The Borderline: 03/31–04/06
Bringing you the latest on immigration and border issues
EDITORS’ NOTE
Hi everyone! This is the sixteenth edition of The Borderline, Stories from the Border’s weekly newsletter on immigration and border issues. This is our curated summary of what we’ve been reading and working on throughout the semester. With all of us social distancing and doing our part to cure the COVID-19 pandemic, we’re publishing from our own corners of the country: Arizona, California, Texas, and Chicagoland.
This week, we are continuing to look at how COVID-19 is affecting the lives of immigrants in the country. With the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) suspended its in-person services until the tentative date of May 3, the Miami Herald recently published an informational guideline on how to avail and follow-up with applications, benefits, and services online.
With a record number of Americans filing for unemployment, we are seeing the Trump administration expediting the process for allowing businesses to hire foreign workers, particularly in the medical and agricultural sectors. However, the Supreme Court is anticipated to come out with a decision at any moment that could allow for Trump’s removal of DACA and deportation of DACA recipients. With the Trump administration pushing forward with this, it puts 29,000 Dreamers on the frontlines of the coronavirus health crisis work in limbo.
In the U.S.-Mexico Border, we are seeing Border Patrol following upon a new Centers for Disease Control (CDC) order to allow for the immediate deportation of unaccompanied migrant children crossing the border, which goes against U.S. asylum laws as well as international refugee treaties. This is a recent development to Border Patrol’s new coronavirus immigration procedures of quickly deporting undocumented immigrants crossing the border at an average of 96 minutes back to Mexico.
With about 38,000 immigrants detained by ICE in private detention facilities, we are seeing advocacy groups and lawmakers condemning ICE for its haphazard coronavirus prevention measures in its facilities and a call to release detained migrants.
To stay updated, follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook @borderstoriesAZ.
– Jeromel
DEEP DIVES
We’re learning about a new report released by Human Rights Watch (HRW) that condemns current U.S. immigration policy and procedure in response to the coronavirus as harming asylum seeker’s lives. About the accounts from detained migrants compiled by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and how detained immigrants across the Deep South feel like “sitting ducks” as ICE ignores their safety amid a global pandemic. About the lack of hospitals within the locations of ICE detention facilities where about a third of the 43,000 immigrants in detention as of March 2 were housed at facilities that have only one hospital — or none — with intensive-care beds within 25 miles. We also learned about the demands of Mexico and Central American nations for the U.S. to stop its deportation procedures after a man who the U.S. deported back to Guatemala tested positive for COVID-19.
WEEKLY ROUNDUP
NATION
ENFORCEMENT:
- With US border work on track, rural towns fear virus spread: Would construction of Trump’s border wall and the Keystone XL pipeline through the Canadian Border continue despite the risk of spreading COVID-19 among rural towns and Native American reservations?
- Details on Border Patrol’s new migrant-expulsion effort begin to emerge: Are there any measures being taken by Border Patrol to test, and if need be treat, detained undocumented immigrants from the coronavirus?
- The missing piece in the coronavirus stimulus bill — relief for immigrants: Would the magnitude of the COVID-19 pandemic compel the federal government to help its immigrant population regardless of status that is and will be impacted by it?
RULINGS:
- Judge in Maryland weighs release of two detained immigrants because they are at high risk for the coronavirus: With yet again another lawsuit compelling ICE to release immigrants at high-risk for COVID-19 infections due to inadequate coronavirus prevention measures of its detention centers, would it pressure ICE to release detained migrants?
- Courts order ICE to free some immigrants, but lawmakers call for more action amid pandemic: From their successes to a case-by-case basis, is there a way for lawmakers and legal advocacy groups to facilitate the release of all immigrants before a potential COVID-19 outbreak takes place in detention centers?
ARIZONA:
- Arizona immigrants with medical conditions demand release to prevent COVID-19: With the current lack of COVID-19 preventive measures in ICE detention facilities, would ICE be prepared to handle a coronavirus outbreak in their facilities as they continue to hold immigrants in detention?
- Detainee at La Palma facility in Eloy tests positive for COVID-19: To what extent will ICE continue running its detention centers in light of six detained migrants testing positive for the virus at different detention centers across the country?
CHICAGOLAND:
- Feds ease DACA renewal rules during coronavirus, but court may OK ending program protecting immigrants: For the 32,000 DACA-recipients in the Chicago-area, would the coronavirus pandemic affect the Supreme Court’s upcoming ruling on whether the Trump administration can revoke DACA protections?
CALIFORNIA:
- US sending 540 troops to Mexico border to assist agents during pandemic: How would Border Patrol and U.S. military troops help contribute to containing the pandemic with the new initiative of quickly deporting detained immigrants who may be infected with COVID-19?
- PedWest crossing temporarily closed as part of changes at the California-Mexico border: How has the restriction for non-essential travel between the U.S. and Mexico impact people in Mexico who would regularly cross the border, like the San Ysidro Port of Entry, back and forth each day to work in the U.S.? Does their work count as essential travel?
TEXAS:
- As coronavirus takes their jobs, benefits, Houston immigrants feel ‘like they suddenly don’t exist’: Would Texas and the federal government address the burdensome impact of the coronavirus pandemic towards immigrant communities in the state and country?
- Man dies by apparent suicide at ICE family detention center: Will legal action against the federal government follow this incident of suicide?
