I don’t think we acknowledge the stranglehold cartels and organized crime have on the lives of Central American migrants. Migrants pay "rent" to gangs in order to live their lives at home, pay smuggling networks to get them away from the corruption, and pay cartels for the opportunity to ask for asylum in the U.S. It is no mystery why they will do anything they can to send their children to safety.
Epifanio Diaz Suarez is the president of Zorros del Desierto (Desert Foxes), a Mexico-based "nonprofit of citizens-band radio aficionados" helping migrants stranded in the desert, reports Julian Resendiz of Border Report. "Sometimes the smugglers leave them up in the mountain with no food or water, lost with no sense of where to go or what to do next," Diaz Suarez said. The nonprofit provides aid to the stranded migrants and
has "participated in searches for clandestine graves and bodies."
Enrique Valenzuela, a Chihuahua state official in charge of Juarez’s Migrant Assistance Center, adds: "We encourage migrants not to be drawn in by offers from smugglers to safely cross them to the other side. That is a practice that puts them and their families at risk and in no way is a guarantee they will safely reach their objective."
Separately, the Associated Press reports that U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen set an early April deadline for lawyers on both sides to provide more information on the DACA case he is presiding over.
Welcome to Wednesday’s edition of Noorani’s Notes. If you have a story to share from your own community, please send it to me at [email protected].
CONTEXT — As we are drawn into a debate about numbers on the border, a couple step-back pieces. First things first, "[a]sylum is not an open question," writes Felipe de la Hoz for The Baffler. "While the refugee definition itself is woefully outdated, the requirement to verify whether people fit the rubric before sending them away is absolute." If there’s a crisis at the border, he writes, "it’s mainly one of poor advance planning, logistical failures, and
bad policy that have created the situation forcing thousands of people to leave their countries of origin in the first place." The Washington Post's Ishaan Tharoor pulls together various threads to make the case that the border situation is "one more of continuity than change" when you look at factors in Central America and our inability to update our own immigration systems.
BIG TECH — H1-B visa bans are set to expire today — a big win for tech companies, Jordan Fabian and Genevieve Douglas report for Bloomberg. The news coincides with a new study from the Center for Growth and Opportunity at Utah State University on the value of work visas for U.S. companies. On average, the study finds, skilled immigrants on temporary work visas have a wage premium of 29.5% compared to similar native-born Americans. The study suggests that the U.S. economy needs a greater number of skilled workers than is currently available — and U.S. companies "are not only willing, but already pay significant premiums to hire foreign workers with the skills that they need."
DETENTION — A new bipartisan bill approved in Washington state would shut down one of the country’s largest for-profit, privately run immigration jails for good, reports Gene Johnson of the Associated Press. The state Senate voted 28-21 Tuesday in favor of a measure that would ban for-profit detention centers in the state. "The only facility that meets that definition is the Northwest detention center in Tacoma, a 1,575-bed immigration jail operated by the GEO Group under a contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement," notes Johnson. The bill would still allow GEO to continue operating the jail until its contract with ICE expires in 2025. The bill now moves to Washington Gov. Jay Inslee’s desk.
LEONARDO — When 10-year-old Leonardo, got to the U.S.-Mexico border with his aunt and cousin, the family was separated because of the narrow definition of families under U.S. immigration law, report Kristina Cooke and Mica Rosenberg of Reuters. Under a public health policy rule known as Title 42, implemented by Trump in March 2020 and left largely intact under Biden, "U.S. authorities separated Leonardo and sent him to a shelter in New York" and "expelled his
aunt Rosalina — eight months pregnant at the time — and his cousin Marisol to Mexico," leaving Leonardo to have his long-awaited reunion with his mother in California alone. Estimates from nonprofit groups indicate that 10-17% of unaccompanied children in government custody were separated from relatives. As of March 28, some 11,900 children were in Health and Human Services (HHS) shelters and nearly 5,800 children were in Border Patrol custody.
YUMA — The Yuma sector of the U.S.-Mexico border is streamlining the process for asylum seekers through COVID-19 testing and connections to flights and buses to reunite migrants with relatives around the U.S., reports Rafael Carranza of the Arizona Republic [paywall]. Since February, approximately 1,700 migrant families and adults that
border agents apprehended in the Yuma sector have been released into nearby communities under humanitarian parole as they await immigration court hearings. While some politicians are using the situation at the border to paint a picture of disarray, Carranza notes that on the ground in Yuma (which has not been visited by state or congressional leaders quick to point to challenges), nonprofits and community groups "have developed an orderly system" to process and assist families. "We had to really quick organize ourselves because we said, ‘Yeah we’re going to assist the families, we’ll do the testing,’" said Amanda Aguirre, the president and CEO of the Regional Center for Border Health. "And thanks to the goodness and heart of other people in churches and entities and individuals who stepped up to help."
COMPROMISE ON IMMIGRATION? — In a piece for FiveThirtyEight taking us through the history of immigration trends on both sides of the political spectrum, Alex Samuels speaks to Veronica Vargas Stidvent, executive director of the University of Texas at Austin’s Center for Women in Law and former assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Labor, who underscores a key point: "Anytime you have competing factions, it can do one of two things: push people
to the middle to find compromise or result in a stalemate." While "House Democrats passed two bills earlier this year that would offer legal protections for millions of undocumented immigrants, including DACA recipients," Samuels explains, "Senate Democrats, hamstrung by the filibuster, might have to find middle ground on Republicans’ demands for more border enforcement if they want their bills to get to Biden’s desk."
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