Editorial: Biden is right to fortify DACA, but America needs a legislative solution

2022/08/26

Zoe Lofgren, D- Calif., left, join DACA recipients and other lawmakers at an event celebrating the 10th anniversary of DACA, at the U.S. Capitol on June 15, 2022, in Washington, D.C.. - Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images North America/TNS

There’s hardly been a more consequential law for immigration policy over the past several years than the Administrative Procedure Act, which has been used against both the Trump and Biden administrations to great effect by those charging that the federal government is making decisions capriciously.

Among the policies in the crosshairs has been Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the Obama-era executive program that since 2012 has offered hundreds of thousands of young people brought illegally into the country as children the opportunity to secure work authorization and be shielded from deportation.

In its more than 10 years of existence, DACA has been the subject of constant litigation and barely held on until, last July, Trump-appointed Texas federal Judge Andrew Hanen — quickly becoming a go-to hatchet man for conservatives hoping to nix Biden priorities — ruled it unconstitutional, allowing current enrollees to renew applications but blocking additional enrollments, and setting up the eventual termination of the policy.

Hanen decided that, when Obama’s Department of Homeland Security first issued the memo establishing DACA, it did so without observing proper rule-making procedures. Biden has now neutralized this argument by putting a new, formal federal rule reestablishing the DACA program through an extensive notice-and-comment period, crossing all the t’s and dotting all the i’s. Its structure is the exact same as the existing DACA policy, but it now has the much more solid backing of being part of the nation’s official regulatory framework.

This should help the program clear legal obstacles, but it’s not enough. The administration must be prepared to keep defending it all the way up to the Supreme Court while continuing to put pressure on lawmakers to finally codify a version of the DREAM Act into law, offering not just DACA’s temporary protections but a full path to citizenship for people for whom the United States is and will always be home, including for the many children who have arrived since the original supposed stopgap program went into effect. That’s the answer truest to our common values: treating hardworking, law-abiding immigrants as fellow Americans.

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© New York Daily News

Judge rules Daca suspension invalid, Homeland Security head in office illegally


Chad Wolf took office unlawfully, says federal court judge, therefore could not suspend program that shields young people from deportation


Associated Press

Sun 15 Nov 2020 
 

Acting Homeland Security chief Chad Wolf during a Senate confirmation hearing in September. Photograph: Greg Nash/AFP/Getty Images


A federal judge in New York has ruled that the acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Chad Wolf, assumed his position unlawfully and has invalidated Wolf’s suspension of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) program, which shields young people from deportation.

“DHS failed to follow the order of succession as it was lawfully designated,” the US District Judge Nicholas Garaufis wrote.

Chad Wolf: who is the Trump official leading the crackdown in Portland?


“Therefore the actions taken by purported acting secretaries, who were not properly in their roles according to the lawful order of succession, were taken without legal authority.”

About 650,000 people are part of Daca, which allows young immigrants who were brought to the country as children to legally work and shields them from deportation.

Karen Tumlin, an attorney who represented a plaintiff in one of two lawsuits that challenged Wolf’s authority, called the ruling “another win for Daca recipients and those who have been waiting years to apply for the program for the first time”.

Wolf issued a memorandum in July effectively suspending Daca pending review by DHS. A month earlier the US supreme court had ruled that Donald Trump failed to follow rule-making procedures when he tried to end the program, but the justices kept a window open for him to try again.

Daca has changed lives – and the country – for the better. It must be preserved

Roberto G Gonzales and Kristina Brant

In August the Government Accountability Office, a bipartisan congressional watchdog, said Wolf and his acting deputy, Ken Cuccinelli, were improperly serving and ineligible to run the agency under the Vacancies Reform Act. The two have been at the forefront of administration initiatives on immigration and law enforcement.

Wolf is the fifth person to serve as homeland security secretary under Trump in an acting or confirmed capacity, while George W Bush and Barack Obama each had three people in the job over the course of their two presidential terms. Wolf was named to the post only after two of the president’s preferred candidates were ruled ineligible to take up the job.

Since being appointed to the role, Wolf has overseen the controversial deployment of federal agents to quell Black Lives Matter protests in Portland, as well as denying that there was a problem with systemic racism in US law enforcement. He has also downplayed the threat of Covid-19, while overseeing the implementation of extreme immigration restrictions the White House claimed would stem the spread of coronavirus.

In Garaufis’s ruling on Saturday, the judge wrote that DHS did not follow an order of succession established when then-secretary Kirstjen Nielsen resigned in April 2019.

DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the

Effort in U.S. Congress to protect 'Dreamer' immigrants stalling





More than 200 "Dreamers" and their supporters from across U.S.A. attempt to lobby members of U.S. Congress in Washington

Thu, December 15, 2022 
By Ted Hesson and Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Over 200 advocates from around the United States converged on Capitol Hill this week with an 11th-hour mission: persuade lawmakers to provide citizenship to "Dreamer" immigrants who illegally entered the United States as children.

Addinelly Moreno Soto, a 31-year-old communications aide who came to the United States from Mexico at age 3, trekked to the Capitol from San Antonio with her husband on Wednesday hoping to meet with her state's U.S. Senator John Cornyn. The influential Republican's support could help advance a deal that has eluded Congress for more than a decade - and which appears likely to fail again this year.

Cornyn could not meet with her and other Dreamer supporters from Texas, she said. One of his staffers told them that Cornyn would need to review the text of any legislation before making a decision.


The end-of-year push comes as a window is nearly closed for Congress to find a compromise to protect Dreamers, many of whom speak English and have jobs, families and children in the United States but lack permanent status.

Supporters of the effort have pushed for Congress to pass the legislation now since Democrats - who overwhelmingly back Dreamers - will cede control of the U.S. House of Representatives to Republicans in January. Kevin McCarthy, the top House Republican, has said the border must be secured before other immigration issues can be addressed.

About 594,000 Dreamers are enrolled in a 2012 program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), which grants protection from deportation and work permits, but is currently subject to a legal challenge brought by Texas and other U.S. states with Republican attorneys general.

U.S. President Joe Biden, a Democrat who came to office in 2021, promised during his campaign to protect Dreamers and their families after Republican former President Donald Trump tried to end DACA.

Both Moreno and her husband enrolled in DACA in 2012. They now have two U.S.-citizen boys ages two and three.

"How much longer do we have to prove ourselves - that we are worthy of being here permanently?" Moreno said. "That is the frustrating part. I have children. What about them?"

'NOT GOING ANYWHERE'

Senators Kyrsten Sinema, an independent from Arizona who recently left the Democratic Party, and Republican Thom Tillis of North Carolina, worked on a plan in recent weeks to combine border restrictions with a path to citizenship for an estimated 2 million Dreamers, according to a framework of possible legislation reviewed by Reuters.

But even some House Democrats have expressed reservations with the framework of the Senate bill.

The Senate is split 50-50 with Vice President Kamala Harris as the tie-breaking vote. At least 10 Republicans would need to join Democrats to overcome a procedural hurdle that requires 60 votes to advance legislation in the Senate.

Lawmakers have a narrow timeframe with a little more than a week before Congress is expected to pass a roughly $1.7 trillion spending bill that would serve as a vehicle for the immigration deal, but leading Republicans have said it will not happen.

"It’s not going anywhere," Cornyn told Reuters this week, offering a more blunt assessment than his staffer.

On Thursday, a Senate aide and three other people familiar with the matter said the Dreamer effort would not advance before the end of the year. The offices of Sinema and Tillis did not respond to requests for comment.

Democratic Senator Alex Padilla of California said it was frustrating and disappointing that the talks had not even progressed into legislation for senators to review.

Senator John Kennedy, a conservative Republican from Louisiana, said his party had lost trust in the president's willingness to secure the border amid record illegal crossings.

"President Biden's administration is perfectly content to have the border open," Kennedy said. "They're happy to have all those people coming in and everybody knows that."

A Biden administration official criticized Republicans for "finger-pointing" and attacking Biden's record "when they themselves refuse to take the actual steps we need from Congress to fix our broken immigration system."

For Raul Perez, a 33-year-old from Austin, Texas, who came to Washington, the prolonged uncertainty over his and other Dreamers futures was deeply frustrating.

"It's been over a decade now since DACA came out and we're still in the same spot," said Perez, who is part of the immigrant-youth led advocacy group United We Dream. "We need something to pass now. We can't keep waiting."


(Reporting by Ted Hesson and Richard Cowan in Washington; Editing by Mary Milliken, Aurora Ellis and Lisa Shumaker)

Pardon for 'Dreamers'? Some activists tout amnesty for undocumented immigrants if Congress doesn't act

In his first few days in office, President Joe Biden moved swiftly to deliver on promises to Hispanic voters, signing a directive to protect "Dreamers" from deportation and unveiling an outline for sweeping changes to immigration laws.

Tuesday afternoon, the president announced a task force to reunite families separated at the border and an executive order that reviews a Trump administration policy requiring migrants seeking asylum to wait in Mexico while they plead their case.

But executive actions are not permanent, and the White House already has begun tamping down hopes for passage of an omnibus reform measure.

That leaves some Latino advocacy groups looking at an untested fallback plan: a mass presidential pardon for at least some of the estimated 11 million people in the country illegally.

“We believe this is a viable option if the Senate fails to act on comprehensive immigration reform,” said Domingo Garcia, president of the League of United Latin American Citizens.

Reversing Trump: Biden to create task force to reunite families separated at border, sign order to review asylum program

Reuniting families: 628 parents remain separated from their kids after Trump's zero-tolerance border policy. Biden wants to find them.

Hector Sánchez Barba, executive director at Mi Familia Vota,said congressional action is the top priority, and Biden has put forth “the most progressive plan I’ve seen, probably in our history.”

But if Congress fails to reform immigration laws, he said, “I am in an action mode. … We will advocate for anything that reverses the extremism and damage” of the Trump administration.

It is unclear how Biden would respond if pressed to pursue a mass pardon. Moreover, not all immigrant-rights advocates want to pursue that controversial path while there is a chance Congress could act.

Jorge Loweree, policy director with the American Immigration Council, said a presidential pardon for immigration violators falls short because “it wouldn’t put people on a path to citizenship; it would just cure one of the barriers to getting there.”

© Evan Vucci, AP President Joe Biden signs his first executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington. Six of Biden's 17 first-day executive orders dealt with immigration, such as halting work on a border wall in Mexico and lifting a travel ban on people from several predominantly Muslim countries.

The clemency proposition is not new. In late 2016, before Trump was inaugurated, Garcia and others feared the new president would launch draconian deportations of undocumented immigrants – especially those brought to the United States as children, called "Dreamers" based on never-passed proposals in Congress called the DREAM Act.

Dozens of advocacy groups and at least three Democrats in Congress implored then-President Barack Obama to issue last-minute amnesty. In a letter to the president, Rep. Zoe Lofgren of California and her colleagues described the proposed pardon as “a matter of life and death” for many of the nation’s 11 million undocumented immigrants.

Obama denied the request. And Trump carried out his promised crackdown.

© Richard Vogel, AP Protesters gather at the federal courthouse in Los Angeles in June 2018 to object to the Trump administration's separation of migrant children from their parents at the U.S. border with Mexico.

Biden acts to undo Trump's immigration policies

Trump’s promise of a border wall was the hallmark of his first presidential campaign. In office, he tried to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which allows people brought to the U.S. as children to remain in the country, but he was largely blocked by court rulings. As part of a "zero tolerance" policy for illegal entry, children were separated from parents at the southern border. The administration tried to prevent most migrants from claiming political asylum and required those seeking asylum to wait in Mexico.

Cut to 2020 and Biden’s platform was the polar opposite: He vowed to stop construction of Trump's southern border wall, protect "Dreamers" and overhaul U.S. immigration laws that have not changed significantly in three decades.

On his first day in office, Biden signed an executive memorandum reinstating DACA and unveiled a sweeping immigration reform package.

Under that proposal, agricultural workers, people who arrived illegally as children and immigrants with what is known as temporary protected status would immediately qualify for green cards – giving them legal status and a right to work. Other undocumented immigrants in the United States as of Jan. 1 would receive temporary legal status for five years, with a path to citizenship if they passed background checks and paid taxes

.

© Mario Tama, Getty Images Mexican immigrant Vicky Uriostegui, who has lived in the U.S. for 27 years, hauls out water hoses at dawn on a farm in fields near Turlock, California. Agriculture is the main economic driver in the region, and most field work is done by immigrants.

Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, a Republican who had supported a bipartisan immigration reform plan, ripped Biden’s legislative plan as “mass amnesty” – the exact words used by Trump loyalist Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo.

Meanwhile, congressional Democrats who once pushed Obama to pardon "Dreamers" went silent.

Lofgren, a former immigration attorney and the most recent chair of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and Citizenship, declined to comment on whether she may ask Biden to use his pardon power.

In a written statement, she said she’s focused on working with the president “to advance our shared bold vision to reform our country’s immigration system.”

Other members of the House and Senate did not respond to emails and calls. Neither did a White House spokesman.
A constitutional ‘gray area’

On Jan. 21, 1977, more than 570,000 American offenders were given pardons.

It was the first full day in office for President Jimmy Carter, and he used it to grant amnesty to Vietnam-era draft dodgers. Nearly 210,000 had been charged with violating the Selective Service Act. Another 360,000 dodged but were not prosecuted.

© AP President Jimmy Carter extended a pardon to over 200,000 Vietnam anti-draft resisters in 1977.

Article II, Clause 1 of the Constitution is terse and clear: “The President … shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.”

The authority covers all violations of federal law and may be used absolutely or conditionally, according to Cornell University Law School’s Legal Information Institute. It includes a presumed power “to pardon specified classes or communities wholesale, in short, the power to amnesty.”

Draft dodgers were nowhere near the first to benefit from mass clemency. Three years earlier, President Gerald Ford granted a conditional pardon to military deserters who were willing to perform public service.

In fact, presidents throughout history granted amnesty to large groups, beginning with the first pardon issued by George Washington in 1795 to participants in a tax revolt known as the Whiskey Rebellion.

Andrew Johnson gave amnesty to all Confederate soldiers after the Civil War. And, in 1902, Theodore Roosevelt granted amnesty to residents of the Philippines – then a U.S. territory – who took part in an insurrection.

Yet, according to legal experts, no president has ever pardoned someone for illegal immigration during the nation’s 245-year history. Presidential pardons historically have addressed criminal violations; entering or being in the country unlawfully is a civil offense unless it's a repeat violation.

Peter Markowitz, a professor at the Cardozo School of Law, acknowledged it's a legal “gray area.” But he said immigration violations – civil or criminal – clearly constitute offenses, and there is “ample reason to believe it is within a president’s pardon authority.”

In a 2017 law review article co-written with Lindsay Nash, Markowitz advocated just such an action, writing: “The President possesses the constitutional authority to categorically pardon broad classes of immigrants for civil violations of the immigration laws and to thereby provide durable and permanent protections against deportation.”

Other experts say it's not so clear-cut, especially without any Supreme Court precedent on pardons for civil offenses. Some argue that a person in the United States illegally commits an ongoing violation. Pardon power may not be exercised to erase future offenses.

Markowitz conceded that executive clemency is an “imperfect solution” because, while it would protect undocumented immigrants from deportation, it would not grant them legal status or rights.

“Everybody would prefer that this type of durable protection be delivered through legislation,” Markowitz said. But if that proves impossible, clemency at least gives undocumented immigrants peace of mind that they can’t be deported.
'We knew what was coming' with Trump

Despite legal uncertainties and a likely political backlash, Markowitz suggested using pardon power for immigrants would have been worth it four years ago.

In a 2016 opinion piece, Raul A. Reyes, an immigration attorney and member of USA TODAY’s board of contributors, argued that by inviting young "Dreamers" to sign up for DACA, Democrats later exposed them to deportation under the Trump administration.

“It would be a cruel irony if Obama were to turn his back on those here illegally – through no fault of their own – after he helped expose them to risk of deportation,” he concluded.

David Leopold, immigration counsel for America’s Voice, which advocates a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, said it made sense to consider amnesty at the close of Obama’s presidency because Trump had characterized immigrants as criminals.

“We knew the extremism. We knew the xenophobia. We knew what was coming,” said Leopold, who served as a volunteer adviser in the Biden campaign.

But as Biden’s presidency begins, Leopold does not see presidential pardon power as a serious consideration because about 80% of Americans favor changes in law to protect undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children.

“The answer right now is legislative,” Leopold said. “There’s a moment in history right now when we can do it. … Hopefully, Congress will step up to the plate.”

Doris Meissner, former commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, said it would be a legal and political stretch for Biden to simply pardon people who entered the United States unlawfully – a “very out-of-the-blue proposition,” as she put it.

“I’m just having a hard time figuring out how the pardon power … could be justified for that,” said Meissner, now a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute.
Some say it's not the time to talk pardons

Ira Mehlman, media director with the Federation for Immigration Reform, which advocates for strict immigration enforcement and controls, said mass clemency would constitute a “huge overreach” by the president.

In a podcast four years ago, he noted, Cecilia Muñoz, then director of the Obama White House’s Domestic Policy Council, declared that pardons "wouldn’t protect a single soul from deportation.”

Some immigrant rights advocates also resist talk of amnesty, at least for now, for fear it would undermine the push for legislation.

Kristian Ramos of Autonomy Strategies, a communications firm specializing in Latino issues, said Biden’s executive order protecting DACA recipients and immigrants in temporary protected status has, for now, solved the most pressing problem.

“They’re protected,” Ramos said. “He has essentially provided the … reprieve that he could. There’s no real need to pardon them.”

Juliana Macedo do Nascimento, a DACA recipient from Brazil and policy manager with United We Dream, declined to address the amnesty question in a written statement.

Instead, she stressed that Biden and Democrats “have a mandate from the people” to transform America's immigration system. “President Biden must use every tool at his disposal to provide relief for as many people as possible," she said.

“We are tired and not satisfied by executive actions,” said Fernando Garcia, executive director with Border Network for Human Rights. “We need to actually change the law.”

Garcia expressed doubt that Biden would consider amnesty even if legislation fails. “I don’t think it’s realistic that any president is going to say, ‘We’re going to pardon 600,000 Dreamers or 1.2 million Dreamers,’” he said. “And I don’t believe Dreamers are guilty of any offense.”

Loweree, with the American Immigration Council, said America’s support for "Dreamers" is higher than ever, and the president has a “unique opportunity” to fulfill campaign promises beginning with announcements Tuesday.

Loweree said he doesn’t buy into claims that Biden has a debt to Hispanics who helped him get elected. “The issue here isn’t who owes anyone anything,” he said. Rather, it’s about fulfilling a promise made during the Obama administration: "'Dreamers' who came out of the shadows and signed up for DACA were told they’d be protected and allowed to work, not deported."

With that in mind, Loweree suggested talk of presidential amnesty cannot be dismissed entirely: “We expect President Biden will do everything in his power – and consider all options.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: A pardon for 'Dreamers'? Some activists tout amnesty for undocumented immigrants if Congress doesn't act

Biden told this immigrant rights activist 'vote for Trump' in a blunt exchange. 

He voted for Biden but is ready to push him hard on immigration reform.

© Joe Raedle/Getty Images 

U.S. President-elect Joe Biden speaks to the media after receiving a briefing from the transition COVID-19 advisory board on November 09, 2020 at the Queen Theater in Wilmington, Delaware. Mr. Biden spoke about how his administration would respond to the coronavirus pandemic. 

In November 2019, on the campaign trail in South Carolina, then-candidate Joe Biden was asked a question by immigrant rights activist Carlos Rojas Rodriguez and an immigrant community member.

A tense back-and-forth ensued, with Rodriguez and Silvia criticizing the Obama administration's record on deportations and calling for a moratorium on deportations if Biden was elected.

Biden disagreed and told Rodriguez, "You should go vote for Trump."

With the Biden administration set to take office on January 20, 2021, Business Insider spoke with Rodriguez about the work ahead for immigrant rights activists.

Carlos Rojas Rodriguez made headlines in 2019 when a question about the Obama administration's immigration record received a blunt response from then-candidate Joe Biden.

Standing next to an immigrant mother and local activist named Silvia in Greenwood, South Carolina, Rodriguez translated her question to Biden. Silvia remarked that she worried about Immigration and Customs Enforcement targeting her family next, and she was concerned about Biden's defense of the Obama administration's deportation campaigns. When Silvia asked Biden if he would implement a moratorium on deportations on day one, he responded "No," and defended deportations for individuals with criminal records.

Rodriguez, however, chimed back in, this time with his own thoughts and concerns as a formerly undocumented person, reminding Biden that millions of families were separated under his administration.

In video of the encounter, audience members could be heard yelling "Give him a mic!" asking for Biden's team to give Rodriguez a mic to ask his follow-up. Biden, roaming down the school gymnasium to address Rodriguez, squarely told him: "You should vote for Trump," and proceeds to turn his back and walk away as Rodriguez says, "No, I am not going to do that. But I want to make sure that immigrant families and people like Silvia are not afraid."

"I wanted to make it clear to the public, to Biden, who was a presidential candidate then that if he were to become president at the time, that he has both legislative and also administrative actions that he can do, going through the executive branch, and also obviously through the legislative branch," Rodriguez told Business Insider of his exchange with now President-elect Biden. (And to some extent, with the recently-announced 100-day freeze on deportations, it seems that Rodriguez's message resonated.)

© Meg Kinnard/AP 

President-elect Joe Biden talks with Carlos Rojas Rodriguez objecting to his stance on deportations during a town hall at Lander University in Greenwood, S.C., on Thursday, Nov. 21, 2019. 

Biden eventually called the 3 million deportations, 1.7 million of which were of people with no criminal record "a big mistake," during a February 2020 interview with Telemundo.

"To be clear I did not vote for Trump," Rodriguez said, stating that at the time he worked for Movimento Cosecha, an immigrants rights organization, and then went on to work for Sen. Bernie Sanders' campaign. In 2008, he volunteered for the Obama campaign. Carlos became a citizen in 2017 and voted in his first presidential election in 2020, voting for Biden.

Video: Biden says he will take executive action on immigration (FOX News)

Trump's immigration policies were widely derided by activists as increasingly punitive. Throughout his time in office, he consistently increased the Department of Homeland Security budgets for immigration enforcement efforts, spent over $18 billion on the incomplete border wall, and enacted a series of policies focused on detention and separation, alongside a systematic gutting of the asylum system through the Migrant Protection Protocols.

"The pain that the Latino community is going under, it is so big that we actually need all the approaches. We need executive action. We need administrative action. We need legislative action," Rodriguez added. "Unfortunately, we are dealing and I think we're going to continue to deal with the least effective Congress in modern United States history, where gridlock is what you get every day, and where compromise is seen as a sign of weakness."

At DHS, the undoing Trump policies and implementation Biden policies will be the purview of Alejandro Mayorkas if he's confirmed. Mayorkas came to the US as a refugee from Cuba and was tapped to lead Biden's Department of Homeland Security, and if confirmed he would be the first immigrant and Latino to head the agency.

And Rodriguez, while glad to see the Trump administration go, said his work will continue under a Biden administration. He singled out the addition of Cecilia Munoz, director of the White House Domestic Policy Council under Obama, to Biden's transition team as a major cause for concern.

"Munoz was a former immigrant rights advocate who defended mass deportations and family separation under the Obama Administration and de-escalated the immigrant rights movement for eight years," Rodriguez said. "Her presence in the Biden transition team only signals that we could be very well going back to the Obama era of pro-immigrant rhetoric with anti-immigrant practices and policies which led to a record of 3 million deportations."

This tension, of being relieved to have defeated Trump but being worried about returning to Obama-era immigration policies, is playing out in his community, Rodriguez said. He added that the uplifting of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy is welcome but that there must be a pathway to citizenship for all undocumented people in the US.

"[T]he Obama and the Biden administration funded DHS budgets and ICE budgets for them to have the infrastructure to do all the things that Trump did with separating and incarcerating immigrant families," Rodriguez said. "So my biggest fear is that people feel that these cages all of a sudden disappeared, that deportations are not happening, just because you have someone who is speaking on the issue better in rhetoric, but not so much in the practice."

Rodriguez does acknowledge that there were immigration policy wins under the Obama administration, including DACA. (Mayorkas who worked for the agency during the Obama administration has been praised by immigrants rights groups for his work on DACA.)

During that time he said activists "were really catalyzed by mass mobilization, direct action, public confrontation, civil disobedience, led by directly affected folks. The common denominator there has always been public action, pressuring the Democratic Party, challenging them publicly."

Rodriguez added that what he would want to see from Biden is strong administrative relief and executive actions that include DACA and PPS and "also provide a real tangible relief for every undocumented person in the country." Rodriguez mentioned that executive actions reversing the travel ban, abolishing ICE, and enforcing a lasting moratorium on deportations are stances he will push the new administration towards.

"I am going to focus my time on making sure that we're empowering directly-affected people to take action, to be visible," Rodriguez said. "We're not going to let the Biden administration or the Democratic Party frame our fight."

Read the original article on Business Insider

U$ FOR PROFIT HEALTHCARE

Report: Noncitizens Will Account for One-third of Uninsured Population in 2024

A recent Urban Institute report found that the uninsurance rate for nonelderly people who aren’t citizens will be 39.2% in 2024, about four times higher than it is for the entire U.S. population at 9.8%.

By MARISSA PLESCIA
/ May 4, 2023 





Adults under the age of 65 who are noncitizens are expected to represent about one-third of the country’s 27 million uninsured in 2024 — even though this group only accounts for 8% of the total nonelderly population in the U.S., a new report showed.

The report, published Thursday, was conducted by the Urban Institute and funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. For the analysis, the researchers used the Urban Institute’s Health Insurance Policy Simulation Model, which estimates how healthcare policy options will affect cost and coverage.

It comes after the Health and Human Services (HHS) proposed a rule that would permit Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients — also known as Dreamers — to apply for coverage through the Health Insurance Marketplace or through their state Medicaid organization. HHS predicts the rule could lead to 129,000 DACA recipients gaining coverage. The Urban Institute’s analysis, however, does not include the effects of the proposed rule.

The researchers found that in 2024, the uninsurance rate for nonelderly people who aren’t citizens will be 39.2%, about four times higher than it is for the entire U.S. population at 9.8%.

“As the uninsurance rate has declined, noncitizens comprise a growing share of those without coverage,” said Katherine Hempstead, senior policy adviser at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, in a news release. “The recent proposed rule regarding DACA recipients illustrates the need for expanding eligibility regardless of immigration status if we want to attain universal coverage.”

The report also showed that 36% of those who are noncitizens have employer-sponsored insurance, lower than the total nonelderly population in the U.S. at 54.4%.

In addition, more than 80% of uninsured noncitizens have at least one family member who is employed. However, many aren’t working for companies with employer-sponsored insurance, according to the Urban Institute.

This population is also less likely to have insurance through the government: just 16.5% of those who are uninsured and noncitizens are eligible for Medicaid, CHIP or subsidized Marketplace coverage. Two-thirds of this group are ineligible because of their immigration status.

“Despite some efforts to cover certain lawfully present noncitizens and the availability of Marketplace options, only 16.5% of uninsured noncitizens gained eligibility for Medicaid, CHIP, or Marketplace premium tax credits,” said Matthew Buettgens, senior fellow at the Urban Institute, in a statement. “States have several options to extend coverage to noncitizens and undocumented immigrants and expand overall health coverage in the United States.”

Photo: alexsl, Getty Images

Who's coming to the aid of undocumented workers amid restaurant closures and lay-offs

The hospitality industry relies on over 1 million undocumented workers, who are operating without a safety net

Kitchen workers wear surgical masks and gloves as they prepare food (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

ASHLIE D. STEVENS MARCH 31, 2020

The American restaurant industry depends on the work of millions of undocumented immigrants — from farmers to food suppliers to kitchen staff to stay running. But as many states have mandated the closure of or reduction of services provided by restaurants as a way to limit the spread of the novel coronavirus, many undocumented employees are facing layoffs and uncertain futures without any form of social safety net.

Ricardo Rodriguez is the chef and owner of WHISK in Chicago. Rodriguez was born in Mexico City and was brought to the U.S. without papers when he was 7 years old.


"I'm 35 now, so all my life, I grew up here," Rodriguez said. "The first year that DACA was passed, I applied and got approval because I met all the requirements. I was here before I was 15 and have no criminal records."

DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, was a policy approved by President Barack Obama in 2012 that allowed some undocumented individuals who had been brought into the country as children to receive a two-year period of deferred action from deportion and become eligible for a work permit.

As a DACA recipient, Rodriguez would be eligible to file for unemployment insurance — like the over three million people who applied last week — and could be eligible for the $1,200 relief checks that are part of the COVID-19 stimulus package, but undocumented kitchen workers are not.


00:0301:48


"Unfortunately, they don't have any kind of safety net," Rodriguez said. "Everybody is telling restaurant owners, 'Oh, your workers should apply for this, and they can get this and that.' We can't be like, 'Oh, they can't because they don't have papers,' so that's the situation everybody's in right now."

The Pew Research Center estimates there are 7.5 million undocumented workers in the United States concentrated in construction, agriculture, and the hospitality industry. In 2014, about 1.1 million, or 10%, of restaurant workers were undocumented.

Though some are employed through under-the-table means — like falsified social security numbers or cash-only payments — they are an integral part of the industry. From the 2014 satirical cult film "A Day Without a Mexican" to the 2017 "A Day Without Immigrants" strikes, a lot of thought has been given, at least by some, to what the country would look like without their labor.


Some organizations are trying to step in to recognize their contributions and provide some kind of financial support.

On March 18, RAISE — Revolutionizing Asian American Immigrant Stories on the East Coast, an immigrant advocacy group based in New York City — and Sahra Nguyen, the founder of Nguyen Coffee Supply, launched the Undocu Worker's Fund.


The initiative supports undocumented workers in the service industry who will not have the ability to apply for unemployment benefits during the COVID-19 health crisis and mandated restaurant closures.

"The response so far has been incredible," said Audrey Pan, a community organizer with RAISE. "We've had over 150 people reach out needing assistance. We've also had many concerned community members step up to donate, reshare our posts, and some have been inspired to start their own community funds."

According to Pan, many of the restaurant workers who have submitted an eligibility form for the Undocu Workers Fund, have reported that they don't have savings and live paycheck to paycheck. Similar initiatives have sprouted up across the United States.


In Los Angeles, Va'La Hospitality has launched No Us Without You, a food pantry for undocumented workers who are provided enough food for a family of four to eat for a week. Trigg Brown and his partners at Brooklyn's Win Son and Win Son Bakery, Josh Wu and Jesse Shapell, have launched a fund specifically aimed at gathering money to help support their employees who are undocumented for the restaurant industry.

I spoke with the organizers of nearly a dozen other independently organized restaurant industry member relief funds and food banks who said that immigration status is not a factor in how they will award their small-scale grants or distribute essentials like food and toiletries; however, they did not advertise that fact — and asked that they not be specifically named — for fear of ICE raids.

"ICE agents are continuing to make arrests in some of the regions hardest hit by the virus like New York and California," said Pan.


As the Los Angeles Times reported on March 17, David Martin, the director of Enforcement and Removal Operations for ICE in Los Angeles, said the ICE would continue to operate as usual.

"We're out here trying to protect the public by getting these criminal aliens off the street and out of our communities," he told the paper. "Asking us to stop doing that basically gives those criminals another opportunity to maybe commit more crimes, to create more victims."

This statement highlights how food banks and small-scale grants — while deeply important in the short-term — are band-aid solutions for obvious systematic issues that leave undocumented workers particularly susceptible during this point in time.

Sanaa Abrar is the advocacy director of United We Dream, the largest youth-led immigrant advocacy organization in the United States. She says that in the immediate future, undocumented workers need access to healthcare in the midst of this global pandemic.


"At this point, because of the failure of Congress to include all immigrants in a federal package, now it's on governors, and it's on state leaders to take action," Abrar said. "So one example of this that we just saw was Governor Cuomo in New York, expanded the definition of emergency Medicaid to include COVID-19 testing and treatment. Undocumented immigrants have access to emergency Medicaid in all states, but not all states identify COVID-19 testing under the emergency provisions."

Pan agrees this is an important step, and suggests others.

"Right now, what we need to do is to demand our governments to extend emergency relief measures such as grants, free testing, and paid sick leave to all residents, regardless of immigration status," she said. "Cities also need to develop relief packets that include a moratorium on rent, mortgage, and utility payments to abate financial strains on households amid the growing economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic."

Undocumented workers, she said, need to be included in these bills.
"They are a vital part of our society and are our community members," she said.

PATHETIQUE
Senate Democrats hit roadblock in bid to help millions become U.S. citizens

David Shepardson
Sun., September 19, 2021

U.S. Democratic senators face reporters following weekly

 policy lunch on Capitol Hill in Washington


By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Senate Democrats hit a major roadblock on Sunday in their effort to allow millions of immigrants to legally stay in the United States, after the Senate Parliamentarian ruled against attaching the measure to a $3.5 trillion spending bill, lawmakers said.

The provision aimed to give a path to citizenship for millions, including so-called Dreamer immigrants, brought to the United States as children, who are protected from deportation under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

Farmworkers, essential workers and immigrants with temporary protected status, which gives work permits and deportation relief to those hailing from nations hit by violence or natural disasters, also stood to benefit.

In a statement, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said Democrats were "deeply disappointed in this decision but the fight to provide lawful status for immigrants in budget reconciliation continues."

Senate Democrats have prepared alternate proposals and aimed to hold further meetings with the Senate parliamentarian, Schumer added.

A legislative remedy has become all the more pressing since a July court ruling that struck down DACA, which now protects around 640,000 young immigrants.

Sunday's ruling was "deeply disappointing," a White House spokesperson said, but added, "We fully expect our partners in the Senate to come back with alternative immigration-related proposals for the parliamentarian to consider."

On Twitter, Senator Chuck Grassley, the Judiciary Committee's top Republican, praised the parliamentarian's ruling, saying, "Mass amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants isn’t a budgetary issue appropriate for reconciliation."

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said, "Democrats will not be able to stuff their most radical amnesty proposals into the reckless taxing and spending spree they are assembling behind closed doors."

An estimate in Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough's ruling, obtained by Reuters, showed the step would have helped about 8 million people become lawful permanent residents, including about 7 million now deemed to infringe the law.

MacDonough said that if the reform were allowed to proceed in a budget bill a future Senate could then rescind anyone's immigration status on the basis of a majority vote.

That would be a "stunning development ... and is further evidence that the policy changes of this proposal far outweigh the budgetary impact scored to it," she added.

"It is not appropriate for inclusion in reconciliation."

Lawful permanent status allows people to work, travel, live openly in U.S. society and become eligible, in time, to apply for citizenship, MacDonough said.

As the Senate's parliamentarian, MacDonough, in the job since 2012 under both Republicans and Democrats, advises lawmakers about what is acceptable under the chamber's rules and precedents, sometimes with lasting consequences.

Chosen by the Senate majority leader, the holder of the job is expected to be non-partisan.

Early this year, MacDonough barred inclusion of a minimum wage hike in a COVID-19 aid bill.

Most U.S. Senate bills require support from 60 of the 100 members to go to a vote. Budget reconciliation measures, however, can clear the chamber on a simple majority vote, in which case Vice President Kamala Harris could break the tie.

The proposed designation of essential workers covered 18 major categories and more than 220 sub-categories of employment, MacDonough said in the ruling.

DACA beneficiaries receive work authorization, access to driver's licenses and better access, for some, to financial aid for education, but not a path to citizenship.

The law protects primarily young Hispanic adults born in Mexico and countries in Central and South America who were brought to the United States as children.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; additional reporting by Mica Rosenberg and Susan Cornwell Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

Daniel Barenboim plays Beethoven Sonata No. 8 Op. 13 (Pathetique)

 

Worsening distress among Latinos in the United States

Researchers find the threat of deportation leads to psychological distress among both Latino citizens and noncitizens.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

LEHIGH UNIVERSITY

Changes to the social and political landscape between 2011-2018, with dramatic events such as DACA rule changes, new presidential leadership, immigration bills and more, have left one major threat looming— deportation. 

How this threat has impacted the mental health of some undocumented Latino immigrants in the United States has been previously studied, but new research has found it’s not just undocumented immigrants who feel at risk. 

Analyzing data from 2011-2018, Amy Johnson, assistant professor of sociology at Lehigh University, and a team of research collaborators have found an increase over time in psychological distress among Latinos, both citizens and noncitizens, in the U.S. 

The study, “Deportation Threat Predicts Latino U.S. Citizens and Noncitizens’ Psychological Distress, 2011-2018,” co-authored by Johnson, Christopher Levesque, assistant professor of law and society and sociology at Kenyon College, Neil A. Lewis, Jr., associate professor of communication and social behavior at Cornell University, and Asad L. Asad, assistant professor of sociology at Stanford University, is forthcoming in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). 

Looking at Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), for example, the researchers found when President Obama announced temporary reprieve from deportation for some undocumented immigrants, it relieved distress for naturalized citizens. 

This same pattern occurred following the announcement of Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA). Oppositely, the dramatic societal event of the Trump presidency triggered anxiety and depressive symptoms among Latino noncitizens, worsening well-being. 

While there are direct impacts of changes to the federal administration and its policies, it’s not just presidential elections that matter, the research determines.

Beyond the federal level, the researchers find that day-to-day environments about immigration and immigration enforcement also impact psychological distress. For example, ICE’s detainer requests to local police, or even conversations online. 

“How people are talking about immigration and how salient immigration and deportation are to day-to-day life is potentially equally as important to distress as these more dramatic changes and events, like the Trump election or DACA,” Johnson explains.

It’s important to note that U.S.-born Latinos are not susceptible to deportation, but these events still impact their psychological health as well. Using Google Trends, the researchers show that U.S.-born Latinos experienced higher distress in periods where there are spikes in Google searches to topics related to deportation and immigration. 

Latinos across all citizenship statuses are responding to this feeling of deportation threat in a negative way, the researchers find. But the exact pathway through which that happens depends on citizenship status.

“The fact that racial and ethnic divisions are so prominent that even citizens feel the threat of deportation, and distress related to deportation threat, is really striking,” says Johnson. 

Although the impact of deportation threat could increase during the highly polarizing 2024 election year, it’s not just federal policy to consider as a solution, the researchers emphasize. Creating a sense of cultural belonging is essential as well. 

“We concretely show that the deportation-focused approach to immigration that the U.S. has been taking is psychologically damaging even to U.S. citizens,” says Johnson. “Moving forward, we can make the argument for policy change around deportation, but equally so, we can advocate for cultural practices of inclusion and belonging.”

---

JOURNAL

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

ARTICLE TITLE

Deportation Threat Predicts Latino U.S. Citizens and Noncitizens' Psychological Distress, 2011-2018

US Federal judge reinstates DACA, orders Homeland Security to quickly accept new applicants

A New York federal judge on Friday restored the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program — which President Donald Trump has tried to end — in a court ruling that would swiftly grant thousands of immigrants whose parents brought them to the U.S. as young children the ability to continue to work and study in the country.

© Provided by NBC News

U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis said in his six-page ruling that he was fully reinstating the DACA program based on the terms established under former President Barack Obama's administration. Trump tried to end the program in September 2017, and this past July Chad Wolf, the acting secretary for the Department of Homeland Security, suspended DACA pending a “comprehensive” review.

However, Garaufis also ruled in November that Wolf has not been acting lawfully as the chief of Homeland Security and that, as such, his suspension of protections for a class of migrants brought to the United States illegally as children is invalid

The judge reaffirmed that position in his Friday ruling. Although Trump formally nominated Wolf for the job in summer, Wolf has yet to get a full vote in the Senate, keeping his role as "acting."

He also ordered DHS to post a public notice by Monday prominently on its website to accept first-time applications, renewal requests and advance parole requests based on Obama-era rules and to ensure that work permits are valid for two years.

This is the latest blow to the Trump’s administration’s efforts to halt the program. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that the Trump administration wrongly tried to shut down the program. The president’s administration then began rejecting new applicants to the program this summer about a month after the High Court blocked the White House from ending the program completely.

In its ruling, the high court found that his administration was “arbitrary and capricious” in its attempt to end the Obama-era program. Existing applicants also must reapply every year, but remain in the program.

The National Immigration Law Center called the ruling a "major victory" in a tweet on Friday.

"This is a major victory for immigrant youth, led by immigrant youth. We would not be celebrating this day were it not for our courageous plaintiffs that fought to affirm that their #HomeIsHere," the organization said. "This is a day to celebrate, and we look forward to working with the incoming Biden administration to create a permanent solution for immigrant youth and communities."

Trump’s presidency is a symbol of the last gasp of white supremacy

Published on June 26, 2020 By Sonali Kolhatkar, Independent Media Institute


When President Donald Trump first began talking about ending “chain migration” in 2017, media outlets pointed out that his own parents-in-law had likely obtained lawful permanent residency through their daughter Melania—a naturalized U.S. citizen. At the same time that Trump was ranting on Twitter, “CHAIN MIGRATION must end now! Some people come in, and they bring their whole family with them, who can be truly evil. NOT ACCEPTABLE!” his wife’s parents were in the process of becoming U.S. citizens after five years as so-called “green card” holders.
When the coronavirus pandemic was declared, Trump saw his chance to attack immigration policies that reunite families, and in April 2020 he announced a 60-day ban on green cards that impacted people like his parents-in-law were when they lived in their home country of Slovenia. At the time he announced the ban, I was in the process of applying for my own elderly parents to obtain lawful permanent residency in the United States, just as Melania Trump must have done only a few years ago.

Under existing immigration law, U.S. citizens have been able to sponsor their spouses, children, siblings, and parents, to obtain green cards, or permanent residency. Since his presidency began, Trump has wanted to limit that sponsorship to only spouses and children under 21. To that end, he backed the RAISE Act, which would effectively have done through legislation what his unilateral ban accomplished through executive order under cover of the COVID-19 crisis



When the 60-day ban was up in June 2020, Trump extended it to the end of the year and added a number of other visas to the list, including H-1B visas for foreign workers, to match the outlines of the failed RAISE Act. The White House claims that the ban will keep 525,000 foreign workers out of the country and make those jobs available to U.S. workers at a time of mass unemployment. One immigrant advocacy group pointed out that Trump’s ban is designed to favor immigrants from Western Europe.

The ban is the brainchild of Trump adviser Stephen Miller, who entered the White House with Trump and is considered to be the “driving force” behind Trump’s racist anti-immigrant agenda. Miller began his job with a wish list of the types of immigration and immigrants he wanted to ban, both undocumented and legal. He is considered the “architect” of the Trump administration’s most cruel policy—separating parents from their young children after they crossed the U.S.-Mexico border. Since 2017, he has been the brains behind Trump’s “Muslim ban,” the restrictions of refugee quotas, the cancelation of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, and more. Today, under cover of the COVID-19 pandemic, Trump has been busy deporting young immigrant children in violation of the United States’s own anti-trafficking laws.

Miller’s uncle David Glosser wrote about the hypocrisy of his nephew’s agenda, saying that had the United States adopted Miller’s anti-immigrant wish list when his ancestors were escaping the Nazis, the family would have perished. America’s immigration policies have long served white elites like the first lady, but the rest of us have often been deprived of accessing those same policies.

For all of Trump’s talk about prioritizing American workers, he has already carved out exceptions for “any alien seeking to enter the United States to provide temporary labor or services essential to the United States food supply chain.” In other words, there are some jobs that Americans are too good for and that only low-wage immigrant labor will do. The Washington Post pointed out, “So far this year, the Trump administration is approving H-2A visas at a rate 15 percent faster than last year, and it took steps to make it easier for farmers to hire temporary farmworkers even after the pandemic began.”

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has decried Trump’s new ban, saying, “Putting up a ‘not welcome’ sign for engineers, executives, IT experts, doctors, nurses and other workers won’t help our country, it will hold us back.” Indeed, at a time when health care workers especially are in short supply, and more than 15 percent of all doctors and nurses nationwide are immigrants, it is unclear how a ban on H-1B visas that limit such workers into the country until December will help Americans. Jobless Americans are hardly going to rush to medical and nursing schools, incur huge debts, fast-track their degrees at an unheard-of rate, and emerge as fully-fledged professionals in time to handle the expected surge of new COVID-19 cases.

It is also unclear how preventing U.S. citizens like me from bringing my retired elderly parents will help American workers. My parents plan to bring their entire life savings with them to spend on private health insurance and other basic needs until the end of their lives, thereby creating jobs and stimulating the U.S. economy. More importantly, they will be able to spend the golden years of their lives with their daughter and family, instead of alone and isolated. But to Trump, my parents do not deserve the same treatment as his in-laws did.

As the immigrant advocacy group Value Our Families declared recently, “Immigration is not just about the economy. Our system is designed to unify family members and is a legal right for many Americans.” Trump has trampled over that right and the rights of so many people over and over since he took office. His trampling of rights is precisely why millions of Americans—comprising a minority, albeit a significant one—voted for him in 2016 and plan to vote for him a second time. Trump did not come into office in spite of demonizing immigrants—he was elected because he repeatedly dehumanized non-Americans, particularly brown-skinned ones. He brought with him Steven Bannon, a man who said he was a fan of The Camp of the Saints, a horrendously racist tome written by the late French author Jean Raspail, that depicted ugly caricatures of Indian immigrant hordes destroying the European way of life.

Trump’s presidency is a clear symbol of the last gasp of white supremacy angrily asserting its power over a country that, in spite of centuries of institutional policies designed to privilege whites, is becoming browner every year. As someone who spent the last 30 years of my life navigating the intricacies and obstacles of the U.S. legal immigration system, I am one of the relatively privileged ones, especially when compared to the traumatized undocumented children who have been separated from their desperate parents, or the refugees fleeing violence whose legal right to seek asylum has been decimated. And yet today, even I remain separated from my parents.

Trump’s unilateral ban on green cards and immigrant work visas upends congressional legislative oversight. California Representative Judy Chu (who happens to be my representative) last year introduced the Reuniting Families Act to streamline legal immigration pathways and make them more humane. So far the bill has 78 sponsors.

Even the U.S. Supreme Court, which far too often tilts rightward, slapped back against the president’s egregious attacks on DACA registrants. In a 5-4 decision on June 18, justices voted to keep the Obama-era program intact, offering some measure of relief to the 650,000 young immigrants who have been able to defer deportation and legally work in the United States. Justice Sonia Sotomayor correctly pointed out that Trump’s decision to cancel DACA was marked by “impermissible discriminatory animus.”

Trump has expressed such “discriminatory animus” to non-white Americans since the beginning of his candidacy and presidential tenure. Through his anti-immigrant policies, he is keeping families like mine separated. He has made no secret that his goal is to preserve white domination in America, and it is for that reason he has enjoyed the fervent, irrational, cult-like following of millions of Americans terrified at the prospect of equality with non-whites.

Sonali Kolhatkar is the founder, host and executive producer of “Rising Up With Sonali,” a television and radio show that airs on Free Speech TV and Pacifica stations. This article was produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

Why We’re Fighting for a World Without ICE
Under the cover of post-9/11 antiterrorism, the Department of Homeland Security has unleashed a carceral assault on immigrant families and children


UnitedWeDream.org





This article is part of Abolition for the People, a series brought to you by a partnership between Kaepernick Publishing and LEVEL, a Medium publication for and about the lives of Black and Brown men. The series, which comprises 30 essays and conversations over four weeks, points to the crucial conclusion that policing and prisons are not solutions for the issues and people the state deems social problems — and calls for a future that puts justice and the needs of the community first.

By Cristina Jiménez Moreta and Cynthia Garcia

Immigrant youth and our families courageously left everything behind in our countries of origin to move to the United States. Some of us fled poverty, military coups, violence, and wars, while others simply wanted to go after a better life. While adapting to a new place, we’ve experienced some of the worst this country has to offer: workplace exploitation, wage theft, racial profiling, fear of deportation, and police violence. But as part of the immigrant youth movement at United We Dream (UWD), we’ve also experienced the power of people coming together, taking action, and winning change.

The seeds of our movement began with the idea that we have to protect and defend our families from deportation and fight for our right to access higher education. In the early 2000s, tens of thousands of undocumented students were graduating from high school each year. All of us lived with the fear of deportation and the looming possibility that our families could be torn apart, while simultaneously facing barriers to college education, exploitation at work, and a future filled with uncertainty.

This fear of deportation was heightened after September 11, 2001, as we witnessed how immigration enforcement and national security were being conflated in new and troubling ways. In the name of fighting terrorism, President George W. Bush created the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in 2002, within which immigration and immigrants were considered matters of national security. This not only led to increased racial profiling and xenophobia, but as a result, local and federal law enforcement were targeting Muslims, Black immigrants, and non-Muslim immigrants of color at higher rates, often leading to detention and/or deportation.

Nationwide, thousands would be implicated by the post-9/11 enforcement regime, which produced an expanding infrastructure that supported local and federal law enforcement efforts to criminalize, target, detain, and deport immigrants. Within this infrastructure, we saw the increase in racial profiling, greater policing of Black and Brown communities, enhanced militarization of the U.S.-Mexico border, and the implementation of racist federal policies, such as the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, which targeted immigrants from 25 countries.

Among the thousands who were affected by the post-9/11 regime were Kamal Essaheb and Walter Barrientos in New York and Marie Gonzalez in Missouri — three young undocumented immigrants who were threatened with deportation.

Their deportation cases spurred some of our first advocacy efforts that would eventually carry us forward in later forming UWD in 2008. Together, along with activists and organizers from across the country, we mobilized people to write letters and telephone elected officials to demand that the government allow Kamal, Walter, and Marie to stay in the United States, winning extensive media attention. Although Marie’s parents were deported, our organizing efforts stopped the deportations of Marie, Walter, and Kamal. This was a bittersweet moment in our fight to protect immigrants, as it further exposed the human impact of the enforcement regime in not only deporting immigrants but also tearing apart families.


In the early 2000s, tens of thousands of undocumented students were graduating from high school each year. All of us lived with the fear of deportation and the looming possibility that our families could be torn apart, while simultaneously facing barriers to college education, exploitation at work, and a future filled with uncertainty.

This moment also taught us that people closest to the pain are closest to the solutions our communities need. At the time, undocumented immigrants publicly fighting against deportations were unheard of. Yet, in defiance of conventional wisdom, undocumented youth and their families launched campaigns to share their stories, pressure those with decision-making power, and win deportation relief. It was clear that our movement had the power to create real change.

This was even more evident in 2012, when the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program was created as a direct result of our organizing efforts. Under the Obama administration, enforcement programs and collaboration between ICE and local police were aggressively expanded, leading to an increase in the number of immigrants being detained and deported even for minor violations, such as traffic infractions. Under the political calculation that ramping up enforcement would bring members of Congress from both parties to the negotiating table, the Obama administration deported a record number of immigrants from the United States. During Obama’s eight years in office, more than 3 million individuals and families were deported and separated from their loved ones. His administration failed to pass legislative immigration reforms, while the enforcement regime steadily grew in resources and power.

As organizers and directly affected people, we recognized this as a moment of leverage: By sharing our stories, we could pressure President Obama to take action. Our movement successfully created the conditions that led President Obama to implement DACA, which protected close to 800,000 young immigrants from deportation. The program continues to be the most significant policy breakthrough and victory on immigration in almost three decades. By sharing our stories and leading direct action and civil disobedience to get ICE agents out of our communities, we recognized the power we had in winning protection from deportation through policy changes.

This and other victories have strengthened our movement and brought hope to our communities — but as we have seen, mass detention and deportation have not stopped. ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the two agencies primarily responsible for immigration enforcement, have continued to carry out a racist and white supremacist agenda, targeting immigrants — particularly Black and Brown immigrants — for detention and deportation with little oversight or accountability. Clearly our fight is not over.

Year after year, failure at the immigration-policy negotiation table has been followed by near-silent acceptance of growing annual budgets and authority for ICE and CBP. Together, the two agencies employ more than 80,000 people, with a massive budget of $25.3 billion in 2020 ($8.4 billion for ICE and $16.9 billion for CBP), which is more than all other federal law enforcement agencies combined. Yet, while resources for the deportation force have grown, schools and hospitals in our communities often remain underfunded and suffer from a lack of federal support.

The deportation force of ICE and CBP, built by administrations on both sides of the aisle, has been completely unleashed under the Trump administration. ICE and CBP have carried out a list of attacks against immigrant communities, including putting children in cages; targeting immigrants in their workplaces, schools, places of worship, hospitals, and homes; and breaking down doors and abducting parents from their children. But the Trump administration hasn’t stopped there.

Throughout his four years in office, Trump consistently tried to dismantle DACA, reduce refugee programs, and detain and deport an increasing number of immigrants. Under his administration, we have seen 57 immigrants, including children, die in detention camps, the deportation of a woman who served as a key witness into reports of sexual assault and harassment inside ICE facilities, reports of forced hysterectomies being performed on immigrant women, and eight immigrants who have died as a result of Covid-19 while in ICE custody.

Facing these and a number of other attacks, UWD has fought tirelessly to protect and demand justice for immigrant communities. Over the past decade, UWD alone fought on behalf of more than 1,000 people threatened by deportation. Facing hundreds of calls per week on our community “Migra Watch” free hotline, UWD community organizers responded to immigrant families reporting interactions with ICE and CBP agents and needing help when their friends and loved ones faced detention and deportation.

In one instance, Tania, a cancer survivor in Georgia, was taken to a detention camp after a traffic stop. ICE agents kept Tania locked away for four months, away from her children and the cancer treatment she needed to live. UWD has fought on behalf of individuals like Hector, who was taken away after being stopped for expired tags on his license plate, and high school students like Dennis, who was dragged away by ICE agents after reporting being bullied at school.

Our history and the present moment have shown us that the risk of harm, detention, and deportation will always exist wherever police and federal law enforcement do. Our vision is for all people in this country, regardless of immigration status, to be able to live freely, with full dignity, and thrive. To get there, we must unite in the larger struggle against white supremacy and racism, which are rooted in interlocking systems of policing, mass incarceration, and immigration enforcement that, by design, target and further dehumanize immigrants, especially people of color.

At the same time, we must also acknowledge the historic erasure of Black and Indigenous people from immigration conversations and center these communities in our fight for immigrant justice. The United States’ legacy of genocide and colonialism cannot be ignored, as the impact of this continues to be felt today. We have seen indigenous immigrants die as a direct result of the U.S. immigration system’s failure to provide interpretation and translation services to immigrants who speak indigenous languages. In 2018, two children from indigenous Maya communities in Guatemala died in CBP custody after not receiving proper medical attention, as medical services were not translated in Q’eqchi’ and Chuj, the two indigenous languages that the children and their families spoke.

This is why, over the past decade, UWD leaders have made the demand of abolition and justice for all central to our vision, work, and movement strategy. Grounded in our lived experience, we know that ICE and local police work together to racially profile immigrants. For many in our communities, a traffic stop or any other contact with local police is the first entry point into the deportation pipeline.

Thus, when we call for the abolition of ICE, we are also calling for the abolition of enforcement on all levels and the systems that support it, from detention facilities to prisons. The abolition of ICE is inherently tied to the abolition of all other forms of enforcement and incarceration. Hence, UWD stands unequivocally with the Movement for Black Lives and its demands to defund the police, because we know that the police, ICE, and CBP work together to disproportionately target Black and Brown immigrants. We also know that the same people who profit from the mass incarceration of U.S.-born Black and Brown people also profit from immigrant detention and deportation.

We are engaged in a lifelong journey toward racial, gender, and economic justice. With each victory, our sense of what is possible should grow and our understanding of the vulnerabilities of our adversaries should deepen. A world where our communities do not have to live with the fear of deportation and detention is possible. A world in which we and others in the movement have abolished ICE — and where the safety, health, education, and well-being of our communities is a priority. We have witnessed and participated in a movement of undocumented people who have transformed the politics and policy of immigration with a bold vision of freedom and dignity for all people, regardless of immigration status. That movement has proven that when we follow the leadership and vision of those closest to the pain and injustice, a new world is possible.



Cynthia Garcia is an out, queer, undocumented womxn living in Oklahoma City. She serves as the national campaigns manager for community protection at United We Dream, where she runs a nationwide hotline of support for immigrants whose family members have been abducted by ICE agents and teaches them how to organize and fight back. Cynthia is herself protected from deportation because of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

Cristina Jiménez Moreta is a community organizer, strategist, and freedom fighter who is a co-founder of United We Dream (UWD). Cristina migrated to Queens, New York, from Ecuador with her family at the age of 13 seeking a better life and grew up undocumented. She is the former executive director of UWD. Under her leadership, UWD grew into a powerful grassroots network of 800,000 members across 28 states.