According to “a senior Department of Homeland Security official,” there’s no need for immigrants to panic. The new policies announced Tuesday are really “not intended to produce mass roundups, mass deportations,” mainly because “We do not have the personnel, time or resources to go into communities and round up people and do all kinds of mass throwing folks on buses.” The plan, however, is to hire 10,000 more immigration agents so that they can implement new priorities targeting basically every undocumented immigrant. Except for DACA recipients. For the moment – there will be a new memo coming about them. Continue reading
Tag Archives: deportation
First, they came for the immigrants
Filed under immigration
Sanctuary: What it is, what it isn’t, why it’s important
Minnesotans demonstrate in support of refugees – 2015 (Photo by Mary Turck)
UPDATED 1/25/2017 When Donald Trump targeted “sanctuary cities,” threatening to cut off all federal funding, what was he talking about? Turns out – as usual – that the answer is more complex than the sound bite. Here’s a quick primer on sanctuary, both in misnamed “sanctuary cities” and in the real and resurgent sanctuary church movement – and a note on what Trump’s January 25 Executive Order fails to do. Continue reading
Filed under human rights, immigration
Three-year-olds, immigration law, and the presidential candidates
David Wilson and Jane Guskin explain what’s wrong with the mainstream immigration debate, including the Sanders/Clinton pseudo-discussion in their March 9 debate:
“The media and the politicians treat the migration either as a natural disaster (‘flooding over the border’) or as a second-rate science fiction movie (‘the aliens are invading’) — with either scenario seen as deserving an aggressive response.
“But in the real world, the asylum seekers and other migrants that some call ‘illegals’ are human beings pushed from their homes by economic dislocation or fear of violence, often risking their lives for a chance at a brighter future. And U.S. foreign and economic policies are intimately linked to these ‘push factors.'”
Filed under children, human rights, immigration
Immigration agents should not be above the law
Cover image of SPLC report – https://www.splcenter.org/20160128/families-fear-atlanta-immigration-raids
No warrants, no consent, no lawyers — that’s the story told by the Southern Poverty Law Center’s first-person report on raids targeting Central American mothers and children in January.
Here’s part of Ana Silvia’s story: Continue reading
Filed under immigration
Dangerous El Salvador: Bring Peace Corps home, send refugee kids back
El Salvador is dangerous. The murder rate last year was just over 100 per 100,000 residents — one per thousand. That’s even worse than Honduras, where the murder rate is 61 per 100,000. The Peace Corps suspended its program in Honduras in 2012 because of the violence there. On Monday, January 11, the Peace Corps suspended its program in El Salvador “due to the ongoing security environment.” Continue reading
Filed under immigration
Three of this week’s biggest underreported stories
While I can’t claim that I see every story, I do read a lot of news, and I’m struck by how often really important stories get less reporting and fewer readers than more sensational stuff. Three of this week’s biggest underreported stories: the Obama administration staged raids to capture and deport mothers and children back to the deadly violent Central American countries they fled ; Flint, Michigan’s cheaper water poisoned thousands of children; an on-going methane leak in California may have a bigger impact than the BP oil spill. Continue reading
Filed under environment, immigration, race, Uncategorized
New Year, news re-runs
Downton Abbey is new. NCIS is new. Sherlock is new (not very good, IMHO, but new.) So why is the news in reruns? We have, once again, a stupid, mean-spirited deportation move against Central American families and children. Ultra-right-wing, anti-government, white supremacist grandstanding — take over a bird sanctuary? Really? And a re-run of old gun control rhetoric, with minimalist but highly choreographed executive action substituting for actual gun control. Continue reading
Filed under immigration, news
Deporting refugees is not the American dream
Ana Lizet Mejia’s brother was killed by gangs in Honduras, and she fled with her son to the United States. Hers was one of a wave of Central American families seeking refuge in the United States in 2014. Now she is in detention, targeted by Obama administration’s new raid-and-deport policy, which started over New Year’s weekend with initial reports of 121 mothers and children seized. Continue reading
Filed under immigration
Deportation numbers and the latest ruling on the president’s plan
On Monday, November 9, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected President Obama’s 2014 plan to defer deportation for parents of U.S. citizens and legal residents and for young immigrants brought here as children. The president’s plan would have protected about 5 million of the estimated 11 million immigrants present in the United States without legal status. According to NPR, the Obama administration plans to appeal to the Supreme Court. Continue reading
Filed under immigration
Mary Turck
News Day 