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remain in mexico
On Immigration, the Democrats Must Propose a True Alternative to Trumpism
Agreeing with Trump that immigrants are the enemy to be detained at the border, and then only disagreeing on the numbers and methods, contradicts any commitment to a fact-based policy, while making immigrant communities scapegoats.
Aug 19, 2024
On August 17, a group of committed migrant activists set forth on a three-day march from Silicon Valley to San Francisco, highlighting the choices for progressive candidates in the coming November election. Should their campaigns amplify the hysteria about an immigration “crisis,” or should they speak the truth to the American people about the border and the roots of migration? Even more important, these marchers are providing a practical way for activists and political leaders to advocate for rights as they work to defeat the threat of MAGA racism.
The question at hand is whether to support the compromise immigration enforcement bill negotiated between centrist Democrats and Republicans last year, and to campaign against former U.S. President Donald Trump from the right, attacking him for undermining Republican support for the enforcement measures it contained.
In that bill, President Joe Biden agreed that he would close the border to asylum applicants if their number rose beyond 5,000 per day, while making it much harder to gain legal status for those even allowed to apply. Biden said he would cut short the time for screening asylum applicants by asylum officers, which would make winning permission to stay much more difficult.
Winning public understanding of immigration is the only way to decisively defeat this anti-immigrant hysteria, rather than caving into its illogic, and to the media frenzy and the onslaught of Republicans and MAGA acolytes.
To keep people imprisoned while their cases are in process, instead of releasing them, Biden proposed an additional $3 billion for more detention centers, a euphemism for immigrant prisons. There are already over 200, according to the group Freedom for Immigrants. Under a law signed by former President Barack Obama, Congress required that 34,000 detention beds be filled every night. At the end of 2023, those beds held 36,263 people, and another 194,427 were in “Alternatives to Detention,” which required wearing the hated ankle bracelets that bar travel for more than a few blocks. Over 90% of these jails are run for profit by private companies like the Geo Group, (formerly the Pinkerton Detective Agency).
These proposals respond to a media-driven frenzy that constantly refers to an immigration “crisis” and calls the border “broken.” That media coverage, and the response by centrist Democrats and Republicans, treats migrants as criminals, as an enemy. Political operatives in Washington then take polls, announce that the public wants draconian enforcement, and advise candidates that going against this tide will lead to election losses.
Yet this accepted political “wisdom” in Washington is not actually based on facts.
Let’s Look at the Numbers
Department of Homeland Security statistics show that over the decades the number of people crossing the border, and subject to deportation, rises and falls, while displacement and forced migration remain constant. In 2022, about 1.1 million people were expelled after trying to cross, and another 350,000 deported. In 1992, about 1.2 million were stopped at the border and 1.1 million deported. Over a million people were deported in 1954 during the infamous “Operation Wetback.” Arrests at the border have totaled over a million in 29 of the last 46 years.
Last year the number arrested at the border was higher: about 2.5 million. But the reality is that the migration flow has not stopped and will not stop anytime soon. What, then, is the “crisis”? New York Times reporter Miriam Jordan says, “In December alone, more than 300,000 people crossed the southern border, a record number.” They all believe, she says, that “once they make it into the United States they will be able to stay. Forever. And by and large, they are not wrong.”
In fact, the number of refugee admissions in 2022 was 60,000. In 1992, it was 132,000. According to Jordan, applicants are simply released to live normal lives until their date before an immigration judge. That will certainly be news to families facing separation and the constant threat of deportation. But this is what Republicans and anti-immigrant Democrats call an “invasion” and threaten to “shut the border.”
Criminalizing the Undocumented
Should Trump win election in November, he promises to reinstitute the notorious family separation policy. Children who survive the crossing might easily be lost, as so many were, in the huge detention system. Senator James Lankford (R-Okla.) wants to reintroduce the “Remain in Mexico” policy, under which people wanting asylum were not allowed to enter the United States at all, to file their applications. The Mexican government was forced to set up detention centers just south of the border to house them while they waited.
Trump and other Republicans would imprison all migrants who face a court proceeding that allows them to apply to stay or stop a deportation. Pending cases now number in the millions, because the immigration court system is starved for the resources for processing them.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has pushed through a law that makes being undocumented a state crime. Republicans in Congress last year proposed to build more border walls, create barriers to asylum, force the firing of millions of undocumented workers, and permit children to be held in detention prisons with their parents. Centrist Democrats are very willing to agree to modified proposals like these.
No money, running from something or someone, trying to keep a family together and give it a future, or just needing a job at whatever wage—these are the commonalities of the thousands who arrive at the U.S. border every year. Winning public understanding of immigration is the only way to decisively defeat this anti-immigrant hysteria, rather than caving into its illogic, and to the media frenzy and the onslaught of Republicans and MAGA acolytes.
Roots of Migration
President Obama made some acknowledgement of the poverty and violence that impels people to come but drew the line at recognizing this migration’s historical roots, much less any culpability on the part of the U.S. government. President Biden sent Vice President Kamala Harris, now the Democratic candidate for president, to Central America in his first year in office with a similar message—don’t come.
So far, the new presidential campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris has not taken a different direction. In Arizona she gave a speech recommitting to the Biden-brokered compromise and criticizing Trump for killing it. In a new TV ad, she promised to hire thousands of additional border patrol agents. The three enforcement arms of the Department of Homeland Security—the Border Patrol, Customs and Border Protection, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement today account for 52,300 officers, making it the largest law enforcement agency in the country. The numbers mushroomed by 22,000 in the past 20 years; the Border Patrol alone tripled from 2,700 to 8,200.
The rationale for this huge increase is that immigrants must be met with deterrence and enforcement to stop them from coming. Today an unwillingness to look at U.S. responsibility for producing displacement and migration is starkest in relation to Haitians and Venezuelans, who have made up a large percentage of the migrants arriving at the Rio Grande in the last two years.
No matter how many walls and migrant prisons the government builds, people will come.
After Haitians finally rid themselves of the U.S.-supported Duvalier regime and elected Jean Bertrand Aristide president, the United States put him on an outbound plane in 2004, as it did with Miguel Zelaya in Honduras. A string of U.S.-backed corrupt but business-friendly governments followed, which pocketed millions while Haitians went hungry and homeless by the tens of thousands after earthquakes and other disasters. The treatment of Haitian migrants is a form of institutionalized racism.
Survival in Venezuela became impossible for many as its economy suffered body blows from U.S. political intervention and economic sanctions. If the United States moves further to increase sanctions in response to the recent elections, it will produce even more migration.
These interventions produce migrants and then criminalize them. In 2023, the Border Patrol took 334,914 Venezuelans into custody, along with 163,701 Haitians. And while promoting military intervention in Haiti and regime change in Venezuela, the Biden administration put people on deportation flights back home, in the hope that this would discourage others from starting the journey north.
The disconnect is obvious to anyone born south of the Mexican border. Sergio Sosa, a Guatemalan exile who heads the Heartland Workers Center in Omaha, observes: “People from Europe and the U.S. crossed borders to come to us, and took over our land and economy. Migration is a form of fighting back. We’re in our situation, not because we decided to be, but because we’re in the U.S.’s backyard.” While former President Bill Clinton was the author of many anti-immigrant measures, he did recognize this historic truth, and apologized to the Guatemalan people for the U.S. support of the military dictatorships that massacred thousands.
The Democrats have to tell people the truth, and political campaigns are the times when this is most important. Agreeing with Trump that immigrants are the enemy to be detained at the border, and then only disagreeing on the numbers and methods, contradicts any commitment to a fact-based policy, while making immigrant communities scapegoats.
As they march from Silicon Valley, immigrant rights campaigners are reminding the Democratic Party of this truth and are calling for a commitment to the welfare of the 11 million people already in the United States who lack legal immigration status. That commitment has been all but lost in the border “crisis” hype.
An Alternative Approach
The goal of these marchers is to win support for a bill that could make a profound difference in the lives of millions of people. Today, anyone who entered the United States without a visa before January 1, 1972 can apply for legal permanent residence. From 2015 to 2019, however, only 305 people received legal status this way because over 90% of undocumented immigrants came after that date. As the years go by, ever fewer numbers qualify.
Known as the Registry Bill, HR 1511 would allow anyone in the country for seven years to apply for legal status. Emma Delgado, a leader of Mujeres Unidas y Activas (United and Active Women) in San Francisco says, “I haven’t seen my children in many years because there is currently no way for me to apply for legal residency.” She called the family separation produced by current immigration law “immoral.”
Angelica Salas, director of the Coalition for Humane Immigration Reform in Los Angeles, challenges the idea that Democrats can’t campaign for it during an election year, and that a Republican majority in the House dooms it. “Think of all the millions of U.S. citizens who have immigrant parents,” she urges, “and how many have had their fathers or mothers deported. All over the country. Immigrant workers are a big part of the workforce. They’re all part of a base that can force change. We can’t depend on political winds or what people tell us is possible.”
No matter how many walls and migrant prisons the government builds, people will come. Over the years they will become part of communities here, and with progressive immigration policies, eventually voting citizens. Democrats need a long-term vision that sees the future in organizing and defending them, in turning those old anti-immigrant arguments around, rather than reinforcing them.
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Rights Groups Blame Horrific Mexico Fire on 'Inhumane' Migration Policies
"The U.S. and Mexican governments must work together to ensure that migrants receive access to asylum and to fair and efficient processing at the border and are given humanitarian support when forced to wait in Mexico," said one advocate.
Mar 29, 2023
Calling for a full investigation into the fire that killed at least 38 people at a migrant detention center in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico this week, United Nations officials on Tuesday joined human rights groups in calling for an end to the U.S. and Mexican migration policies which led to the detention of dozens of men at the facility.
A spokesperson for the U.N. said all member states must "live up to the commitments they have made as signatories to the U.N.-led Global Compact for Migration," which "intends to reduce the risks and vulnerabilities migrants face at different stages of migration by respecting, protecting, and fulfilling their human rights and providing them with care and assistance."
"We, again, urge all states to adopt alternatives to immigration detention," said the U.N. human rights office.
\u201c#Mexico: The deadly fire at the migrant centre in Ciudad Ju\u00e1rez was a preventable tragedy. We, again, urge all States to adopt alternatives to immigration detention. A prompt, transparent investigation to clarify the circumstances behind this tragedy will be crucial.\u201d— UN Human Rights (@UN Human Rights) 1680037433
The 68 men who were being held at the migration facility were mainly from Guatemala, Honduras, Venezuela, and El Salvador originally, and Reuters reported Wednesday that many migrants had been "rounded up off the streets of Ciudad Juarez on Monday" and taken to the center, which is run by Mexico's National Migration Institute (NMI).
A woman named Viangly Infante told the outlet that her husband was among those detained and that the couple had traveled from their home country of Venezuela last fall with their three children, crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in December into Eagle Pass, Texas.
They were then sent back to Mexico by U.S. immigration authorities and bused to Ciudad Juarez.
"We cannot ignore that many of these migrants continue to wait in border cities like Ciudad Juarez without documentation so they can enter the United States to seek protection—a situation created by successive U.S. administrations' undue restrictions on asylum access," said Rachel Schmidtke, senior advocate for Latin America at Refugees International. "The U.S. and Mexican governments must work together to ensure that migrants receive access to asylum and to fair and efficient processing at the border and are given humanitarian support when forced to wait in Mexico."
The U.N. Refugee Agency in January warned the Biden administration that its expansion of former President Donald Trump's Title 42 policy—under which the White House is expelling up to 30,000 migrants per month unless they arrive in the U.S. via a humanitarian parole program—is "not in line with refugee law standards" by which the U.S. is obligated to abide.
Like the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the NMI in Mexico has long been denounced by migrant rights advocates over its treatment of people in its detention facilities, including overcrowding and lack of medical care. Protests broke out last year in detention centers in Tijuana and the southern city of Tapachula, near the border of Guatemala.
The fire that broke out early Tuesday was reportedly started by migrants who were protesting their confinement in a cell intended for a maximum of 50 people in which 68 people were being detained, and the guards' refusal to provide them with drinking water.
Outrage over the fire, in which at least 29 people have been hospitalized in addition to those who were killed, was compounded Wednesday after newly released surveillance footage footage showed guards quickly walking away from the cell where the men were protesting, while smoke filled the room.
The men were trapped behind padlocked doors as they yelled for help, NBC News reported.
"How could they not get them out?" Katiuska Márquez, a Venezuelan woman who was looking for her half-brother, asked the Associated Press.
The deaths of more than three dozen people in the fire "lay bare a truly inhumane system of immigration enforcement," said Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty International. "How is it possible that the Mexican authorities left human beings locked up with no way to escape the fire? These facilities are not 'shelters,' but detention centers, and people are not 'housed' there, but deprived of their freedom."
Amnesty called on Mexican officials to adhere to a recent ruling by the country's Supreme Court of Justice (SCJN), which said on March 15 that people should not be held in migrant detention facilities for more than 36 hours.
"Amnesty International urges the Mexican state to comply with the ruling of the SCJN and to establish protocols to act in fires, as well as evacuation routes in such situations," said the group. "It also calls on the state to investigate the human rights violations, especially the allegations that the migrants were left locked up while the fire occurred, as well as to recognize that the migrants were in its custody and, therefore, it was its obligation both to prevent the fire and to act diligently during the fire to avoid fatal consequences."
The court ruling made clear, said Edith Olivares Ferreto, executive director of Amnesty International Mexico, that the country must "put an end to the practices that have caused untold damage, including torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment, to thousands of migrants who have passed through these centers."
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Fire Kills Nearly 40 at Migrant Detention Facility Near US-Mexico Border
"The U.S. bears responsibility for pushing these migrants back into Mexico to face unsafe conditions," argued one immigrant rights advocate.
Mar 28, 2023
At least 39 migrants were declared dead Tuesday after a fire was started overnight at a detention facility in Ciudad Juárez, close to the U.S.-Mexico border.
Mexico's National Institute of Migration said in a statement that the detention center held 68 men from Central and South America.
"The National Institute of Migration strongly rejects the acts that led to this tragedy," the agency said, without elaborating.
In an address on Tuesday, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said the fire was sparked by migrants in protest of their looming deportation.
"They never imagined that this would cause this terrible misfortune," said López Obrador, who noted that most of those killed in the fire were from Central America and some were from Venezuela.
Photos taken at the detention center in the wake of the deadly fire showed emergency workers on the scene and numerous bodies covered by sheets. Dozens who were injured in the fire are reportedly in serious condition.
The disaster is likely to intensify criticism of the immigration policies of the U.S. and Mexico, both of which have been accused of systematically violating the rights of asylum seekers.
The Associated Press noted that "in recent years, as Mexico has stepped up efforts to stem the flow migration to the U.S. border under pressure from the American government, its National Immigration Institute has struggled with overcrowding in its facilities."
Kerri Talbot, deputy director at the Immigration Hub, argued Tuesday that "the U.S. bears responsibility for pushing these migrants back into Mexico to face unsafe conditions"—a reference to the Trump-era "Remain in Mexico" policy.
In December, a Trump-appointed federal judge blocked President Joe Biden's attempt to end the policy, which rights groups say is illegal.
Meanwhile, Biden has been under heavy criticism from advocates for his asylum proposals.
On Monday, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees urged the Biden administration to rescind its proposed anti-asylum rule, which critics have compared Trump's "transit ban" that denied asylum to anyone who had traveled to the United States through a third country.
Key portions of the Biden proposal, said the agency, "are incompatible with principles of international refugee law."
This piece has been updated with new information from the Mexican government.
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