El Magonista | Vol. 11, no. 17 | June 3, 2023

“We should not be in court, at all, having to defend DACA,” said an attorney representing young undocumented immigrants who've been enrolled in the Obama-era program.

Attorneys representing young immigrants protected by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, better known as DACA, defended the legality of the program before a court in Texas on Thursday in an attempt to keep it alive.

The federal judge presiding over the hearing was the same one who declared DACA illegal in 2021, closing the program for new applicants. At the time, U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen said the Obama administration failed to follow federal administrative rules in launching the program in 2012.

DACA, which was implemented in 2012 as an executive order by then-President Barack Obama, has allowed eligible undocumented young adults who came to the U.S. as children to work and study without fear of deportation. 

Nina Perales, vice president of litigation at the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and an attorney representing DACA recipients in a legal challenge brought against the program by Texas and other Republican-led states, said the case went back to Hanen's court to consider a recent Biden administration rule that turned the program into a federal regulation to increase its chances of surviving legal challenges. 

The nine states that have sued to end DACA "lack standing to sue," Perales said in a news conference outside the court after the hearing ended Thursday afternoon, adding that the states have not been able to prove that DACA has caused them any harm or injury... READ MORE

Federal judge hears arguments Thursday in litigation that threatens to end Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

Congress appears no closer to passing a bill to protect hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children, ahead of a court hearing Thursday in litigation that threatens a program shielding “Dreamers” from deportation.

A comprehensive immigration proposal put forth last week by Florida Republican Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar and Texas Democratic Rep. Veronica Escobar includes a path to citizenship for Dreamers, along with provisions to heighten border security and retool the asylum system.

Several senators signaled interest in working to build on the proposal, but progress in the chamber appeared sluggish, and Republicans were pessimistic the bill could gain traction on either side of the Capitol.

Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware, who attended a bipartisan border trip earlier this year, said at a Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday on farmworker visas that he was “pleased to see” Salazar and Escobar’s proposal. He said the proposed bill is “clearly a work in progress, but it’s a start.”

“It’s clear to me that the ball is now in our court in the Senate to answer a simple question: What can we find 60 votes to do,” Coons said at the hearing, referring to the 60-vote threshold needed in the chamber for most bills to move forward.

“I’m committed to working with my colleagues and to find a path forward, and I hope they will join me in doing so.”

Judiciary Chair Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, a longtime leader of legislative efforts to protect Dreamers, said in an interview Wednesday he was “very interested” in the bill, and that he had spoken to Escobar and the two are “on the same track.”

Yet Durbin and several other senators who have led bipartisan immigration talks in the past also said they had yet to read the bill, more than a week after it was publicly introduced... READ MORE

This race could get weird.

It’s no secret that progressives are angling to take over the Senate seat in the liberal bastion of California.

But the most crucial bloc of voters may end up being Republicans.

Reps. Barbara Lee, Katie Porter and Adam Schiff all want to replace Sen. Dianne Feinstein when her seat is up next year. Usually, a Democrat wins a spot in the top-two primary system before going on to trounce whatever sacrificial Republican gets the second spot.

But California Republicans are such a distinct minority group in the blue state — they make up about a third of the electorate — that, this go around, things could get weird. The race to replace Feinstein could end up as a Democrat-on-Democrat contest, and Republicans could wind up swinging the whole election. It’s also not clear who might benefit.

Porter’s campaign seems obsessed with this idea. My POLITICO colleague Chris Cadelago reports that such a scenario is “a frequent line of questioning” in meetings between Porter’s campaign staff and Democratic activists.

Here are necessary conditions for that to happen, and what it would mean for the general election next November:

The Polling In This Race Comes With A Huge Caveat

According to the University of California, Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies latest poll, out this week, the race could end up actually with a Republican in the final two.

Eric Early, a perennial GOP candidate who is running for Senate, has the support of 18 percent of registered voters. Porter is at 17 percent, Schiff at 14 percent and Lee at 9 percent. The leading Democrat only needs a plurality of 60 percent of the Democratic-leaning vote in California to be the likely winner in November — if that GOP number is real... READ MORE

A Homeland Security promotional video shows Honduran men, chained at the waist and handcuffed, boarding stairs to a plane with the Franklin Mountains as a backdrop.

Inside a federal agent walks the aisle between seats packed with dark-haired men. The video is wordless but the message is clear: Migrants who cross into the United States illegally will be sent back.

Since Title 42 ended on May 12, the Biden administration has launched a public relations blitz aimed at dissuading would-be migrants from making the journey north and persuading the American public that it's enforcing the law at the border.

A transformation in border enforcement is underway as U.S. authorities return to applying the nation's immigration laws under Title 8 after ending quick, pandemic-era expulsions. The messaging suggests the administration wants to project a hard line while taking a swing at critics on the right who claim the president supports "open borders."

"They are very anxious to show that they are delivering consequences," said Adam Isacson, who directs the Washington Office on Latin America's defense oversight program. "That Title 42’s end doesn’t mean you won't be returned. They are trying to control the narrative."

The enforcement and removal wing of Homeland Security falls under U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. That agency — smaller than Border Patrol and historically unresponsive to media inquiries — has been posting news releases headlined "ICE conducts removal flights" and inviting media to witness the secretive departures.

"They never talked about this before," said Tom Cartwright, who tracks ICE flights for South Texas-based Witness at the Border. "I think it’s to show they are being strong in ‘protecting the border’ and to send a message." 

The images ICE is sharing counter the visuals of recent months: long lines of men, women and children huddled under blankets, waiting to seek asylum at the border... READ MORE

Guadalupe de la Cruz, director of the Florida chapter of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), wasn’t surprised when Gov. Ron DeSantis signed one of the most restrictive anti-immigration laws in the country this May. After all, DeSantis already championed legislation banning sanctuary cities in the state and engineered political stunts with flights of migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard. These policies intentionally created to target the immigrant community, de la Cruz says, are part of “a pattern we’ve seen before.” Nonetheless, she adds, this new measure brings discrimination against immigrants to a different level. “It was still very disappointing to have a governor support such a racist, anti-immigrant law,” she says.

On May 10, when DeSantis signed Senate Bill 1718 into law, he claimed to be “fighting back against reckless federal government policies and ensuring the Florida taxpayers are not footing the bill for illegal immigration.” The sweeping legislation mandates that private employers with more than 25 employees use the federal E-Verify system to check the immigration status of new hires; failure to comply could risk penalties that include the revocation of licenses that are required for businesses to operate.

Under the new legislation, local governments will be prohibited from providing funds to issue identification documents for undocumented immigrants and immigrants will be barred from using legally issued driver licenses from other states. (Currently, 18 states, Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico allow undocumented immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses.) Hospitals that accept Medicaid now will be required to collect immigration data on their admission or registration forms and report costs associated with any treatment of patients. The transportation of undocumented immigrants across state lines into Florida becomes a felony—punishable by up to 15 years in prison if the immigrant is a minor. Meanwhile, $12 million will be allocated to the governor’s so-called “Unauthorized Alien Transport Program” to move migrants to other states as a way to criticize the Biden administration’s supposedly “open border” policies. 

In Florida, about one in five residents are immigrants and hundreds of thousands of US citizens live in mixed-status households. An estimated 900,000 people lack lawful status in the Sunshine State, which ranks among the top five states hosting undocumented agricultural workers. Without undocumented workers, the Florida Policy Institute projects, the industries that employ most undocumented workers—including construction, agriculture, retail, and hospitality—”would lose 10 percent of their workforce and the wages they contribute along with them.” In one year, the state’s GDP could drop by $12.6 billion.

The law won’t go into effect until July 1, but De la Cruz says it has already produced a chilling effect, with community members unsure of whether it’s safe to go to work or take their children to school. The group has engaged lawyers to draft notarized letters for parents and guardians in case something were to happen to them. “The bill has caused a lot of panic and chaos,” she says. “Many of our community members are either leaving Florida or considering it.” Should they decide to leave, they often ask what other states might be safe for them... READ MORE

By Glen T. Cheney | The Morning Call | JUN. 1, 2023 | Photo by Gregory Bull

The stream of heated rhetoric about an crisis at our southern border is variable in intensity but seems never ending. But exactly what should we fear from these immigrants?

Donald Trump in the announcement of his candidacy in the 2016 presidential campaign did us all a favor by explaining what he thought we should fear from immigration. He told us that Mexican immigration across our southern border was bringing drugs, crime and rapists. It is just one more example of how our national conversations about immigration are driven largely by anecdotes and myths rather than data.

Just a little digging easily uncovers other possible reasons to fear immigration. This space doesn’t permit a comprehensive list but, in addition to crime, it is often claimed that Immigrants lower wages for U.S.-born workers, bring few skills and risk becoming a permanent economic underclass that will require ongoing public assistance.

Recent research results use publicly available data to paint a different picture. “Streets of Gold,” a recent book by Ran Abramitzky and Leah Boustan, tells a radically different economic story of immigrants in America. The Cato Institute sponsors an online pamphlet by Alex Nowrasteh that investigates common myths about immigration. And, a group of researchers from the University of Wisconsin published a paper in the December 2020 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that examined crime statistics for U.S.-born, legal and undocumented immigrant populations in Texas.

It’s important to clarify that merely being an undocumented immigrant in the United States is not a crime in itself, and deportation is not technically a punishment. Of course, some immigration offenses are crimes. But being an undocumented immigrant in the United States is not one of them.

Unlike other states, the Texas Department of Public Safety determines and records the immigration status of every person arrested throughout Texas. With this uniquely comprehensive data, it is possible to compare the arrest and conviction rates of immigrants with those of U.S.-born citizens. Compared with undocumented immigrants, U.S.-born citizens are 2 times more likely to be arrested for violent crimes, 2 ½ times more likely to be arrested for drug crimes, and over 4 times more likely to be arrested for property crimes. Immigrants are more law abiding than the rest of us... READ MORE

In addition to lacking health insurance, DACA recipients cited fears around costs and immigration status as barriers, a report first shared with NBC News found.

More than a quarter of young immigrants protected by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program lack health insurance and face burdens preventing them from accessing care, according to new data first shared with NBC News.

A report published Friday by the immigrant rights nonprofit group National Immigration Law Center, documenting the findings of a recent survey, finds that 27% of DACA recipients reported not being covered by any kind of health insurance or other health care plan.

The results suggest that of the more than 580,000 young adults without legal status who are allowed to work and study without fear of deportation under the Obama-era DACA program, almost 157,000 are estimated to be uninsured.

The survey was conducted last year with 817 DACA recipients. It was administered by Tom K. Wong, founding director of the U.S. Immigration Policy Center at the University of California, San Diego, with the help of United We Dream, the nation’s largest immigrant youth-led organization, the Center for American Progress policy institute and the National Immigration Law Center.

A previous version of the survey conducted in 2021 found the DACA uninsured rate to be at 34%. Kica Matos, president of the National Immigration Law Center, attributed the slight dip to "a healthier economic climate."

"The last survey was done when we were still in the middle of the pandemic, so we believe that economic trends have since improved ... This likely means there are more DACA recipients that are employed and therefore have access to health care" through their employers, she said.

Of the DACA recipients who reported having health insurance, 80% said they were covered through an employer or union.

But unlike most in America, if DACA recipients lose their job and with that their health insurance, they can’t fall back on federal health insurance programs, which are often more affordable but are only available to those with legal immigration status. 

Because being ineligible for federal health insurance contributes to DACA recipients' high uninsurance rate, the Department of Health and Human Services under President Joe Biden proposed a rule that would expand access to health care coverage to them. Research has found that DACA recipients contributed an estimated $6.2 billion in federal taxes every year that help fund such programs... READ MORE

One afternoon, when I was 19, I drove my mom to the grocery store to buy milk and cereal for my younger sister. For most families, this type of errand disappears from memory. But for me, it was a nightmare. As we neared the store, we passed a police car in oncoming traffic. I had done nothing wrong, but the officers locked onto us — a Mexican mother and son — and made a U-turn. I pulled into the store parking lot and rushed my mom inside where we watched the cops circle, waiting for us to exit. We had to call my aunt to pick us up.

This happened 15 years ago. At the time, we were undocumented immigrants who’d fled our Mexican hometown in 1999 when it became overrun with violence. My parents moved the three of us to suburban Chicago. But the daily stressors of undocumented life wore on us. At any moment, we could lose the life we’d built, the house we purchased in Aurora, the factory jobs my parents had held for years, even the friendships my two American siblings and I leaned on.

When Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) became available in 2012, my whole life changed. Suddenly, I could study, work and drive without fearing deportation. This allowed me to complete my PhD in Hispanic and Cultural Studies and land my dream job as a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Spanish at Queens University of Charlotte.

When my students ask questions about immigration in class, I pull from both my academic knowledge and my lived experiences. This combination is an invaluable asset and one for which my students frequently thank me.

DACA has allowed us to thrive and give back to society, but it’s vulnerable to the whims of those in power. Former President Trump tried rescinding it in 2017 and last fall, a federal court ruled that DACA is illegal. On June 1, a federal judge will review an appeal to end DACA entirely. This means the fear I felt driving to the grocery store 15 years ago will continue to haunt the lives of hundreds of thousands of young people.

Legislation that provides a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers benefits everybody. Most DACA recipients have lived decades in the U.S. and are using their American education and training to strengthen vital industries. We are no longer children; we are responsible adults working as doctors, nurses, educators and STEM specialists, filling critical gaps in the workforce. Approximately 542,000 essential workers are Dreamers, and according to the American Immigration Council about 62,000 of them work in health care. The AIC estimates Dreamers pay $6.2 billion in taxes... READ MORE

The backlash against diversity in education in states like Florida and Texas makes it a treacherous time to teach American history, a Latina scholar said.

Some Latinos in academia are assessing the impact of the increasing attacks on and measures against diversity initiatives amid low numbers of tenured Latino professors and a difficult career path. 

This past semester, Maria Chávez didn’t think her assignment for her Latino politics course was controversial. Chávez asked her students to write an op-ed on an issue facing the Latino community. As the class wrapped up, one extra copy of the assignment was accidentally left behind. The next day, Chávez found the spare copy of the homework defaced with rants about “illegal aliens” and “Stop teaching victimization!” The paper was unsigned.

“These are the kinds of actions that people are emboldened to do now,” said Chávez, professor of political science at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington. “The racialization and stigmatization that Latinos experience in the U.S. are often replicated in the classroom.”

Chávez is part of the relatively small group of Latinos in the academic world. Achieving academic tenure, professors say, is a difficult and challenging process. Now, they're also grappling with how to navigate the increased politicization of education as states like Florida limit diversity initiatives and place controls on educational content and courses, particularly those on race and ethnicity.

“The direct attack on the knowledge about the experiences about people of color is something that is very antidemocratic, and it is very personally harmful to students in a way that impacts who they are as people, as academics, and as future academics,” Chávez said... READ MORE