• Anthropologist Chronicles Israel's Deportation Campaign

    The United States is not the only country using deportation to deal with a large number of undocumented illegal immigrants. A new book details nearly twenty years of similar deportation campaigns against undocumented migrant communities by another nation — Israel.

  • “Offshore Processing” in Guatemala: A Deeper Look at the U.S. Asylum Deal

    For more than twenty years, a little-noticed provision of U.S. law allowing for the transfer of asylum seekers to a third country for processing lay dormant, until late last month when the United States and Guatemala signed an agreement that essentially replicates Australia’s so-called “offshore-processing” system. The U.S.-Guatemala agreement represents a far different choice of policy direction than a “safe third country” agreement. Rather, bears a striking resemblance to Australia’s “regional processing” agreement with Nauru, a tiny island country in Micronesia where Australia sends those attempting to travel to the country by boat seeking asylum.

  • How a Struggling Coffee Market Pushes Guatemalans North

    Last year, Stephanie Leutert traveled to the Guatemalan highlands to visit the towns that were sending the most people per capita to the United States. She was curious about why Guatemalans were leaving their communities and what factors contributed to these decisions. In each town, she never found a single answer but, rather, various overlapping reasons that included a changing climate, low wages, few opportunities for employment, a desire for family reunification, distrust in political leaders and a lack of safety, among others. Yet there was one unexpected theme that she kept hearing about in the highlands: a changing coffee sector and low international coffee prices.

  • U.S. to Allow Indefinite Detention of Migrant Children

    The administration said on Wednesday that it would remove limits on how long migrant children can be detained. The move would allow for migrant families detained at the Mexican border to be held until their asylum case is processed, which can take up to several months. In order to allow for indefinite detention, DHS said it would terminate the 1997 Flores Settlement Agreement, a legal ruling that barred the government from holding migrant children in detention for more than twenty days.

  • Adopting the Original Definition of Asylum

    Negative Population Growth (NPG), a non-profit organization advocating a gradual reduction in the U.S.(and the world’s) population, has released a research paper that examines the current asylum crisis by taking a look back at U.S. policies and where the nation stands now. The report states: “Our border is out of control, and asylum abuse is the reason. Due to a huge number of bogus asylum claims, a process designed to provide refuge to the oppressed has become an enabler for out-of-control illegal immigration… Asylum was designed to protect individuals fleeing persecution, not those fleeing poverty. Until this distinction is firmly entrenched in legal practice, our national sovereignty will be at risk.”

  • Creating an Orderly Legal Immigration Structure

    The U.S. government has allowed its asylum and border processing system to become overwhelmed. Central Americans are crossing illegally and often relying on asylum and other processing procedures at the border because they are virtually the only ways for them to enter the United States. The most realistic and humane way to control the border is for Congress and the administration to channel future immigrants into an orderly legal structure for coming to the country.

  • Court Allows Trump Asylum Rules to Take Effect in California, Arizona

    A federal appeals court’s on Friday allowed the Trump administration partially to begin and reject asylum seekers at some parts of the U.S. The administration’s rule would reject asylum of migrants who passed through a third country but failed to apply for asylum in that country. The rule does not apply to Mexican seekers of asylum. The ruling from the ninth U.S. circuit court of appeals limited a lower court’s order against Donald Trump’s policy to California and Arizona. Under the ruling, U.S. district judge Jon Tigar’s 24 July 2019 order will not apply to New Mexico or Texas. The new rule would deny asylum to those migrants who have traveled through a country considered by the United States to be “safe,” and where the migrant should have, therefore, applied for asylum before continuing the journey to the United States.

  • Asylum-Seeking Migrants Pushed Farther South into Mexico, Left to Fend for Themselves

    By Jay Root

    Migrants have been bused to Monterrey and, they say, Chiapas under an ever-changing and often brutal “remain in Mexico” program. The policy is being carried out up and down the border by the Trump Administration in a controversial partnership with the Mexican government.

  • Foreign-Born PhDs Deterred from Working in Startups Because of Visa Concerns

    Foreign-born Ph.D. graduates with science and engineering degrees from American universities apply to and receive offers for technology startup jobs at the same rate as U.S. citizens, but are only half as likely to actually work at fledgling companies, a study finds.

  • More than 900 Children – 170 Under the Age of 5 -- Separated from Their Families at the Border

    In June 2018, U.S. District Court Dana Sabraw issued a preliminary injunction which ordered the government to halt the practice of splitting families at the border except in limited circumstances — such as concerns about a child’s safety. Kevin McAleenan, the acting DHS secretary, told Congress that family separations are “extremely rare.” In papers filed in court Tuesday, the ACLU says that 911 children have been separated from their parents, and that one in every five children separated is under the age of 5.

  • The Roots of Discrimination Against Immigrants

    All over the world, immigration has become a source of social and political conflict. But what are the roots of antipathy toward immigrants, and how might conflict between immigrant and native populations be dampened? New research finds that religion may matter more than ethnicity in how immigrants are treated, even if they comply with local social norms.

  • Justice Dept. Moves to Block Asylum Claims Based on Family Ties

    Attorney General William P. Barr moved on Monday to end asylum protections for migrants solely because their relatives have been persecuted, the latest attempt by the Trump administration to limit sanctuary for people seeking refuge in the United States. Barr’s decision overturned a 2018 judgment by the Justice Department’s Board of Immigration Appeals, which found that a Mexican migrant whose father was targeted by a drug cartel could be eligible for asylum.

  • The Most Prosecuted Federal Offense in America: A Primer on the Criminalization of Border Crossing

    The federal statute criminalizing illegal entry into the United States, 8 U.S.C.§ 1325(a), has become an unlikely focus of the Democratic presidential primary. Supporters of decriminalization argue that criminalization is unnecessary, given that immigration violations already carry civil penalties, and that prosecutions under § 1325 waste government resources, allow for abusive use of prosecutorial power and do little to deter undocumented crossings. So what precisely does § 1325 do? Why is it important? And what effect would decriminalizing illegal entry into the U.S. really have?

  • Federal Judge Blocks Trump’s Restrictions on Asylum at U.S.-Mexico Border

    A U.S. federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from enforcing a directive which disqualifies a significant proportion of mostly Central American asylum-seekers who reach the U.S.-Mexico border. In his ruling Wednesday, Judge Jon Tigar of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California cited multiple concerns about the rule and the way it was issued. Hours before Tigar issued his ruling, a district court judge in Washington, D.C., denied a similar request to block the rule in a separate case.

  • Judge Allows Administration’s Restrictive Asylum Rule to Stand

    A federal judge on Wednesday said he would not block a new rule which effectively bars most migrants from Central America and other countries from seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border. Analysts say the rule amounts to a seismic change in U.S. approach to asylum seekers. The rule restricts access to the U.S. asylum system for non-Mexican migrants who traveled through Mexico and other countries in order to reach the U.S. border — but who did not seek protection in those nations.