May 14, 2018
Migratory Notes 64
Breaking up families, overloaded courts, disappearing communities
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#MustListen
ProPublica’s Ginger Thompson has reported extensively on how a quiet Texas border town transformed into a place where people were kidnapped, doused with gasoline, and lit on fire. She found her answer in drugs, and also in U.S. and Mexican efforts to control the illicit trade. Thompson brought the story to life in “The Making of a Massacre” an audio narrative that includes famous actors, and which features people whose voices are rarely heard publicly. The five-part true-story Audible podcast features Danny Trejo, Alana de la Garza and Cheech Marin, among other Mexican or Mexican-American actors. The piece layers their telling of the story with those with first-hand experience of the violence — informants, protected in the U.S.; widows of those killed by the Zetas cartel.
Thompson told part of the harrowing story in “How the U.S. Triggered a Massacre in Mexico,” published with National Geographic in June 2017.
Sessions’ Crackdown
Parents and children who arrive at the border without documents will be separated rather than detained together, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced this week. The goal is to prosecute “100 percent” of people who cross the border illegally, including those seeking asylum. “If you are smuggling a child then we will prosecute you, and that child will be separated from you as required by law,” Sessions said in a public statement Monday.
Federal district courts in Arizona have already reached the limit of how many border-crossing cases they can prosecute, the chief judge told the Arizona Daily Star. That makes it unlikely the courts can handle the coming deluge of cases.
The disparity in how immigration judges decide asylum cases is already stark, and Sessions’ attempts to restrict access to asylum for people fleeing domestic violence or street crime instead of government persecution could make it worse, reports the Los Angeles Times. In San Francisco, for example, the rate of granting asylum among judges ranges from 3 to 91 percent.
Border
In an effort to shut down a rogue Twitter account allegedly run by an anonymous USCIS employee, Customs and Border Protection officials tried to pressure Twitter to share user records without the legally required court order or summons, reports The Intercept.
Members of the anti-immigrant vigilante groups, California State Militia and Minuteman Project, returned to set up surveillance near the San Diego border. They are watching for migrant caravans, reports Univision.
Immigration is an International Issue
Mexico deports more Central Americans at its formidable southern border than the US does, sometimes twice as many, reports NPR. Since 2014 they have developed a system of roving checkpoints and raids to create a “containment zone” across Chiapas. Last year, Mexico deported nearly 82,000 Central Americans.
Caravan
There were at least 37 transgender migrants who traveled in the caravan that reached the U.S. border last week, and 11 of them have applied for asylum last week. They faced an especially complicated journey including being turned away from housing by some religious groups, told to change how they dressed and misgendered, reports Splinter.
Another caravan member, a mother of two, told CNN she was the happiest she had been in weeks because she was safe in immigration detention, rather than fearing for the life of her young son in Honduras.
DACA
Republican legislators took the first step in forcing a vote in the House on several DACA bills Wednesday morning, reports USA Today. Their strategy uses at least two unusual Congressional maneuvers: one to get the bills on the floor without approval by a committee or the speaker of the House, and another to push a vote on several pieces of legislation at once. An analysis by Vox notes the Republicans backing the plan are confident they will have enough supporters on both sides of the aisle to push through a vote.
Detention
One in six immigrants in the detention system have been detained at least six months. Those who remain the longest are those appealing their cases. The AP reports on a Nigerian man who had been arrested and served time for selling counterfeit hats in an Indianapolis mall. Since 2014, he has moved between six detention centers and is now in an Alabama center known as the black hole for complicated cases.
Elections
“The results of Tuesday’s primary elections simultaneously bolstered the Republican Party and demonstrated how much ground it has yielded to Donald Trump, particularly on the volatile issue of immigration,” writes Ronald Brownstein in The Atlantic.
Not every candidate has followed that path though. Tim Kane (not to be confused with Senator Tim Kaine) is running for Congress as a Republican in Ohio on an unusual platform: as a policy expert who argues immigration is good for the economy and is openly skeptical of the border wall, reports The New York Times.
Sanctuary
One year since Texas signed a law banning sanctuary cities immigrants are living in fear and some have opted to leave the state, reports Vice. Activists have continued to protest the law — a caravan against SB-4 passed through the state last month and another is planned for the summer, reports Houston Public Media. Some sheriffs, meanwhile, are seeking to keep the fraying bonds with the immigration community intact by holding meetings with activists and running public awareness campaigns.
TPS
Hondurans are the latest group to be stripped of Temporary Protection Status, leaving around 57,000 people with the decision to leave or be deported. Altogether, the Trump administration has canceled TPS protections for 98 percent of people from various countries who held it previously.
First-person immigration
- Teaching at a pilot program for mostly immigrant and refugee English language learners who could soon age out of high school in Louisville, KY.,(Edsurge)
Shorts
- Georgia’s Court of Appeals declined to hear a case about whether some undocumented students should get in-state tuition (AP)
- A new report by the Migration Policy Institute says that immigration enforcement is breeding a climate of fear as an enforcement tool (The Dallas Morning News)
- A mural of an upside-down American flag on the Mexican side of the border fence, painted in 2013 by deported veterans, is at risk of being removed by the Border Patrol. (Stars and Stripes)
- There was a 24 percent decline in the number of Chinese students who received visas last year, due in part to Trump’s policies and also competition from other countries recruiting students. (Axios)
- Immigration arrests at the southwest border are still historically low. (USA Today)
Immigration-Related Resources & Job Opportunities
Podcasts
- Radio Public curates a list of podcasts about immigration and migration
- Only in America: National Immigration Forum’s podcast about the people behind immigration issues.
- The New American Songbook from Groundtruth Project looks at the stories behind the songs of immigrants.
- ¿Qué Pasa, Midwest? is a bilingual podcast to help connect a Midwestern Latinx community.
Reports
- Temporary Protected Status fact sheet (National Immigration Forum)
- The Cost of Immigration Detention (National Immigration Forum)
- The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse shows Secure Communities deportations by ICE under the Trump administration
- Bringing Evidence to the Refugee Integration Debate, from the Urban Institute
Recently released immigration books (got one, send it over)
- Undocumented Lives: The Untold Story of Mexican Migration, about the Mexican government’s support for migration. PRI profiled the book’s author.
- The Making of a Dream: How a group of young undocumented immigrants helped change what it means to be American by Laura Wides-Muñoz covers the growth of the Dreamer movement.
- 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.
Curriculum and special projects
- Humanizing Deportation allows community storytellers affected by deportation to produce a public archive.
- 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 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
Reporting tools and tips
- Resources for investigating visas (Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting)
- Reporting on Refugees, Asylum Seekers and Immigrants (90 Days, 90 Voices)
- Immigration Data Resources: An extensive, and growing, list of immigration resources curated by PRI’s Angilee Shah and shared as part of her presentation on finding immigration stories at NICAR 2018.
- Tips on covering immigration when you do not live near the border(Daniel Connolly, from IRE 2017)
Fellowships, Scholarships, Jobs
- Internews is hiring a community manager to create an “information ecosystem” in Sonoma County, California
- FWD.us is hiring for several positions, including press and campaign manager positions
- WBEZ is hiring a radio reporter to cover race, class and communities
- The French-American Foundation is accepting submissions for its 2018 award for coverage of immigration and integration
- LA Times is hiring a Southwest and Mexican border correspondent
- ProPublica is offering student scholarships to a host of conferences, including NAHJ, NABJ, AAJA, and others
- Diversity Fellowship, Reveal
Come meet us in person! Here are some upcoming events where we will be presenting:
- Collaborative Journalism Summit — Daniela presents tonight (!) on collaborations with ethnic media — Montclair, New Jersey
- Education Writers Association — Elizabeth is on a panel on May 17th on schools and immigration — Los Angeles, California
And here is some recent press coverage: Following immigration reporting and data in the Trump era is a complicated endeavor. We wrote about how Migratory Notes does it, and why, for the European Journalism Centre’s Data Driven Journalism blog.
That’s all for Migratory Notes 64. If there’s a story you think we should consider, please send us an email.
Thank yous to Jacque Boltik and Angie Quintero for creating our template. Thanks this week to Fernanda Santos, Daniel Kowalski, Audrey Singer, Michele Henry, Jason Alcorn, Voice of San Diego Border Report, Global Nation Exchange FB group, Migration Information Source, Politico’s Morning Shift, 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 What ice cream flavors can teach us about the changing California Dream. 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
