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By Jason Buch | Texas Observer | JUL. 25, 2022 | Photos by Felix Marquez (AP)
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Little more than a week after a horrific smuggling attempt left 53 people dead in San Antonio, Governor Greg Abbott promised a new border security strategy that doubles down on a century of policies that drive people to take dangerous routes into the United States.
Abbott’s new approach, which directs the Texas National Guard and Department of Public Safety to transport people they think are undocumented to U.S.-Mexico border crossings, will face court challenges and may end up being as much a publicity stunt as his promise to bus immigrants to Washington, D.C. But it highlights just how one-track the conversation about immigration is.
In his July executive order, Abbott invoked the 53 deaths in San Antonio, writing that “an immigrant’s journey to the United States can even prove fatal” and suggesting his border security measures would discourage unauthorized immigration.
Whether it’s President Joe Biden’s continued use of Title 42—a Trump administration holdover that allows Border Patrol to kick people out of the country quickly; former President Donald Trump’s family separation policy; former President Barack Obama’s family detention centers; former President George W. Bush’s wall; former President Bill Clinton’s deportation hearings on Coast Guard vessels in the Caribbean; or former President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s forced marches through the South Texas brushland, the U.S. immigration enforcement system has operated under a single premise since the creation of the Border Patrol in 1924: deterrence. It’s the idea we can somehow make coming to this country more miserable than the natural disasters, civil wars, gang violence, and economic hardship that displace people in the first place.
The results are deadly: Just days after someone called 911 on June 27 about the trailer full of dead and dying people in San Antonio, four people died as law enforcement officials pursued a smuggler north of Laredo. In 2018, five people died in another fatal pursuit of a human smuggler in Dimmit County. San Antonio’s last “trailer of death” incident in July 2017 left 10 people dead under circumstances remarkably similar to last month’s tragedy. In 2012, a smuggler lost control of an overloaded super duty pickup and careened off the highway between Beeville and Goliad, killing 22. The driver of a tractor-trailer left 18 people locked inside to die near Victoria in 2003. A train struck and killed six people from Mexico in 1998 in Kenedy County. A decade earlier, 18 people died locked inside a boxcar 90 miles east of El Paso. Another train near Kingsville killed five immigrants as they walked on a narrow railroad trestle in 1984... READ MORE
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By Kate Morrissey | San Diego Union-Tribune | JUL. 22, 2022 | Photos by Ana Ramirez
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Eduardo Sanchez, a longtime San Diego resident, was among those caught up in the unannounced policy change after a court decision took away ICE’s guidance on discretion about deportations.
When Eduardo Sanchez showed up on a recent morning for a check-in with immigration officials in downtown San Diego, he assumed it would be like every other one he has had since 2017, when officials targeted him and his brothers-in-law for being undocumented.
He thought they would ask him if his address or phone number had changed and would make sure he was still complying with their requirements. They would check the status of his immigration case. Then he would head back to his Linda Vista home to be with his wife and two children.
But on Monday, July 11, Sanchez showed up for his check-in and within a matter of hours found himself deported to Tijuana.
That was roughly five days after a federal appeals court struck down Immigration and Customs Enforcement guidance prioritizing deportations based on significant criminal history or national security concerns.
“I didn’t know what to do,” said Sanchez, who has no criminal record, in Spanish. His voice caught with emotion as he recalled the moments he spent in an ICE holding cell waiting to be deported. “I was thinking a lot about how they were going to separate me from my family... READ MORE
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Column by Gustavo Arellano | Los Angeles Times | JUL. 18, 2022 | Photo by Raul Roa
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I started off this year writing about food vendors, in the hope that haters might leave them alone as the economy worsens and more people get into it — because, you know, carne asada shouldn’t be a crime.
Sadly, my hopes haven’t been realized.
More and more food vendors are popping up across Southern California — taco trucks, yes, but also people selling Oaxacan tamales from streetside coolers. Fruit sellers peddling strawberries and mangoes from the back of their trucks along with refreshing aguas frescas. Families opening up their houses and backyards for pop-up restaurants. Many with rainbow-colored umbrellas, which are now as much a part of the Southern California landscape as palm trees.
When high-end chefs do all this, they get love from the press and praise from hipsters.
When working class Latinos do it? They get code enforcement called on them — and politicians figuring out how to crack down on street food even further.
San Diego just enacted new regulations that prohibit vendors from selling in certain areas, following the lead of liberal Santa Monica. In my hometown of Anaheim, councilmember Jose Moreno — who fought a lonely fight for years against corruption at City Hall and is the chair of the longtime civil rights group Los Amigos of Orange County — shocked supporters when he asked city staff last week to look into cracking down even further on street vendors, even though Anaheim already has some of the most stringent... READ MORE |
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By Kyle Dunphey | Deseret News | JUL. 28, 2022 | Photos by Kristin Murphy
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Unless farmers can find workers, food prices will continue to rise, experts say.
Eggs, fruit, bacon, milk — all are more expensive now than they were a year ago, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Ground coffee prices increased nearly 15% in the past year, while citrus shot up 18%.
A number of factors play into the rising prices. The war in Ukraine, a country dubbed the breadbasket of Europe, has resulted in global food shortages, while bad weather in the U.S. is hurting crop yields. Current inflation also means goods are going up across the board.
And while there is no silver bullet, experts say fixing America’s outdated agricultural labor system, where the last reforms came under President Ronald Reagan decades ago, will provide immediate relief to both farmers and consumers, alleviating the nationwide worker shortage that has caused grocery prices to skyrocket.
Congress’ answer is the Farm Workforce Modernization Act, the framework for which has already passed the House. While many immigration and agriculture advocates support the bill, it has some critics in Utah who want to see more comprehensive reforms.
“Congress hasn’t dealt with agricultural immigration reform for close to 35 years,” said Ron Gibson, a dairy and produce farmer, and president of the Utah Farm Bureau. “We might not get another crack at this for... READ MORE
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By Garrett Downs | POLITICO | JUL. 25, 2022 | Photo by Emilio Morenatti
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The Senate could shatter over a decade of stalemate. But they're running out of time.
Hopes that Congress will finally pass a bipartisan fix to the flawed farm labor system are dwindling, despite supporters’ argument that it could bring down soaring food prices.
The House passed legislation creating a pathway for foreign farm workers to obtain legal status for year-round work over a year ago with a large bipartisan majority, raising hopes that Congress might shatter more than a decade of stalemate on immigration reform.
But now, time and age-old discord over immigration policy are threatening to doom a Senate version of the bill, known as the Farm Workforce Modernization Act, before it’s even introduced.
Sens. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) and Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) have been toiling behind closed doors on a companion package that could draw enough votes to break the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster. If they don’t begin moving the bill before the August recess, they could run out of time this fall, as lawmakers turn their attention to midterm campaigning and other legislative priorities, like funding the government. And once the year ends, lawmakers would have to start over from scratch in the new Congress... READ MORE
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By Stuart Anderson | Forbes | JUL. 26, 2022
Photo by Guillermo Rauch courtesy of Vercel
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Tomas Gorny grew up in Poland under communism. But after moving to the U.S. and taking odd jobs like washing dishes and saving money from small ventures, he cofounded the tech company IPOWER in 2001, which he sold 10 years later for $1 billion to Warburg and Goldman Sachs. In 2006, he cofounded Nextiva, a phone and videoconferencing platform valued at $2.7 billion where he’s now CEO.
Gorny is hardly alone: More than half of the most valuable startups in America were founded by immigrants, according to a new analysis by the National Foundation for American Policy. The new research, which I authored, shows how vital immigrants have become in founding America’s most valuable companies.
“Immigrants have started more than half (319 of 582, or 55%) of America’s startup companies valued at $1 billion or more,” the analysis. “Moreover, nearly two-thirds (64%) of U.S. billion-dollar companies (unicorns) were founded or cofounded by immigrants or the children of immigrants. Almost 80% of America’s unicorn companies (privately-held, billion-dollar companies) have an immigrant founder or an immigrant in a key leadership role, such as CEO or vice president of engineering.”
The research is an update of NFAP studies in 2016 and 2018. However, due to the growth in billion-dollar companies, the 2022 study involved gathering and verifying information on the founders of more than 580 unicorn companies tracked by CB Insights. “Unicorns” are privately held companies (i.e., not traded on the stock market), valued at $1 billion or more that have received venture capital financing... READ MORE |
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By Fiona Harrigan | Reason.com | JUL. 28, 2022 | Illustration by Lex Villena
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Without a tenable visa pathway, immigrant entrepreneurs will look to greener pastures—and the American economy will be worse for it.
Immigrants are 80 percent more likely than native-born Americans to found a firm, according to a study released this May by researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. But more than that, a report released this week by the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP) indicates that immigrants are disproportionately responsible for starting high-value companies.
According to the NFAP, a nonprofit that researches trade and immigration, immigrants have started 319 of 582, or 55 percent, of America's privately-held startups valued at $1 billion or more. Over two-thirds of the 582 companies "were founded or cofounded by immigrants or the children of immigrants," notes the NFAP. For comparison, approximately 14 percent of America's population is foreign-born.
Together, the immigrant-founded companies are valued at $1.2 trillion and employ 859 people on average. Elon Musk's SpaceX has the largest valuation at $125 billion, employing 12,000 workers; Gopuff, a food delivery service valued at $15 billion, has 15,000 employees; Stripe, a payment platform valued at $95 billion, employs 7,000; and Instacart, a grocery delivery service valued at $39 billion, has 3,000 workers... READ MORE
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By Stephen Yale-Loehr | The Hill | JUL. 27, 2022 | Photo by Jacquelyn Martin
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In 2015, a Ghanaian man who goes by the initials M.A. and his gay friend were brutally assaulted by a vigilante group in Accra, Ghana. In Ghana, homosexuality is illegal and carries a prison sentence of up to three years. M.A. was beaten with sticks before escaping through a window. His friend was killed. Fearing the group would find and kill him, he fled to Ecuador and made his way to the U.S. border, where he requested asylum. After being detained for nine months, he was released on bond and lived with a childhood friend in New York while he waited for his case to make it through the legal system.
M.A. clearly faced persecution, but an immigration judge denied his claim. I took M.A.’s appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals in 2016 as part of the Cornell Law School’s asylum appeals clinic. It took M.A. four years to win asylum in America, but at least he was given the chance to apply in the first place.
Since March 2020, approximately 900,000 people — including over 215,000 parents and children — have been denied the ability to request asylum at all. They’re casualties of Title 42, a pandemic-related policy that paused nearly all asylum proceedings at the border. Some people argue the policy is preventing an influx of migrants. In fact, numbers are up despite the policy, and our refusal to process most of them has led to chaotic and dangerous... READ MORE |
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By Sabrina Rodriguez | POLITICO | JUL. 26, 2022 | Photo by Gregory Bull for AP
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The group is pushing the Biden administration to prioritize immigration policy before November elections.
Last month, the Supreme Court cleared the way for the Biden administration to unwind a Trump-era policy that has forced thousands of asylum seekers to wait in Mexico, often in dangerous settings, for their U.S. court proceedings.
But having previously moved quickly to end the “Remain in Mexico” policy, the administration has suddenly decided to take its time.
The White House and Department of Homeland Security have been mum on their plans following the Supreme Court’s ruling. Immigration advocates asking about next steps have been met with a similar silence. In that void, a question has emerged: What, exactly, is the hold up? READ MORE
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By David G. Savage | Los Angeles Times | JUL. 21, 2022 | Photo by Kent Nishimura
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WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday turned down an emergency appeal from the Biden administration and left in place a Texas judge’s order that says the government must detain and deport immigrants who have serious crimes on their record.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson cast her first vote in dissent, saying she would have set aside the judge‘s order. Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Amy Coney Barrett also voted to grant the administration’s emergency appeal.
Though the five other conservative justices rejected the emergency appeal, the court said it would hear the administration’s arguments in December.
The decision again highlights the court’s shift to the right. In the past, the justices routinely said the executive branch has broad authority to enforce the immigration laws.
But in this instance, a Texas judge effectively set the national policy by vetoing the Biden administration’s enforcement plan, which said agents should focus their efforts on apprehending and detaining immigrants who posed the greatest threat.
Neither the conservative appeals court in New Orleans nor the conservative majority at the Supreme Court is willing to rein in the TX judge... READ MORE |
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By Sabrina Rodriguez | POLITICO | JUL. 26, 2022 | Photo by Kevin Dietsch for Getty
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Advocates are increasing pressure on the administration to start unwinding the “Remain in Mexico” policy.
In a meeting at the White House on Tuesday, a major immigrant advocacy group urged the Biden administration to take immigration policy off the back burner and finally pressure Congress to take action ahead of the upcoming midterms.
Attendees said they saw a clear desire to try and find a path forward for immigration reform. But they also conceded they left with few tangible commitments.
“Ideally, we would’ve gotten more tangible and complete answers to some of those questions on … what are their actual commitments, what are their next steps,” Yaritza Mendez, organizing co-director at the progressive immigrant-led group, Make the Road New York, said after the White House meeting. “But we suspected from the get, that it was going to be hard to have that breakthrough.”
During the meeting, which was with a senior adviser to the president and administration officials who work on migration and political strategy, members of Make the Road warned that the “political environment has worsened” with heightened inflation concerns, unfavorable court outlooks and the Democrats’ slim congressional majority in jeopardy... READ MORE
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CENTRO CHA COMMUNITY UPDATE
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Please consider sponsoring our program today!!!
To be a sponsor contact Professor Armando Vazquez-Ramos at: armando@calmexcenter.org or 562-972-0986
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