Border security continues to be a hot button issue in Congress. And some congressional leaders are holding hostage other non-border issues because of their tough stance on immigration and desire to gut US asylum law.
In last month’s newsletter, we shared an article about a one-page document that three Republican senators submitted to President Biden on November 6, summarizing the border and migration proposals they demand to include in the supplemental budget request that the president is submitting for the war in Ukraine, Israel/Gaza, and the US-Mexico border. The draconian measures include: ban asylum access for people who did not cross the border at ports of entry; ban asylum access for people who pass through other countries without seeking asylum there; heighten eligibility standards to pass a credible fear interview; expand migrant detention (including families and children); restrict temporary humanitarian parole.
The Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) and Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) responded in a combined letter on December 14, denouncing that: “Republicans continue to hold funding for America’s allies hostage at the expense of migrants and to pass Trump-era border policies.”
Senator Alex Padilla (chair of the Senate Judiciary Immigration Subcommittee) said: “… a return to Trump-era policies…is not the fix, in fact it will make the problem worse. Mass detention, gutting our asylum system. Title 42 on steroids. It is unconscionable. That is not the way to fix our immigration system.”
Senator Bob Menéndez has been vocal in opposition to the US border-Ukraine talks. “Not a single member of the CHC was given a heads-up that the administration would be proposing or considering these right-wing non-starters, despite outreach for many of us over the last several weeks from requesting to meet in person with a White House chief of staff. That is a hard slap in the face to all the Latino and immigrant communities we represent.”
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus) warned: “…what is on the table are policies so extreme that if enacted, it would literally be the most exclusionary restrictive immigration legislation since the racial quota laws of the 1920s, literally turning the clock back 100 years.” said CPC Chair Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.).
Both the CHC and the CPC agree that if these restrictive policies are enacted, conditions at the southern border will worsen, further alienating voters who worry about chaos there.
IRTF encourages all our readers to contact their US reps and senators over the holiday break. Urge that they vote against any further restrictions on the asylum process and against expansion of immigration detention. For background to help make your case, see the articles in this newsletter, especially “How U.S. Policy Toward Latin America Has Fueled Historic Numbers of Asylum Seekers” and “WOLA Urges Congress to Protect Asylum and Update Obsolete Border Policies.”
Our current advocacy campaign regarding the presidential election in Guatemala echoes what WOLA associate Adam Isaacson said in his testimony to congressional leaders. Addressing the root causes of migration is about more than money to fight poverty and boost health care and education. It’s about fostering democracy and installing mechanisms to end corruption. The soft coup against President-elect Arevalo in Guatemala is a prime example of the need to strengthen democracy. “People don’t flee countries that have responsible, accountable governments,” said Isaacson to members of the US House Foreign Affairs Committee in his testimony on November 30.
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Welcome to IRTF’s December 2023 newsletter on Migrant Justice and the current situation at the US-Mexico border. After you’ve looked through the articles, we hope you can take a few minutes to see the TAKE ACTION items at the bottom.
In this newsletter, please read about
1. ICE Air: Update on Removal Flight Trends
2. How U.S. Policy Toward Latin America Has Fueled Historic Numbers of Asylum Seekers
3. WOLA Urges Congress to Protect Asylum and Update Obsolete Border Policies
4. At the Border: Recent Incidents at and around the US-Mexico Border
5. Governor Abbott Signs Law to Arrest Anyone in Texas without Immigration Papers
6. Fifty Executive Directors of Progressive Organizatoins Arrested in US Capitol--demanded "divest from militarism, invest in life!"
TAKE ACTION NOW
Here is what you can do to take action this week and act in solidarity with migrants and their families. (See details at the bottom of this newsletter.)
A) Stop Border Militarization
B) Take Action Now Against Extreme Asylum Restrictions
C) Help Migrants & Refugees Here in Cleveland
1- ICE Air: Update on Removal Flight Trends
The U.S. government’s COVID-19 public health emergency order expired on May 11, 2023 — this includes the Title 42 order that has expelled over 2.5 million migrants from the US-Mexico border. With the end of Title 42, June started the ramp up of Title 8 expedited removal deportations.
Since the Biden Administration took office there have been:
- A total of 21,333 ICE Air Flights
- 3,761 Removal Flights
ICE Air Flights
The number of observed removal flights to ten different countries in Latin America and the Caribbean continues to rise. Over the last 12 months, there have been 8,219 ICE Air flights; 1,449 of those have been removal flights. With an estimated average of 100 passengers per flight, this means that over the past 12 months, as many as 144,900 people could have been returned to Latin America, the Caribbean and a small number to Africa by air by the U.S.
Removal Flights, Lateral Flights, Domestic Shuffles:
In November 2023, there were 594 ICE Air flights, utilizing 31 different planes operated by 5 different charter carriers (IAero aka Swift, World Atlantic, GlobalX, Eastern, and Gryphon), this is down by 59 from October, and below the prior 6 months (693) by 99.
Shuffle flights:
Shuffle flights decreased by 78 from 283 in October to 107 in November. Shuffle flights are domestic flights transporting migrants from either from one processing center along the border to another, or from one detention center to another. Shuffle flights include the lateral flights, listed below.
Lateral flights:
Lateral flights increased from 20 (Oct) to 23 (Nov). Tucson originated the most lateral flights with 15 to McAllen (7), Laredo(6), and El Paso (2). Seven laterals originated in San Diego to McAllen (3), and El Paso (4).
Removal flights:
In November 2023, removal flights increased from 135 in October to 140 in November. November was the 3rd highest month of the last 12, following August (153) and March(145). The Northern Triangle countries of Guatemala (57), Honduras (40), and El Salvador (14) continued at an elevated proportion of removal flights with 79% of all removal flights in November, up slightly from 75% in October, but contrasted with only 57% in May.
Removal flights are a mix of migrants being sent back to their home countries under Title 42 (“expulsions”), Title 8 (“inadmissables”), and deportations. Countries now accepting T42 flights are: Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, and Peru.
Countries:
Venezuela
Flights resumed after 3 years with 3 flights in October and another 3 in November and 1 on December 1, removing an estimated 720 Venezuelans.
Honduras
Flights to Honduras increased by 6 from 34 (Oct) to 40 (Nov); this is still under the 35-month high of 51 in August 2023. Mexico resumed deportation flights to Honduras with 5 in October and 4 in November; 3 departed from Villahermosa and 1 from Tapachula, returning 358 people.
Guatemala
ICE Air flights to Guatemala increased from 47 in October to a 35-month record of 57 in November. ICE Air returned 6,814 Guatemalans in November. Mexico resumed deportations to Guatemala with 3 flights departing from Villahermosa and returning 350 Guatemalans in addition to the 1,009 returned by land at Tecun Uman.
Ecuador
Ice Air Flights to Ecuador decreased by 2.
Colombia
In November 2023, ICE Air Flights to Colombia remained at 5 for the last 3 months.
El Salvador
Flights to El Salvador decreased by 6 from 20 in October to 14 in November.
Special Note: There has long been uncertainty as to whether El Salvador accepted returns of those subject to T42. According to a court declaration in November, El Salvador DOES NOT accept T42 flights, which means these are all T8 returns, some of which could be expedited.
Other destinations:
Dominican Republic:
Flights remained steady at 2 for the last 3 months.
Peru:
Flights decreased by 1 from 4 (Oct) to 3 (Nov)
Haiti:
Received 1 flight in November.
Brazil:
Flights remained at 1 over each of the last 3 months.
Cuba:
Experienced the first return flight since December 2020 on April 24. Followed by 1 in each of the following 8 months, including November.
Mexico Operated Removal
Flights resumed October 12th. There were 10 deportation flights in November; Honduras (4), Guatemala (3), and Cuba (3).
Sources: Witness At the Border
2. How U.S. Policy Toward Latin America Has Fueled Historic Numbers of Asylum Seekers
In its recently-issued report, the Great Cities Institute at the University of Illinois states that “The U.S. immigration crisis has reached a new boiling point.” Apprehensions by federal agents of people crossing the U.S. Southern border is at a near-record high. For the past year, tens of thousands of asylum seekers have appeared in cities like New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and Denver, many of them dispatched northward in buses by the governors of Texas and Florida. The newcomers have overwhelmed local governments as municipal leaders frantically try to provide them emergency shelter, food and other basic services, while the news media constantly note the surprising number of destitute and displaced Venezuelans among them.
That emergency assistance, however, has sparked a growing backlash from the general public, particularly among Americans who advocate clamping down on immigration, but also among some low-income Black and Latino residents in those cities whose communities have suffered years of neglect by the same local governments. Many of those residents have voiced increasing alarm about the sudden diversion of scarce tax funds for the siting of temporary migrant shelters in their neighborhoods.
But few media accounts have examined the way U.S. foreign policy toward specific Latin American countries has directly fueled the current crisis. Nor have those narratives acknowledged the long history of U.S. intervention and wealth extraction in the region, which, together with decades of neglect of Latin America’s social needs by both Democratic and Republican administrations in Washington, has led to more than six decades of massive human migration from that region to the U.S.
This report by the Great Cities Institute at the University of Illinois briefly outlines the evidence that U.S. economic warfare against three specific countries – Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua – is a significant cause of the latest migration surge. It argues, furthermore, that progressive U.S. leaders and the general public should advocate for a more humane and responsible foreign policy – one that could not only dramatically reduce migration from the region but also address the mushrooming labor shortage within the U.S.
Some of the report’s findings include:
-numbers of undocumented Mexican migrants crossing into the US have plummeted, while the numbers from the Northern Triangle countries of Central America (Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador) have increased
-recent migrants are from countries ravaged by US sanctions: Nicaragua, Cuba, Venezuela
-since the proclamation of the infamous Monroe Doctrine, Washington has repeatedly dispatched U.S. troops or used economic and political pressure to control Latin American governments and to exploit the region’s resources
-while the US increases its military expenditures in Latin America, both Democratic and Republican administrations have largely ignored the economic and social needs of the region’s people. For example, U.S. foreign aid to the 33 countries of Latin America and the Caribbean totaled just $3 billion in FY 2023.²⁷ That’s about as much foreign aid as the U.S. gives to Israel every year.
- the root cause of sixty years of constant migration by millions of people from Latin America to the U.S. has been the historic refusal of our political leaders in Washington to reduce the enormous gap in standard of living that exists between the region’s countries and our own.
- Instead of passing comprehensive immigration reform, the US government has repeatedly approved funding for more border enforcement. Between 2003 – when the Department of Homeland Security was created – and 2021, the U.S. spent an astounding $333 billion on agencies that carry out immigration enforcement.
Until comprehensive immigration reform is passed, this report recommends:
-ending sanctions
- increased federal aid to local governments that have had to provide temporary shelter and food to asylum seekers
- expedited work permits to both recent asylum seekers admitted into the country and to long-term undocumented immigrants who have established roots
- increase annual U.S. foreign aid to Latin America, from the current $3 billion to perhaps $10 billion.
Read the full report here.
Source:
3- WOLA Urges Congress to Protect Asylum and Update Obsolete Border Policies
Adam Isacson, WOLA’s Director for Defense Oversight, testified in The US Border Crisis and the American Solution to an International Problem, a hearing convened by the Foreign Affairs Committee of the U.S House of Representatives on November 30.
US asylum law says: if someone on your soil says they fear for their life or freedom if returned to their country, then you at least have to give them due process before deporting them, and allow them to stay if they prove that fear is real.
Due process is key. If we improved it, we’d actually see fewer asylum seekers than we do now, because they wouldn't be here so long. “Due process” means not having to wait years for your immigration court hearings to start. That’s the case right now, though, because we have 659 immigration courts struggling to hear 2.2 million cases, many of them asylum cases.
We don't fix immigration through deterrence. People who fear for their lives just aren't going to stop coming here. You've seen the videos of people crawling through the barbed wire. They're not going to stop coming just because the experience is miserable. That's never worked; if you look at the data over the last 20 years, it shows that.
The asylum process in the US clearly needs to be fixed, but asylum should not be at the center of the immigration debate. Seeking political asylum really should be a last resort for people who need protection. We have to make the journey unnecessary by creating other pathways.
The presidential humanitarian parole authority is not ideal, but it’s one of a handful of existing options.
U.S. diplomacy and aid programs have to work with Latin America and the Caribbean to make people who need to migrate feel welcome and prosper in other countries throughout the region.
Aid needs to target the “root causes” of why people are migrating today. Beyond security, education, and poverty reduction, we must work to foster democracy and get squarely on the side of people fighting corruption and defending human rights. People don’t flee countries that have responsive, accountable governments.
Source
4 - At the Border: Recent Incidents at and around the US-Mexico Border
This is a space where we share current incidents from the US southern border to show that these issues that we write about do, in fact, immediately affect people at the border and in detention, and the horrible things many migrants have to experience while seeking refuge in the U.S.
DEC 4 – Border Patrol found the remains of 149 migrants in its El Paso Sector—which includes far west Texas and all of New Mexico—during fiscal 2023, the El Paso Times revealed. This is up from just six remains found in the sector in 2018. “The fatalities don’t include the more than 70 migrants who died across the border in [Ciudad] Juárez,” the Times noted, adding that “key local law enforcement agencies aren’t tracking migrant deaths…and were unwilling to compile the data when asked.”
DEC 8 – A group of 18 migrants from Mexico and Guatemala, including children, departed a Tijuana shelter on November 26. The group’s destination was the entire other end of the border, in Matamoros on the Gulf of Mexico, where they had managed to obtain a “CBP One” appointment to present themselves at the U.S. port of entry on December 3. They didn’t make it: after arriving in the Matamoros International Airport, “they were intercepted by men dressed in the uniforms of the National Migration Institute (INM),” Mexico’s migration agency, who delivered them to kidnappers, according to Tijuana’s El Imparcial. As of December 3, as many as 17 of the 18 victims may have been released after making ransom payments. The incident highlights the risks to migrants in Tamaulipas, the only Mexican border state to have a Level Four travel warning from the U.S. State Department.
DEC 15 – Deaths of women migrants increased sharply during a record year for migrant deaths in Border Patrol’s El Paso Sector (far west Texas and all of New Mexico). Normally, men are the vast majority of recovered remains, but in New Mexico in 2023, of 78 bodies whose gender could be determined, 40 were female, the El Paso Times found.
DEC 15 – Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) reported that a Guatemalan woman died on September 15 after falling from the 30-foot Trump-era border wall near Otay Mesa, southeast of San Diego. In mid-November, the New York Times reported that 350 victims of wall falls had been admitted in 2023 to the U.C. San Diego Health trauma center, up from zero in the 3 years before the wall’s 2019 renovation.
SOURCES
- https://www.wola.org/2023/12/weekly-u-s-mexico-border-update-asylum-negotiations-in-congress-migrant-deaths-texas-loses-in-court/
- https://www.wola.org/2023/12/weekly-u-s-mexico-border-update-asylum-negotiations-in-congress-migrant-deaths-texas-loses-in-court/
- https://www.wola.org/2023/12/weekly-u-s-mexico-border-update-senate-negotiations-migration-trends/
- https://www.wola.org/2023/12/weekly-u-s-mexico-border-update-senate-negotiations-migration-trends/
Want to find out more about the conditions at the southern US border? Sign up for the weekly Border Update from WOLA. https://www.wola.org/tag/weekly-border-update/
5- Governor Abbott Signs Law to Arrest Anyone in Texas without Immigration Papers
SB4, one of the harshest anti-immigration laws in US history, makes it a state crime to cross into Texas from another country without papers.
State judges are now required to order a migrant to return to the country they came from in lieu of prosecution. If the migrant refuses the judge’s order, they could face a felony charge and up to 20 years in prison. SB4 also gives Texas officers the ability to arrest anyone who they believe has crossed into the state illegally, a power that immigrant advocates and Democrats have decried as racist.
The controversial state law is the newest anti-immigration brainchild of Texas Republicans. In June,Abbott bussed migrants to Democratic-led cities without proper coordination. That same month, Texas launched Operation Lone Star, a multimillion-dollar initiative that has placed razor wire and thousands of troops at the Texas-Mexico border.
A group of more than two dozen former immigration judges signed a statement calling SB 4 unconstitutional. The signatories included judges who had been appointed by both Republican and Democratic administrations.
Immigration advocates are especially concerned about the new law’s interim effect on asylum seekers. Under federal law, all people who enter the United States have one year to apply for asylum, regardless of legal status. The new Texas statute means that undocumented immigrants in the process of applying for asylum could be deported from the United States, even if their case is still pending.
Source
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/nov/17/sb4-texas-law-mexico-border-abbott-immigration
6. Fifty Executive Directors of Progressive Organizatoins Arrested in US Capitol--demanded "divest from militarism, invest in life!"
On Tuesday, December 19, high level directors from 74 progressive organizations joined together to stage a sit-in at the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol Building. Over 50 were arrested by Capitol Police for refusing to leave until they spoke with Senate representatives.
Organizations working on immigration justice, veteran services, climate justice, youth services, racial equity, and economic inequality all came together to stop a shocking deal.
Right now Senate Democrats are discussing reinstating Trump-era immigration policies of family separation, along with billions more to further militarize our Southern border and terrorize migrants. In return, they are asking their Republican colleagues to help send another $14.3 billion for Israeli weapons to continue killing Palestinian families in Gaza.
As US representatives rush through this process to return to their families for winter break, they are sacrificing millions of families in Gaza and at the U.S.-Mexico border. Stand with the movement leaders putting their bodies on the line. Write to your member of Congress now to support the demands of progressive movement leaders:
"We want Congress and President Biden to act on Permanent Ceasefire Now by stopping all military funding to Israel. We demand that there be no further border violence or genocide in our names, funded with our tax dollars. In short, we demand that our leaders divest from militarism, and invest in life!”
Use this tool to send a letter to your US senators and US representative.
source:
TAKE ACTION NOW
Now that you are up to date on some of the issues at and around the southern border of the U.S., here are some quick things you can do this week to take action in solidarity with migrants and their families.
A) Stop Border Militarization
Every U.S. taxpayer dollar given to ICE (Immigration Customs Enforcement) and CBP (Customs and Border Protection) is money that harms people in our communities and those seeking refuge from devastating conditions. As Congress considers a new funding bill for FY24, we must move away from funding state violence—in forms of arrests, detentions, and deportations—to focusing on investing in education, healthcare, and supporting families.
TAKE ACTION
Click here to call on Congress to cut funding to ICE and CBP, end border militarization, reduce invasive border surveillance technologies, and cut surveillance-based Intensive Supervision Appearance Program (ISAP) of asylum applicants.
B) Take Action Now Against Extreme Asylum Restrictions
This month, President Biden is negotiating a devastating deal that would trade away time-honored refugee protections, violating national and international laws. The deal under discussion could codify into law the proposed asylum ban (i.e. preventing individuals who have transited through a third country without seeking asylum there or requesting an appointment through the CBP One app from seeking asylum in the United States)
TAKE ACTION
1. Call the Congressional Switchboard: 202 224 3121.
2. Ask to be transferred to the office of one of your US senators. Once connected, use the script pasted below.
3. Call the Congressional Switchboard again and contact your other senator.
Sample script
Hello. My name is ______ and I’m calling from (city, state). Could I leave a message for the policy aide who works on immigration? [The person who answered the phone might either transfer you to their voicemail, or they might take down the message by hand.] This is the message: I am quite concerned about the weakening of political asylum protections. Please urge the senator to reject any trade off of the right to asylum for migrants escaping dangers in their home countries in order to send support to people facing dangers in other countries like Ukraine, Israel, and Palestine. Please do not use the lives of migrants seeking asylum at the US border as political bargaining chips. Thank you.
4. If you are not able to make the time for a phone call (which is more effective than boiler plate email messages), you can click HERE to send a message by email.
C) Help Migrants & Refugees Here in Cleveland
The Refugee Resource Center assists refugees and other displaced people, including the Ukrainians and Afghans resettled by Catholic Charities Migration and Refugee Services. It operates in the basement of St. Colman’s Parish and opens up on Saturdays from 9-12 for new arrivals to come get necessities that are not provided by other assistance. Currently the Resource Center sees 25-35 families per week, many of whom are very large. Currently there is a great need for diapers, feminine napkins, toilet paper and laundry detergent. Other things that they always need: Shampoo, body soap, deodorant, dish soap and general household cleaner. If you or your parish could collect some of these items, please let Kelly know at kabon@ccdocle.org and she will help you arrange drop off at the site. Contact the parish at StColmanParish@gmail.com or call 216 651 0550
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Thank you for reading IRTF’s Migrant Justice Newsletter!
