Migrants who agreed to wait in Mexico for their U.S. asylum hearings are now being told they may no longer be eligible for asylum at all, Dara Lind reports in ProPublica. Contradicting Trump policies have left asylum seekers and immigration officials confused over who is exempt from the administration’s latest asylum ban.
Migrants ordered to await hearings in Mexico were told they were exempt from that ban — which denies asylum to non-Mexican migrants coming to the U.S. through Mexico — but now, that may not be the case. The Department of Justice’s internal guidance “doesn’t clarify whether the guidance refers to initial entry or most recent entry. In fact, it doesn’t mention the Remain in Mexico program at all. That leaves it up to individual immigration judges to interpret.”
Your Wednesday edition of Noorani’s Notes comes from San Francisco. Join us in Houston tomorrow evening (Go Nationals!) where I’ll join Jason DeParle, author of “A Good Provider is One Who Leaves: One Family and Migration in the 21st Century,” for a discussion on how global migration has the Greater Houston area. Register here. Come for the book talk, stay for the baseball chatter.
Have a story you’d like us to include? Email me at [email protected].
FOR-PROFIT PRISONS – Private prisons in Louisiana are making a hefty profit by locking up thousands of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainees, Bryn Stole reports for The Times-Picayune. As the number of Louisiana state inmates has declined, controversial private prison operators like LaSalle Corrections are turning to ICE detainees, most of whom are seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border, to boost their revenues. Meanwhile, Julia Ainsley at NBC reports that the California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS) — the nation’s largest public pension fund — joined other businesses in pledging to divest from GEO Group and CoreCivic, the two for-profit prison companies that run the most ICE detention facilities. Follow the money.
“REDEFINE THE POLITICS” – PBS’ Frontline premiered a new documentary last night featuring an inside look at the making of the Trump administration’s immigration policies. The documentary, Zero Tolerance, takes a closer look at how an “improbable group of outsiders” including Stephen Miller, Jeff Sessions and Steve Bannon wielded incredible influence in the White House. As the Washington Post’s Dan Balz told Frontline: Trump’s ability to tap into immigration “continues to redefine the politics of the country today.”
DREAMERS MARCH – Dozens of immigrants will begin a march from New York City to Washington, D.C. this Saturday to highlight the Supreme Court case that will decide the fate of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, Stephen Rex Brown and Michael Gartland write for the New York Daily News. Oral arguments are set to begin at SCOTUS on Nov. 12. “My biggest concern as a parent is losing deportation protections,” said Eliana Fernandez, a DACA recipient and mother of two who will participate in the march. “What will happen if I’m taken away from my kids?”
FINES WITHDRAWN – In a significant reversal, the Trump administration announced it has withdrawn fines for undocumented immigrants seeking refuge in churches across the country, Franco Ordoñez reports for NPR. ICE had previously issued fines ranging from $300,000 to $500,000 to immigrants for “failing to depart the U.S. as previously agreed.” Attorney Lizbeth Mateo is now calling on ICE to reverse its position toward these immigrants: “ICE has demonstrated with this that they have the power to exercise discretion – the same way they can use discretion to drop these finds, they can use it to release sanctuary families.”
BORDER CROSSINGS HISTORY – In an adaptation from his new book, “Dreams of El Dorado: A History of the American West,” H.W. Brands in Smithsonian Magazine looks back at the days when Mexico’s immigration troubles were driven by Americans illegally crossing into Mexico. After Mexico gained independence from Spain — and before Texas fought for its own independence, thousands of Americans crossed the border into Mexico seeking land and agricultural opportunity: “In Texas, an American colonist could receive land enough for all his children and their children. Mexican law made princes of many who might have been paupers in the United States.”
Thanks for reading,
Ali
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