‘Every day I was praying’: Detroit dad deported after 30 years returns home to US

Niraj Warikoo, Detroit Free Press,USA TODAY•January 10, 2020


‘Every day I was praying’: Detroit dad deported after 30 years returns home to USMore
Jorge Garcia, 41, shares a laugh with his wife Cindy Garcia,47, after a press conference was held with Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Dearborn, to welcome the once deported Jorge Garcia back to the U.S. and his family at the Lincoln Park Library Friday, Jan. 10, 2020.

DETROIT – After almost two years in Mexico, Jorge Garcia – whose deportation in January 2018 became a national story after a Free Press report – is back home in Michigan.

Garcia, 41, arrived at Detroit Metro Airport last month on Christmas Day, hugged by his two children and wife shedding tears of joy, his family members said.

"I'm really happy" to be back, Garcia, of Lincoln Park in suburban Detroit, said Friday. "The last year was very stressful, it got to the point where my blood pressure was very high, I was getting anxiety attacks. ... I see it like a nightmare ... something like a bad dream."

Garcia was granted two waivers by U.S. immigration officials with the Department of Homeland Security, said his attorney Mayra Lorenzana-Miles. He is now a lawful permanent resident of the U.S., getting his official card this week, and is on a path to U.S. citizenship in a few years, she said.

"Welcome Home Jorge," read a large banner inside a room at the Lincoln Park public library on Friday afternoon, where supporters gathered to celebrate his homecoming.

The Free Press reported on Garcia's deportation on Jan. 15, 2018, capturing his emotional farewell at Detroit Metro Airport as tearful family members hugged him one last time before he was escorted through security by a federal immigration agent. After 30 years living in the U.S. with no criminal record, he was kicked out of the country.

The Free Press story was picked up my numerous media outlets, prompting a national debate over immigration enforcement in the Trump administration. The Free Press later went to Mexico to report on Garcia's struggles in an unfamiliar country.

Garcia was born in Mexico and was brought to the U.S. when he was 10 years old by an undocumented relative. He was too old to qualify for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, missing the age requirement by just one year. Since 2004, he and his family have been trying to obtain legal status, hiring attorneys and following the law.

Garcia was previously ordered removed from the U.S., but had gotten stays of removal. That changed after Donald Trump became president as authorities toughened immigration enforcement. In November 2017, Garcia was ordered to leave.

ICE officials have defended his deportation, saying that Garcia was "an unlawfully present citizen of Mexico" who "was ordered removed by an immigration judge in June 2006."

Garcia had no criminal record, worked as a landscaper, and paid his taxes, said advocates and U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich.

"He never got a traffic ticket," Dingell said at the homecoming celebration Friday. "He worked hard. ... He had never done anything wrong."
 

Jorge Garcia, 41, left, listens as his wife Cindy Garcia, 47 sparks before a press conference was held with Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Dearborn, to welcome once deported Jorge Garcia back to the U.S. and his family at the Lincoln Park Library Friday, Jan. 10, 2020.More

Garcia got an interview in February at an American consulate office in Mexico, but was denied, said his wife, Cindy Garcia. His waivers were then approved in September, said his attorney.

Cindy Garcia was hoping he would be home in time for Halloween or maybe Thanksgiving, but authorities kept on asking for paperwork such as medical history, she said.

"The whole two years, we had PTSD, anxiety, depression," Cindy said.

"It was anxious not knowing when he could come home, your hopes resting on the timeline of government officials," she said.

"We just didn't know when" he could come home, she said.

Finally, he was approved just a few days before Dec. 25.

Cindy then bought him a plane ticket.

"I was on my way to the airport" in Mexico City, Jorge said, recalling his trip back to the U.S. "But I was in denial. I was thinking it wasn't true."

Deported after 30 years in US: Father still stuck in Mexico without wife and kids

It wasn't until he got the necessary stamp after arriving in Detroit Metro Airport and seeing his family greet him that he finally did breathe a sigh of relief.

Cindy Garcia said she had told the children they were going to the airport to pick up an uncle because she wanted it to be a surprise and because she was still uncertain whether he would make it.

"I was surprised," said his son, Jorge Garcia Jr., 14, recalling the Christmas Day scene. "I started crying when I saw him."

Being without a father at home for two years "felt weird," he said. "It's been hard, not having a dad."

His daughter, Soleil, said: "When I first saw him, I was crying because I was happy."

Ripped apart by deportation: The Garcia family struggles to cope

Soleil had to celebrate her quinceañera (15th birthday), a rite of passage for many Mexican American teenage girls, without her father. There's a traditional father-daughter dance she had to do instead with a grandfather.

"It was just very sad knowing that he wasn't here with us during certain events," she said.

The Garcias thanked Dingell and the UAW Local 600, which Cindy is a member of and which was supportive of them.

Dingell said "there are too many families that are being torn apart."

Too old for DACA: Man who spent 30 years of his life in U.S. is deported

Pastor Jack Eggleston of Unity Lutheran Church in Southgate spoke at the homecoming at the library, introducing the Garcias.

"This has been a long ordeal," he said. "But the community has been aching with them."

Cindy said the two years without Jorge was emotionally tough for the family, with her and the two kids going through tough moments.

"My children have suffered," she said. "We screamed and yelled" at times, "but we got through this."

Meanwhile, Jorge was living with an aunt about an hour from Mexico City but didn't have any social connections that could help him establish a new life.

Now, Cindy said she intends to continue fighting for others who were in her situation.

Cindy told the Free Press: "I am going to fight more than ever now for these broken immigration laws to be fixed so that no other family has to endure what we did because I know the feeling and I don't want any other children separated from their families because it's a hardship on the kids, on the parents, the whole family in general."
 

Jorge Garcia, 41, prayed every day he lived his two year deported life in Mexico. He shows a pendant with the Lady of Guadalupe on one side and Jesus on the other. A press conference was held with Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Dearborn, to welcome once deported Jorge Garcia back to the U.S. and his family at the Lincoln Park Library Friday, Jan. 10, 2020.More

While in Mexico, Jorge bought a chain and medallion with an image on the front of Jesus Christ and on back of Our Lady of Guadalupe, an iconic figure for many Mexican Catholics.

He said his faith gave him strength over the past two years.

"Basically, every day I was praying," Jorge told the Free Press. "I was praying for something to change. And it did."

Follow Niraj Warikoo on Twitter: @nwarikoo

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Deported in 2018, Jorge Garcia is back home after two years in Mexico

#PRISONINDUSTRIALCOMPLEX

Congress questions private ICE detention center CEOs about pandemic response

July 13 (UPI) -- Four CEOs of private-sector immigrant detention companies defended their response to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic in front of a congressional subcommittee Monday.

Since the pandemic began, more than 3,000 detainees, 280 contractors and 45 ICE employees have tested positive for COVID-19. Two detainees and five contractors have died of complications after contracting COVID-19, a statement from Chairwoman Kathleen Rice, of the Border Security, Facilitation and Operations Subcommittee.

Rice said transfers between facilities and inadequate medical care are two factors spreading COVID-19 among detained populations.

Members of the House Homeland Security Committee requested testimony from heads of CoreCivic, Geo Group, Management and Training Corp and LaSalle Corrections after the DHS Inspector General issued a June report saying that facilities lacked the space to practice social distancing and lacked space to isolate detainees with symptoms or a coronavirus diagnosis.

More than 80 percent of the 34,000 immigrants in ICE custody are housed at privately run detention facilities. Contractors are paid $130 per day to house detainees.

Rice said ICE officials refused to attend the virtual hearing saying that the White House advised the agency not to testify in Congress unless the hearings were held in person.

CEOs said they worked with ICE to maintain best practices and that employees and detainees were tested regularly for symptoms and were then tested for COVID-19. Employees and detainees had access to masks, and were tested regularly, they said.

Whistleblowers from the Government Accountability Project and about 30 detainees who spoke to The New York Times have said that social distancing in ICE facilities is difficult, as 50-75 detainees are kept in each "pod" and that PPE for detainees is difficult to acquire.

Nearly half of the employees at a CoreCivic facility in Eloy, Ariz., recently tested positive for the virus, where CEO Damon Hininger, CEO of CoreCivic said that masks were "optional" for detainees.

Other committee members had questions about their specific local detention centers.

RELATED Supreme Court blocks Trump's move to end DACA program

"My office has heard reports of dozens and even hundreds of detainees being moved in and out of the Colorado facility with little or no notice to their families of their lawyers," said Joe Neguse, D-Colo.

Neguse asked about a disinfectant called HALT that was allegedly being used by Geo Group contractors in "crowded and confined spaces" in the Aurora, Colo., facility, saying that detainees were complaining of bloody noses and skin rashes.

George Zoley, CEO of Geo Group also denied to Neguse that detainees were asked to "volunteer" to clean common areas under threat of solitary confinement if they refused. The ACLU filed a $5 million class-action lawsuit in 2014 alleging that Geo Group had forced detainees to work as "slave labor" in the kitchens and laundry rooms for $1 per day.

ICE has worked within Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations and reduced the density of detainees to 70 percent in its facilities, said Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La., the panel's ranking member.

The federal agency also released 900 detainees across the country who "posed a low risk to public safety," Higgins said.

Higgins complained that ICE contractors were doing their best to work with guidelines set by the CDC and Congress.

"We create ever moving goalposts for hardworking federal employees and contractors who are simply doing their jobs abiding by the laws as prescribed by Congress," Higgins said.

upi.com/7021718

Biden Back On Top: President Beats Trump By 1 Point In Latest 2024 Election Poll, How Immigration Efforts Are Helping To Win Over Voters

byChris Katje,

Benzinga Staff Writer
June 16, 2024

In less than five months, voters will head to the polls to choose between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election.

Many election polls continue to show a close race between the two front-running candidates in the race.

What Happened: Biden has gained support from independent voters in several recent polls after Trump was found guilty on 34 counts in a criminal trial alleging he had falsified business records.

A new Morning Consult poll of nationally registered voters shows the following results in the head-to-head matchup of Biden and Trump, with the results from the June 4 poll in parentheses:

Joe Biden: 44% (43%)

Donald Trump: 43% (44%)

Someone Else: 8% (8%)

Don't Know: 5% (5%)

Of the Democratic voters polled, 86% have Biden as their top pick, which is down four percentage points from the previous poll. Eighty-seven percent of Republican voters polled have Trump as their top pick, which was down one percentage point from last week's poll.

Independent voters, who could decide the election, selected their 2024 pick as follows, with the June 4 results in parentheses:

Joe Biden: 34% (34%)

Donald Trump: 37% (35%)

Someone Else: 18% (21%)

Don't Know: 11% (11%)

Related Link: Biden, Trump Should Both Drop Out Of 2024 Election, Leading Pollster Says: ‘Country Would Be Better Served’

Why It's Important: The latest poll gives Biden a rare lead, showing he’s closed the gap with Trump in recent months. This marks the first lead for Biden in the Morning Consult head-to-head poll since early May.

After Trump dominated Biden in head-to-head polls in January and February, Biden has narrowed the gap to one point, tied, or, in some cases, taken a lead over Trump in recent polls.

For the sixth consecutive week, Biden’s net favorability rating has been ahead of Trump’s, marking Biden’s longest streak since April 2023. This follows Trump’s hush money trial in New York. Trump hit his lowest net favorability rating since January.

In the latest poll, net buzz about immigration improved by eight points, with more people hearing what they perceived was positive than negative news. The eight-point gain comes after Biden announced new restrictions on asylum for people who cross the southern border illegally.

The net buzz for immigration hit its best mark since November 2023 in the Morning Consult weekly survey.

With immigration expected to be a big topic in the 2024 election, Biden's latest move may have helped win over voters.

The poll showed that 37% of voters approve of Biden's handling of immigration compared to 35% prior to his latest executive action.

The two candidates are set to face off in their first 2024 presidential debate on June 27. The debate will air on CNN, a unit of Warner Bros. Discovery.

Read Next: Michelle Obama Smokes Robert Kennedy Jr. In Presidential Race Match-Up

© 2024 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.

President Joe Biden to announce deportation protection and work permits for spouses of US citizens

The policy will allow roughly 490,000 spouses of US citizens an opportunity to apply for a “parole in place” programme, which would shield them from deportations and offer them work permits if they have lived in the country for at least 10 years

AP Washington Published 18.06.24

Joe BidenFile

President Joe Biden is planning to announce a sweeping new policy Tuesday that would lift the threat of deportation for tens of thousands of people married to US citizens, an aggressive election-year action on immigration that had been sought by many Democrats

Biden was hosting a White House event to celebrate an Obama-era directive that offered deportation protections for young undocumented immigrants and will announce the new programme then, according to three people briefed on the White House plans.

The policy will allow roughly 490,000 spouses of US citizens an opportunity to apply for a “parole in place” programme, which would shield them from deportations and offer them work permits if they have lived in the country for at least 10 years, according to two of the people briefed.

They all spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to discuss the announcement publicly.

The White House on Monday declined to comment on the announcement.

Families who would potentially benefit from Biden's actions were expected to attend the White House event on Tuesday afternoon

For some time, administration officials have been deliberating various options to offer protections for immigrants who lack legal status in the US but who have longstanding ties — even after the White House crafted a restrictive proposal that essentially halted asylum processing at the US-Mexico border.

Biden is invoking an authority that not only gives deportation protections and work permits, but removes a legal barrier to allow qualifying immigrants to apply for permanent residency and eventually, US citizenship.

It's a power that's already been used for other categories of immigrants, such as members of the US military or their family members who lack legal status.

“Today, I have spoken about what we need to do to secure the border,” Biden said at a June 4 event at the White House, when he rolled out his order to suspend asylum processing for many migrants arriving now to the US “In the weeks ahead — and I mean the weeks ahead — I will speak to how we can make our immigration system more fair and more just.”

Biden was also expected to announce a policy of making recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals programme eligible for visas, rather than the temporary work authorization they currently receive, according to two of the people briefed.

In Congress, a Democratic group of lawmakers called the Congressional Hispanic Caucus has advocated for a policy of making graduates of US colleges who came to the country without authorisation as children eligible for work visas as well.

The White House on Tuesday afternoon was to mark the 12th anniversary of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals programme, which was created by then-President Barack Obama to protect young immigrants who lacked legal status, often known as “dreamers.”

Half a million immigrants could eventually get US citizenship under new plan from Biden

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is taking an expansive, election-year step to offer relief to potentially hundreds of thousands of immigrants without legal status in the U.S.

Seung Min Kim, The Associated Press

President Joe Biden listens as he meets with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in the Oval Office at the White House, Monday, June 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is taking an expansive, election-year step to offer relief to potentially hundreds of thousands of immigrants without legal status in the U.S. — aiming to balance his own aggressive crackdown on the border earlier this month that enraged advocates and many Democratic lawmakers.

The White House announced Tuesday that the Biden administration will, in the coming months, allow certain spouses of U.S. citizens without legal status to apply for permanent residency and eventually, citizenship. The move could affect upwards of half a million immigrants, according to senior administration officials.

To qualify, an immigrant must have lived in the United States for 10 years as of Monday and be married to a U.S. citizen. If a qualifying immigrant’s application is approved, he or she would have three years to apply for a green card, and receive a temporary work permit and be shielded from deportation in the meantime.

About 50,000 noncitizen children with a parent who is married to a U.S. citizen could also potentially qualify for the same process, according to senior administration officials who briefed reporters on the proposal on condition of anonymity. There is no requirement on how long the couple must have been married, and no one becomes eligible after Monday. That means immigrants who reach that 10 year mark any time after June 17, 2024, will not qualify for the program, according to the officials.

Senior administration officials said they anticipate the process will be open for applications by the end of the summer, and fees to apply have yet to be determined.

Biden will speak about his plans at a Tuesday afternoon event at the White House, which will also mark the 12th anniversary of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, a popular Obama-era directive that offered deportation protections and temporary work permits for young immigrants who lack legal status.

White House officials privately encouraged Democrats in the House, which is in recess this week, to travel back to Washington to attend the announcement.

The president will also announce new regulations that will allow certain DACA beneficiaries and other young immigrants to more easily qualify for long-established work visas. That would allow qualifying immigrants to have protection that is sturdier than the work permits offered by DACA, which is currently facing legal challenges and is no longer taking new applications.

The power that Biden is invoking with his Tuesday announcement for spouses is not a novel one. The policy would expand on authority used by presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama to allow “parole in place” for family members of military members, said Andrea Flores, a former policy adviser in the Obama and Biden administrations who is now a vice president at FWD.us, an immigration advocacy organization.

The parole-in-place process allows qualifying immigrants to get on the path to U.S. permanent residency without leaving the country, removing a common barrier for those without legal status but married to Americans. Flores said it “fulfills President Biden’s day one promise to protect undocumented immigrants and their American families.”

Tuesday’s announcement comes two weeks after Biden unveiled a sweeping crackdown at the U.S.-Mexico border that effectively halted asylum claims for those arriving between officially designated ports of entry. Immigrant-rights groups have sued the Biden administration over that directive, which a senior administration official said Monday had led to fewer border encounters between ports.

___

Associated Press writer Stephen Groves contributed to this report.

Seung Min Kim, The Associated Press

US Supreme Court allows quick removal of asylum-seekersRichard Wolf, USA TODAY•June 25, 2020

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court handed a green light Thursday to the Trump administration in its effort to speed up the removal of those seeking asylum.

The court ruled that asylum-seekers claiming fear of persecution abroad do not have to be given a federal court hearing before quick removal from the United States if they initially fail to prove that claim.

The decision was written by Associate Justice Samuel Alito. Associate Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan dissented.

The case, one of many to come before the high court involving the Trump administration's crackdown on immigration, concerned Sri Lanka native Vijayakumar Thuraissigiam. He was arrested 25 yards north of the Mexican border and immediately placed in expedited removal proceedings.

More: President Trump's immigration crackdown inundates Supreme Court

Immigration officials determined that Thuraissigiam did not have a credible fear of persecution, even though he is a member of Sri Lanka's Tamil ethnic minority that faces beatings and torture at the hands of the government.

"While aliens who have established connections in this country have due process rights in deportation proceedings, the court long ago held that Congress is entitled to set the conditions for an alien’s lawful entry into this country and that, as a result, an alien at the threshold of initial entry cannot claim any greater rights under the Due Process Clause," Alito wrote in a 36-page opinion.

In her dissent, Sotomayor said the system Congress established short-circuits an inquiry designed to determine whether asylum-seekers "may seek shelter in this country or whether they may be cast to an unknown fate."

"Today’s decision handcuffs the judiciary’s ability to perform its constitutional duty to safeguard individual liberty and dismantles a critical component of the separation of powers," she wrote. "It increases the risk of erroneous immigration decisions that contravene governing statutes and treaties."

The court's other two liberal justices, Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, agreed with the judgment but said they would have applied it only to Thuraissigiam's claim.

"Addressing more broadly whether the Suspension Clause protects people challenging removal decisions may raise a host of difficult questions," Breyer wrote, such as whether the same limit can apply to those picked up years after crossing the border, or to those claiming to be U.S. citizens.

During oral argument in March, Chief Justice John Roberts and other conservatives expressed concern that granting Thuraissigiam a hearing could lead to a significant expansion of new claims. His lawyer said about 9,500 asylum-seekers fit the same category.

Asylum seekers wait for news outside El Chaparral port of entry on the U.S.-Mexico border in Tijuana, Mexico, on March 19, 2020.

Only 30 petitions for federal court hearings have been filed so far, American Civil Liberties Union attorney Lee Gelernt said then. But Deputy Solicitor General Edwin Kneedler said the figure was closer to 100 and warned of "the potential for a flood" of cases if the Supreme Court ruled for Thuraissigiam.

The case represented a crucial test of the Trump administration's effort to speed the removal of thousands of migrants without granting federal court hearings. The fast-track process is allowed under a law passed by Congress in 1996.

The California-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, which has drawn Trump's ire for its decisions on immigration, ruled last year that efforts to remove asylum-seekers under such "expedited removal" procedures violated their constitutional rights.

The Justice Department argued that extending the streamlined process could add years of court wrangling. After losing the case, the administration in July expanded the expedited removal system to incorporate asylum-seekers apprehended anywhere in the country who have not been continuously present in the USA for two years.

The case is one of several challenging the Trump administration's efforts to crack down on migrants seeking asylum after crossing the Mexican border.

In February, a federal appeals court blocked the administration’s policy of returning asylum-seekers to Mexico to await court hearings, a practice immigrant rights advocates have denounced as inhumane and deadly.

Last September, the justices temporarily upheld a different policy denying asylum to those who do not seek protection first from a country they pass through, such as Mexico.

But in 2018, the Supreme Court temporarily blocked a policy aimed at denying asylum to migrants crossing the border illegally rather than at designated crossings.

Trump's three-year crackdown on immigration has led to a surge in lawsuits reaching the Supreme Court, where a rebuilt conservative majority increasingly is paying dividends for him.

In the past year, the justices also let the administration deter poor immigrants and redirect military funds to build a wall along the southern border.

The high court has heard arguments in eight immigration cases since its term began in October, including a challenge to Trump's plan to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program that enables nearly 650,000 undocumented immigrants to work without fear of deportation.

The program was created by President Barack Obama in 2012 to help young, undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children. During oral argument in November, the court's conservative justices said the administration had ample policy reasons to end it. But the high court ruled 5-4 against the Trump administration in a surprise ruling written by Roberts. Trump has said he will try again to wind down the DACA program.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Supreme Court upholds Trump administration on removing asylum-seekers

Justices rule for Trump administration in deportation caseMARK SHERMAN,
Associated Press•June 25, 2020

The Supreme Court is seen in Washington, early Monday, June 15, 2020. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the Trump administration can deport some people seeking asylum without allowing them to make their case to a federal judge.

The high court's 7-2 ruling applies to people who are picked up at or near the border and who fail their initial asylum screenings, making them eligible for quick deportation, or expedited removal.

The justices ruled in the case of man who said he fled persecution as a member of Sri Lanka’s Tamil minority, but failed to persuade immigration officials that he faced harm if he returned to Sri Lanka. The man was arrested soon after he slipped across the U.S. border from Mexico.

Justice Samuel Alito wrote the high-court opinion that reversed a lower-court ruling in favor of the man, Vijayakumar Thuraissigiam, who was placed in expedited removal proceedings that prohibit people who fail initial interviews from asking federal courts for much help.

Immigration officials handled Thuraissigiam's case as a part of process Congress created “for weeding out patently meritless claims and expeditiously removing the aliens making such claims from the country," Alito wrote.

He noted that more than three-quarters of people who sought to claim asylum in the past five years passed their initial screening and qualified for full-blown review.

Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer agreed with the outcome in this case, but did not join Alito's opinion.

In dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote, “Today’s decision handcuffs the Judiciary’s ability to perform its constitutional duty to safeguard individual liberty." She was joined by Justice Elena Kagan.

Lee Gelernt, the American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who argued the case in the Supreme Court, said the outcome will make it hard to question the actions of immigration officials at the U.S. border. “This decision will impact potentially tens of thousands of people at the border who will not be able to seek review of erroneous denials of asylum," Gelernt said.

Since 2004, immigration officials have targeted for quick deportation undocumented immigrants who are picked up within 100 miles of the U.S. border and within 14 days of entering the country. The Trump administration is seeking to expand that authority so that people detained anywhere in the U.S. and up to two years after they got here could be quickly deported.

On Tuesday, a federal appeals court threw out a trial judge’s ruling that had blocked the expanded policy. Other legal issues remain to be resolved in the case.

The administration has made dismantling the asylum system a centerpiece of its immigration agenda, saying it is rife with abuse and overwhelmed by meritless claims. Changes include making asylum-seekers wait in Mexico while their cases wind through U.S. immigration court, denying asylum to anyone on the Mexican border who passes through another country without first seeking protection there, and flying Hondurans and El Salvadorans to Guatemala with an opportunity to seek asylum there instead of the U.S.

On Monday, the Trump administration published sweeping new procedural and substantive rules that would make it much more difficult to get asylum, triggering a 30-day period for public comment before they can take effect.

The United States became the world’s top destination for asylum-seekers in 2017, according to UN figures, many of them Mexican and Central American families fleeing endemic violence.

___

Associated Press writer Elliott Spagat in San Diego contributed to this rep

US to send Mexican asylum seekers to Guatemala under new plan

ALSO KNOWN AS A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY 

WHICH IS WHY THE USA REFUSES TO RECOGNISE

THE ICC

Under a bilateral agreement, Trump administration to begin sending Mexican asylum seekers in the US to Guatemala.
6 Jan 2020

A migrant sits with his children as they wait to hear if their 

number is called to apply for asylum in the United States

 [File: Gregory Bull/AP Photo]

MORE ON LATIN AMERICAVenezuela opposition leader Guaido takes new oath amid standoffVenezuela's Guaido to challenge rival for Congress presidencyUS to send Mexican asylum seekers to Guatemala under new planDecolonising Jesus Christ

Mexicans seeking asylum in the United States could be sent to Guatemala under a bilateral agreement signed by the Central American nation last year, according to documents sent to US asylum officers in recent days and seen by Reuters.

In a January 4 email, field office staff at the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) were told Mexican nationals will be included in the populations "amenable" to the agreement with Guatemala.

The controversial agreement, brokered last July between the administration of Republican President Donald Trump and the outgoing Guatemalan government, allows US immigration officials to force migrants requesting asylum at the US-Mexican border to apply for protection there.

More:US border activist found not guilty of harbouring immigrantsUN expert corrects claim on children in US migration detention'Dreamers' rally as Supreme Court weighs fate of DACA programme

Trump has made clamping down on undocumented migration a top priority of his presidency and a major theme of his 2020 re-election campaign. His administration penned similar deals with Honduras and El Salvador last year.

Democrats and pro-migrant groups have opposed the move and contend asylum seekers will face danger in Guatemala, where the murder rate is five times that of the US, according to 2017 data compiled by the World Bank. The country's asylum office is tiny and thinly staffed and critics have argued it does not have the capacity to properly vet a significant increase in cases.

Guatemalan President-elect Alejandro Giammattei, who takes office this month, has said he will review the agreement.

Acting Deputy US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Ken Cuccinelli said in a tweet in December that Mexicans were being considered for inclusion under the agreement.

USCIS referred to Cuccinelli's tweet, and US Customs and Border Protection and Mexico's foreign ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Unaccompanied minors cannot be sent to Guatemala under the agreement, which currently applies only to migrants from Honduras, El Salvador and Mexico who entered the US after November 19, 2019, according to the guidance documents. Exceptions are made only if the migrants can establish that they are "more likely than not" to be persecuted or tortured in Guatemala based on their race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion.

Numbers of Central American migrants apprehended at the border fell sharply in the second part of 2019 after Mexico deployed National Guard troops to stem the flow, under pressure from Trump.

Overall, border arrests are expected to drop again in December for the seventh straight month, a Homeland Security official told Reuters last week, citing preliminary data.

The US government says another reason for the reduction in border crossings is a separate programme, known as the Migrant Protection Protocols, that has forced more than 56,000 non-Mexican migrants to wait in Mexico for their US immigration court hearings.

With fewer Central Americans at the border, US attention has turned to Mexicans crossing irregularly or requesting asylum. Around 150,000 Mexican single adults were apprehended at the border in fiscal 2019, down sharply from previous decades but still enough to bother US immigration hawks.


SOURCE: REUTERS NEWS AGENCY

As asylum-seekers struggle while waiting for work permits, Chicago businesses can’t fill jobs










Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune/TNS

Laura Rodríguez Presa, Talia Soglin, Nell Salzman, Chicago Tribune
Sun, July 16, 2023 at 4:00 AM MDT·11 min read

Huberth Espinoza, 65, sat on a bench outside the 5th District police station in Pullman on a Wednesday in late June, waiting to be picked up for work.

An asylum-seeker from Venezuela, Espinoza said he came to Chicago to work but could not immediately get a job permit. So he worked for about two weeks for a man who would take him and other migrants to do odd jobs — construction, painting and yardwork — but he had not been picked up or paid in a week.

Espinoza said he was owed about $600.

“He told us he’d be back at 9 a.m., but he never came. We don’t know if he’s going to pay us,” he told the Tribune.

For most migrants, finding work is volatile and sometimes dangerous because they lack work authorization permits. And while many migrants work under the table, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation, Illinois business owners say they have open jobs they can’t fill. Business leaders, along with Gov. J.B. Pritzker and other political leaders, have urged the federal government to expedite the process.

Last month, more than 100 employers and business group leaders from more than a dozen states, including Illinois, signed an open letter coordinated by the American Business Immigration Coalition asking the White House to allow states to sponsor work permits for new migrants and longtime undocumented workers.

Signatories include leaders of the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce, the Illinois Restaurant Association and the Illinois Manufacturers’ Association.

On Friday, U.S. Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García began circulating a letter urging President Joe Biden to provide and expedite work permits to both new migrants and long-term contributing immigrant workers — including DACA-eligible, farmworkers and essential workers — as “one of the more sensible solutions, which are key to addressing America’s labor shortages and lowering inflation.”

“The solution to labor shortages is right here at hand,” he said. “In addition to that, it helps to address the cost of migrants and providing them with food and shelter because if they can gainfully work with authorization, then we won’t be scrambling to find funding for New York, Chicago and LA, or other cities, because it’s having a real impact on those budgets.”

In a statement, a spokesperson for Pritzker said the governor had met with White House officials “urging them to expedite work authorizations so that those who wish to live and work in Illinois can do so with dignity and respect.”

More than 10,000 asylum-seekers, mostly from Venezuela, have arrived in Chicago since August, when Texas Gov. Greg Abbott began busing refugees to cities led by Democrats. Many migrants are living in harsh conditions in city-run shelters or police stations; the Chicago Police Department said earlier this month it was investigating alleged sexual misconduct by at least one officer against a migrant or migrants, potentially including a minor, housed at a West Side police station.

Many migrants have left the shelters to find work and a place to live, even if it could affect their chances of getting asylum, or if the pay is low and the job conditions are poor, Kalman Resnick, an immigration lawyer, said during a panel with the Neighborhood Building Owners Alliance on how the real estate industry can help the new arrivals.

The timeline to file for asylum and subsequent job authorization depends on each migrant’s case and several factors including their way of entry to the U.S. and what policies were in place at the time, said Katherine Greenslade, director of the Resurrection Project’s legal clinic, a nonprofit that provides services for migrants. “It’s complex and lengthy; that’s why we recommend legal counsel,” she said.

In most cases, asylum-seekers cannot apply for permits to work legally in the U.S. until five months after they’ve submitted their asylum applications, something many are not able to do until they’ve already been in the country for months.

“Many of them are in shelters or in various unstable housing situations where getting a legal screening is just not the first or even the fifth thing on their mind,” said Megan Davis, the director of legal services at Erie Neighborhood House, a nonprofit that provides legal aid and other help to migrants.

It can take more than six months, on average, for a person to receive a work permit after they file an application, Greenslade said.

The backlog of applications at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has slowed processing times even further, meaning some applicants for work permits must wait up to 15 months from the time they apply, according to García’s letter.

In the meantime, many migrants work under the table. Their work can be precarious, leaving them with unpredictable schedules, earnings and at higher risks of exploitation, wage theft and abuse. And working illegally, especially if they do so by using fake documents or documents that belong to U.S. citizens, can ultimately have adverse impacts on migrants’ immigration cases, legal aid attorneys said.

In Venezuela, 30-year-old Patricia Moyeja was four months away from getting a degree in nursing when she came to the United States. Twenty-three-year-old Julianna Ovalles was studying to be a police officer, and her sister Alexa, 22, was studying business management.

The women, who now live in city-run shelters, waited for work in late June in the parking lot of a Home Depot in the Chatham neighborhood, where hundreds of people were looking for jobs.

“We’ve been coming here for a week. We are looking for jobs cleaning houses, painting, whatever we can find,” said the younger Ovalles sister.

The job search would be easier if she had a work permit, said her older sister, Julianna. For now all they can do is wait and hope for the best, she said. The women said they make $120 to $150 a day if they’re lucky.

“We are good, we’re safe here. I like the city of Chicago, but we need more opportunities to work. We came here to work,” she said.

Day laboring has become a common way for migrants in Chicago to find work. Like the two sisters, many go stand by hardware stores, waiting to be approached and offered a job. They work as contractors and get paid in cash, typically by the day.

Even migrants who have college educations or have worked in skilled professions including accounting, teaching, nursing or the law have to take on precarious jobs that in the long run won’t allow them the opportunity to learn English, said Laarni Livings, a head volunteer with a network of volunteers in the South Loop area.

Legal aid workers in Chicago said they believed very few of the new asylum-seekers have received work permits.

The Resurrection Project has assisted a “handful” of new arrivals who are far enough along in the legal process to apply for work permits, but most of their applications are still pending, Greenslade said. Only one asylum-seeker whom the group has worked with has received a work permit; that person was able to submit their asylum application last fall, she said.

At Centro Romero, an organization that provides social services for the immigrant community, the legal department has screened over 2,000 new arrivals since last fall, said Diego F. Samayoa, associate director. Of those, fewer than 5% have been approved so far, he said, adding that they are concerned many applicants may be denied because their parole has expired.

Most asylum-seekers are paroled into the country, which means they are allowed in temporarily to process their asylum case. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services could, at its discretion, grant a parolee temporary employment authorization, if it is not inconsistent with the purpose and duration of their parole.

That, however, is rare, Greenslade said. Most people paroled in are given a year or just a few months in the country, so they won’t get the permit on time, or if it arrives, it’ll be expired.

When a mother from Venezuela, who declined to give her name, arrived in the Chicago area last September, she sent out her application for employment authorization with the help of Centro Romero. But her parole ended at the end of November, which means that even if she gets approval from USCIS, the permit could be expired by the time it arrives.

Most of the asylum-seekers in shelters may not have even started the process, as they wait to be connected with legal counsel, Greenslade said. But the number of migrants in need of legal services surpasses existing nonprofit legal capacity, and most cannot pay for a private attorney, she said.

But as migrants wait for work permits, Chicago businesses want to hire them.

“Everybody’s short on workers right now,” said Brad Tietz, vice president of the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce. Migrants looking for work, he said, would be a welcome “pool of talent” to enter the area workforce.

There are upward of 1,800 open hotel jobs in the Chicago area, according to Indeed.com. The hotel industry, which has struggled to fill positions after losing workers during the pandemic, has lobbied in Washington for a bill that would shorten the time migrants must wait for work permit eligibility to one month after they apply for asylum.

Michael Jacobson, president of the Illinois Hotel & Lodging Association, said the labor shortage is present across the hotel industry, but the need is particularly acute for culinary workers.

“When there’s a banquet for 1,000 people at one of our big hotels downtown, just imagine how many people are needed to service that meal,” he said. Most city hotels now pay over $23 an hour as a starting wage, Jacobson said.

“There are people who are living in hotels who have applied for asylum and they are not allowed to work in the hotel,” said Chirag Shah, executive vice president of the national hotel association. “In a lot of circumstances, the hotels have open jobs.”

Sam Sanchez, who owns Chicago bars and restaurants including Old Crow Smokehouse and Moe’s Cantina, said he exchanged phone numbers with migrants hoping to find work when he volunteered at a food distribution in the spring.

Sanchez, who also owns a construction company, said some migrants who were skilled plaster finishers pulled up images of their work to show him on their phones.

“I got their number, I can’t wait,” Sanchez said.

The restaurant industry, like the hotel industry, took a beating during the pandemic and has struggled to fill jobs even as consumer demand has bounced back.

“A lot of people went to work construction, and they never came back,” Sanchez said. “People just moved on.”

Sanchez, who is also chair of governmental relations for the Illinois Restaurant Association, referenced the funding Chicago has allocated to help migrants. In May, the City Council approved $51 million for spending on migrant care, which mostly covered the expenses of agencies contracted to run city-run shelters, according to Mayor Brandon Johnson’s deputy chief of staff, Cristina Pacione-Zayas.

“If we would allow them to have work visas, the city of Chicago would not be spending that kind of money,” Sanchez said. “Allowing them to come in and not allowing them to work becomes a burden on the city, the state and the federal government. They don’t want to be a burden. They want to work. And we need workforce.”

Brayan Lozano, an asylum-seeker from Colombia, echoes the leaders’ plea. He’s been in the city for nearly three months. With the help of volunteers, he has found an apartment to rent, which he pays for with money he earns as a self-employed contractor.

“We come here to work, we want to contribute to society at the same time that we help our families,” Lozano said in Spanish.

“We don’t want to be a burden to the government,” he said.

Shelly Ruzicka, a workers’ rights advocate with Arise Chicago, said it is important for migrants to know they have the same rights as any other workers, regardless of their immigration status, whether working in factories, for companies or as day laborers.

Ruzicka urges migrants to keep written documents of the work agreement, including pay, type of labor and work. But even after submitting a complaint, getting their money back from wage theft does not happen immediately, if at all.

In his native country, Lozano worked as a social worker and human rights organizer, he said, which is why he sought asylum. In Chicago, he is also a key member of the volunteer network in the South Loop, looking out for fellow migrants and connecting them with resources.

He said he often communicates the possible negative consequences of working illegally, but also watches after those who take a job. Most share their locations with him, and he accompanies them to inspect the space. If he suspects exploitation or wage theft, he informs the volunteers and asks for guidance.

When the volunteer group learns of someone experiencing wage theft, they first talk to the employer and attempt to get their money. Other times, the only thing they can do is warn other migrants of the employers that could potentially exploit them.

Unfortunately, Livings said, “there is little to nothing we can do for them.”

One Side of a Nuclear Waste Fight: Trump. 

The Other: His Administration.

Maggie Haberman,The New York Times•February 24, 2020

FILE - In this July 14, 2018, file photo, people leave the south portal of Yucca Mountain during a congressional tour near Mercury, Nev. President Donald Trump appears to have reversed position to now oppose creating a national nuclear waste dump at Nevada's Yucca Mountain. Trump tweeted Thursday, Feb. 6, 2020, that his administration will respect the state, which has argued that the site about 100 miles from Las Vegas isn't suitable. (AP Photo/John Locher, File)

Before the 2018 midterm elections, Sen. Dean Heller stood with President Donald Trump in the glittering Trump International Hotel near the Las Vegas Strip, looking out from the top floor, and pointed.

“I said, ‘See those railroad tracks?’” Heller, a Nevada Republican who lost his seat later that year, recalled in an interview. Nuclear waste to be carted to Yucca Mountain for permanent storage would have to travel along the tracks, within a half-mile of the hotel, Heller said.

“I think he calculated pretty quickly what that meant,” Heller said. “I think it all made sense. There was a moment of reflection, of, ‘Oh, OK.’”

Whether the waste would have traveled along those particular tracks is a subject of debate. But the conversation appears to have helped focus Trump, who in recent weeks seemed to end his administration’s support for moving nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain, a proposal that had been embraced by his appointees for three years despite his own lack of interest


“Why should you have nuclear waste in your backyard?” Trump asked the crowd at a rally in Las Vegas on Friday, to applause, noting that his recently released budget proposal did not include funding to license the site, as previous ones had.



The story of the muddled and shifting position on Yucca Mountain is partly one of an administration focused on Trump’s reelection chances in a battleground state that he lost to Hillary Clinton by 2 percentage points in 2016. But it is also emblematic of a White House where the president has strong impulses on only a narrow set of issues, and policy is sometimes made in his name regardless of whether he approves of it.

In Trump’s decentralized administration, top aides and agency leaders have sometimes pursued their own agendas, at times creating politically perilous situations for him. The confusion around policy over the past three years has ranged from issues like the repeal of the program for immigrants in the country illegally known as DACA, largely steered by the attorney general at the time, to a more recent internal debate about a ban on some e-cigarette flavors, driven by the health and human services secretary.
Story continues

The president made his latest move after a monthslong policy debate inside the White House over finally breaking with support for Yucca, officials said.

“While Congress has played political games over Yucca Mountain for years and failed to find a solution, the president is showing real leadership by respecting the people of Nevada and their wishes,” said Judd Deere, a White House spokesman. “President Trump is committed to finding the best options for the safe and efficient disposal of our nuclear waste.”

This article is based on interviews with nearly a dozen people familiar with the administration’s knotty relationship with the proposal.

Yucca Mountain, in the desert about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, was conceived as a permanent storage place for the nation’s radioactive waste, which is currently scattered across dozens of holding sites around the country.

Nationally, Republicans have long favored the proposal, which was developed in the late 1980s and signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2002. But Nevada politicians of both parties have remained steadfastly opposed to the policy, which is deeply unpopular in the state.

“I don’t know of a major elected official in Nevada today, or in the last five years or 10 years, for that matter, that hasn’t specifically pushed to keep the waste out of the state,” Heller said.



The project was halted by President Barack Obama, partly at the urging of Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., who was the Senate majority leader at the time, but most Republican leaders outside of the state remained supportive. While the plans for Yucca remain law as set under Bush, Congress has never moved to fund it since.

People close to Trump, who won the Republican nomination in what amounted to a hostile takeover of the party, say he never favored the idea despite suggesting at the end of the 2016 presidential campaign that he was looking at it. But he also did not care enough to intervene as his previous energy secretary, Rick Perry, supported the measure, and as the Office of Management and Budget listed $120 million in the president’s budget to restart the licensing process of the site. It was listed as one of the administration’s priorities.

Two of Trump’s political advisers, Bill Stepien and Justin Clark, flagged Yucca Mountain early on as a political danger zone, particularly if Trump wanted to try to put Nevada in play in 2020.

But it showed up in the budget, and Perry toured the site in March 2017, shortly after he and the Energy Department were sued by the attorney general in Perry’s home state — Texas, which has been one of the few places in the country accepting low-level nuclear waste — for not licensing Yucca Mountain.

Stepien drafted a memo in May 2017 that went to top White House officials, including the chief of staff at the time, Reince Priebus, and the president’s chief strategist at the time, Stephen K. Bannon, describing Yucca Mountain as a critical issue for a number of Nevada voters, according to people familiar with its contents. The memo mentioned that Heller was facing a reelection bid in 2018.

Priebus called a meeting in his office with Stepien; Clark; Rick A. Dearborn, then a deputy chief of staff; and Perry and his chief of staff. Priebus told aides that the president did not want to move ahead with the Yucca Mountain proposal, and that they should stop talking about it. It was to come out of the budget, he added.

But Perry continued talking about it. In June 2017, he testified at a House hearing that officials had a “moral obligation” to fund the site and continue with the nuclear waste proposal.

“Listen, I understand this is a politically sensitive topic for some,” Perry testified. “But we can no longer kick the can down the road.”

An aide to Perry did not respond to emails seeking comment as to why Perry pushed the issue so aggressively despite concerns from the White House.

Perry’s advocacy was enough to agitate Dearborn, who summoned Perry to the White House and reminded him of the directive to stop discussing Yucca Mountain publicly. In the future, he said, Stepien and Clark had to be present for any related discussions.

Still, meetings about the proposal continued to be held. At one such meeting of more than 30 people at the White House complex, Clark reminded the room that Trump did not back the project, and an administration official began yelling that it would move forward anyway, according to an attendee.

It was in the last year, and after Trump’s understanding of the potential proximity of nuclear waste to his property, that the president focused on ensuring that everyone in his administration got the message about where he stood.

“Nevada, I hear you on Yucca Mountain and my Administration will RESPECT you!” he tweeted this month. “Congress and previous Administrations have long failed to find lasting solutions — my Administration is committed to exploring innovative approaches — I’m confident we can get it done!”

Yet even after that tweet, internal confusion has been evident.

At a House energy subcommittee hearing two weeks ago, Mark W. Menezes, the president’s nominee for deputy energy secretary, prompted alarm at the White House when he said, “What we’re trying to do is to put together a process that will give us a path to permanent storage at Yucca.” After White House officials expressed concern, Menezes put out a statement saying that he fully supported Trump’s decision.

Whether that will be enough to reassure Nevadans about Trump’s intentions remains to be seen.

“Nevadans aren’t going to just forget that Trump spent the first three years of his administration trying to treat the state as a dumping site,” said Rebecca Kirszner Katz, a former adviser to Reid. “Donald Trump had an opportunity to be on the right side of a major issue in a huge battleground state, and he bungled it.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.




© 2020 The New York Times Company

HIDING BEHIND MUSK
Defending abortion law, Abbott cites Elon Musk’s support of Texas’ ‘social policies’

By Brendan Case
September 3, 2021

Dallas: Texas Governor Greg Abbott, defending new legislation on elections and abortion, pointed to billionaire Elon Musk as a business leader who likes the state’s “social policies”.

Musk replied with a less-than-ringing endorsement.


Texas Governor Greg Abbott claims Elon Musk is supportive of Texas’ social policies.CREDIT:INTERNET

UTILITARIANISM
“In general, I believe government should rarely impose its will upon the people, and, when doing so, should aspire to maximise their cumulative happiness,” the billionaire tweeted on Thursday after Abbott’s remarks hours earlier on CNBC.

“That said, I would prefer to stay out of politics.”

Abbott claimed Musk’s support in arguing that the movement of companies and people to Texas won’t slow down after the state implemented the nation’s most restrictive abortion law and approved new limits on voting access.

In fact, the Governor said, the shift to Texas will speed up as some people leave “the very liberal state of California” partly because of its policies.

“Elon had to get out of California because, in part, of the social policies in California,” Abbott said, adding that he “frequently” talks to the chief executive officer of Tesla Inc.

“Elon consistently tells me that he likes the social policies in the state of Texas.”
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‘Unconstitutional chaos’: Biden directs White House lawyers to fight strict Texas abortion law

Tesla is building a new factory in Austin, Texas, to make its Cybertruck pickup.

Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp. is expanding its launch facilities near the Mexican border to test its futuristic Starship rocket.

SpaceX also tests rocket engines in McGregor, which is located between Dallas and Austin.

Musk’s companies aren’t alone in moving to the state increasingly defined by hard-right Republican political ideology.

Other companies including Apple and Toyota have moved operations and university -educated, creative-class workers to Texas in recent years; enclaves like Austin and Houston’s Montrose neighbourhood felt a little like San Francisco with withering humidity.

Elon Musk has been moving his companies to Texas but he doesn’t want to get involved in the state’s politics.

CREDIT:AP

Those workers find themselves in a state taking far-right stances in a culture war with national ramifications for women’s autonomy and presidential politics.

“Other states are competing for people,” said Tammi Wallace, chief executive officer of the Greater Houston LGBT Chamber of Commerce.

“If you look at what our state is doing, and then you see another state where they’re not doing some of those things, you might say, ‘Well, the money’s good, but where do I want to raise my family?’”

Even outspoken tech companies have been glaringly silent on the Texas abortion ban

Tesla CEO Elon Musk summed up the mood in a tweet, saying ‘I would prefer to stay out of politics.’

In recent years, tech companies and their executive leaders have gotten more political, weighing in on legislation that discriminates against gay and transgender Americans. But the usually more outspoken industry has been notably silent about Texas legislation that prevents a physician from performing an abortion after roughly six weeks into the pregnancy. This week, the Supreme Court denied a petition for injunctive relief on the rule, allowing it to go into effect. In her dissent, Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor called the decision “flagrantly unconstitutional.”

Abortion remains an untouchable political issue for companies. Though doctors insist that abortion is a health decision that should be made between a doctor and his or her patient, some Americans see it as a choice between the life and death of an unborn child. But anti-abortion regulation inhibits medical choice—not just for women seeking the procedure but also for women experiencing a miscarriage—and forces women to seek care through unconventional and sometimes risky means. For this reason, the Supreme Court’s inaction on the Texas law has elicited public outrage—but not from everyone.
Despite the wave of backlash, Governor Greg Abbott is not the least bit concerned that businesses will pull out of his state. “They are leaving the very liberal state of California,” he said in an interview on CNBC’s Squawk on the Street. “Elon [Musk] had to get out of California because of the social policies in California, and Elon consistently tells me he likes the social policies in the state of Texas.” Musk recently relocated to Texas and announced plans for Tesla to build a new factory there.

In response, Musk, capturing the industry’s general mood on the subject so far, tweeted: “In general, I believe government should rarely impose its will upon the people, and, when doing so, should aspire to maximize their cumulative happiness. That said, I would prefer to stay out of politics.”

Fast Company reached out to several companies including Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Google, Dell, PayPal, and Salesforce for their comment because they’ve either been vocal on political issues in the past or have offices in Texas. So far only Microsoft’s publicist has responded to say the company has nothing to share.

Internally, some companies are taking steps to ensure their employees have access to abortion care. Match Group CEO Shar Dubey sent out an email to employees promising that she would personally set up a fund for any staff members who need to travel and obtain abortion care out of state. Similarly, Whitney Wolfe Herd, CEO of dating app Bumble, told employees globally that she would provide financial support to ensure reproductive rights. However, women at these companies likely make enough money and have enough paid time off to travel to another state for reproductive healthcare. Kate Ryder, CEO of Maven Clinic, a company that provides healthcare services to women and families starting at preconception and is now worth more than $1 billion, says that her company has been echoing the message from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, which has called the Texas law “a clear attack on the practice of medicine.”

A majority of Americans support keeping abortion legal, according to a 2019 poll from Pew. A more recent poll from YouGov, commissioned by the Tara Health Foundation with support from the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies, suggests that a majority of college-educated professionals don’t want the court to overturn the 1973 Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, which protects a woman’s right to choose whether she wants an abortion. The survey, which went out to 1,800 adults who are either working or looking for work, also indicates that those respondents wouldn’t apply to jobs in states that have laws like Texas’s abortion ban. More than half of respondents want their companies to either make public donations or comment on the issue.

The general quiet on the Texas abortion law is in stark contrast to response on other political issues when companies felt it necessary to throw around their economic weight. In 2015, Apple CEO Tim Cook spoke out against Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which could have allowed for discrimination against queer Americans. He wasn’t the only one who took exception to that law and others like it. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff vocally opposed the law and a year later threatened to reduce investments in Georgia over a similar rule. Dell Technologies CEO Michael Dell, billionaire Richard Branson, and Microsoft president Brad Smith all voiced public opposition to Georgia’s policy.

In 2016, industry played an important role in dismantling a North Carolina law that forced transgender Americans to use bathrooms according to their gender assigned at birth. PayPal withdrew plans to set up a new facility in the state; Ringo Starr and Bruce Springsteen canceled planned concerts; and both the NBA and the NCAA avoided hosting events there. Deutsche Bank and several major investment firms also made their displeasure known. Target promised that transgender Americans could continue to use the bathroom that comports with their gender identity despite the rule and later faced backlash for it. At the time, CNBC estimated that by the end of 2017 North Carolina would forfeit more than $525 million.

CEOs and companies continue to voice their dismay over laws unrelated to their bottom line. In 2018, Cook vocalized his concern in an interview with MSNBC’s Chris Hayes over the repeal of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, saying, “The DACA situation is not an immigration issue, it’s a moral issue.” And this year, a convoy of tech companies came out to wag their fingers at Georgia’s attempts to erect barriers to the ballot box and voiced support for voting rights laws that enable access like the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.

They have also, in the last seven years or so, made moves to ensure that their employees adequately reflect America’s demographic makeup, announcing various diversity initiatives. In particular, some companies have made a show of hiring more women. In 2019, Dell announced that by 2030 half of its workforce would be female. But speaking out on access to women’s reproductive care, it seems, remains too taboo. Technology related to women’s health may garner incredible attention as an opportunity for investment, drawing $1.31 billion in funding so far this year according to Pitchbook data, but women’s health as a moral prerogative has yet to seize the hearts and minds of the tech industry’s luminaries. Maybe next year.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ruth Reader is a writer for Fast Company. She covers the intersection of health and technology.