El Paso Residents Say “Border Crisis” Is Manufactured, Reject Militarization


Border militarization, not immigration, is what is making El Paso unsafe, residents say.

By Sam Carliner ,

TRUTHOUT

PublishedOctober 16, 2023

A Texas National Guard soldier stands vigil at a makeshift migrant camp near the U.S.-Mexico border fence on May 11, 2023, in El Paso, Texas.

JOHN MOORE / GETTY IMAGES
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El Paso, Texas, has increasingly become the subject of an intense national conversation.

The New York Times, The Washington Post and Wall Street Journal report that migrant surges are straining the city, the country and the economy. These are just three headlines from a barrage of coverage of the “crisis” at the border.

Nastassia Artalejo, an El Paso resident whose family has lived in the city for generations, is sick of hearing her home described this way.

“It’s really frustrating to be here and see and hear so many polarizing opinions,” Artalejo said. “So much of what is talked about in the media is from a third-party or outsider perspective, as opposed to the opinion being from someone that actually lives here.”

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Ivonne Diaz, a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipient and immigrant rights activist, expressed similar frustration.

“When I meet with people that don’t live here and are visiting for the first time, they say it’s nothing like [they’ve] been hearing,” Diaz said. “El Paso is not like how they put it in the news.”

Both acknowledged the large number of migrants making their way to the U.S.-Mexico border. Neither feels that the increase in migrants is fueling violence or chaos in the city. However, Artalejo, Diaz, and several other residents of El Paso had a lot to say about how the response to migrants and the mainstream rhetoric about the city is changing their home.

“More and more military is coming into the city,” Artalejo said. “It’s not making us safer. It’s making the city more violent.”

“What They’re Trained to Do Is Kill People”

El Paso is not just any border city. It is the second-most crossed point of entry into the United States. As the U.S. government has steadily developed more restrictions to entry into the country, El Paso has also become a hub for various federal agencies to police migration. It is also a military city, located right next to Fort Bliss, an Army base spanning 1.12 million acres across Texas and New Mexico. For decades it has been the norm for residents of El Paso to see these various federal agents and soldiers operating in and around the city.

There have been several points in the city’s history where residents have noticed a surge in the presence of these forces.

In 2021, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott launched Operation Lone Star, deploying Texas National Guard troops to the border. Other Republican governors from 14 different states have sent their states’ soldiers to the border as part of the operation. While these Republicans justify the deployments by arguing that the Biden administration has had lenient border policies, the president has actually continued many of the anti-immigrant laws passed by the Trump administration. Recently, Biden waived 26 federal laws to construct a border wall in South Texas which will run through public lands and habitats for endangered species. In May, the federal government deployed an additional 1,500 soldiers to the border. A fact sheet published by the White House in March boasts: “Over the past two years, the Biden-Harris Administration has secured more resources for border security than any of the presidents who preceded him, deployed the most agents ever — more than 23,000 — to address the situation at the border…”

“More and more military is coming into the city,” Artalejo said. “It’s not making us safer. It’s making the city more violent.”

Diaz said that the presence of federal agents and soldiers is intimidating, especially for immigrants living in El Paso.

“I have to drive by the border and I see more persons and it doesn’t make me feel safer,” Diaz said. “Especially me having DACA. I can only imagine having people who are still undocumented here.”

Robert Heyman, strategic advisor at the Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, which advocates for immigrant rights and provides legal services to low-income immigrants, has lived in El Paso for decades and witnessed various ways that border enforcement has ramped up.

“Especially in these moments of national moral panic around the border, things that would not be acceptable in other parts of the country are done to folks living at the border,” Heyman said.

Heyman compared the current militarization of El Paso to the 1990s. During that decade, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton oversaw several initiatives which increased the presence of Border Patrol and U.S. military forces around the U.S.-Mexico border. These operations increased the number of migrant deaths, but it wasn’t until U.S. Marines deployed at the border killed an 18-year-old American citizen that the military suspended its policing of the border.

While the recent National Guard deployments have yet to produce a similar example of U.S. troops killing a U.S. citizen on domestic soil, there have been two instances this year of soldiers injuring people while policing the border. In January, a soldier shot and injured a migrant, and in August another soldier shot at a Mexican citizen across the border.

Heyman did not mince words criticizing the deployment of soldiers to the border.

“The U.S. military has different soldiers in different roles, but a core tenet of what they’re trained to do is to kill people,” Heyman said. “When you start putting them into roles that require different skill sets that are fundamentally misaligned with that, you really start creating risks.”

Artalejo’s family history makes her uniquely aware of these risks.

“Obviously, it’s significantly more militarized now, but there’s always been a really large military presence in El Paso for as long as the city has been a legitimate city,” Artalejo said.

She described how during World War II, two soldiers stationed at Fort Bliss had been drinking late at night at a bar across from the apartment complex where her great-grandfather lived with his wife and kids. The soldiers and two women ended up loudly playing Marco Polo outside of the building, prompting Artalejo’s great-grandfather to come outside and tell them to quiet down so his kids could sleep. One of the soldiers used a pair of brass knuckles to hit Artalejo’s great-grandfather in the head, killing him.

“My family was left without a parental or father figure,” Artalejo said. “Just a single mother with lots of children.”

One of those children was her grandfather, who passed the story down to her. She felt it was important for people to understand that the base, not just border enforcement operations, is central to the militarization of the city and the violence that it entails.
“We Had to Be the Order”

El Paso has always been militarized to some degree, but 2016 placed it at the center of national politics and unleashed violent dynamics which continue to shape the city.

Donald Trump infamously launched his presidential campaign by calling immigrants “drug dealers,” “criminals” and “rapists,” and promised to build a wall to keep migrants out. As president, Trump enacted many brutal policies including family separation. He also talked about migrants as “invaders” posing danger to the United States.

The El Paso community witnessed the logical result of Trump’s provocative rhetoric in 2019 when Patrick Crusius came to their city. Inspired by Trump’s fearmongering about migrants, Crusius shot up a Walmart parking lot, killing 23 people and injuring another 22.

Trump activated many white supremacists throughout the country. He also activated many immigrant rights organizers who remain at the forefront of aiding migrants coming to El Paso. One such organizer is Juan Paul Flores Vazquez, a DACA recipient whose family came to the United States from Mexicali. Trump’s attacks on immigrant rights inspired Flores Vazquez to move to El Paso in 2018 to organize against these attacks. He reflected on the sense of danger that came with Trump’s presidency.


“The feds were lurking around alleys and streets, snatching people of all ages.”

“There was always a lingering feeling of dread,” Flores Vazquez said. “I immediately saw how that affected the border and our community right from the jump.”

He has continued his activism through the group Undocumented 915 which provides news and community alerts for El Paso’s undocumented community, and provides donations including food and clothing for migrants arriving in the city. He said there has not been much of a difference under the Biden administration. The migrants coming to El Paso still rely on local activists to help them find shelter, food, legal assistance, and other needs that the government does not provide. The federal agencies continue to harass migrants and activists in the city.

Flores Vazquez described some of the repression he witnessed around a migrant shelter earlier this year.

“The feds were lurking around alleys and streets, snatching people of all ages,” he said. “There [were] multiple videos from security cameras of local businesses that would catch Border Patrol being aggressively violent with young people … There’s a couple videos being leaked. Imagine all the stuff we don’t get to see.”

Juan Ortiz is an organizer at Casa Carmelita, a migrant shelter in El Paso. Ortiz’s family is Rarámuri, one of several communities indigenous to the land that the U.S.-Mexico border cuts across. During the Trump administration, Ortiz felt personally connected to the administration’s family separation policies because his sister-in-law was undocumented and he worried she could be separated from her kids. Through Indigenous rights activism, immigrant rights activism and mutual aid, he proudly continues what he describes as El Paso’s rich history of leftist activity, which has included the 1917 Bath Riots, the Chicano rights movement and recent activity to support migrants. He has seen his share of repression, but says that some of the worst he’s ever witnessed has been in El Paso.

“I call it a police city-state now,” Ortiz said. “When the youth had a lot of rallies around George Floyd … at one point, they had a rally downtown and there was so much presence.… It was different colors and shades of uniforms but everyone looked like they were prepared for war.… You couldn’t tell who was military, who was Border Patrol, who was police.”

He added that during the protests against racist police violence in 2020, white supremacist militias also flocked to the city.

While federal agencies and militarized forces proliferate in El Paso, the city remains one of the poorest zip codes in the United States. The city’s poverty stands in stark contrast to the estimated $333 billion that the federal government has spent on immigration enforcement since the creation of the Department of Homeland Security in 2003.

Flores Vazquez spoke about how this money could have helped shelter migrants, as well as the city’s houseless population.

“[A housing complex] which has been abandoned for years just caught on fire,” Flores Vazquez said. “One of the things that everyone’s been saying is, ‘Wow, they could’ve used all that money they’ve been spending on building a fortress around the border, and invested it in reopening some of those complexes for migrants or for people who are just out in the street.’”

Ortiz feels that how most people talk about the situation at the border fuels the dynamics that are hurting the city. He wishes that more people would look to the example the El Paso community has set by assisting migrants.

“People need to understand it’s a human-created, policy-created crisis,” Ortiz said. “Create the machinations that create the chaos, and then point to it and say chaos.… The system was always going to be the chaos, so we had to be the order. The people on the border are the order.”

Here's how much the unauthorized immigrant population in the US grew during the pandemic

Rafael Carranza, Arizona Republic
Sat, September 16, 2023

New estimates show how the number of unauthorized migrants living in the United States grew slightly despite global restrictions on travel at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic to reach 11.2 million.

That's an increase of 200,000 from 2019, according to a new report from the nonpartisan Migrant Policy Institute, which analyzed data from the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey.

The estimates of the unauthorized immigrant population in the U.S. are based on the 2021 survey, meaning that those numbers do not reflect the historic increase in encounters along the U.S.-Mexico border over the past two years and the expansion of humanitarian parole programs since the removal of pandemic restrictions at the border.

Ariel Ruiz Soto, one of the report's authors and a senior policy analyst at the Migrant Policy Institute, said this means the numbers today are likely much higher even though the federal government has boosted deportations.

"If you look at the border today, you'll see that of the thousands of people that come every day in the country, more of them are seeking asylum. And that asylum process takes a long time," he said. "So because of the way that we measure our estimates, asylum seekers who seek protection defensively, meaning that they irregularly and are in the process of removals would have to wait for years to go to an immigration court would be included in our estimates. And because of that, it is likely that the numbers will certainly have increased in 2022 and 2023."

What the available data does show is the continuation of a trend that has been building for nearly two decades, a reversal in migration from Mexico. Since peaking at 7.7 million in 2007, the Migrant Policy Institute said the number of unauthorized immigrants from Mexico has dropped to 5.2 million in 2021 as more of them return to Mexico.

That means that Mexican immigrants account for less than half (46 percent) of the total unauthorized immigrant population in the United States. As the share of Mexican immigrants has fallen, representation from other countries has surged.

Ruiz Soto said they especially saw an increase in the number of migrants from places farther away. In addition to Mexico and the Northern Triangle countries of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, the institute's analysis identified a notable rise in unauthorized immigrants from South American countries such as Venezuela, Colombia and Brazil. Three Asian countries round out the top 10 countries of origin: India, China and the Philippines.

Opinion piece on immigration in Arizona: A little border chaos makes 'The View' sound less Manhattan and more Phoenix

The overall unauthorized immigrant population has remained relatively stable at about 11 million for nearly two decades. The report attributed that to U.S. immigration removal policies, adding that nearly 4.7 million immigrants have been deported from the country since 2008.

While the unauthorized immigrant population increased by 200,000 during the pandemic, Ruiz Soto said, the travel restrictions not only kept people out, but many immigrants were unable to leave the country. Additionally, in the aftermath of pandemic lockdowns, the U.S. began to expel all migrants at the border using a public health rule known as Title 42. Under that policy, the U.S. turned away 2.8 million migrants.

The report noted that while they used the term "unauthorized" to refer to the immigrants living in the United States without a legal visa or green card, those numbers include thousands of individuals with temporary protections, including humanitarian parole or deferred action or DACA recipients.

Federal judge again declares that DACA is illegal with issue likely to be decided by Supreme Court


 People rally outside the Supreme Court over President Trump’s decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA), at the Supreme Court in Washington, Nov. 12, 2019. A federal judge on Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2023, declared illegal a revised version of a federal policy that prevents the deportation of hundreds of thousands of immigrants brought to the U.S. as children. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)

 Susana Lujano, left, a dreamer from Mexico who lives in Houston, joins other activists to rally in support of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, also known as DACA, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, June 15, 2022. A federal judge on Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2023, declared illegal a revised version of a federal policy that prevents the deportation of hundreds of thousands of immigrants brought to the U.S. as children. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) students gather in front of the Supreme Court in Washington, June 18, 2020. A federal judge on Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2023, declared illegal a revised version of a federal policy that prevents the deportation of hundreds of thousands of immigrants brought to the U.S. as children. 

AP Photos/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File

BY JUAN A. LOZANO
 September 13, 2023

HOUSTON (AP) — While a federal judge on Wednesday declared illegal a revised version of a federal policy that prevents the deportation of hundreds of thousands of immigrants brought to the U.S. as children, he declined to order an immediate end to the program and the protections it offers to recipients.

U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen agreed with Texas and eight other states suing to stop the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program. The judge’s ruling was ultimately expected to be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, sending the program’s fate before the high court for a third time.

“While sympathetic to the predicament of DACA recipients and their families, this Court has expressed its concerns about the legality of the program for some time,” Hanen wrote in his 40-page ruling. “The solution for these deficiencies lies with the legislature, not the executive or judicial branches. Congress, for any number of reasons, has decided not to pass DACA-like legislation ... The Executive Branch cannot usurp the power bestowed on Congress by the Constitution — even to fill a void.”

Hanen’s order extended the current injunction that had been in place against DACA, which barred the government from approving any new applications, but left the program intact for existing recipients during the ongoing legal review.

Hanen also declined a request by the states to order the program’s end within two years. Hanen said his order does not require the federal government to take any actions against DACA recipients, who are known as “Dreamers.”

Thomas Saenz, president and general counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, or MALDEF, which is representing DACA recipients in the lawsuit, said it will ultimately be up to higher courts, including the Supreme Court, to rule on DACA’s legality and whether Texas proved it had been harmed by the program.

“Judge Hanen has consistently erred in resolving both of these issues, and today’s ruling is more of the same flawed analysis. We look forward to continuing to defend the lawful and much-needed DACA program on review in higher courts,” Saenz said.

The Biden administration criticized the judge’s ruling.

“We are deeply disappointed in today’s DACA ruling from the District Court in Southern Texas,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement Wednesday night. “... As we have long maintained, we disagree with the District Court’s conclusion that DACA is unlawful, and will continue to defend this critical policy from legal challenges. While we do so, consistent with the court’s order, DHS will continue to process renewals for current DACA recipients and DHS (the Department of Homeland Security) may continue to accept DACA applications.”

The Texas Attorney General’s Office, which represented the states in the lawsuit, and the U.S. Department of Justice, which represented the federal government, didn’t immediately return emails or calls seeking comment.

The states have argued the Obama administration didn’t have the authority to first create the program in 2012 because it circumvented Congress.

In 2021, Hanen had declared the program illegal, ruling it had not been subject to public notice and comment periods required under the federal Administrative Procedures Act.

The Biden administration tried to satisfy Hanen’s concerns with a new version of DACA that took effect in October 2022 and was subject to public comments as part of a formal rule-making process.

But Hanen, who was appointed by then-President George W. Bush in 2002, ruled the updated version of DACA was still illegal as the Biden administration’s new version was essentially the same as the old version, started under the Obama administration. Hanen had previously said DACA was unconstitutional.

Hanen also had previously ruled the states had standing to file their lawsuit because they had been harmed by the program.

The states have claimed they incur hundreds of millions of dollars in health care, education and other costs when immigrants are allowed to remain in the country illegally. The states that sued are Texas, Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, South Carolina, West Virginia, Kansas and Mississippi.

Those defending the program — the federal government, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the state of New Jersey — had argued the states failed to present evidence that any of the costs they allege they have incurred have been tied to DACA recipients. They also argued Congress has given the Department of Homeland Security the legal authority to set immigration enforcement policies.

There were 578,680 people enrolled in DACA at the end of March, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

The program has faced a roller coaster of court challenges over the years.

In 2016, the Supreme Court deadlocked 4-4 over an expanded DACA and a version of the program for parents of DACA recipients. In 2020, the high court ruled 5-4 that the Trump administration improperly ended DACA, allowing it to stay in place.

In 2022, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans upheld Hanen’s earlier ruling declaring DACA illegal, but sent the case back to him to review changes made to the program by the Biden administration.

President Joe Biden and advocacy groups have called on Congress to pass permanent protections for “ dreamers.” Congress has failed multiple times to pass proposals called the DREAM Act to protect DACA recipients.

“We continue to urge Congress and President Biden to create permanent solutions for all immigrants to ensure none are left in the perilous road DACA has been on for the past decade,” Veronica Garcia, an attorney with the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, an advocacy organization, said in a statement.
___

Follow Juan A. Lozano on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter: https://twitter.com/juanlozano70

‘Maus’ evades a ban in Iowa after school district cites ‘ambiguity’ in new state law

After uproar, Urbandale Schools outside Des Moines walks back removal of Holocaust graphic novel

By ANDREW LAPIN

Today, 

An illustrative image of Art Spiegelman's 'Maus.' (Philissa Cramer/JTA)

JTA — A new Iowa state law forbidding instruction on sexual and gender identity prompted one school district this week to briefly order staff to remove Art Spiegelman’s “Maus” and hundreds of other books from its shelves.

But days later, following national outrage, the district reversed course, issuing a trimmed-down list of 65 books for removal that contained neither “Maus,” nor several other Jewish-themed books on the first list.

The quick about-face in Urbandale Schools, a suburb of Des Moines, was the latest example of the confusing and often contradictory landscape for Jewish texts amid the growing nationwide “parents’ rights” movement targeting what its proponents say are inappropriate books in schools. In Iowa and other states, that movement has fueled legislation targeting educators who distribute content that could be interpreted as sexual.

“We have determined that there is ambiguity regarding the extent to which books that contain topics related to gender identity and sexual orientation need to be removed from libraries,” the district’s superintendent, Rosalie Daca, wrote in a memo to staff Thursday that an Urbandale spokesperson shared with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

“As such,” the memo continued, with bolded emphasis, “we will pause removing books that reference gender identity and sexual orientation until we receive guidance from the Iowa Department of Education.”

The memo followed one from earlier this week that, as reported in the Des Moines Register, instructed staff to comb their libraries for more than 300 books in potential violation of the law, including “Maus,” Judy Blume’s “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret,” the Holocaust novel “Sophie’s Choice” and Jewish author Tony Kushner’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play for adults, “Angels in America.” That initial list prompted a passionate response from the literary free-expression advocacy group PEN America, which implored the district not to follow through with its removals.

In pointed language, administrators blamed the state’s education department for issuing vague and unclear guidance on how to comply with the new law, which Iowa’s Republican governor, Kim Reynolds, signed in May and is scheduled to take effect in January 2024. The law states that it is “prohibiting instruction related to gender identity and sexual orientation in school districts” and also forbids “any material with descriptions or visual depictions of a sex act.”

It’s unclear how “Maus” wound up on the initial list of books flagged for removal, or how the district’s decision not to touch books related to “gender identity and sexual orientation” resulted in a stay of execution for Spiegelman’s book. “Maus” recounts the author’s parents’ traumatic experiences surviving the Holocaust, and doesn’t contain any discussion of gender or sexual identity. It does contain a single panel of a nude mouse representing Spiegelman’s mother after she dies by suicide.

The same image previously provoked the ire of a Tennessee school board, which removed “Maus” from its district’s middle-school curriculum over the image last year and catapulted the book into the center of the nationwide book-ban debate. Districts in Missouri also previously removed or considered removing “Maus” over the wording of a new state law forbidding the distribution of explicit materials.

Daca’s memo noted that the Urbandale district compiled its initial list of books by culling “book lists from other states who had passed similar laws.” The district did not respond to follow-up questions about ”Maus.”

Other Jewish books that have been rescued from district-wide book removals include “The Fixer” in South Carolina and “Anne Frank’s Diary: The Graphic Adaptation” in Texas, though other districts in Florida have permanently removed the Anne Frank adaptation as well as a Holocaust novel by Jodi Picoult and a picture book about Purim featuring a same-sex couple.

One Jewish-themed book that remains on Urbandale’s removal list is Andre Aciman’s novel “Call Me by Your Name,” which details a Jewish LGBTQ youth’s coming of age and is explicit in its description of sexual acts.

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.”

DESANTIS DEPOPULATES FLORIDA

Florida immigrants detail their exit following DeSantis immigration law: 'I had to leave'

An undocumented immigrant who built a business and a life in Tampa is one of many who have left. "They don't want us here," he said.

Some 2.7 million immigrants made up 26% of Florida’s labor force in 2018, according to a census analysis. More than 300,000 worked in the construction sector.

Lynne Sladky / AP file

June 25, 2023
By Anagilmara Vilchez, Noticias Telemundo

When David Guerra and his large family fled Florida in May, they left behind beds, mattresses, furniture and the construction tools they used to make a living. But it's when he thinks of his children's toys that his voice breaks.

“That is what has hurt me the most, my girls, who no longer have toys,” said Guerra, who is from El Salvador and who, until a few weeks ago, had a home, a yard and a business with his family in Tampa.

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David Guerra and his family.Cortesía

Their life as they knew it changed, according to Guerra, when Gov. Ron DeSantis, signed SB 1718, the immigration law that goes into effect on July 1. The law imposes strict restrictions and penalties to deter the employment of undocumented workers in the state.

Of the 10 people who lived in the Guerra house, only three children were U.S. citizens. The others didn't have legal immigration status. They left Tampa on May 30, from the same street where, a month earlier, Guerra had seen the belongings left behind by other immigrants and joked in a popular TikTok video that he would be next.

“After a month, I had to leave," Guerra told Noticias Telemundo from Maryland, where he moved with his family.

Guerra is not the only one. In various cities across the state, such as the farming community of Immokalee, many immigrants say they have at least one acquaintance, friend or neighbor who left after the law was passed. Some have posted of their exile on social networks.

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A woman carries a sign that reads: "We are working people, not criminals; we are the ones who harvest the crops; Immokalee farm workers strong" as hundreds gathered on June 1 in Immokalee, Fla. to protest Florida Senate bill 1718, which imposes restrictions on undocumented immigrants.

Rebecca Blackwell / AP

“They don’t want us here”

Guerra, a construction worker, came to the U.S. more than 20 years ago. Together with his partner, his sister-in-law and his stepdaughter — who's a beneficiary of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals ( DACA) program — they worked polishing and putting the finishing touches on walls and ceilings in houses across the Tampa area.

Guerra has been in Tampa for six years, where he built a clientele and bought his tools. Leaving some of them behind when he left the state cost him more than $2,000 in losses, he said. In Maryland, neither he nor his family has been able to get a job.

"I was well, well, well situated in Florida. I was doing well financially, stable with work. There was no problem. Now it's the opposite," he said.

Some 2.7 million immigrants made up 26% of Florida’s labor force in 2018, according to a census analysis. More than 300,000 worked in the construction sector, like Guerra and his family.

Guerra said neighbors started to leave when the Legislature first introduced the immigration bill. By the time the Legislature voted on the law and DeSantis signed it, there were no workers on one of the projects he was working on.

“So the time came to make a decision: “I told my wife ‘no way, she’s going to have to go because they don’t want us here’”.

'Leaving your life'

Guerra packed what he had into two trucks and a car. In Maryland they live with a relative and have settled in as best they can. His two daughters, age 3 and 8, have to sleep with the adults.

“There (in Florida) they had their little bed, in the shape of a house, their rooms and now, well imagine,” he said with sadness.

His young daughter asks to go home and cries for her toys, he said.

Nearly 100 miles from Tampa, where Guerra lived with his family, a 25-year-old undocumented immigrant rented an apartment with her boyfriend in the city of Ocala.

Maria Fernanda, whose last name has been withheld because of her immigration status, arrived with a visa four years ago from Colombia. The visa was for a temporary stay that was extended by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Florida was “one of my favorite states,” Maria Fernanda said, until she feared what could happen when the law took effect. Her boyfriend is also undocumented, and before DeSantis’ law was passed, they decided to leave for New York.

Maria Fernanda moved to New York from Florida in April.

Courtesy Maria Fernanda

“I said, ‘I don’t want to go through that fear or that need to see a policeman that can deport me or that they can stop me or ask me for my documents,’” Maria Fernanda said.

They left without saying goodbye to their acquaintances and left their belongings behind, but not their cats, Loki and Alicia. She documented her journey in a series of videos that she shared on TikTok. Most of the commenters, she said, have thanked her for not abandoning her pets.

“Where I go, they go, and where I have a roof, they will have a roof," she said.

Her boyfriend got a job in Delaware and she stayed in New York for work. The separation hurts; they must drive more than four hours to see each other and share the time with their cats.

“It is sad that couples, families are separated, that sometimes they abandon animals on the street because they cannot take them. They leave their things lying around, their houses abandoned," she said. "That is sad because it's leaving your life."

Gauging the exodus

It's difficult to know the number of immigrants who have left the state. Local communities and leaders base counts on what they hear by word of mouth: a neighbor who left his house, a worker who never came to work.

“This is happening at such a fast level that we don’t have a concrete number,” Rosa Elera, of the Florida Immigrant Coalition, told Noticias Telemundo.

The Florida Policy Institute has stated the legislation could cost Florida’s economy $12.6 billion in one year. Six industries, including construction, agriculture and services, employ an estimated 391,000 undocumented workers, or about 10% of workers in those sectors.

Elera said people are frightened and confused by the law.

Even though the law hasn't yet taken effect, the Florida Immigration Coalition has already received complaints that some clinics have been asking patients about their immigration status, even though only hospitals that accept Medicaid are required to ask about immigration status, and patients may decline to answer the question, Elera said.

“Primary doctors or clinics or emergency centers that do not receive Medicaid do not have to be asking the immigration status of a patient,” she said.

Guerra said he believed the environment changed after the law was passed. “Many Americans didn’t even greet you anymore, they looked down on you, so to speak,” he said. “That was what most led me to make the decision to come to Maryland."
Fear of leaving and returning

In Immokalee, Berta, an undocumented Guatemalan mother, picks tomatoes, chiles, squash and eggplants in the searing heat. About 40,000 farmworkers, many of them undocumented, work every season harvesting a variety of fruits and vegetables.

But for the first time in more than 18 years, Berta, 52, said she's afraid of living in the U.S.

“We are used to working here without anyone scaring us," she said. Now, “when I see police I am afraid that they will stop us, detain us and call the immigration authorities.”

Many of her acquaintances, she notes, have gone to Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and Washington.

When the harvest in Florida ends, Berta travels to other states to pick crops, but this year she wonders if she'll be able to come back.

For the first time in more than 18 years, Berta said she's afraid of living in the U.S.Anagilmara Vílchez / Noticias Telemundo

Not everyone who fears the law can flee the state. Rosa Bartolo, 22, is an asylum seeker. Although she obtained a work permit, her husband and 15 other family members who live in Florida are undocumented.

Although the Guatemalan family has thought of leaving, they're staying because they know only farming and they speak only their Indigenous language, Akateko Maya.

Starting from scratch in another state for them “is more difficult because you don’t speak Spanish, you don’t speak English, it’s much more difficult. People see you badly, as a strange thing," she said.

'Like a rat'

When asked if he would return to Florida, Guerra said it's not in his plans, because he feels "damaged."

"It hurt, it hurt to have to throw everything out," he said. "It's a humiliation what they did, to take you out, like a rat."

In Maryland, he said, people treat him differently, better. Seven years ago he got his driver’s license in that state and in Florida, when the legislation takes effect, an undocumented immigrant won't be able to use a valid driver's license. “Thank God here you can breathe peace and tranquility,” he said.

María Fernanda is not afraid in New York. “I don’t feel that anyone who sees me and sees me as a Latina is going to stop me and say: ‘Hey, show me your documents.’ Here, where I am, I don’t feel persecuted because of my race."

Meanwhile, Guerra takes comfort in knowing that before he left Florida he could give away some of his family's belongings to other immigrants in need. A young Cuban recently arrived in the country, he said, and took almost everything.

“’Thank God,’ (the young man) told me, ‘I was sleeping on the floor and look, now I have beds,’” Guerra said. “Starting from scratch is very sad.”

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

"JUST GET IN LINE LIKE EVERYONE ELSE"

Path to US citizenship elusive for longtime immigrant owners of popular Colorado Springs German restaurant

Debbie Kelley, The Gazette (Colorado Springs, Colo.)
Sun, February 5, 2023 

Feb. 5—Sabine and Michael Berchtold came to Colorado Springs over the Thanksgiving holiday in 1996, she from Germany, he from Switzerland, on work visas that allowed the young married couple to own a business stateside if they met certain conditions.

Two weeks later, they opened Uwe's German Restaurant, which had been under previous ownership.

More than a quarter of a century later, a cloud of sadness rises above the whiffs of jaeger schnitzel, bratwurst and sauerbraten at their popular eatery.

Despite applying every year to obtain a green card and working with several attorneys to become permanent legal citizens, the Berchtolds have yet to succeed.

If they continue to fail, they will have to leave the United States when they sell the restaurant.

They're not sure when that might be. While they say they love what they do, with Michael, 55, manning the kitchen and Sabine, 56, running the front end for decades, they'd like to retire at some point and enjoy the fruits of their hard but rewarding labor.

"We're here now 26 years, and it's home," Sabine Berchtold said. "Knowing we cannot stay, it hurts. It weighs on your mind."

The Berchtolds are among an estimated 800,000 business owners living in the U.S. in the same unsteady boat.

"It seems crazy, but it happens," said Professor Violeta Chapin, co-director of the Colorado Law Clinical Program at the University of Colorado in Boulder. "This particular type of business-related immigration hurts business people who have invested a significant amount of money in our economy and are unable to transfer to green cards."

But the E-2 non-immigrant investor visa that the Berchtolds have — which requires holders to contribute $120,000 toward a business in America and employ at least two American workers — is designed to be temporary, said Zachary New, a lawyer with Joseph & Hall PC in Denver and a founding member of the Immigration Law and Policy Society at the University of Colorado School of Law.

The visa allows for "quasi-permanent residency," New said, and implies that the holder plans to return to the country of origin.

"The U.S. government gives you permission to operate the business and grow it, after you invest," he said. "It's difficult to convert it to permanent residency."

Sabine said that type of visa was the only chance for her and her husband to be able to come to the United States because they did not have relatives here.

At this point on their journey to become legal permanent residents, Sabine and Michael are angry about the massive influx of immigrants seeking asylum or improved economic conditions now crossing the southern border.

It's unfair, Sabine said, that thousands of people are being allowed in daily and immediately receiving some assistance and access to the same system that the Berchtolds have been steadfastly trying to crack for years.

"They can come in illegally and get a green card, and they're set to go," Sabine said.

Undocumented immigrants who enter the U.S. without a visa or other proper paperwork or authorization don't receive as many benefits as some people might think, Chapin said.

"Lots of people get nothing," she said. "They somehow make their way in the country, they have no work authorization, no access to federal benefits, it's very difficult for them to access health insurance. Yet they survive."

While only legal immigrants can qualify for federal subsidized housing and food assistance, Colorado and some other states provide undocumented people access to state-sponsored health insurance and help paying for college tuition. And many community nonprofits and faith-based groups help with basic necessities.

And, said Chapin, "Undocumented residents pay taxes, even though they don't have lawful status."

An estimated 11 million people live in the U.S. illegally, although some entities, including the Center for Immigration Studies of New York, say that number is undercounted by up to 1.5 million.

In many cases, new arrivals must follow the same procedures as people who have been here for years and are requesting legal status or citizenship, attorneys said.

However, New said, asylum seekers at the border who can immediately pass a screening proving "credible fear" as their reason for leaving their home country, can receive a work permit and be expedited for asylum consideration.

"It's not taking away from anybody else's ability to get their own lawful status," he said. "Having orderly and efficient border processing is only helpful, as immigration courts are increasingly backlogged."

Asylum cases can take years to be heard in court, though, New said.

"With the way the numbers are rising, it's going to take four to five years from getting into immigration court until a hearing, unless you're able to push something faster," he said.

Sabine believes that while new arrivals may have to get in line for backlogged immigration services, they are clogging what was already a notoriously sluggish system.

New agrees the laws are antiquated and "do not work in a lot of the ways they were intended to when they were written."

But each part of immigration law has an objective, he said. For example, the origin of asylum law dates to the Holocaust and is designed to protect people escaping persecution.

Work permits for skilled and unskilled laborers and investors such as the Berchtolds serve different needs, as do the allowances made for Ukrainian, Afghan, Cuban and Haitian nationals who are paroled into the U.S. on temporary stays and work authorization.

"There are a multitude of programs, and certainly things need to be fixed and tweaked, but it's unfair to say one group of individuals, especially vulnerable individuals, is being treated in a preferential manner as compared to individuals going through a lawful manner in a different way," he said. "Each process has its own purpose."

Obtaining green cards, also known as the diversity visa program, from among the 50,000 the U.S. issues each year — which includes 1,000 from Germany and 500 from Switzerland — would enable the Berchtolds to remain in the U.S. permanently and forgo the current complicated process that forces them to return to their native countries every four years to renew their visas through the American embassies.

Also, every two years, they must leave U.S. soil for an unspecified amount of time and have their passport stamped upon re-entry.

Only by sheer luck did those years of mandatory travel not come up during the height of the coronavirus pandemic, they say.

The immigration structure has not provided the path to citizenship they seek.

"Our only hope is to win the green card lottery," Sabine said.

Immigrants are more likely to be successful in America if they are granted legal citizenship, according to the Center for Migration Studies of New York, which held a webinar on immigration in January.

The progression to legalization enables immigrants to attain higher income, education level, English language proficiency and health insurance, said Donald Kerwin, co-author of a new report from the Center for Migration Studies of New York, "Ten Years of Democratizing Data: Privileging Facts, Refuting Misconceptions and Examining Missed Opportunities."

"It's important to move from one category to another," he said. "It benefits the entire U.S., not just the people impacted."

Immigration is an ongoing, hotly debated political issue, with both sides of the partisan coin blaming the other for the flood of immigrants entering the U.S., and the chasmic disagreement over how to handle the situation.

The report Kerwin co-authored with Robert Warren provides three recommendations for provisional federal changes to reduce the logjam of applications and provide what they think would be a more equitable method for people like the Berchtolds.

The process for long-term residents in good standing to gain legal status currently requires them to live here for 50 years.

Kerwin and Warren are calling for reducing that qualification to 15 years of U.S. residency. That would cover 42% of the undocumented population, Kerwin said.

"We recommend streamlining the naturalization process, making it a priority," he said during the January webinar. "We support more generous eligibility criteria — waivers of language and civics requirements for people who have been here for 15 years. We need to prioritize education, English language proficiency and earnings to increase naturalization rates."

This year could bring some changes. The legality of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA policy, which protects undocumented children from deportation and allows them work permits, is in limbo and expected to go to the U.S. Supreme Court for a decision.

Title 42, a federal provision invoked during the pandemic to restrict the number of foreigners entering the country, also could be removed — the possibility of which last year brought throngs of people from numerous countries trying to gain entry to America.

Monthly migrant "encounters" at the southwest border — which include apprehensions by U.S. Border Patrol that result in temporary custody until adjudication and expulsions back to home countries — are near record high levels, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

In 2022, 2.4 million enforcement encounters at the Mexico border were recorded, compared with 1.7 million in 2021 and 458,000 in 2020, the agency reports.

More than 700,000 encounters have been logged to date for 2023.

Under immigration law, it is a misdemeanor offense subject to fine or six-month imprisonment for anyone entering the United States illegally. And it's a felony offense for anyone to reenter or attempt to reenter the U.S. after being removed or deported.

Congress has not revised immigration laws comprehensively since the Immigration Act of 1990, a national reform of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965.

The Berchtolds note that they pay taxes and Social Security.

"We have to do everything like an American," Michael said.

But they personally cannot receive any Social Security payments from the federal government because they don't have green cards.

The unhappiness on their faces comes from deep within. If they do not receive green cards before they leave the restaurant business, they will have to leave America.

Many of Uwe's German Restaurant regulars know about their plight.

A few years ago, nearly 2,000 customers signed a petition calling for the Berchtolds to obtain permanent residency, which a proposed bill in Congress would have addressed.

The couple submitted the petition to U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn, a Republican from Colorado Springs.

"He said he would support it," Sabine said.

But then impeachment proceedings for former President Donald Trump began and COVID-19 hit, and progress on the proposal halted.

"I feel so bad for them," said Ralph Huber, who has been a patron of Uwe's restaurant for years. "People are crossing the border by the millions, and here we have these people who have been here legally for a long time and can't become citizens. It's not right."

PRINCIPLED STAND

Ocasio-Cortez only Democrat to vote ‘no’ on spending package




Mychael Schnell
Fri, December 23, 2022 


Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.) was the only House Democrat to vote against a $1.7 trillion omnibus spending package on Friday, voting “no” on the measure because of increased funding for defense and federal agencies that oversee immigration.

The House passed the sprawling measure in a 225-201-1 vote, sending the bill to President Biden’s desk. The Senate passed the bill in a bipartisan 68-29 vote on Thursday.

In a statement Friday afternoon, Ocasio-Cortez said she was concerned about funding in the bill for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), in addition to the $858 billion in defense spending.

“I campaigned on a promise to my constituents: to oppose additional expansion and funding for ICE and DHS — particularly in the absence of long-overdue immigration reform. For that reason, as well as the dramatic increase in defense spending which exceeds even President Biden’s request, I voted no on today’s omnibus bill,” Ocasio-Cortez said.

The appropriations bill passed by Congress includes $8.42 billion for ICE, which is $161.1 million more than what was enacted in 2022 and $319.4 million more than what the president requested.

DHS received $86.5 billion in discretionary resources.

Ocasio-Cortez said the “dramatic increase” in spending for those two agencies “cut[s] against the promises our party has made to immigrant communities across the country,” adding that it is the case “especially in light of the lack of progress on DACA [Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals], TPS [Temporary Protected Status], and expanding paths to citizenship.”

The New York Democrat was not the only member of the caucus to not vote for the omnibus package: Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) voted present. The Hill reached out to the congresswoman for comment on her vote.

Ocasio-Cortez also took issue with the process by which Congress funded the government for the rest of the fiscal year. Typically, the chambers will vote on appropriations bills for each agency. This year, however, appropriators opted for a single omnibus package to fund all corners of the government.

“From the beginning of this negotiation, we made clear to Democratic leadership that we must keep the practice of voting on funding bills by agency — particularly controversial agencies like DHS — so that Members would not be forced to betray one part of their district in service of expediency,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “We were successful in this approach last year, and looked forward to supporting such a package this year.”

The congresswoman touted provisions included in the omnibus that she helped craft — including an increase in the National Labor Relations Board and funding for community projects in her district — but said she could not vote for them because of her overarching concerns with the bill.

“These victories and many more – such as the inclusion of PUMP [Providing Urgent Maternal Protections] and PWFA [Pregnant Workers Fairness] Acts – are hard-fought wins that we proudly support and would proudly vote for. But tying these provisions to dramatic increases in surveillance, border patrol forces, and militarized spending after years of deeply disturbing misconduct and lack of any meaningful accountability is decision we find deeply objectionable,” she said.

“Our constituents have made clear that they would like to see objections to these measures represented in Congress, and that is what I will do,” she added.

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)

Young Black and Latino voters seen as key in turning back midterm ‘red wave’

Ariana Figueroa, States Newsroom
November 10, 2022

Voters (Shutterstock)


WASHINGTON — Young Black and Latino voters were critical in holding off the Republican “red wave” in several battleground states for U.S. Senate seats and in tight U.S. House races in the midterm elections, according to analyses by researchers and grassroot organizations.

Young, diverse voters between the ages of 18 and 29 had the second-highest youth voter turnout in almost three decades, with youth voter turnout at 31% in the nine battleground states of Florida, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, according to estimates by the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, an institute at Tufts University.

Control of the Senate is not yet decided but is down to three races — Nevada, Arizona and a runoff election in Georgia — and control of the House is still unknown. Earlier predictions and polling had forecast a Republican “red wave” leading to a takeover of Congress at least in the House.

The center, which studies young voters, also found in analyses of exit polling data that 89% of Black youth and 68% of Latino youth voted for a Democratic U.S. House candidate.

Young voters particularly played a key role in the Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Georgia races, the center found.

In the Wisconsin governor election, Democratic incumbent Tony Evers won his reelection by a slim margin, 51% to 48%. About 70% of young voters backed Evers compared to 30% for his Republican challenger Tim Michels, the center found in analyzing exit poll data.

Gen Z

Adding to the influence of the youth vote, this is also the first election cycle that members of Gen Z, the generation born between 1997 and 2012, are eligible to run for Congress. Rep.-elect Maxwell Alejandro Frost, (D-Fla.), won his race this week, at 25 becoming the first Gen Z member of Congress and also the first Afro Cuban member.

Compared to earlier generations, Gen Z is the most diverse, with more than half people of color. In addition, 1 in 5 members of Gen Z identify as LGBTQ, according to a Gallup survey.

President Joe Biden also acknowledged youth voter turnout during a midterm election briefing with reporters Wednesday afternoon, and thanked those voters for helping Democrats hold onto competitive House seats and flip a Senate seat in Pennsylvania, electing Democrat John Fetterman.

Organizations like NextGen have worked to register more than 1.4 million young voters and helped get 2.6 million young voters to the polls in 2020 — the largest youth voter turnout in an election cycle.

In the Georgia U.S. Senate race, which is heading to a runoff election next month, young voters backed U.S. Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock by 63% to 36% compared to his GOP opponent, Herschel Walker, according to estimates from exit polling from the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement.

Latino voting power

Héctor Sánchez Barba, the executive director and CEO of Mi Familia Vota, an organization that works to build Latino voting power, said during a briefing with reporters that the Latino voting bloc is a young population, with 30% of Latino voters ranging in ages from 18 to 29, which is “10 years younger than the national average.” He added that 30% of Latinos are under the age of 18.

“So when we’re talking about the Latino vote, we’re not always talking about the transactional way that sometimes our vote is analyzed in swing states,” he said. “We as an organization are every day in the communities investing in the long-term democracy.”

Latinos are the second-largest voting bloc, said Yvonne Gutierrez, managing director of Latino Victory, which works to help progressive Latino candidates get elected to office and increase Latino voter participation.

Gutierrez said early on, Latino Victory worked on the ground in key states like Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Texas to endorse Democratic candidates, along with states like Oregon that have emerging Latino populations.

“Latino voters are delivering for Democrats and a formidable pillar of the Democratic coalition, and we need the investment, ongoing continued investment that happens year to year, not a helicopter in at the point of the election cycle,” she said.

Support in congressional races

Voto Latino, an organization that works to register Latinos to vote, found that in election eve polling in Arizona, Latinos backed Democratic U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly over GOP challenger Blake Masters. As of 4 p.m. Eastern on Thursday, Kelly has a lead over Masters, with 51% of the vote with 70% of votes reported.

In Nevada, Latinos in polling supported Democratic U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto over her GOP challenger Adam Laxalt, according to Voto Latino. Final results of that race will not be known until sometime next week, but as of 4 p.m. Eastern Thursday, Cortez Masto was trailing Laxalt with 47.6% of the vote compared to his 49.5%, with 83% of votes reported.

In Pennsylvania, where Democrats flipped a GOP U.S. Senate seat, Latinos supported Fetterman in polling by a large margin, Voto Latino said.

Latinos also were thought to have contributed to important wins in U.S. House races such as in Colorado, where Democratic U.S. Rep.-elect Yadira Caraveo, a pediatrician and state representative, beat her GOP challenger Barbara Kirkmeyer, a state senator, in Colorado’s newly drawn 8th Congressional District. The district is split evenly between the parties in voter affiliation, and has the highest percentage of Latinos among congressional districts in the state.

Caraveo will become the first Latina to represent Colorado in Congress.

“Latino voters are also instrumental in our efforts to increase Latino representation,” Gutierrez said. “As anti-immigrant and anti-Latino policies and rhetoric grow in the Republican Party, we need more Latino voices at all government levels to ensure our community’s voice is heard.”

Beatriz Lopez, the chief political and communications officer at the Immigration Hub, said in a statement that Democrats should look at the success of Fetterman’s campaign in courting Latino voters.

She said he ran a pro-immigration campaign and his wife, Gisele, who is a “former Dreamer and champion for hard-working immigrants in her state — is a recipe for Democrats on how to talk the talk, counter the attacks, and win big.”

Dreamers is a term used to describe young undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. Those who are enrolled — about 800,000 — in DACA are shielded from deportation. Immigration advocates and DACA recipients have lobbied Congress to create a permanent pathway to citizenship for them, especially as a federal judge considers a case that could outlaw the program.
Siding with Democrats

Clarissa Martinez De Castro, the vice president of UnidosUS Latino Vote Initiative, said that in the midterm elections, Latinos overwhelmingly voted for Democrats in every state except for Florida, where Latinos voted to reelect Republican U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, who is Cuban American, and Gov. Ron DeSantis.

According to an exit poll by CNN, DeSantis won about 58% of the Latino vote, compared to his Democratic challenger, and former Florida Gov. Charlie Christ, who got 40% of the Latino vote.

Republicans have invested in the Sunshine State for decades, working to court the Latino vote in Florida, primarily by painting Democrats as communists, playing on the fears of regime and dictators that many Latinos in the state previously fled from, said Kenny Sandoval, the vice president of campaigns and partnerships at Voto Latino.

Sandoval expressed frustration that despite Latinos continuing to vote for Democrats, engagement in the community is often an afterthought.

“Latino voters and especially young Latino voters are among the most essential communities, and the Democratic coalition will be the fastest growing, yet what we saw was Latino voters, and the campaigns who engage them, remained an afterthought for Democratic fundraisers throughout the election cycle because they bought into the false and unsupported argument that Republicans have made serious inroads in the Latino community,” he said.

Martinez De Castro said that Hispanic voters are generally issue-based voters.

“As voters, Hispanics generally reject extremes and taking away rights from people, as illustrated by these voters’ views on abortion, for example, where 76% have stated that regardless of their personal belief, they do not believe abortion should be illegal or that that decision should be taken out away from everybody else,” she said.

Yanira Merino, the national president of the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement, said many Latinas went to the polls in the “wake of the attack on reproductive rights,” after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion access this summer.

LCLAA is a nonprofit, nonpartisan Latino organization affiliated with the AFL-CIO labor organization and the Change to Win labor federation.

“It’s imperative to note the Latino vote must not be taken lightly and that investment into engagement of this group is a must, and it cannot be an afterthought,” she said.

Louisiana Illuminator is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Louisiana Illuminator maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Greg LaRose for questions: info@lailluminator.com. Follow Louisiana Illuminator on Facebook and Twitter.