Tag: Mexico

JHISN Newsletter 05/20/2023

Posted on May 20, 2023 by - News, Newsletter

Dear friends,

As corporate media headlines flare about Title 42’s termination, we try to offer some clarity about President Biden’s national immigration policies. Reckoning with the abdication—and the criminality—of this Democratic administration’s immigration politics is increasingly urgent. And as Memorial Day approaches, we report on a local act of remembrance led by Jackson Heights-based NICE (New Immigrant Community Empowerment), honoring immigrant workers who have died while performing their jobs.     

Newsletter highlights:
  1. What’s really going on? Update on national immigration policy
  2. NICE marks Dia del Trabajador Caido (Workers Memorial Day)

1. Biden’s New Immigration Policies Violate the Law

“The people are not the problem. Rather, the causes that drive families and individuals to cross borders and the short-sighted and unrealistic ways that politicians respond to them are the problem.” –Amnesty International 

After the horrors of World War II, the US played a major role in convincing the UN General Assembly to adopt the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as the centerpiece of international law. Article 14 states, “Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.” The US also promoted the humanitarian provisions of the Geneva Refugee Convention, which Congress made part of domestic law in the Refugee Act of 1980. But today the US is breaking its promises—and the international and domestic laws that protect asylum seekers and refugees. 

The US often announces itself as a nation of immigrants, but it is at the same time a hotbed of xenophobia. Deciding which immigrants from where and how many are “acceptable” is a constant seesaw battle, especially during periods of massive migration like our own. Currently, one thing everyone seems to agree on is that the immigration system is “broken.” But there is no unity in Congress on how to remedy the disgraceful mess.

In January 2021, President Biden sent a proposal for immigration reform to Congress incorporating his campaign promises to provide legal status to millions of immigrants, and reduce cruelty at the southern border. That bill went nowhere. Now Biden has pivoted to a new set of policies, mainly using executive orders. He is taking a “carrot and stick” approach: offering seemingly generous new ways to enter the country, paired with stiff enforcement to deter entry.

Human Rights First has documented eight separate ways that the new policies break international and US laws. The laws violated include Article 14 and Section 208 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, the Geneva Convention, the 1951 Refugee Convention, and Section 1158 of Title 8. Although there are current legal challenges from both the left and the right, the new policies nevertheless went into effect at midnight on May 11, the minute Title 42 ended.

Below are the specific policies, their real-life impacts, and how they violate established US and international laws:

The CBPOne app requires an asylum seeker located in Central and Northern Mexico to make an appointment at a US port of entry to present their claim. The app is intended to reduce wait time and crowding at the border. It assumes asylum seekers have a smartphone or access to the internet and can read one of five languages. The app is often inaccessible, has a limited number of appointments available, and uses facial recognition which often fails to identify non-white faces. The app raises privacy, discrimination, and surveillance concerns because data will be collected and stored even before a person enters the US. Mandatory use of the app violates the internationally accepted right to seek asylum—an unconditional principle also embedded in US law as noted above. 

Asylum seekers who enter without permission and who lack a legal basis to remain will be returned to their country of origin and will have a 5-year ban on reentry based on Title 8. Their only hope to avoid deportation is a “credible fear” interview while in CBP custody, held with limited access to legal counsel. International asylum law specifically requires that people not be returned to countries where they will be subjected to persecution (refoulement). “UNHCR [the UN refugee agency] is particularly concerned that … this [policy] would lead to cases of refoulement—the forced return of people to situations where their lives and safety would be at risk—which is prohibited under international law.” –UNHCR

Parole for Venezuelans, Nicaraguans, Haitians, and Cubans. Up to 30,000 people per month can come to the US for two years and receive work authorization—IF they have an eligible sponsor, pass vetting and background checks, and can afford a plane ticket. This limits entry to migrants with connections in the US and the means to secure visas and plane tickets. Venezuelans, Nicaraguans, Haitians, and Cubans who cross Panama, Mexico, or the US border are ineligible for parole and will be expelled to Mexico, which has agreed to receive up to 30,000 people per month. This policy is a blatant violation of the international right to seek asylum. It also endangers lives. There have been over 13,000 attacks against migrants and asylum seekers in Mexico.

“U.S. policies returning asylum seekers to Mexico have resulted in unspeakable danger and harm, while the Mexican asylum system has consistently failed to protect people fleeing persecution.”  –Meg McCarthy, Executive Director of National Immigrant Justice Center

Creation of new processing centers.  In Colombia, Guatemala, and perhaps other countries, migrants will supposedly be able to apply for legal entry into the US before they make the difficult journey. These centers aren’t operational yet and require the use of the infamous CBPOne app. It’s unclear if people from Honduras and El Salvador will get access to a center.

Migrants passing through other countries en route to US who do not first claim asylum there will be ineligible to claim asylum at the US border. This violates the international right to seek asylum as well as Section 1158 of Title 8 of the United States Code. This section clearly states that people can apply for asylum no matter how they enter the US.

1500 active-duty US soldiers have been deployed to the border to relieve Border Protection officers of administrative duties. This is further militarization of the border. Their presence will undoubtedly frighten people. It treats migrants as a security threat.

It’s notable that other countries, including Colombia, Ecuador, Costa Rica, and Belize, have provided legal status to an increased number of migrants, basing their policies on the Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Protection. Canada, Mexico, and Spain have also expanded refugee resettlement and temporary work opportunities. Mexico and Guatemala have ramped up their asylum systems, partly based on collaboration and funding agreements with the US. 

The new Biden Administration rules will be in effect for two years—May 11, 2023 to May 11, 2025. What happens then?

WHAT CAN WE DO?

2. Fallen Workers Day Organized by NICE

“We work to live, not to die.” –NICE Facebook (May 1, 2023)

 Holding a black banner printed with the names of the dead, members of New Immigrant Community Empowerment (NICE) gathered on April 28 to mourn and to mobilize. Dia del Trabajador Caido (‘Fallen Workers Day’ or ‘Workers Memorial Day’) is an annual public event honoring NYC workers who have died on the job, and calling for increased safety and protections, especially in the construction industry.

 NICE, based in Jackson Heights, supported the seven-year fight to pass Carlos’ Law, finally signed by Governor Hochul in December 2022. The legislation increases the criminal liability of employers whose workers are killed or seriously injured in the workplace. The law was named after Carlos Moncayo, a 22-year-old Ecuadorian immigrant living in Queens who was killed while doing construction work in 2015.   

 Worker safety and worker deaths are immigrant justice issues. The annual 2023 Deadly Skyline report produced by NYCOSH—the NY Committee for Occupational Safety and Health—reveals fatality statistics in NY’s construction industry: in New York City, 20 workers died at their jobs, a 54% increase from the previous year. And while an estimated 10% of construction workers in New York State are Latinx, over 25% of fatalities were among Latinx workers. Immigrant workers are disproportionately dying on construction sites—and non-union sites in particular, according to NYCOSH, accounted for 86% of worker deaths in 2018. Even getting an accurate count of worker deaths and injuries has been a political battle. Not until Queens State Senator Jessica Ramos successfully sponsored legislation in 2021 requiring a statewide death registry for construction workers, did the Department of Labor belatedly begin to gather fatality statistics in a public database.    

 To remember is to keep alive. We support the necessary political work that NICE, NYCOSH, the Manhattan Justice Workers Collaborative, and their allies are doing to keep alive the struggle for a safe and accountable workplace. And to honor the living memory of immigrant workers who have been sacrificed while doing their job.  

WHAT CAN WE DO?
  • Donate to NICE if you are able, and follow NICE social media @NICE4Workers.
  • Support the online Worker Hotline for reporting workplace crimes—including health & safety issues—against low-income workers, organized by the Manhattan Justice for Workers Collaborative.

 

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 10/29/2022

Posted on October 29, 2022 by - News, Newsletter

Dear friends,

 As the sun drops earlier in the sky, and as communities around the world draw in their final harvest, it is time to join in the festival of lights. Diwali, and the related festival of Tihar Utsav, were celebrated this past week throughout South Asia—and here in Jackson Heights. Over 200 people gathered on October 22 in Travers Park for a day-long Diwali event, featuring food and performances, a lamp-lighting ceremony, and speakers including a young climate justice activist and the director of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, Bhairavi Desai.

 And on October 27, Adhikaar held its Fall Utsav festival. As a Queens-based, women-led immigrant justice organization for the Nepali-speaking community, Adhikaar has much to celebrate: their statewide nail salon workers campaign; the fight for economic justice for domestic workers; and the urgent work to extend Temporary Protective Status for thousands of Nepali immigrants. Adhikaar is also marking a change of seasons in leadership as executive director and long-time community organizer Pabitra Khati Benjamin transitions out of her role, and the search for a new director begins.          

Our newsletter this week features an in-depth article on the status of DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals). The fate of tens of thousands of young DACA recipients here in New York is at stake as legislative and judicial wrangling continues, and real lives are upended by uncertainty and the threat of deportation.  

Newsletter highlights:

1. No Protection for DACA’s Young Dreamers

DACA Recipients Still in Limbo

“We were promised immigration reform in the first 100 days [of the Biden administration]…Those 100 days came and went, and we have nothing”—Catalina Cruz, the first former DACA recipient elected to NY State Assembly

President Obama inaugurated the DACA program (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) in June 2012. It has been under attack by right-wing Republicans ever since. Today DACA’s future is unclear, leaving hundreds of thousands of people and their families in limbo, including tens of thousands of Dreamers here in NYC. Many are unable to work, and some face the prospect of deportation if DACA is not renewed or replaced with other pathways to legal status.

DACA has been the subject of a seesaw battle involving executive orders and litigation. In 2017, President Trump attempted to end the program by barring new and renewal applications so that DACA holders’ protections would expire over time. In July 2021, a Houston court ruled that DACA was illegal because it had not gone through the proper public notice and comment process. This month, shortly after DACA’s tenth anniversary, a Federal Appeals Court upheld the Houston decision, returning the case to the Houston court and ordering further review. As a result of the court’s recent decision, DHS policy will only allow current DACA recipients to renew their application and work authorization; no new applications will be processed. The hundreds of thousands of young people eligible for DACA can still submit a new application, but it will be set aside and not acted upon by US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). 

Which States Have DACA Recipients? As of June 2022, USCIS reports there are 594,120 DACA recipients nationwide, with over 1,150,000 eligible. There are 25,580 in New York state, with 56,000 eligible.

The states with the highest number of DACA holders are:

California 169,590 Texas 97,760 Illinois 31,480 New York 24,580
Florida 23,240 North Carolina 22,670 Arizona 22,530 Georgia 19,460

 

Where Did Their Families Come From? The most common countries of birth for DACA holders are: 

Mexico 480,160 El Salvador 23,080 Guatemala 15,710 Honduras 14,390 Peru 5,610
South Korea 5,540 Brazil 4,530 Ecuador 4,230 Colombia 3,690 Philippines 2,900

According to the Migration Policy Institute, most states have more people eligible for DACA than are currently enrolled, and eight states have twice as many people eligible for DACA than are enrolled in DACA.

This is an extraordinary number of people.

What Can Dreamers Do? DACA recipients can legally live, work, and go to college in the US. They have married, had children, bought homes and cars, completed college degrees, started businesses, and worked in a variety of fields. Their taxes and labor have made substantial contributions to the US economy.

According to data from the Center for American Progress, DACA recipients boost the US economy by paying federal, state, and local taxes, buying homes, paying rent, and spending money. Nationwide, DACA recipients and their households each year pay $5.6 billion in federal taxes and $3.1 billion in state and local taxes. Based on 2018 data, their contributions in New York state include:

Federal taxes State and local taxes Homes owned Mortgage payments Annual rental payments Spending power
$374.1 million $238.8 million 800 $16.4 million $132.8 million $1.3 billion

But they do not benefit equally from the taxes they pay due to their precarious status.

What Are DACA’s Education Benefits? In many states, undocumented students have to pay the same tuition rates as international students. Such high rates can prevent people from going to college. To address this problem, in 2019 New York state passed the Senator José Peralta New York State DREAM Act which gives undocumented and other students access to New York State administered grants and scholarships that help pay the cost of higher education. DACA allows people to join licensed fields (like nursing and education), which improves their ability to get a well-paying job with health benefits.

Where Do Dreamers Work? In a 2020 survey, 89.1% of DACA recipients 25 and older who responded were employed. DACA allowed them to move to jobs with better pay and better working conditions with health benefits, and 12.9% were able to get professional licenses. Higher wages and financial independence increase their contributions to the economy.

The Center for Migration Studies, using data from 2018, reported that DACA employees were concentrated in the following industries: health care (including hospitals and nursing care facilities); retail trade (including supermarkets and pharmacies); transportation and warehousing; restaurants and other food services; support and waste management services; and manufacturing. In 2021 the Center for American Progress reported that 343,000 DACA recipients were employed in essential jobs during the pandemic, primarily in health care, education, and the food supply chain.

What’s Next? According to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in June 2020, about three-quarters of US adults favor granting permanent legal status to immigrants who came illegally to the United States when they were children, with the strongest support coming from Democrats and Latino/as.

In 2012, DACA  was intended to be a temporary solution until Congress provided a pathway to citizenship. But congressional attempts to pass a solution have failed, even though there is some bipartisan support. As a result, undocumented teenagers graduating high school this year will not have protection from deportation or the ability to work. According to Neil Bradley, chief policy officer for the US Chamber of Commerce: “The inability to hire tens of thousands of high school graduates comes amid a ‘massive shortage’ of labor that has developed partly because of the country’s aging population and low birthrate” (June 2022, New York Times). Ending DACA would put families in danger of job loss, deportation, and separation from their US citizen children, and have a deleterious effect on the US economy.

Many immigrant justice organizations, including the National Immigration Law Center, United We Dream, and Make the Road NY, continue to fight for legislation to provide a path to citizenship for Dreamers and other undocumented immigrants. But for now, hundreds of thousands of young DACA recipients are constrained by the program’s two-year increments, forced to live in limbo and in fear.

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 07/23/2022

Posted on July 23, 2022 by - News, Newsletter

Dear friends,

Small victories, temporary defeats – the local landscape of immigration politics is complicated. We bring you our newsletter in hopes it can help you navigate the terrain. Let’s celebrate with DRUM (Desis Rising Up and Moving), the recent decision by Queens DA Melanie Katz to drop all charges against Prakash Churaman, a young Queens resident and immigrant from Guyana falsely charged and held for six years at Rikers. DRUM, together with several other grassroots groups and Prakash himself, worked tirelessly to defeat the injustice of an incarceration system that disproportionately imprisons black and brown youth, including those who are innocent. Welcome home, Prakash.

And let’s note the recent defeat, for now, of a progressive move by the City Council to grant municipal voting rights to hundreds of thousands of immigrants with legal residence in NYC. A Republican judge from Staten Island, one of 324 elected judges composing the New York Supreme Court, just ruled that the new law violates the state Constitution. Activists who have worked for decades to secure noncitizen voting in NYC have vowed to appeal the ruling.

This week’s newsletter surveys a dystopian landscape of immigration politics at the global level, focusing on the history of the international asylum system, and the struggles today of migrants trying to navigate what’s left of it.

1. Asylum: A Human Right Under Attack

Over the last few decades, the world’s wealthiest nations, led by the US, have moved to shred the established global system of asylum and protections for refugees. Catering instead to racist and xenophobic domestic politics, they blatantly violate international law. “This system, once held up as a universal and legally binding obligation, is now treated as effectively voluntary,” writes Max Fisher. The practical repercussions of this change for the world’s hundred million plus refugees are staggering.

In the aftermath of World War II, which created approximately 60 million refugees, world governments met to establish unified asylum policies rooted in international law. The result was the 1951 Refugee Convention, later folded into the “1967 Protocol .” During the Cold War, the US, eager to be seen as a defender of refugees, promoted the Protocol and cemented it into national law as the US Refugee Act of 1980.

The Convention and Protocol require nations to provide asylum to anyone fleeing their home country because of persecution, or reasonable fear of persecution, on the basis of race, religion, nationality, political views, or membership in a particular social group. In conjunction with other international law, the Convention and Protocol extend asylum to refugees fleeing extreme danger from armed groups or because of civil strife. Although the right to asylum does not apply directly to economic or climate refugees, it may apply indirectly if they are endangered by social conflict in the wake of economic or climate catastrophes.

The Convention and Protocol, signed by 148 countries, demand that refugees be treated with dignity and respect. Two key provisions include the principle of “non-refoulement,” which prohibits the return of refugees to a country where they face serious threats to life or freedom; and the fundamental principle that asylum is a human right.  Refugees hold specific rights as well: the right not to be expelled (except under strictly defined conditions), the right not to be punished for illegal entry, the right to work, housing, education, and public assistance, the right to freedom of movement, and the right to obtain identity and travel documents. Any refugee seeking asylum must have their claim considered on its merits.

But today, wealthy countries go to cruel and elaborate lengths to deter asylum seekers, many of whom are fleeing social disasters caused by imperialism. Turning back desperate refugees at sea has become one increasingly common practice. This abuse was pioneered by the US, which began intercepting fleeing Haitians and Cubans in the 1990s. Using “international waters” as an excuse for denying asylum, the US imprisoned refugees in camps at Guantanamo or sent them to other countries. In a 21st-century version of this policy, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas (who comes from a Cuban migrant family) made it clear to Haitians and Cubans that “if you take to the sea, you will not come to the United States.” The European Union directs similar harsh practices toward Arab and Central African refugees trying to cross the Mediterranean. It has negotiated agreements with Libya and Tunisia to intercept and detain migrants before they can reach land and request asylum.

International law is also ignored for refugees fleeing by land. Mexico has been enlisted to capture and deport migrants from Central America and other parts of the world before they get to the US border. At the border itself, many refugees are turned back by US Customs and Border Patrol on the grounds that they should have stayed in the first country they passed through, something generally not required by the Convention or Protocol. Central American, Haitian, and African migrants who apply for asylum are being illegally forced to wait in dangerous, unsanitary encampments in Mexico. The Trump administration created many new unlawful ways to deter asylum seekers, insisting that the government has the authority to “meter” the flow of refugees and to deny admittance because of Covid 19 using Title 42.

Britain recently announced that thousands of asylum applicants, mostly people of color, will be sent to Rwanda, a continent away. (This while immediately welcoming 100,000 refugees from Ukraine.) Other European governments send asylum seekers to Sudan and Libya, where they face uncertain futures. Greece is violently deporting asylum seekers to Turkey; Spain is confining refugees in Morocco. Israel is imprisoning and deporting African asylum seekers. Australia pays Pacific island nations to detain refugees who wish to make asylum claims, keeping them at arm’s length and isolated. As Laila Lalami summarizes: 

“Across the Global North, wealthy countries are outsourcing their border enforcement to poorer countries in exchange for economic, military or diplomatic support. Saddling poor countries with moral and legal responsibility, this collaboration strands refugees thousands of miles away from the safe havens they seek.”

It’s impossible to overstate the brutality and violence that accompanies this racist abandonment of international law and basic human rights. Desperate migrants are literally throwing themselves against the walls and fences put up by rich countries and their allies, and are being pushed back, beaten, gassed, and shot down in response. Refugees are drowning by the thousands, as the navies of rich countries refuse to rescue them. The camps where asylum-seekers are warehoused are often bleak, lacking basic services and even minimal safety. Millions of refugees languish in these camps for years or generations, with little or no prospect of asylum.

In recent days, the US Supreme Court has ruled that the Biden administration will finally be allowed to dismantle the “remain in Mexico” policy initiated by Trump–but only if they want to; it’s not illegal, they say. The administration also seems belatedly poised to end phony Title 42 Covid restrictions. These would be positive steps. And yet Biden has deported more than 25,000 Haitian asylum-seekers. In May alone, 36 deportation flights carried 4000 Haitians back to extreme danger. Only 12,000 refugees of all nationalities have been resettled this year in the US, despite an announced refugee ceiling of 125,000. The US, after its precipitous withdrawal from Afghanistan, is rejecting 90% of Afghans seeking asylum. In other words, the carnage continues.

“If there were only one thing that could be expected from the Biden administration, it would be a more open, welcoming America after four years of his predecessor’s callous disregard for suffering abroad. We don’t have the hostile rhetoric from back then, but the numbers tell us we’re getting pretty much more of the same.”  —Marcela García, Boston Globe

WHAT CAN WE DO?
  • Take action with Human Rights First which provides free legal representation for asylum seekers and refugees in New York City.
  • Join Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project–with a membership of over 350,00 asylum seekers–to build legal, digital, and community support services.
  • Support Immigration Equality, a nationwide group promoting the rights of LGBTQ and HIV-positive immigrants and asylum-seekers.

In solidarity and with collective care,

Jackson Heights Immigrant Solidarity Network (JHISN)

Featured image: Photo by Sandor Csudai, borders added, licensed under CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0.

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.