ImmPolitic

Welcome to ImmPolitic, the National Immigration Forum’s blog. Here we will comment on current developments in immigration policy and politics from the perspective of a Washington-based, national pro-immigrant organization.

HELP Act Introduction– Protecting Vulnerable Children in America

July 02, 2010 - Posted by Katherine Vargas

**Blog post by Daniel Ostrovsky**

A little girl is dreaming, sleeping in her bed. There is some noise. It disturbs her slightly, but she doesn’t fully awaken. She has an innate, subconscious confidence that the noise must be nothing – her parents will take care of it.  But in the morning, when she wakes, it’s eerily quiet. She goes into her parents’ bedroom and it’s empty.  Kitchen – nothing. Bathroom – they are not there. The little girl is terrified and doesn’t know what to do. What happened to her parents? How does she find them?

Unfortunately, this little girl’s story is not borrowed from a plotline of a horror movie. It describes the all-too-real experience of countless children whose parents are taken into custody by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). This was the experience of a seven-year old girl in Shakopee, Minnesota. In June 2007, neighbors found the little girl wandering alone through a park; she had been sleeping when her parents were taken into custody at their own home on suspected immigration violations.

In recent years, it’s become painfully clear that children are often the forgotten victims of America’s current immigration enforcement policies. A recent report by First Focus, a bipartisan advocacy organization concluded that “over 5 million children in the United States with at least one undocumented parent are at risk of unnecessarily entering the child welfare system when a parent is detained or deported.” It is a Herculean task for immigrant parents who have come in contact with ICE to reunite with their children. Detained parents are often not permitted to arrange for the care of their children and, upon deportation, are not provided with adequate time and resources to obtain proper documents and make travel arrangements to have their children join them. Reunification is also made more difficult, because these parents are often unable to communicate with child welfare agents.

All of this results in children – many of them U.S. citizens – entering the child welfare system while risking permanent separation from their moms and dads. Even when children don’t enter the system, examples of children like the Valeriano brothers, who sold their puppies to get money for food and rummaged their apartment for bus fare, after their father was detained, abound.

Senators Al Franken (D-MN.) and Herb Kohl (D-WI.) recently introduced the Humane Enforcement and Legal Protections (HELP) for Separated Children Act (S.3522 ) to prevent more innocent immigrant children from being separated from their parents. A House version of the bill (H.R.3531) has been introduced by Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA)

The bill aims to require ICE to take the interests of children and the risk of separation into account in its enforcement actions. There is no reason or justification for ICE, in enforcing our immigration laws, to create a trail of broken families and parentless children. The act is certainly a step in the right direction and should be supported by all those who care about protecting children – some of the most vulnerable members of our society.

But, in the absence of comprehensive immigration reform, it is unlikely to ameliorate the broader impact of America’s current immigration policies on children. Although America has a policy of providing shelter to asylum seekers and refugees facing torture or persecution abroad, our broken immigration system routinely allows  families to be permanently torn apart, and forces children into what is often an equally chaotic child welfare system. While the HELP Act is a good first step to assist and protect children who are at risk of being separated from their parents, we need a permanent solution for the broader problem of immigrant family separation — which only comprehensive immigration reform can provide.

ICE Raids

Update: ICE Clarifies It’s Priorities

March 31, 2010 - Posted by Maurice Belanger

On March 30, we wrote about a Washington Post story about a memo from a high-level Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official that appeared to be pressing ICE offices to bring their number of arrests up to meet a “goal” of 400,000 criminal and non-criminal arrests by the end of the fiscal year.

On Monday, DHS Assistant Secretary for Immigration and Customs Enforcement John Morton met with a group of stakeholders to clarify ICE’s priorities.  In a follow-up letter, Mr. Morton underlined what he stated in an earlier press release re-acting to the Washington Post article.

“I cannot state strongly enough my opposition to quotas.  ICE does not, and on my watch will not, impose quotas that propel field officers to identify and arrest any particular number of non-criminal aliens.”  

Mr. Morton pledged to review the work plans of each ICE field office to make sure they incorporate this policy.

In a separate memo that went out to ICE field office directors on March 26 (and mentioned in the Post story of March 27), James Chaparro (author of the February 22 memo at the center of the controversy) “clarified” his earlier memo.  The March 26 memo also alludes to the tightrope the agency is forced to walk when it must enforce the rules of a dysfunctional system.  Here’s what I’d call an understatement:

“The balance between our priorities, the budget, and congressional expectations can be challenging…”

Chaparro asks his staff to “remain focused” on identifying and removing “aliens who pose a threat to national security or public safety…, aliens who are fugitives or otherwise obstruct immigration controls” (including those who re-enter the country illegally after removal and those who obtain admission through fraud) and “illegal entrants apprehended at and near the border…to stop the prior practice commonly referred to as ‘catch and release’.” 

Each of these categories is accompanied by a set of sub-priorities within them.  You can read the complete memo here. 

Beyond these priorities, though, the memo acknowledges that other immigrants unlawfully present can’t be ignored.

“To be clear, ICE employees should continue to enforce immigration laws and this memorandum should not be construed to prohibit the removal of other aliens unlawfully in the United States.”

In his letter to stakeholders, Morton also clarifies somewhat that, for purposes of ICE’s enforcement priorities, “criminal aliens” means “aliens convicted of crimes,” not “aliens charged with crimes.”  

Of course, my lawyer friends will say that more clarification will be needed on what is meant by “crimes.”  Especially in the separate reality of the immigration context, even a minor crime can be an “aggravated felony.” 

What remains unclear is the concern that, beyond the focus on fugitives and those who have been convicted of crimes, there is a perception that a certain level of detainees must be maintained.  In the memo by Mr. Chaparro, he says,

“We have an obligation to focus on our priorities while also adhering to Congressional mandates to maintain an average daily population and meet annual performance measures.” (Emphasis added.)

The conference language spelling out spending for ICE for Fiscal Year 2010 is somewhat more vague on the level of detentions.

“Provided further, That funding made available under this heading shall maintain a level of not less than 33,400 detention beds through September 30, 2010….”

In other words, we have to maintain a certain capacity in our gulags, but we do not have to keep them full to capacity.

On the other hand, the conference report is less vague about ICE priorities:

“That of the total amount available, not less than $1,500,000,000 shall be available to identify aliens convicted of a crime who may be deportable, and to remove them from the United States once they are judged deportable … Provided further, That the Secretary shall prioritize the identification and removal of aliens convicted of a crime by the severity of that crime….”

The bottom line, though, is that enforcing the rules of a broken system, for as long as Congress fails to act to fix it, will be a thankless task.  Since the quota story broke in the Washington Post, some advocates are calling for Morton’s dismissal.  If Morton does not steer his agency to focus on removing people who actually may be a threat, he will face growing criticism from immigrants and their growing number of supporters all across the country—criticism that may lead to the downfall of the Administration.  On the other hand, if he is successful in getting the agency to focus on his stated priorities, he is going to get beat up by members of the minority party who would rather see more families being torn apart and workers sent out of the country.  

There is no way to make everyone happy, and he shouldn’t try.  Until Congress acts to make the laws more sensible, Mr. Morton his going to have to pick his priorities, stick to them, and take the criticism that will come.

Detention ICE Raids

In the Wake of a Raid, How do Families Survive?

February 08, 2010 - Posted by Maurice Belanger

What happens to family members, primarily children, who are U.S. citizens or permanent residents once one or both undocumented parents are swept up in a raid?

On February 2nd, the Urban Institute released a report, Facing Our Future: Children in the Aftermath of Immigration Enforcement.  Researchers at the Urban Institute examined the consequences of parental arrest, detention, and deportation on 190 children in six locations around the country.

The undocumented immigrants who are at the center of the debate on immigration reform have, for the most part, been here a long time.  Many of them have children. There are 5.5 million children who have one or more unauthorized immigrant parent. Three-quarters of them are U.S. citizens.

The Urban Institute study follows up on families that have been affected by an immigration enforcement action, in an effort to determine short-term and longer-term effects.

Not surprisingly, children experienced widespread behavioral changes, including disrupted eating and sleeping habits, anxiety, withdrawal, aggressiveness, and other behavioral changes as a consequence of the absence of a parent after an arrest.  These behavioral changes were experienced more often if the arrest occurred during a home invasion conducted by ICE agents.

The report also examined how families survive when one or both breadwinners lose their job as the result of an immigration enforcement action. 

For most of the sites studied, there was a very strong community response to help take care of the families of those arrested.  Immigrant family victims of raids received help from relatives, friends, churches and community groups.  Though immigrants who were arrested and released were not supposed to work, many eventually made their way into the informal labor market out of economic necessity. 

The undocumented worker/mixed status family population that was the subject of the study was, as one might expect, extremely motivated to work.  Even when one or both breadwinners lost their jobs as a result of arrest, many would not consider relying on public benefits.  One woman interviewed for the study said,

“I want them to see that I’m not a burden for anybody.  I don’t want to ask for anything, I know people can give you [things] but I won’t ask even if I’m drowning, even now that I have the water coming up to here, I haven’t done it.”

Indeed, undocumented immigrants are not eligible for public benefits.  However, their U.S.-citizen children are.  Even with an extreme aversion to public assistance, economic necessity pushed some to turn to public assistance—Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (cash assistance) and food stamps—so their children could eat and have shelter.  According to the report, more than one-quarter of all families studied received TANF more than six months after arrest, and nearly half were receiving food stamps.

This is another spinoff problem of our broken immigration system.  We are taking people who are highly motivated to work, who are the breadwinners for their family, and who are doing a fine job of providing for their family while at the same time helping to keep our economy going.  We are taking these people and jailing and removing them or releasing them but forbidding them to work.  To keep their kids from starving, they are forced to rely on public assistance to make ends meet.

This is just one more example of how, if we follow the policy prescriptions of mass deportation advocates, we’d better be prepared to pay a high price.  The Urban Institute studied just 85 families.  If we multiply by a million or two, the safety net benefit costs will add up.

It would be more logical to let the family breadwinner work legally and continue to provide for the family—and in the process to provide business for other companies in our ailing economy, so those companies can continue to employ the breadwinners of more families.

Photo by Flickr user Monster Pete.

Children Raids

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