Migratory Notes 52
H-1B visa kids, non-citizens in the marijuana biz, DACA…again
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#MustRead
Chinmoyee Datta moved from India to teach in a Mississippi school. But she worries that her own child, now an adult, won’t be able to stay and study in the US because his visa is connected to those of his parents. The teacher “had no idea she would become one of tens of thousands of Indian nationals in the US on H-1B visas waiting for legal permanent residency,” Sonia Paul writes. The story kicks off a new series in PRI’s The World “Walls We Don’t See” on stories about issues in immigration that are not in the headlines right now.
#MustListen
The legal marijuana business is booming in some states, but because it’s still illegal at the federal level, any non-citizen who takes part in the industry risks deportation, reports Colorado Public Radio. It’s become a dilemma both for immigrant workers and the companies that want to hire them.
DACA Reform
A second federal judge blocked Trump’s attempt to end DACA, saying the president’s reasons for ending the program were not sound, reports NPR.
Trump pushed Wednesday a 500-page immigration bill as the only option to help Dreamers, “all but issuing a veto threat on alternatives just as a bipartisan coalition of senators appeared close Wednesday to agreeing on a proposal that may draw broader support,” the LA Times reports.
Politico, staring into the “legislative abyss” that has been negotiations around DACA, took matters into their own hands and locked four experts with disparate political views into a room until they agreed on a legislative solution for DACA. With Marshall Project’s Julia Preston serving as moderator, they came to a point of agreement on a point that defies much of the negotiations: “spending billions on border measures that Trump could claim as building his wall, in a bill that included legalization for Dreamers, was not a deal breaker.”
The defense secretary promised DACA recipients in the military they will be safe from deportation even if the program ends, reports Buzzfeed.
Refugees
Dozens of refugee resettlement agencies will be forced to close and cut back operations according to a plan in the final stages of approval by the State Department, reports Reuters. The office reductions are in line with Trump’s plan to drastically reduce refugee admittance in favor of offering overseas aid.
DACA Life
Sometimes even your best friends don’t know you’re undocumented. In a first-person essay for The Baffler, Rachel Bryan explores the struggles and triumphs of a close friend and DACA recipient in a small pocket of North Alabama, and the parallels to immigrant communities all over the South. “Listening to Victor’s story, you sense not just his struggles, but the struggle of people in the South to balance anti-immigrant abstractions with the reality of the hard-working neighbors they live with, and sometimes depend upon,” she writes.
For one queer Dreamer, the uncertainty of his future is tied up with the fear of being gay in a Mexico, a country where he has no community, reports The Huffington Post.
DHS Dollars & Rules
Trump’s budget for fiscal year 2019 requests $29 billion for border security and immigration enforcement, a sign he’ll continue his focus on deportation in his second term, reports Roll Call. The request for the border wall alone is $3 billion.
An ICE lawyer in Seattle is out of a job and facing charges for trying to steal the identities of seven immigrants going through proceedings, reports the New York Times. The lawyer allegedly used the immigrants’ information to “obtain money and property.”
Enforcement
Arrests of immigrants without criminal convictions doubled this year, reports The Washington Post. It’s being seen a sign of how Trump has ‘taken the shackles off’ the agency.
In the last few weeks, outlets have reported on various examples of enforcement targeting immigrants:
- An undocumented couple with a stay of removal in Connecticut (HuffPost)
- Raids at mostly Latino apartment complexes in Houston (KXAN)
- An immigrant in Washington detained after asking police for help (Kiro7)
A labor department worker in Montana quit his job because he refused to honor information requests from ICE that would be used to deport workers, reports the Great Falls Tribune.
In a Michigan courtroom, three judges decide the future of an Iraqi father, an engineer from Belgium, and a Honduran mother and her daughter. MLive details an hour-by-hour series of procedural details that flow through the courtroom throughout the day.
The Intercept reports on how Trump’s war on gangs is playing out for undocumented students in Long Island, where law enforcement sent in to deal with a growing gang problem can push unaccompanied minors into deportation proceedings.
Detention & Deportation
When a grandmother suffering from a mental illness in ICE detention attempted suicide, she was placed in solitary confinement for three months, reports The San Diego Union-Tribune. She said treatment by guards at the Otay Mesa Detention Center helped push her to kill herself, an allegation ICE denies.
Federal courts have been blocking numerous individual and mass deportations, making them one of the only roadblocks to ICE’s deportation plans, reports The New York Times.
Border Wall
An artist is taking visitors on an ‘art tour’ of Trump’s border wall prototypes, which he believes should be national monuments for their “significant cultural value,” reports the Los Angeles Times. But at a political moment when the border wall prototypes are a symbol of a divisive ideology, is it irresponsible to consider their aesthetic value? KCRW’s Design and Architecture show looks at a whimsical architectural history of border barriers as part of a series on bridges and walls.
Fewer migrants were caught trying to cross the desert from Mexico to the United States last year, but a new report shows that more are dying. The Arizona Republic reports on data from the International Organization for Migration that shows the Texas border zone saw the largest increase in fatalities.
Labor
As Houston rebuilds after Hurricane Harvey, it needs immigrant workers — so much so that some construction companies are offering 45 percent pay hikes to retain skilled workers. Meanwhile, Texas continues to lead one of the harshest immigration crackdowns, reports Bloomberg.
The federal government may be retaliating against California’s so-called “sanctuary” status with workplace raids. The American Prospect reports that unions in the Sunshine State have a history of combating workplace enforcement, and are in conversation about how to expand those protections to workers who aren’t represented by unions.
Media
What is the immigration status of Melania Trump’s parents? The Washington Post dove into the question that has been circulating on social media, considering possible scenarios, and which would be politically troubling for Trump.
Follows:
- A federal judge expanded a lawsuit by nine immigrant detainees in Colorado alleging they were forced to work in the detention facility to include 60,000 other detained at the same GEO Group center (NPR)
- Under New York’s sanctuary city law, the NYPD threw out 1,526 detainer requests from IC in 2017 (New York Daily News)
- Democrats in the Senate blocked a vote on a Republican bill that would criminalize sanctuary cities (The Hill)
JOB POSTINGS & OPPORTUNITIES
Selected Resources
- Podcasts to check out
- Making a mark, making places: A podcast from The Institute for Immigration Research that tells the stories of six immigrant artists in America
- Only in America: National Immigration Forum launched a new podcast about the people behind immigration issues.
- Immigration and Crime: The World of Humans science podcast delves into the connection.
- The New American Songbook from Groundtruth Project looks at the stories behind the songs of immigrants.
- Voices in America
- Mash-Up American
- ¿Qué Pasa, Midwest? is a bilingual podcast to help encourage a Midwestern Latinx community
- For a more complete list Radio Public curates podcasts about immigration and migration
- Recently released immigration books and reports (got one, send it over)
- The Book of Isaias: A child of Hispanic immigrants seeks his own America by Daniel Connolly is a nonfiction narrative about the children of Mexican immigrants coming of age in Tennessee.
- The Newcomers: Finding Refuge, Friendship, and Hope in an American Classroom by Helen Thorpe tells the story of a Denver high school.
- New Italian Migrations to the United States, including reports on role shaping 1965 immigration laws.
- Special report on the Politics of Immigration and Education from the journal Education Policy.
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
- Language Justice Curriculum for Interpreters from the Center for Participatory Change
DACA studies/ guides:
- Who are the DACA recipients (Urban Institute) also check out Local Insights from DACA (Brookings)
- DACA, the DREAM Act and undocumented immigrants: A primer for journalists (Journalist’s Resource/ Shorenstein Center)
- Define American DACA #FactsMatter sheet
- Immigration reporting tools and tips
- How to cover local refugee communities (American Press Institute)
- Tips on covering immigration when you do not live near the border (Daniel Connolly, from IRE 2017)
- Resources for investigating visas (Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting)
Immigration Jobs and Opportunities
- Deputy Director of Programs, Communications Trainer, Communications Coordinator — California Immigrant Policy Center
- Investigative Data Reporter — inewsource.org (San Diego)
- Youth Reporting Fellowships — IMM Print, a new publication
- Program Manager and Interns for Spring and Summer — Hello Neighbor
- Resource and Organizational Development Director — America’s Voice
- Associate Editor, Investigations ThinkProgress
- PRI’s Global Nation is accepting pitches for stories about immigration and diversity
That’s all for Migratory Notes 52. 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. Daniel Kowalski, Audrey Singer, Michele Henry, Jason Alcorn, Voice of San Diego Border Report, Global Nation Exchange FB group, 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 How can collaborations between ethnic and mainstream outlets serve communities in the digital age? for American Press Institute. 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 Caught in the middle: California businesses face conflicting immigration laws. You can find her on Twitter @1eaguilera
*Yana Kunichoff is an independent journalist and documentary producer who covers immigration, policing, education and social movements. She was project manager for Migrahack 2016 in Chicago. She has also produced feature-length documentaries and a pop-culture web series for Scrappers Film Group; worked as a fellow with City Bureau, where she won a March 2016 Sidney Hillman award for an investigation into fatal police shootings; and covered race and poverty issues for the Chicago Reporter. Her work has appeared in The Guardian, The Atlantic, Pacific Standard and Chicago magazine among others. You can find her on Twitter @yanazure
