Here at Reveal, we’re big fans of Migratory Notes, one of the best newsletters out there documenting the immigration beat. So we’re teaming up with them this week to share their accounting of the Trump administration’s four-year campaign to dismantle U.S. immigration.

Migratory Notes was founded shortly after the Trump administration’s decision to ban people from predominantly Muslim countries from entering the U.S. And every week since, they’ve curated the biggest immigration stories, including our work, in a way that helps readers understand the intricacies of former President Donald Trump’s crusade against immigrants.

In its last newsletter documenting the administration, Migratory Notes step backs to examine Trump’s legacy, from the destruction of asylum to the key advisers in his administration who orchestrated his assault on immigration.

Migratory Notes was founded by Daniela Gerson, an assistant professor of journalism at California State University, Northridge, and Elizabeth Aguilera, a multimedia reporter for CalMatters. Subscribe here.

Travel ban: ‘This is working out very nicely’

The so-called Muslim ban went into effect at about 5 p.m. on the first Friday of Trump’s presidency. Chaos and confusion ensued. Travelers and protesters descended on American airports. In Africa, refugees who had been waiting their turn to enter the U.S. for years learned that they were no longer welcome. An army of lawyers were activated, who would relentlessly take on the Trump administration.

The travel ban also triggered a rush to the border – the Canadian border. A modern-day underground railroad materialized in New York for asylum seekers looking to escape. Minnesota became another gateway for African refugees headed north. A library straddling the border between Vermont and Quebec provided a safe space for Iranian loved ones stuck in neighboring countries, looking to reconnect.

Since the courts struck down the first travel ban, revised versions emerged, followed by dozens of court cases. President Joe Biden has since revoked the travel ban. 

Department of intimidation

Stephen Miller weaponized the Department of Homeland Security and sharpened the tactics and language of enforcement. Agents for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested immigrants at routine check-ins and courthouses and while dropping off kids at school. Even Motel 6 was reporting undocumented guests to ICE.

Trump went from calling DACA participants “incredible kids” to canceling the program in 2017 (which was ultimately stopped by a Supreme Court ruling).

Yet despite these high-profile actions, deportations under Trump actually were far below Obama administration levels, in part because of sanctuary state restrictions. Intimidation and uncertainty was wielded as a tactic, but the threatened actions did not always materialize, such as 2019’s much-hyped immigration raids.

While immigration activists and progressives in the Democratic Party have called for defunding ICE, President Joe Biden has provided no indication he will do so. He has promised to provide permanent legal status to DACA recipients via legislation, and signed an executive order to expand the program.

Trump let employers off the hook – including himself

While targeting immigrants was a top priority, employers tended to get a pass, a long-standing American practice. This time, that extended to Trump. A maid who scrubbed Trump’s toilet and dusted his crystal golf trophies was one of many undocumented immigrants employed at his golf course in New Jersey. After the news broke, Trump’s company quietly laid off foreign workers who served dinner or baked pastries at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida and drove tractors and pruned vines at his Virginia winery.

By September 2019, symbolic workplace arrests had skyrocketed, but those of managers remained essentially flat. That year, the Trump administration presided over the largest single-state raid in history, in which more than 600 poultry workers in Mississippi were arrested. Nearly a year later, four managers were indicted.

Biden’s campaign website says he “will restore the focus on abusive employers instead of on the vulnerable workers they are exploiting,” but lacks a clear plan for how he will pursue bosses.

You can read the rest of the newsletter here.

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DAY 1: BIDEN’S PLAN ON IMMIGRATION 

Just hours after his inauguration, Biden signed a flurry of orders and memorandums, several of them aimed at reversing Trump policies and protecting undocumented immigrants:

• Through an executive order, Biden fortified the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which shields undocumented youth brought to the U.S. as children from deportation. The order ensures that DACA will remain intact and open to any immigrants who qualify for the program. Trump tried to end the program throughout his time in office. The order also “calls on Congress to enact legislation providing permanent status and a path to citizenship for those immigrants,” The New York Times reported.

• The new administration revoked a Trump executive order that granted immigration authorities the power to arrest and deport any immigrant, regardless of whether the person was a public safety threat or not. And a 100-day freeze is now in effect on deportations for immigrants not deemed a danger to the public and present in the U.S. before Nov. 1, as the Department of Homeland Security, under new leadership, reviews its current policies. 

• Undocumented immigrants will again be included in the U.S. Census, effectively reversing the Trump administration’s plan to exclude them from the count. As The Texas Tribune reports: “Trump’s scheme to fundamentally alter the process had already been foiled by processing delays, but Biden’s order serves as an official reversal as state lawmakers wait for the detailed census results they need to reconfigure political districts to reflect a decade’s worth of population growth.”

• Biden ended the travel ban on people from predominantly Muslim countries. It’s likely it will take months or longer for families separated by Trump’s order to be reunited, Mother Jones reports.

• Work on the border wall was paused. Biden also rescinded a Trump order to divert $10 billion toward its construction. Last week, Trump visited the Rio Grande Valley to highlight the completion of 450 miles of wall built along the 2,000-mile border. “The proclamation directs an immediate pause in wall construction projects to allow a close review of the legality of the funding and contracting methods used,” Biden’s order reads.

The bill, called the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021, would also “fund a $4 billion interagency plan that would include aid for El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras tied to their efforts to reduce corruption, violence and poverty,” Politico reports. Read more about the reform bill here. Expect more updates from us on the Biden administration’s immigration agenda next week.

3 THINGS WE’RE READING

1. Immigration officials deported a Haitian teenager on a student visa to Mexico after he  arrived at San Francisco International Airport. (San Francisco Chronicle)

Christian Laporte, 19, was coming to the U.S. on a student visa to attend Diablo Valley College in California. But when he arrived at the San Francisco airport, Customs and Border Protection officials questioned him and his 9-year-old brother, Vladimir, who came on a tourist visa. One of the brothers, the agency said, was missing documents. Laporte was deported to Mexico and his brother was transferred to a government shelter for unaccompanied migrant children. The situation drew the attention of representatives for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Jackie Speier, who said this week that they are “working on the matter.”

The kicker: Laporte, who has studied in the U.S. for several years on a student visa — including two years at a boarding school on the East Coast — traveled to Haiti to be with family for the holidays, (attorney Milli) Atkinson and his family said. When it was time to return to the U.S., Vladimir asked to tag along with his older brother and accompanied him on a tourist visa. “(Laporte) just wanted to let his brother see the schools in the United States and decide if the family possibly wanted to apply for a student visa for the 9-year-old in the future,” Atkinson said. “But instead, when they got to the airport, they were questioned, they were interrogated, they were not allowed to speak with an attorney. They were not allowed to speak with their family; their visas were taken from them.”

2. A new government report solidifies former Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ role in the creation of the “zero tolerance” policy that separated hundreds of migrant families. (The Washington Post)

According to a long-awaited report released by the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General, Sessions led efforts to prosecute migrants who crossed the border, even if it meant they would be separated from their children. Sessions and the attorney general’s office “failed to effectively prepare for, or manage, the implementation of the zero tolerance policy,” the report reads. About 3,000 children were taken from their parents. Hundreds remain separated today. 

The kicker: “The Biden-Harris administration will inherit the legacy of family separation, and we don’t doubt that more horrific details will continue to emerge,” said American Civil Liberties Union attorney Lee Gelernt, who has led class-action lawsuits against the Trump administration and other challenges to its immigration policies. “The incoming administration must reunite the separated families in the United States, but we cannot stop there. … These families deserve citizenship, resources, care and a commitment that family separation will never happen again.”

3. From the border wall to White supremacy, senators grill Biden’s homeland security secretary pick, Alejandro N. Mayorkas, during his nomination hearing. (The New York Times) 

Mayorkas faced a cascade of hard questions from lawmakers. They asked him how he would balance maintaining control at the border as the Biden administration dismantles much of Trump’s anti-immigration policies and his plans for agencies such as ICE. 

The kicker: When Sen. James Lankford, Republican Oklahoma, asked him if he would support dismantling parts of Mr. Trump’s border wall or if he felt additional barriers were needed in any additional places along the border, Mr. Mayorkas was evasive and said he needed to study these issues. “The border is varied depending on the geography, depending on the specific venue and depending on the conduct of individuals around it,” Mr. Mayorkas said. “We don’t need nor should we have a monolithic answer to that varied and diverse challenge.”
 

Your tips have been vital to our immigration coverage. Keep them coming: [email protected]. 

– Laura C. Morel