SUMMARY
Senate to Hear Testimony on Family Reunification
The Senate Committee on the Judiciary will hear testimony on immigration enforcement and family reunification efforts in a hearing Tuesday, five days after the deadline Judge Dana Sabraw set for the government to reunite all families it separated at the border. As of Friday, more than 700 families remained separated after the government deemed them “ineligible” for reunification, including more than 450 parents who already have been deported.
Witnesses at the hearing will include the acting chief of U.S. Border Patrol; the executive associate director of Enforcement and Removal Operations for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE); the coordinating official for reunification efforts; the director of the Executive Office for Immigration Review; and the associate director of the Refugee, Asylum and International Operations Directorate at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
On June 26, Sabraw ordered the government to reunite children under 5 with their parents within two weeks, and all other separated children under age 18 within a month. After failing to reunite all children under 5 before the July 10 deadline, the government reported last Thursday that it was able to reunite all “eligible” families.
While some families were not reunited because of “red flags” for criminal history or other reasons during the review, many were reportedly deemed “ineligible” after being misled into waiving their rights for reunification, or because the government already had deported them without parents’ informed consent to leave their children behind.
The Department of Health and Human Services reportedly has spent at least $40 million just in the past two months to care for and reunify children separated from their families at the border, potentially diverting millions of dollars from medical research, rural health programs and other priorities.
Additionally, the trauma of separation and detention likely has caused long-term damage to affected children’s health. And detaining families together has been shown to cause possibly permanent psychological harm to children. Family detention can cost 60 times more than alternatives such as ICE’s Family Case Management Program, which has proved extremely effective.
Trump Threatens Government Shutdown over Wall Funding, Immigration Restrictions
After the House Appropriations Committee passed a Homeland Security spending bill last week that includes $5 billion for a border wall, President Donald Trump announced via tweet that a government shutdown is possible if Congress does not approve funding for the wall, an enforcement-heavy immigration approach and major cuts to legal immigration.
In addition to border wall funding, Trump demanded an end to “catch and release,” a term immigration hardliners use to describe policy that allows asylum seekers to live in the U.S. while they wait for their claim to be reviewed. But alternatives to immigration detention such as electronic monitoring with ankle bracelets are both effective and affordable. Trump also called for substantial reforms that would slash the number of legal immigrants allowed in the country each year. The current version of the House bill does not include the president’s requested immigration reforms.
While Trump continues to call for ramped-up enforcement and cuts to legal immigration, a permanent solution for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients and other Dreamers is noticeably absent from the bill. Currently, the only Dreamer-related provisions are amendments that would prevent funds in fiscal year 2019 from being used to deport current DACA recipients and any DACA recipients who enlisted in the military.
Following a monthlong August recess, the House will need to pass the bill before the end of the fiscal year Sept. 30 to avoid a government shutdown. Even if the House is able to pass the bill, it must overcome significant obstacles to pass the Senate.
LEGISLATIVE BULLETIN
Summary of immigration legislation introduced and government reports on immigration: https://immigrationforum.org/article/legislative-bulletin-friday-july-27-2018/
MUST READS:
NEW YORK TIMES: See America’s New Ellis Island: A South Texas Bus Terminal
By Manny Fernandez, Mitchell Ferman, Ilana Panich-Linsman and Sarah Almukhtar
July 27, 2018
McALLEN, Tex. — For thousands of undocumented immigrants in South Texas, the crowded bus station in downtown McAllen has become a new, impromptu Ellis Island. They line up daily, newly released from detention, having had no time even to put the laces back on their shoes. They hold government-issued bags with their few belongings close, and their children even closer.
Like Ellis Island, the bus station is a portal — an entry and exit point in the migrants’ monthslong journey to America’s Southwest border and beyond. Yet unlike that historic gateway on New York Harbor, all of the immigrants passing through the McAllen bus terminal — young or old, healthy or sick — have effectively been jailed by the authorities when they first arrived in the United States.
Today, most of the immigrants arriving at the border have fled their homes in Central America and traveled through Mexico. Read more
BARRON’S (Minerd Op-Ed): Welcome, Immigrants. The U.S. Really Needs You
By Scott Minerd
July 27, 2018
Recessions usually occur because the economy hits constraints, causing prices to rise and leading the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates. Today, the dominant constraint in the U.S. economy is the size of the labor pool. To sustain continued growth, increasing corporate profits, and rising living standards, while maintaining relative price stability, policy makers must approach labor differently. First among the priorities for achieving long-term prosperity is a rational immigration policy.
Labor shortages are already appearing in key parts of the economy, with about half of small businesses reporting few or no qualified applicants for job openings. For the first time since the government began tracking job openings in 2000, available jobs exceed available workers. This isn’t just among highly skilled workers. For instance, home builders report a shortage of workers, especially in areas like framing and drywall, which is crimping the supply of new housing and helping to drive up home prices, reducing affordability. Read more
DALLAS MORNING NEWS: Deported Mexicans settle down to a life of hope and dismay in Mexico City’s ‘Little L.A.’
By Alfredo Corchado
July 28, 2018
MEXICO CITY – In one of Mexico’s most storied neighborhoods, the number of newcomers continues to grow with every deportation.
Neighbors aren’t quite sure what to make of them. Some say they’re agents of change, some call them yesterday’s trash.
Either way, most can’t speak Spanish properly
As the drama of family separations from Central America plays out across the United States, here in Mexico, an unusual reunification is quietly taking shape as Mexicans who lived most of their lives north of the border embrace their new lives back where they were born. As labor shortages increase across the U.S. and the number of Mexicans in the country decreases, a question arises: Where did the Mexicans go?
Many returned here, to Little L.A. Read more
DETROIT FREE PRESS: Michigan foster care applications surge in wake of immigration crisis
By Kristen Jordan Shamus
July 30, 2018
It started with a phone call.
Randi Fremuth was so heartbroken by the stories of children being separated from their parents at the U.S./Mexico border in late June, she dialed Bethany Christian Services.
The 33-year-old mother of three from Chelsea was powerless to intervene in the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance immigration policy in every way but one: She could open her home. She could care for a child for as long as it took to reunite that child with his or her parents.
“They’ve been torn from their families,” she said. “They’ve been traumatized. But I feel like if we can at least take some of the sting or the burn out of it and lessen that trauma in any way, we have to.
“The decision was kind of obvious. At the end of the day, that’s just what is right. So that’s what we were going to do.” Read more