Migratory Notes 33
Refugees at Trump’s house, Rhode Island’s Dreamers, immigrant soldiers
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#MustRead/See/Watch
A USA Today Network team of reporters and photographers explore the border wall and planned expansions in a multimedia package that includes aerial video, a podcast, and virtual reality. Reporters flew and drove the entire border to interview migrants, farmers, tribe members, a human smuggler and other stakeholders. They are also holding storytelling border events in three cities.
Refugees
Under pressure to justify cuts to refugees, Trump administration officials rejected a study that found refugees bring in $63 billion dollars annually. The report, according to The New York Times, “contradicts a central argument made by advocates of deep cuts in refugee totals as President Trump faces an Oct. 1 deadline to decide on an allowable number.”
The White House cabinet is divided about where to set the limit on refugee admissions for the coming year, with the Homeland Security Department pushing to lower the cap to 40,000, and the State Department and Pentagon wanting to keep it at 50,000, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Military Recruits
The U.S. Army ended contracts with hundreds of foreign-born recruits leaving them vulnerable to deportation. Recruiters began canceling contracts last week, reports the Washington Post, to avoid the extensive background investigations and because of pressure to cut immigrant applicants. The program was created to attract highly skilled recruits who speak 44 languages and offered a fast-track to citizenship.
A DACA subset of the immigrant recruits face additional uncertainty. Julia Preston reports for the Marshall Project that about 900 immigrants with are serving or have signed contracts to serve through the program. Among them are about 360 who have been inducted but have not yet started basic training.
DACA Fight
Rhode Island’s governor announced the costs for all 250 Dreamers statewide eligible to renew their DACA status will be paid for by a combination of government and philanthropic funds, the Providence Journal reports. In other areas nationwide the Mexican government, foundations, and local funds are helping to cover the renewal fees.
The independent, and sometimes divisive, spirit of the Dreamer movement reigned Tuesday when protesters in San Francisco shut down a Nancy Pelosi press conference shouting “all of us or none of us” and “we are not a bargaining chip.” Some undocumented youth activists are speaking out against the Dreamer narrative that places them as blameless, juxtaposed to their parents who are at fault. “I am not a DREAMer because of a bill that seeks to transfer any guilt from me onto others like my parents,” Ivan Garcia, founder of Undocumedia, writes on Medium.
Back in Washington on Wednesday, Pelosi seemed to respond to the protesters saying the immigrants parents’ “did a great thing” infusing this country with talent, according to the Washington Times.
A group of Dreamers sued the government this week challenging the decision to rescind DACA. Among the plaintiffs are a Thai medical student who has a degree in public health from Harvard and a Mexican woman who is a lawyer. NAACP also joined the lawsuits against the government for ending DACA. “Cancelling the DACA program not only violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fifth Amendment but also possesses a racially-motivated component,” Derrick Johnson, the interim president and CEO of the NAACP, said in a press release.
Border Wall
California is launching yet another lawsuit against the federal government over its immigration policies, this time over the border wall, reports the San Jose Mercury News. Attorney General Xavier Becerra filed a lawsuit in federal court Wednesday charging the wall violates law by intruding on state authority, and sidestepping environmental and contracting procedures.
Enforcement
City and state leaders across the country have been pushing back against ICE presence in courthouses. Now, a man is dead who was detained by ICE agents while he waited for his turn in court in Austin, reports the Austin American-Statesman. Three months after Juan Coronilla-Guerrero was deported to Mexico he was found shot to death after allegedly being kidnapped from the home where he lived with relatives. His wife said she had warned the federal immigration judge that this would happen if her husband was deported.
An undocumented Texas couple were in a hospital with their sick infant when Border Patrol agents approached, NPR reports. The parents suspect a nurse called immigration authorities. Border Patrol allowed them to transport their sick child to a neighboring hospital but followed the ambulance and once in the new treatment center took each parent to process them for deportation while the U.S. citizen baby waited to have surgery. Now the parents are awaiting immigration court dates.
About those Cows and Hotel Beds
Farmers in California to Wisconsin who voted for Trump are being hit with the reality that they may lose their workforce. The Center for Public Integrity visits the Magic Valley in Idaho, where almost all of the dairy workers are foreign-born, and enough of those are undocumented “to shut down many of the milk pumps here if workers are ousted as a result of Trump’s policies.”
Unions in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York have been hosting trainings to teach hotel workers how to “stonewall” ICE agents, reports Bloomberg. The unions have also begun inserting language in contracts that would prohibit a company from letting ICE agents into the workplace without judicial warrants, keep companies from sharing workers’ I-9 forms, and from using the E-verify program.
Heading North and South
The migrant route to Canada continues to grow: In August, the largest number of people crossed so far seeking asylum at 5,700, reports BBC. Most are Haitians whose temporary protected status is expected to end under Trump. But they may not fare much better in Canada; last year the government rejected 50 percent of asylum claims from Haitians.
Undocumented parents opting to leave the U.S. often must first secure dual citizenship for their American children. Mexican and Central American consulates are seeing the number of children registered rise as families prepare to leave voluntarily or for deportation, reports the Los Angeles Times. They are joining a large group: the Mexican government said last year there were close to a half a million American children in its schools.
Sanctuary
In New York, Governor Cuomo has ordered state agencies and police to stop asking about or disclosing immigration status in most cases, reports USA Today. This is the latest move by New York officials to push back on the Trump crack down on illegal immigration.
The order didn’t land smoothly across the state. One county sheriff in Erie told his deputies to ignore the order and to keep reporting “any and all” incidents involving undocumented immigrants, reports Fox News. Cuomo’s lawyers fired back, letting the Sheriff know that the order only applies to state agencies and employees.
California legislators approved a “sanctuary state” bill that is now before the governor, who has indicated he will sign it.
Detention
An asylum seeker facing deportation blames ICE for mishandling a piece of mail that was critical evidence, reports The Intercept. Advocates say this is a common problem in immigration detention centers. The Ghanaian man claims to have fled after an anti-gay group attacked him. If he is returned home, where homosexuality is a crime, he could be imprisoned or face vigilante groups.
Washington state is suing the largest private detention facility operator in the nation, claiming it paid immigrant detainees $1 a day to work. Instead, AP reports, the state says the company should have paid the state minimum wage.
All in the Family
Trump tweeted this week: “CHAIN MIGRATION cannot be allowed to be part of any legislation on Immigration!” This even though decades ago his mother and paternal grandfather followed a sister who had already established herself in the U.S., reports Quartz. That’s chain migration, plain and simple. The Migration Policy Institute estimates that more than 1 million immigrants lawfully enter the U.S. each year and about two-thirds are able to do so because of family ties.
Follow: Hate crime death of Indian man in Kansas
The shooting death of Srinivas Kuchibhotla has set his wife on a path to speak up for herself and other immigrant women in her situation. When Sunayana Dumala’s husband died her legal status was thrown into question because her visa was tied to his H1-B visa, which is based on employment and is often used by tech companies, reports Huffington Post. Dumala’s congressman helped her get a one-year work permit so she can stay in the country and try to find a more permanent solution to her immigration status. In the meantime, the widow is trying to bring attention to the plight of women like her whose status in the U.S. is tied to their husband’s employment.
JOB POSTINGS & OPPORTUNITIES
Selected Resources
- DACA studies/ guides:
- DACA, the DREAM Act and undocumented immigrants: A primer for journalists (Journalist’s Resource/ Shorenstein Center)
- Guide for DACA recipients (Immigrant Legal Resource Center)
- The Migration Policy Institute released a report about the education and work profiles of the DACA set
- Define American DACA #FactsMatter sheet
- Center for American Progress produced a report on DACA Recipients’ Economic and Educational Gains
- Immigration-related curriculum
- Re-imagining immigration has resources and lessons to teach about migration, immigration, refugees, and civic empowerment through history, literature, and the sciences
- The Advocates for Human Rights and the Immigration History Research Center at UMN recently released a free curriculum that helps students learn about U.S. immigration through personal narratives: Teaching Immigration with the Immigrant Stories Project
- Imm-print published an Immigration Detention Syllabus
- Special report released on the Politics of Immigration and Educationfrom the journal Education Policy.
- New tool from Trac maps cases pending in immigration court
- Tips on covering immigration when you do not live near the border (Daniel Connolly, from IRE 2017)
- Voices In America launched a podcast recently about the lives of immigrants affiliated with Public Counsel.
- What are schools to do with a child’s caretaker is detained? What can school districts do to protect their undocumented students’ data? Stanford Law School and the California Charter Association created a guide answering these questions for educators.
Immigration Jobs and Opportunities
- Migratory Notes is hiring! (Yes, that’s us!) We’re looking for a freelance writer for an interim position that may be extended. If you’re interested, email Daniela for more details.
- The new Emerson Collective Immigration Incubator is interested in supporting tools, technologies, and ideas that will improve immigrant services and advocacy efforts. Applications open September 25 and close October 20.
Investigative Reporters (2) — Reveal/The Center for Investigative Reporting - Anti-detention organizer — Families for Freedom
- Associate Editor, Investigations Think Progress
- Community Engagement Editor — New Michigan Media (collaboration of ethnic/ minority media in Michigan)
- PRI’s Global Nation is accepting pitches for stories about immigration and diversity
- International Reporting Fellowship for Minority Journalists ICFJ travel fellowship (not specifically migration, but good opportunity to do so)
- Editor/ Producer — Latino USA
- Race/ Related Editor — New York Times
- Director of Communications — Community Initiatives for Visiting Immigrants in Confinement (CIVIC)
That’s all for Migratory Notes 33. We’re based in LA, so help us out by letting us know what’s going on elsewhere. If there’s a story you think we should consider, please send us an email.
Special thanks to intern Dalia Espinosa. Other thank you to those who helped this week, knowingly or unknowingly. Jacque Boltik for creating our template. Rachel Glickhouse, Julia Preston, Fernanda Santos, Melissa Wall, Jason Alcorn, Marcia Parker, Cindy Carcamo’s FB posts, Voice of San Diego Border Report, Global Nation Exchange FB group, Xavier Maciel’s Sanctuary Schools newsletter, Migration Information Source, and countless tweeters.
*Daniela Gerson is an assistant professor at California State University, Northridge with a focus on community, ethnic, and participatory media. She is also a senior fellow at the Democracy Fund. Before that she was a community engagement editor at the LA Times; founding editor of a trilingual hyperlocal publication, Alhambra Source; staff immigration reporter for the New York Sun; and a contributor to outlets including WNYC: New York Public Radio, The World, Der Spiegel, Financial Times, CNN, and The New York Times. She recently wrote “I feel like I have to go back into hiding” for the Los Angeles Times. You can find her on Twitter @dhgerson
*Elizabeth Aguilera is a multimedia reporter for CALmatters covering health and social services, including immigration. Previously she reported on community health, for Southern California Public Radio. She’s also reported on immigration for the San Diego Union-Tribune, where she won a Best of the West award for her work on sex trafficking between the U.S. and Mexico; and before that she covered a variety of beats and issues for the Denver Post including urban affairs and immigration. Her latest story is California lags in testing toddlers for lead exposure. You can find her on Twitter @1eaguilera
