged, as is that of naturalized citizens.

The National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC) states that “ALL people in the United States have rights, regardless of their immigration status.” The NIJC advises people to seek legal counsel. But law firms have capitulated to Trump’s unconstitutional lawfare threats to ban legal firms from access to government buildings, meetings or jobs. It is therefore no surprise that individuals and non-governmental organizations may also capitulate. Thus, the Quaker organization, American Friends Service Committee currently guides Venezuelans less about their rights to stay, and more on how people can mitigate the damage by securing a family’s legal power of attorney, managing financial protections, gathering official documents, and avoiding scams related to legal representation for when people are deported.

The White House press secretary makes the absurd argument that opposition to Homeland Security sending people with tattoos to El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center equates to support for vicious gangs. But when the federal government’s deportation machine vanishes people, without orders of deportation, from the US to El Salvador, or Guantanamo, or from any US state to Louisiana’s remote and abusive ICE facilities, then the expectation of constitutional rights for anyone vanishes.

Recently Victoria Spartz, an immigrant Republican member of Congress from Indiana, actually stated in a public town hall: “You violated the law, you are not entitled to due process.” Yet the very purpose of the Fourth Amendment is to place “restraints on the government any time it detains (seizes) or searches a person” and the Fifth Amendment establishes no one shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law. Due process is reiterated in the 14th Amendment and all of these apply against the US government rather than being granted to individuals. 

Homeland Security admits that only 137 of the 238 people were deported to El Salvador as “enemy aliens”; so it deported 101 people to a brutal high-security prison in another country under “regular immigration procedures.” The Trump administration even paid El Salvador over $25,000 per person, for the year, to make them disappear. Their rationale is that it is cheaper than housing them in private prisons. Homeland Security will also not facilitate communications with any lawyers because these people have already been removed. 

There have been so many anti-immigration actions recently taken it is challenging to summarize them. The arrest of Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, the first of many students arrested for their protest actions, suggests that the government is punishing and silencing free speech, or removing the privilege of one’s visa status based on ever-changing political opinions on foreign policy. It is vital to see these actions together, rather than as disjointed news articles. At the end of today’s newsletter we have compiled a partial timeline for you to read, in one place, the key actions reported on by various news sources…many of these sources Trump and his administration are seeking to delegitimize, defund or punish because they report facts instead of amplifying his talking points.   

WHAT CAN WE DO?
  • Join Amnesty International’s campaigns to release Mahmoud Khalil and tell Congress to stop the funding of mass deportations and inhumane border policies
  • Act along with the ACLU and demand elected leaders be vigilant and speak out against mass deportations and the president’s unlawful invocation of the Alien Enemies Act.
  • Subscribe to a new immigration podcast Unsettled, and listen to the National Constitution Center discussion explaining how the recent use of The Alien Enemies Act of 1798 does not meet the requirements of wartime action it requires. 

2. Pro-Immigrant Reps Sponsor Protective Legislation

Fighting to stop the Trump regime’s anti-immigrant juggernaut requires resistance on many fronts. One of those is passing state and local legislation to protect immigrants from ICE abuses. New York voters have sent many progressives to the City Council and Albany. Now some of these politicians, including representatives from our neighborhood, are working with grassroots organizations on measures to prevent mass deportation and ensure due process.

One key piece of proposed legislation is the New York For All Act. This law would formalize a number of sanctuary provisions at the state level. It is strongly supported by Make the Road New York, which is using statehouse rallies and a phone call campaign to push it forward. As MTRNY describes it, the Act:

  • Would prohibit state and local officials from enforcing federal immigration laws or transferring people to ICE custody.
  • Block ICE and CBP from entering non-public areas of state and local property without a warrant.
  • Ensure that people in custody receive notice of their rights before being questioned by ICE.
  • Begin the process of restricting ICE and CBP access to state databases.

MTRNY specifically highlights the need to keep New York’s DMV database—which includes information on undocumented drivers—out of the hands of ICE.

On March 12, the New York City Council sent a message to the state legislature supporting the New York For All Act. During the same session, they also endorsed the Access to Representation Act, cosponsored by local Assemblyperson Catalina Cruz. This bill would “establish the right to legal counsel in immigration court proceedings.”

Cruz has been particularly active in generating pro-immigrant legislation. Her Protect Our Schools Act, co-sponsored by several other local lawmakers, is designed to prevent ICE from entering or making arrests in any state schools without a judicial warrant. Cruz presented this legislation as part of a trio of bills. The other two parts of her package include a law that targets rampant fraud by immigration “advisors,” and another guaranteeing proper translation of all immigration proceedings. The need for translation services and “language justice” is also reflected in a recent NY City Council decision to create a Language Access Bank, and to fund the translation work of local immigrant organizations.

Cruz and other Queens-based legislators are also among the 54 sponsors of the Dignity Not Detention Act. As we reported previously, this proposed law “prohibits governmental entities from entering into agreements to house individuals in immigration detention facilities; requires governmental entities to terminate existing contracts for the detention of individuals in immigration detention facilities.” It is supported by a wide range of immigrant justice and civil rights groups.

Legislation can be an important weapon to defend immigrants. But its success depends on the strength of progressive sentiment: first of all in electing pro-immigrant representatives, and then in backing them up to get just laws passed. It remains to be seen how New Yorkers, including Governor Hochul, respond to recently proposed progressive legislation in the face of the current wave of xenophobia.

WHAT CAN WE DO?
  • Participate in Make the Road’s phone-in for the New York for All Act.
  • Learn about the Language Justice Collaborative, which trains and provides interpreters for African, Asian and Latin American immigrants.

3. A Partial Timeline Of Deportations And Actions

Jan 20 – As promised on day one of being a dictator, Trump signed blatantly unconstitutional paperwork to eliminate the 14th Amendment right to birthright citizenship by executive order and began to eviscerate due process in the immigration system. He also began the process of weaponizing the military against immigrants.

Jan 21 – Alfredo Orellana, a green card holder married to a 6 months pregnant US citizen, was detained after returning from a trip to El Salvador. Originally born in Argentina 31 years ago, Orellana has lived in the US since he was 4 years old.

Jan 25 – German tourists entering the US on valid travel documents were held in ICE detention for 46 days and then deported.

Jan 31 – US Citizen Julio Noriega was swept up in warrantless arrests by ICE in Chicago and given no opportunity to discuss his citizenship. He was released, after being held by Homeland Security for 10 hours, with no money and no paperwork to explain the reason for being held or released.

Feb 1 – TPS was suddenly suspended for 472,000 Venezuelans. Under Biden, the end date had been extended to October 2026. It was shortened to April 7, 2025 which Homeland Security would use to justify their deportation in weeks. A federal judge later halted the suspension pending court hearings.

Feb 4 – A 10-year-old US Citizen with brain cancer was deported from Texas to Mexico with her entire family while they were driving to a medical checkup in Houston from border town Rio Grande City. Other than lacking “valid immigration status in the U.S.,” the parents have “no criminal history,” and they have been deported to a region known for kidnapping US citizens. Heritage Foundation fellow and Project 2025 contributor, Tom Homan, who is not a Cabinet member but wields control over immigration policy with the official title of Border Czar, is known to have cold disregard for the US citizenship of 4 million children who have an undocumented parent. He stated that the parents will decide when to break up a family, not the government.

Feb 7 – Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem directed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to deputize IRS criminal investigators, to “assist in immigration enforcement”. Acting IRS Commissioner Doug O’Donnell rejected the plan for the IRS to share the addresses of the people in their databases. Three weeks later the 40-year veteran of the IRS, O’Donnell, retired. His replacement, Melanie Krause, is willing to accept the plan to allow the Department of Government Efficiency known as DOGE (most accurately pronounced “dodgy”) access to the address data. Many point out this situation contradicts Trump’s typical narrative that the immigrants he attacks as illegal are a social burden and don’t pay taxes.

Feb 14 – Using a law from WWII, Kristi Noem announced the plan to create a Migrant Registry and require those who are undocumented to come forward or face criminal penalties.

Feb 15 – Camila Muñoz was detained by an immigration agent when she and her Trump-voting husband returned from their honeymoon in Puerto Rico. Her unlawful action was letting her immigration paperwork expire during COVID when she was not allowed to travel. The husband blames the system, not Trump. But within a month he was considering moving back with her to Peru.

Feb 19 – German tourist Lucas Sielaf, and his US Citizen fiancée were held by ICE for two weeks after going to a vet in Mexico.

Feb 20 – Secretary Noem suddenly amended the period of extension and redesignation of Haiti for TPS from 18 months to 12 months. The new end date is August 3, 2025 which Homeland Security would use to justify their deportation.

Feb 25 – While tearing down all rights related to immigration, Trump announces that wealthy immigrants will soon be eligible to purchase a gold card path to citizenship for $5 million. Unlike the EB-5 entrepreneurship visa that requires people to invest in a business over time in the United States, this gold card requires only one payment and will be open to Russian oligarchs who Trump said “are very nice people”.

Feb 26 – Becky Burke, a 28-year-old backpacker from Wales, UK, was held in chains after crossing into the US from Canada; possibly due to the agent’s opinion that the free housing she received was considered payment in return for her helping them with housework. 

Feb 28 – Lewelyn Dixon, a 50-year resident and green card holder, was held in ICE detention in Tacoma when returning from a trip to the Philippines. Her family did not know until March 2 and were not informed why she was being held. She is currently scheduled for a hearing in July.

Mar 6 – Ma Yang, from Milwaukee, is 37 and has lived in the US since she was 8 months old: in mid-February she was detained during a regular US Immigration and Customs Enforcement check-in meeting, separated from her US citizen partner and children, then deported to Laos. Born in Thailand, Laos is a country she has never even visited. 

Mar 7 – A German mother and son, both with permanent residence status, were held at Logan airport with no explanation as to what had flagged the son’s green card. The son had to be hospitalized after release because he had been “deprived of sleep, food and water, and had his anxiety medication withheld.” while he was held.

Mar 8 – Mahmoud Khalil, a permanent resident and recent graduate of Columbia University, was the first of known student protesters of the Gaza conflict to be taken by Homeland Security agents. His 8-month pregnant US citizen wife was also threatened with arrest. After being transferred to ICE custody in Louisiana, he was flown closer to home to a New Jersey detention center at the demand of a federal judge.  [Correction: Khalil was not flown to NJ; a judge transferred his case to NJ at the request of his lawyers, and some of his hearings are being held in NJ as he remains caged in Louisiana and appears remotely]. Trump demanded the compliance of all universities and said “This is the first arrest of many to come.” [Update: On April 11 a judge ruled that Khalil can be deported, but due process is required as the United States government must successfully argue their preposterous case that his presence posed potentially serious foreign policy consequences.”]

Mar 10 – A Venezuelan couple, with Temporary Protective Status (TPS) and valid work authorization, were grabbed by Border Patrol in Washington, DC and separated from their three children. A judge said their arrest was “baseless and unlawful” and the Border Patrol’s assistant commissioner of public affairs, Hilton Beckham, alleged, “without evidence, that the couple had ties to the Tren de Aragua gang”. Megan McFadden, an attorney for the federal government, admitted she had not heard the couple had valid TPS paperwork.

Mar 11 – Ranjani Srinivasan, a Columbia University student from India, was concerned about being detained illegally, with no criminal charges after her visa was revoked. Srinivasan is another student who has shown support for Palestine throughout Israel’s brutal war on Gaza. The university did not prevent ICE agents from accessing university housing without a judicial warrant and she chose to fly to Canada.

Mar 14 – Dr. Rasha Alawieh, a kidney transplant specialist and professor at Brown University’s medical school, was denied entry at Boston Logan International Airport on a Thursday. The day after her airport detention, US District Judge Leo Sorokin (who was the fourth federal judge to block the attack on birthright citizenship) set a hearing for the following Monday. The hearing was canceled after she was deported to Paris under suspicion of support for Hezbollah.

Mar 14 – The visa of Momodou Taal, a graduate student at Cornell University, was revoked. The United Electrical union supports him because, if the federal government is allowed to come for Taal, they will be emboldened to come for anyone who challenges climate policies, stands for the rights of women and LGBTQ+ rights, racial justice, and workers’ rights.

Mar 14 – Ranjani Srinivasan, a Columbia University student from India, chose to self-deport using the redesigned CBP Home App after Homeland Security revoked her visa on Mar 5. [Correction: Ranjani Srinivasan, a Columbia University student from India, did not self-deport using the CBP app: that claim was official propaganda disinformation on ex-twitter from Kristi Noem. On March 14, Srinivasan’s lawyer’s informed ICE she had left the country three days earlier.]

Mar 15 – Homeland Security ignored a judicial ruling requiring planes, headed to El Salvador with over 200 deportees, to return to the US. A video was released showing their delivery to the notorious Terrorism Confinement Center in El Salvador, whose president mocked the order by posting on social media, “Oopsie…Too Late,” The US paid El Salvador $6 million to take them for a year and provided no proof these people were members of the Tren de Aragua gang. Trump then floated the idea of sending US Citizens to prisons outside the country.

Mar 17 – Jeanette Vizguerra, an immigrant rights advocate with the American Friends Service Committee in California, evaded deportation in 2017 by seeking sanctuary by living in the basement of a church with her children. She was taken into custody near the Target store where she worked.

Mar 17 – Badar Khan Suri, an Indian national and postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown University was detained by masked federal agents outside his home. Suri’s lawyer stated Suri is being punished because of the Palestinian heritage of his US citizen wife because the government suspects they both oppose US foreign policy toward Israel.

Mar 18 – Using false narratives about immigrants increasing crime resulted in an ICE raid in Boston that rounded up 370 people, many of whom were legally in the US and going through the asylum process.

Mar 24 – Yunseo Chung, another permanent resident student at Columbia University, files a lawsuit against members of the federal government for their action against her, claiming “She is being sought for removal proceedings under the immigration laws” for engaging in what they claimed as concerning conduct in a pro-Hamas protest at Barnard College. Chung’s suit states this is a “larger pattern of attempted US government repression of constitutionally protected protest activity and other forms of speech”.

Mar 25 – Alireza Doroudi, an Iranian Graduate student at the University of Alabama, had his visa suddenly revoked and at 3 a.m. agents took him into custody and removed him to an ICE facility in Jena, Louisiana which is holding several international students targeted by Homeland Security. Fortunately, his finacée was able to share his story and people mobilized to help support his legal defense.

Mar 25. – Rumeysa Ozturk, a Massachusetts graduate student at Tufts University, had her visa suddenly terminated and she was grabbed off the street and taken into federal custody by masked agents who are not clearly law enforcement. She had co-authored an essay in the student newspaper demanding that Tufts acknowledge the Palestinian genocide.

Mar 27 – ICE executed an arrest on a farm in Sackets Harbor, New York, the hometown of Border Czar Tom Homan. Agents entered a different home on the property, without a judicial warrant, detained a mother and her three children, and moved them to a detention center in Texas. Homan claims they were moved for safety as potential witnesses to crime. NY Governor Kathy Hochul stated, “I want this family returned to New York state and believe ICE needs to immediately answer for these actions.”

Mar 31 – Seventeen more alleged gang members were flown to the El Salvador high-security prison. To avoid directly challenging the judicial ruling to prevent such deportations, the administration did not leverage the Alien Enemies Act. 

Mar 31 – Robert Cerna, the Acting Field Office Director for ICE filed a declaration admitting that an administrative error sent at least one person, Kilmar Abergo Garcia, to the supermax prison in El Salvador. Despite the wrongful deportation, Homeland Security says they will not facilitate his return because they have no jurisdiction since he is no longer in US custody. Karoline Leavitt, the White House Press Secretary, defended the action and continued to state that this person was a convicted gang member – but provided no proof to back up that claim. 

Apr 4 – A federal judge ruled that Kilmar Abergo Garcia must be returned from El Salvador by Monday because of the Trump administration’s illegal action deporting him. In response, the White House deputy chief of staff called the judge a Marxist and the White House press secretary suggested the judge contact the El Salvador president because the US no longer has jurisdiction.  

In Solidarity,
JHISN

Follow @JHSolidarity on Facebook and Twitter and share this newsletter with friends, families, neighbors, networks, and colleagues so they can subscribe and receive news from JHISN. 

 

JHISN Newsletter 09/28/2024

Posted on September 28, 2024 by - News, Newsletter

Dear friends,

As racist targeting of immigrants of color intensifies across the US, immigrant justice leaders are pushing back. In Ohio, the Haitian Bridge Alliance has filed criminal charges against Trump and JD Vance for their incendiary lies about Haitian immigrants living and working in Springfield. And NDLON (National Day Laborer Organizing Network) has just released an Instagram video debunking false narratives about recent migrant arrivals that promote hatred, and fracture solidarity between immigrant communities.

We join the call for pro-immigrant popular education with an article that helps us more accurately perceive the ‘statistics’ on the number of undocumented immigrants in the US. Then we look at the Republican-fueled nightmare in Springfield, with an eye for how the threat of expanding fascism—targeting immigrants and other historically marginalized people—has arrived.  

Newsletter highlights:
  1. Confronting the Fear of Big Numbers: Counting Undocumented Immigrants
  2. Fascism in Uniform Marches on Springfield

 

1. A simpler approach to undocumented population counts

Recent attention has focused on Ohio and the ridiculous social media lies amplified by Trump during the presidential debate. Republicans became hyper-obsessed about Haitians living in Ohio, who are legally present through the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program. In Ohio, almost 13,000 people have TPS approval, or just one-tenth of one percent of the state’s entire population. Yet to Ohio Senator J.D. Vance, this minuscule population represents a “terrible tragedy” for the people in his state.

This Ohio situation exemplifies the difficulty of accurately visualizing any large numbers describing immigrants. It is easy for politicians and the corporate media to utter worrisome-sounding numbers in the millions because such numbers have no practical meaning in the human mind.

Republicans have leveraged that impracticality to argue that the number of people here with, and without, ‘authorization’ is massively large and a threat. Although there are bipartisan differences around immigration issues, the Democrats have also embraced the perceived ‘threat’ of immigrants, as outlined in their recently proposed and failed border bill.

When discussing unauthorized immigrants, things get murkier due to difficult data. Since 1996 the federal government has published official estimates—these have been challenged as a dramatic undercount. There are statistics shared by organizations that conduct research about immigrants—these can conflict based on the organization’s bias. There are public data sets such as Syracuse University’s TRAC Data which allow anyone to delve into the data—these require an understanding of how to analyze numbers. All data sources take effort to find, read, and understand. The numbers spewed by Donald Trump, or Tucker Carlson, are easy, simplistic, and wrong. 

But, sometimes simplification can help us understand reality.

Instead of looking at large numbers, we can ask the following question: how many people are there in the US for each undocumented immigrant? State population data, Pew research on immigrants, and an infographic from a large data analyst company offers a simple answer: in the US there is just one undocumented immigrant for every 65 people. That may initially sound like lots of unauthorized people until we realize that 1 in 10 is just 10% of the population; 1 in 20 is only 5%; 1 in 30 is merely 3.3%. So 1 in 65 is a paltry 1.5% of the entire population. Republicans are telling 98.5% of the country to worry that this tiny group is a massive threat to the nation’s very being. As the regional and state populations differ, it is interesting to see how the answer to this question changes based on each location we look at.

  • We can compare Ohio, where there are 91 people for each unauthorized individual (1.2%), with New York State which has 30 people per unauthorized individual (3.3%).
  • Throughout the four states that border Mexico, we find there is one undocumented person for every 28 people. That is only 3.6% of the California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas populations combined.
  • In the 16 states that have a land or water border with Canada, the number changes to 1 in 89 people. That is slightly more than 1% of all those state populations combined.
  • Of the 14 states that border only with another US state, it averages to 1 in 77 people. Just 1.3%.
  • For the 16 remaining states, with an ocean border, the numbers change to just 1 in 44. That is only 2.4% of those populations.

The simplified number also tells a story about states traditionally voting for a Republican or Democrat presidential candidate and the 7 swing states in the coming 2024 election. In the 25 typically Republican states we see 1 unauthorized person in 81 (1.2%); that becomes 1 in 40 for the 18 typically Democrat states (2.5%); and the 7 swing states come in at 1 undocumented immigrant out of 48 (2.1%).

If people in critical swing states can see these more straightforward numbers, they may come to understand that the lies Trump, Vance, and many others obsessively make about Americans being replaced and endangered by ‘illegal’ immigrants are not substantiated by the data. With that knowledge, they can vote with understanding, not unfounded fear.

2. Then they came for the Haitians…

Our August 17 newsletter argued that Donald Trump’s demand for mass deportation was on the cutting edge of a rising fascist movement that is beginning to move into the mainstream of US politics. Now the ongoing racist political attack on documented Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, makes it clear that this poison is spreading fast. 

Most of the basic ugly facts of the Springfield situation are well reported: The baldfaced lies by Trump and Vance alleging that Haitians are eating other residents’ pets, bomb threats that paralyzed the city, requests by Catholic bishops and government officials, including the Republican governor, for Trump and Vance to stop the damaging falsehoods and threats. We have learned from mainstream media that Trump has doubled down on his plan to deport Haitians in Springfield on Day One if he gets elected (despite the fact they have federally-registered TPS protections), promising that this would kick off a mass deportation campaign that, he warns, will be “bloody.”

One thing that has been less widely reported is the story of the Weber family—a story that happened on the sidelines of the national news. What happened to the Webers is frightening and damaging. But it also exemplifies how anti-immigrant hate, and especially hate towards Black migrants, quickly mutates beyond the issue of immigration, opening the door to an increase in fascist activism that targets all marginalized groups, regardless of immigration status. 

Chelsea Shirk Weber told the Dayton Jewish Observer that she, her husband, and their 4-year-old daughter went to a Jazz and Blues Fest in downtown Springfield on August 10. As they were leaving, they saw a squad of the neo-Nazi group Blood Tribe marching in formation, complete with red uniforms, swastika flags and automatic weapons. Hearing people yelling and other loud noises, the family moved swiftly to their car. But as the Webers tried to drive away in traffic, they and other motorists were surrounded by four Blood Tribe members who pointed rifles at their cars. There were no police visible nearby. “Go back to f-ing Africa,” the fascists yelled. Chelsea’s husband accelerated, running a red light to get away.

Blood Tribe claims credit for creating and spreading the rumor about Haitian migrants eating pets, starting their online campaign months ago. They consider it a victory that the Trump campaign (and 53% of Trump supporters) have adopted their lies. 

Photo Credit: Chelsea Shirk Weber

Weber took a photograph of some of the fascists—the image above. When she posted it on the Facebook pages of Springfield and of Clark County, there was a massive pile-on by right-wing commenters who either supported Blood Tribe or alleged that the photo was fake. Soon Weber’s post was taken down. Five minutes later, the City of Springfield posted a bland statement expressing “concern” about an outside hate group that had been in town. The mayor, Rob Rue, was quoted as saying that “Nothing happened, except they expressed their First Amendment rights. Our Police Division was aware and in control the entire time.”

Weber does not agree:

“”It was just completely disappointing that the government said, ‘Oh, they’re just exercising their First Amendment right and they did no harm.’ Tell that to my 4-year-old, who is completely traumatized. I’m 37 and I was scared s—less. How do you explain it to a 4-year-old?’ The Observer provided Police Chief Elliott with a transcript of Weber’s interview. Despite repeated attempts to reach out to Elliott for a follow-up interview, she declined to comment.” —Dayton Jewish Observer, 8/22/24

The Springfield events demonstrate how Blood Tribe and other other fascists like the Proud Boys and the KKK are using racist attacks on immigrants and calls for mass deportation to raise their public profile, recruit, and normalize their full program of hate against people of color, women, LGBT people, Jews and leftists. And the concentration camps the fascists hope to build for millions of undocumented people are intended for many other perceived enemies as well.

WHAT CAN WE DO?

 

In solidarity and with collective care,

Jackson Heights Immigrant Solidarity Network (JHISN)

Follow @JHSolidarity on Facebook and Twitter and share this newsletter with friends, families, neighbors, networks, and colleagues so they can subscribe and receive news from JHISN. 

 

JHISN Newsletter 08/17/2024

Posted on August 17, 2024 by - News, Newsletter

Dear friends, 

We greet you at an unexpected moment of hope, as Donald Trump’s grip on US politics shows signs of slipping. Today’s newsletter looks at two issues concerning migration that are central to Trump’s appeal, and also to the fate of progressive activism. Our first article confronts the national demand for mass deportation and its connection to fascism. Turning to local events, our second article explores the Adams administration’s callous treatment of asylum seekers and longtime residents at two large migrant shelters in Clinton Hill. Both stories highlight the need for unapologetic pro-immigrant politics that goes beyond the half-hearted, defensive posture of mainstream Democrats.

Newsletter highlights:
  1. Mainstreaming a fascist demand for mass deportation
  2. Mayor Adams fails migrants at Clinton Hill shelters

1. Poison in the Blood

“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” —Voltaire

In what may well be the most repulsive moment of an already ugly campaign season, thousands of Republican National Convention delegates in Milwaukee stamped their feet, waved pre-printed signs, and rhythmically chanted their desire for “Mass Deportation.” Disturbingly, according to an Axios/Harris poll, roughly half of the US population, including many Democrats, shares this sentiment. It’s hard to get past the shocking cruelty of this wave of hate. But we need to think about its causes and confront its implications in order to prepare for what may be coming.

Making mass deportation a topic of mainstream debate represents a victory for US fascists, who have for years promoted a  “Great Replacement” theory: the belief that corporate elites, supposedly led by Jews, are intent on replacing whites with non-white immigrants in order to destroy “the white nation.” But mass deportation is also the spearhead of a broader attack on all oppressed groups and all social justice struggles. What would life be like for those already subjected to state violence, hate crimes, and social discrimination, if the military, police and ICE squads roam the streets to carry out this atrocity? 

It’s evident that many of the people who demand mass deportation today don’t think of themselves as fascists. And many aren’t yet prepared to endorse mass deportation’s expense or practical implementation: troops in the streets, document checks, concentration camps, families torn apart. These things are still broadly unpopular. So at this point the mainstream demand for mass deportation has a certain rhetorical quality. As one pollster said, angry citizens are “sending a message.” Those Republican delegates in Milwaukee enjoyed chanting a transgressive fascist slogan, treating it as a threatening bluff against immigrants and condescending elites.

But it’s no bluff for the fascists, inside and outside the Republican Party. They are intent on seizing power and they have made specific plans for tracking down, arresting, and deporting up to 20 million immigrants. Now, they have managed to persuade half the population to give at least rhetorical support for what should be unthinkable. If the fascists take control, these compromised millions will be forced to confront the violent reality of their own hateful “Mass Deportation” slogan.

In a chilling echo of Adolf Hitler, Donald Trump says that immigrants are “poisoning the blood” of the US. But he is projecting. It is the white supremacy that he manipulates and embodies that poisons the blood of this country, enabling wave after wave of racial and religious hatred, genocide, and imperialism. This poison has now produced yet another spasm of mean-spirited nativism and a new rising fascist movement. We must challenge them both, directly and openly, before it’s too late.

2. Lack of City Services at Clinton Hill Migrant Shelters

“My team and I have been working on this for the better part of a year, we’ve poured all the resources and energy that we have that we can pour into it. But he’s [Mayor Adams] got more resources, and more staff, and also more answers than I do, frankly.”—Council Member Crystal Hudson (Brooklyn District 35)  

When busloads of asylum seekers and other migrants began arriving in New York City in 2022, Mayor Adams, under the requirements of NYC’s right to shelter, desperately sought places for them to stay. One chosen site was 47 Hall Street in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn. It opened in July 2023 without any public announcement or communication with local leaders. This multi-building complex, administered by NYC Health+Hospitals, came to house 3000 single adults and families within 8 months.

The shelter was a shock to local residents. Nevertheless, the neighborhood responded to the “massive unmet need” for basic personal items and winter coats, and donations soon arrived at PS/IS 157 to help newly arrived students and their parents. In contrast to this compassionate aid there were rising complaints about trash, noise, and loitering, especially near the playgrounds and basketball courts. Residents were not satisfied with the city’s response to their complaints.

Then, this April, the city opened another emergency migrant shelter one block away at 29 Ryerson Street with capacity for 700 people—again with no announcement. “We heard rumblings about it, but nobody was giving us information directly or at the community board meetings,” said a 20-year resident of Clinton Hill. Other neighbors complained about not being able to use the basketball courts or find space in the local laundromats. “When the city doesn’t provide the migrants with resources they need, like washing machines and open space, and it starts to affect resident resources, then I say there’s a problem,” said another local resident, Vernon Jones.

On June 17, NYC Council Member Crystal Hudson held a community meeting about the shelters. Some attendees accused her of ignoring the community’s complaints. In response, Hudson explained to the angry crowd that she had written an open letter to Mayor Adams on May 6 detailing the problems, her office’s response, and cited assistance from community groups such as BKLYN Combine, Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI), the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC), and One Love Community, as well as local businesses and residents.

The mayor argues, correctly, that the migrants need work permits. But they also need information about available services, especially mental health services and language support. Many of the recent arrivals are from West Africa, and speak languages like Wolof, Fula, and Bambara. Hudson said her office had contacted One Love Community Fridge, whose many African volunteers were able to provide translation and services to migrants in Clinton Hill, Fort Greene, Prospect Heights, and Crown Heights. 

The Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI) has been supporting migrants by providing clothing, personal care items, and a variety of training programs to residents of the Hall Street Shelter and the Stockton Street Respite Center in Bed-Stuy. Nekessa Opoti, communications director at BAJI, said many shelters like Hall Street are unequipped to support Black asylum seekers, especially those who have fled war, conflict, or political violence.

“Community organizations like BAJI have stepped in where both the city and state government have failed. Police, private security, and surveillance in these shelters cannot and do not provide culturally competent, trauma-informed care, such as health and mental health services, case management and community navigation for which direct-service organizations and mutual aid groups have stepped up to take on… ” 

On July 23, shortly after two shootings near the shelters, there was a large demonstration protesting the continued quality of life issues for permanent Clinton Hill residents, with signs saying “400 not 4000”. According to one 13-year resident on Hall Street, “A 200- to 400-person shelter is reasonable. We’re happy to have a shelter at the end of our block, it’s just the scale of it that doesn’t work.” The mayor responded at his press conference, “When they say move the shelter, my question to them is where? Which community should I move it in? Those who are already oversaturated? Or should we all share the burden of this.”

Although Adams refused to reduce the capacity of the shelters (currently at 3100 and 850), he increased the police presence at the shelters and added metal detectors at the Ryerson shelter.

New York Immigration Coalition president Murad Awawdeh commented:

“We have also been calling on the Mayor to stop warehousing vulnerable people in emergency shelters and begin moving people into permanent housing by expanding eligibility to CityFHEPS vouchers to New Yorkers regardless of immigration status, so they can truly put down roots and create self-sustaining lives here. The Mayor needs to stop investing in shortsighted costly non-solutions and start prioritizing community safety by investing in the resources people need to thrive.”

It is clear that along with physical shelter, recent migrants need city-supplied information about available resources such as free English classes, IDNYC cards, and subway information. This information is available in the Roosevelt Hotel, why not in Clinton Hill?

WHAT CAN WE DO?

 

In solidarity and with collective care,

Jackson Heights Immigrant Solidarity Network (JHISN)

 

 Follow @JHSolidarity on Facebook and Twitter and share this newsletter with friends, families, neighbors, networks, and colleagues so they can subscribe and receive news from JHISN. 

JHISN Newsletter 06/08/2024

Posted on June 8, 2024 by - News, Newsletter

Dear friends,

As the November elections approach, immigration is again becoming fodder for fascist fear-mongering and cynical political jockeying. Five days ago, President Biden announced extraordinary measures to restrict and criminalize asylum seekers at the southern border. Breaking his 2020 campaign promises—as well as international and domestic law—Biden has introduced policies that will effectively shut down asylum refuge and border-crossings for tens of thousands of people. We will bring you more news on this.

In our neighborhood, a beautiful exhibit in Travers Park communicates some of the actual, intimate realities of migration and border transit. Our first article describes the making of “Brought from Home,” a set of documentary photographs of beloved objects and mementos that Latin American immigrants bring with them to the US from their homeplace. The exhibit is on display in the park for just one more week!

Our second article offers an update on the proposed casino project in Flushing, as a billionaire’s dream of profit threatens immigrant neighborhoods and local economies here in Central Queens.  

Newsletter highlights:
  1. Immigrant art exhibit at Travers Park 
  2. Mega-casino project hits major hurdle  

 

1. “Brought from Home” Exhibit at Travers Park

“As an immigrant myself, and daughter of a man who had a deep connection with his native Peru until his last breath in 2020, I developed Brought from Home as it is a topic that is personal to me and my family….[It] gives viewers an intimate look on immigration and the meaning of home from the perspective of migrants who communicate and demonstrate resilience, as well as hope for the rebirth of a new and better life, while holding on to pieces of what once was.” –Angelica Briones

Readers have until June 16th to see documentary photographer Angela Briones’ moving outdoor exhibition in Travers Park. Briones photographs cherished keepsakes that Latin American migrants carry with them—things that “root them to home.” A short text explains the significance of each item for its owner.

Briones began photographing in NYC, exploring what Latin American immigrants in our city treasure as mementos of home—including photos, stuffed animals, coins, and ornaments. Then, with the help of a grant from the Queens Council for the Arts, she traveled to Tijuana, Mexico, to interview migrants at two shelters near the border, and to photograph the keepsakes they carried with them.

Professionally printed on a very large canvas banner, “Brought from Home” is sponsored by Photoville, a prestigious photo festival centered in Brooklyn Bridge Park. Every summer, a “village” of shipping containers is repurposed into a series of art galleries on the waterfront. Photoville also organizes pop-up outdoor photo exhibitions in neighborhoods all over the city. Although there are 85 such satellite shows this year, “Brought from Home” is the only one in Queens.

Briones’ project allows us a privileged window into the personal experiences of migrants. As she puts it, “Although immigrants leave their native countries behind, this rarely means that ‘home’ doesn’t come with them.”

WHAT CAN WE DO?
  • Visit “Brought from Home” free exhibit until June 16 in Travers Park, open from 6am – 9pm every day.
  • Learn about and visit Photoville.

2. Ramos Red Lights the Casino Project

As we reported in April, multiple local working-class and immigrant groups oppose billionaire Steve Cohen’s major Metropolitan Park casino development in Flushing. Five of the six powerful politicians on the committee required to approve the project strongly support it. (There is no Asian American representative on the committee even though the land next to Citi Field is bordered by working-class Asian and other immigrant communities.) State Senator Jessica Ramos is the sixth member and would have to introduce legislation to waive the site’s legal status as a park (i.e. ‘alienate’ the parkland) to make the project possible. On Tuesday May 28, Ramos refused to do so. Since this legislative session ended on June 6, she has effectively stopped the $8 billion project for now.

“We want investment and opportunity, we are desperate for green space, and recreation for the whole family. We disagree on the premise that we have to accept a casino in our backyard as the trade-off. I resent the conditions and the generations of neglect that have made many of us so desperate that we would be willing to settle.” —Jessica Ramos

 Even though Phoenix Meadows is an alternative proposal already circulating in the community, on Tuesday Senator Ramos offered her own proposal, without a casino but including a hotel and convention center, athletic fields, a parking facility, a revamped 7 train station, flood protection and other upgrades at the site.

Several local organizations continue to oppose this development project. For example, Queens Neighborhoods United (QNU) is angry that Ramos is suggesting any privatization of the parkland because once the site is no longer designated a public park (alienated), it’s gone forever. QNU strongly prefers the site’s use only as a park or for affordable housing.

In a Facebook post, MinKwon Center for Community Action voiced support for Ramos’ decision and condemned Cohen’s tactics. “Senator Ramos is doing the right thing in opposing the casino, because she is backing the constituents of her district who are, unsurprisingly, 75% opposed to having a casino in their backyard near their kids’ schools.” MinKwon also points out that Cohen’s attempts to get community support have been misleading. Residents signed petitions thinking they were supporting parks, when page 2 showed they were actually signing for Metropolitan Park, casino and all. The Center further commented, “A casino’s profit margin is determined by how much more wealth it extracts than it spends/invests. It is not an engine that generates community wealth, it is a wealth extraction engine.”

Flushing Anti-Displacement Alliance (FADA) continues to oppose Steve Cohen’s project because “it will take $2 billion a year out of our neighborhood economies, leading to the closure of small businesses. It is being planned in conjunction with a wave of adjacent luxury development that will raise rents and property taxes, causing more displacement.” In addition, FADA called for a boycott of the Queens Pride parade on June 2 because of Cohen’s sponsorship of LGBT Network (the parade’s recent sponsor) and his hedge fund’s investments in manufacturing drones that the IDF uses in Israel’s war on Gaza.

Borough President Donovan Richards is perhaps the strongest proponent of Metropolitan Park and its accompanying casino, saying:

“…the families of this community so badly deserve the 25,000 good-paying union jobs, the $163 million community investment fund, the Taste of Queens food hall designed for borough-based vendors, critical support for community-based organizations, rising property values and more that the Metropolitan Park proposal puts forth.”

Lost in the discussion are the three other proposed sites for a casino in the NY area. One of them is Bally’s Bronx, which would be located on what used to be Trump’s golf course in Throggs Neck. It would feature a half-million-square foot gaming hall as well as food and beverage service, a hotel with a spa and meeting space, retail shops, a 2,000-seat event center and a parking garage for up to 4,660 vehicles. Again, parkland would have to be alienated. Neither State Assemblyman Michael Benedetto nor State Senator Nathalia Fernandez have presented legislation to alienate the Throggs Neck parcel.

Clearly, NY boroughs don’t want a casino, but Steve Cohen and Bally’s will continue to fight for their projects. Applications for each proposed casino are not due until 2025.

WHAT CAN WE DO?

 

In solidarity and with collective care,

Jackson Heights Immigrant Solidarity Network (JHISN)

Follow @JHSolidarity on Facebook and Twitter and share this newsletter with friends, families, neighbors, networks, and colleagues so they can subscribe and receive news from JHISN. 

JHISN Newsletter 04/06/2024

Posted on April 6, 2024 by - News, Newsletter

Dear friends,

We bring you news this week from the community frontlines of immigrant justice, highlighting the recent work of DRUM—a local group building power among low-wage South Asian and Indo-Caribbean New Yorkers. We then offer a frightening look at the publicized plans to dismantle and re-assemble the Department of Homeland Security into a militarized, anti-immigrant agency operating with impunity. The plans are part of the notorious Project 2025, a right-wing fever dream should the Republican party control the White House after the next election. 

 In these final days of Ramadan, as neighborhood communities look toward the crescent moon marking the end of this holy month of fasting, reflection, and prayer, we remember the Palestinians facing hunger and starvation in Gaza long after the Shawwal moon grows full.     

Newsletter highlights:
  1. DRUM initiates community meetings with electeds
  2. Project 2025’s plans for immigrant injustice

1. DRUM Challenges Lawmakers

DRUM (Desis Rising Up and Moving) is known for its promotion of grassroots democracy. In February, instead of waiting for elected representatives to hold town meetings about legislation that DRUM supports, they arranged for multiple local community gatherings and invited the electeds to attend.

“For our community meetings, we wanted to invert the dynamic of us going to our representatives. We called on them to come and sit with the people of the districts they represent and hear directly from us about the issues we are organizing around.”—DRUM Facebook (March 15, 2024)

Four open meetings were held: two in Queens and one each in Brooklyn and the Bronx. These “were opportunities for [elected officials] to practice accountability and report on their actions that affect our lives,” DRUM says. 

Top issues of concern included the housing crisis, workers’ rights, education, and the genocide in Gaza. The corresponding legislation currently in the State Senate are the Good Cause, the Unemployment Bridge Program, and the Not on Our Dime bills.

The Good Cause law would protect tenants from arbitrary eviction and hold rent increases to 3%, or 150% of the Consumer Price Index, whichever is higher, as long as tenants continue to pay rent. Landlords could still evict tenants for non-payment of rent or lease violations.

The Unemployment Bridge Program would establish a fund for replacing lost wages for workers not eligible for unemployment insurance because of immigration status or the type of work they do. This proposed law is based on the principles of the historic Excluded Workers Fund. 

The Not on Our Dime! bill would end New York state support for Israeli settler activity by banning not-for-profit companies from supporting Israeli settlement activity that violates international law and the Geneva Conventions of 1949.

 DRUM’s reportback states:

“For all electeds, we call on you to take the time to be in the communities that you were elected to serve, and to show up in meaningful ways.”

WHAT CAN WE DO?

2. The Intimidating Mandate of Project 2025

“Project 2025 elucidates how the administration would halt legal immigration, centralize power in the federal government, decimate privacy protections, and risk American security and prosperity, all in pursuit of a political obsession with immigration.” —Cecilia Esterline, “Unveiling the far right’s plan to demolish immigration in a second Trump term” (Niskanen Center, Feb. 2024)

Project 2025’s 900-page Mandate for Leadership is a self-described conservative playbook to “guarantee implementation of the Day One agenda,” which Trump has, without regret, stated will be his day of dictatorship. As a guidebook to “deconstruct the Administrative State,” 35 pages of Project 2025’s Mandate focus on the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its immigration procedures. If implemented, these initiatives would effectively give more militarized Enforcement and Removal Operations agents the authority to conduct warrantless searches anywhere in the country, and, when directed by the Secretary, enforce regulations internationally. Project 2025 creates a blueprint for the vast expansion of unaccountable executive power. DHS would be run by the executive office and its political appointees who will take novel approaches to circumvent the Congressional confirmation process. They will create data analysis and communication channels to control the flow of all information to justify and promulgate their anti-immigration stance without any checks and balances. 

A sample of Project 2025’s recommendations to dismantle DHS and its existing immigration system includes stopping funds for all NGOs that support immigration; budgeting more government money for the border wall and to increase security at Ports of Entry; prioritizing the immediate deportation of immigrants over citations to appear in immigration court; ending legal prohibitions on family separation and allowing the expanded use of tents for temporary ‘housing’ of migrants; repealing the unaccompanied minor rule and permitting children to be housed by DHS instead of Health and Human Services; raising the standard for credible fear claims and removing domestic violence or gang violence as grounds for asylum; expanding the use of Blackies warrants, which notoriously rely on profiling appearance and ethnicity, and allowing, with limited oversight, workplace raids and the arrest of immigrant workers; and reinstating the Denaturalization Department to remove US citizenship and deport people.

The reason given for these recommendations is that DHS has “suffered from the Left’s wokeness and weaponization against Americans whom the Left perceives as political opponents” (p. 135). The Mandate itself directly weaponizes all departments against immigrants, even the one agency people recognize as supporting people in dire need, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) (p. 138). After first asserting that the disaster response agency is not lawful, the Mandate then demands that any organization receiving FEMA funds should prove it is a lawful actor by: 

  • Forcing them to detain immigrants. 
  • Granting DHS full access to DMV and voting records of any state receiving FEMA support. 
  • Requiring them to register with E-verify. 

E-verify has been described by critics as an intrusive and expensive government surveillance of daily life that would create enormous privacy and security risks. The ACLU writes that “a mandatory E-Verify system—which forces everyone in the country to ask the government for permission to work—simply does not belong in fair immigration reform.” 

Project 2025 is not looking to create a fair or better immigration system; that is a legislative role. The Mandate’s primary goal is to reorganize DHS so that Congress has little power over the way the Department runs, or who runs it. A second goal is to further militarize the department and to convert administrative positions into enforcement roles. It will transform what is the third-largest federal department into a 100,000-person armed force that the president can wield, globally, without Congressional oversight. Another priority is to remove the options for asylum claims, including eliminating claims based on credible fear. The only time the Mandate adds an option for immigration is when recommending that people with wealth be allowed to pay for expedited immigration procedures (p. 146). 

Even if the recommendation is not adopted to deliver that department of 100,000 enforcers, the 2025 Mandate offers another option: combine Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) into a single department, the Border Security and Immigration Agency, (BSIA) (p. 138).  Given “the persistent need for and utilization of U.S. military personnel and resources to assist BSIA with increasing whole-of-government efforts” (p. 139), they go even further: the Office of Air and Marine (OAM) will share with BSIA its aviation assets across the globe, and in every state in the US. DHS would then have the option of using military/aviation equipment anywhere in the US or globally wherever it sees a threat. This militarized overreach was already tested in 2020 when CBP flew a drone outside of the 100-mile border enforcement zone to monitor a George Floyd protest in Minneapolis.

The 2025 Mandate also expands the role of the Secret Service Uniform Division which protects the physical White House grounds. Its jurisdiction would be expanded to cover all of Washington, DC, to counteract what is stated to be a “trend of progressive pro-crime policies” (p. 158). The ICE memoranda identifying sensitive zones where agents cannot go would be rescinded. By removing “self-imposed limitations on its nationwide jurisdiction,” ICE agents can pursue “the civil arrest, detention, and removal of immigration violators anywhere in the USA without warrant” (p. 142). This means any institution of learning, hospitals, places of religious worship, funerals, weddings, and public demonstrations, marches, or parades would become locations where federal agents can act unimpeded. 

The majority of people whose lives are vulnerable to the dehumanizing escalation and expansion of immigration enforcement practices, militarized throughout the nation, cannot vote in the elections which can stop its implementation. If US voters are fine with electing politicians who will enact these changes, that could be used to limit their own freedoms, it is because they don’t expect these tactics will ever be used against them. They could be wrong.

WHAT CAN WE DO? 

 

In solidarity and with collective care,

Jackson Heights Immigrant Solidarity Network (JHISN)

 

Follow @JHSolidarity on Facebook and Twitter and share this newsletter with friends, families, neighbors, networks, and colleagues so they can subscribe and receive news from JHISN. 

 

JHISN Newsletter 03/23/2024

Posted on March 23, 2024 by - News, Newsletter

Dear friends,

Spring is official, and we welcome our readers to the early bloom of change in the neighborhood. And in this sacred month of Ramadan celebrated by so many here in Jackson Heights, we wish you extra time for reflection, community, and connection.

Our first story also brings news of change: the shifting landscape of global migration behind an increasing number of West African immigrants arriving in New York City. We then turn to report on the largely invisible stories of Palestinian Americans in Gaza and the West Bank during a relentless war, and the obstacles to immigration even for close family members of Palestinian US citizens.

Newsletter highlights:
  1. Troubled routes for West African migrants
  2. Stranded and besieged: Palestinian Americans in the Occupied Territories

 

 

1. West Africa to NYC

“We always heard when you come here, you’re going to find two jobs, you’re going to work, you’re going to survive. But when you come here, it’s hard to even find one job. It’s a fiction, what we heard.” —Ibrahim Mbengue, recent Senegalese immigrant

Embodying the shifting currents of global migration, hundreds of thousands of West Africans, mostly young men, have been arriving at the US-Mexico border over the last few years, with tens of thousands ultimately making their way to New York City. In fiscal year 2023 alone, 58,000 Africans crossed into the US from Mexico, three times as many as the year before. At the end of 2023, about 14% of the people in New York’s migrant shelters came from Senegal, Guinea, and Mauritania, countries on the Atlantic coast embroiled in social conflict and economic crisis. Like other migrants, West Africans leave home for a range of reasons, fleeing organized violence, repression, discrimination, domestic abuse, climate change, and lack of economic opportunity. But their pathways of migration, and their experiences in New York, are unique.

West Africa is much closer to Europe than to the US. But EU nations, with the cooperation of the Moroccan navy, have progressively hardened their borders, effectively discouraging West Africans from crossing the Mediterranean. At the same time, a new, circuitous route from Africa to North America has opened up. In what some commentators call a “weaponization of migration” intended to respond to US sanctions, the government of Nicaragua is providing unrestricted low-cost visas to African migrants. Flying into Nicaragua with legal status can be used as a stepping stone towards the US. In West African countries, ads for “travel packages” to Nicaragua are prominently featured on TikTok and other social media. Brokers buy up large numbers of airline tickets and resell them to migrants at a profit.

A series of flights from West Africa to Nicaragua is expensive, often costing $10,000 or more. Migrants often rely on loans from family members. The trip is also arduous. It typically begins by flying to international airline hubs like Istanbul, where migrants board the sold-out daily flight to Bogotá, Colombia. From there, they struggle to catch a connecting flight to San Salvador, and then another to Managua. Travelers often get stuck in the crowded Bogotá airport for days as they attempt to arrange the next leg of their journey. 

In Managua, migrant travelers meet up with guides and make their way north by foot, bus, and train through Central America and Mexico to the US border. By starting out in Nicaragua, African migrants have a head start: they avoid the dangers of the infamous Darien Gap, which lies further south between Colombia and Panama. Yet the trek north is still extremely perilous. Like other migrants, Africans may be preyed on by dishonest smugglers, officials, police, and gangs; they are sometimes subjected to violence or robbed of their possessions. After reaching the US border and requesting asylum, migrants undergo Border Patrol and ICE processing. The US government has found it difficult to deport Africans because of distance, and lack of bilateral agreements with the countries of origin. Most West African migrants are allowed to travel to a US city of their choice while their asylum court dates are pending.

Although a few African immigrants have come to New York on Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s infamous buses, most arrange their own transportation from the border. On arrival, they face daunting challenges. Mayor Adams has imposed a thirty-day limit on shelter stays for single migrants, including young people. Within the shelters, lack of translation resources has prevented some West African migrants—who may speak French, Arabic, Pulaar, or Portuguese—from accessing basic services or assistance with their asylum cases.

Once pushed out of the shelter system, New York’s African immigrants often struggle to find housing, food, and other necessities. Many are living in makeshift circumstances—in basements, crowded informal shelters, on the sidewalk, in the subway, or in ad hoc spaces provided by non-profits and religious groups. Usually, the community groups willing to provide emergency shelter are ineligible for government aid, since they don’t meet the required fire and building regulations.

A network of some 20 small mosques distributed around the five boroughs has found its open-hearted generosity overwhelmed by the needs of newly arrived West African Muslims. Community organizations like Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI), African Communities Together (ACT), and the mutual aid group Black and Arab Migrant Solidarity Alliance (BAMSA), are also swamped by the sudden demand for food and health care, ESL classes, housing and legal assistance. The Interfaith Center of New York (ICNY) is currently spending $22,000 to cater halal meals for 100 people at the neediest mosques across the city during the days of Ramadan.

Like other new arrivals, African migrants want above all to work. Lacking official permits, many have turned to day labor, street vending, and food delivery—including work for the major delivery app companies, using “shared” ID documents. These labor pools are already crowded and competitive. Nevertheless, many Africans go to great lengths to not just survive but send a few dollars back home.

A wide spectrum of community organizations and liberal politicians has called on the Biden administration to extend Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to African and Caribbean migrants who face unsafe conditions in their countries of origin. This would reduce fear of deportation and provide access to legal employment. So far, the administration has not agreed.

“By not taking action to address the specific barriers that Black immigrants face when seeking immigration relief, the administration is not only upholding the inequities that exist throughout many of the programs, but championing the continued silence around the experiences of the country’s fastest-growing immigrant population.” —Diana Konaté, Policy Director, African Communities Together

WHAT CAN WE DO?
  • If you can, donate to the groups linked to above that support West African migrants.
  • Urge Chuck Schumer to get the Biden administration to authorize TPS for West Africans.

2. Abandoning Palestinian Americans in Gaza

“And so … you see the same pattern over and over and over again. The State Department says something very basic and generic, and then they don’t do anything about it, and they wait for the story to fade away. And that sends the message to Israel: You can do whatever you want, even to American citizens, and no one will hold you accountable.” – Edward Ahmed Mitchell, civil rights attorney and national deputy director of CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations), 2/14/24

The recent killing, arrests, and attacks on US citizens in Gaza and the West Bank are stories barely told in mainstream US media, or told only to soon “fade away.” Here are just a few. Samahar Esmail, from Louisiana, forcibly taken from her West Bank home in early February and detained without charges. Palestinian American teenager Mohammad Ahmed Mohammad Khdour, 17, shot in the head by Israeli forces on February 10 while sitting in a parked car with his relative near the West Bank town of Biddu. Borak Alagha, 18, and his brother Hashem, 20, both born in Chicago where they spent their early childhood, arrested on February 8 and now held in an Israeli prison.

Around 350 US citizens remained trapped in Gaza as of December 2023, with another 600 legal permanent residents or immediate family members of US citizens—eligible to come to the US—also unable to depart. That same month, two Palestinian American families sued the Biden Administration for failing to protect US citizens in a war zone, and denying their constitutional right to equal protection. (In early October as the war began, the US government chartered flights and a cruise ship to Europe for US nationals in Israel.)

Project Immigration Justice for Palestinians (Project IJP) was launched as an emergency response to the crisis in Gaza. The coalition of US immigration lawyers and justice organizations advocates for humanitarian immigration options for Palestinians, and offers legal services to US families with relatives in Gaza. The lack of accessible pathways to immigration for Palestinians is mobilizing an urgent fight for expanded eligibility criteria for who can get State Department assistance in leaving Gaza. Currently, even green card holders cannot bring their parents to the US. Aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews, and siblings who are married or over the age of 21 are also excluded. In other words, most family members of US Palestinians are not eligible for immigration even if they are facing starvation and a genocidal war. The one available immigration portal created for situations of humanitarian crisis, called humanitarian parole, usually takes years to process. It also requires paperwork—birth certificates, passports, identity documents—that for most Gazans have been destroyed in the bombing of their homes, buried under rubble, or left behind as they flee their homes.  

A lawyer with Project IJP explains: “Without the government coming out and saying that [they] are going to prioritize processing applications from Palestinians in Gaza, there’s no guarantee that any of our efforts will come to anything.”

We shine this brief spotlight on Palestinian Americans not because their stories are more important than others in Palestine, but because their situation reveals the brazen complicity of the US with Israel in devaluing Palestinian life and freedom—even for American citizens.

WHAT CAN WE DO?

 

In solidarity and with collective care,
Jackson Heights Immigrant Solidarity Network (JHISN)

Follow @JHSolidarity on Facebook and Twitter and share this newsletter with friends, families, neighbors, networks, and colleagues so they can subscribe and receive news from JHISN.