Migration News

Why the White House wanted to avoid the refugee issue
Natasha Korecki, Laura Barrón-López and Nahal Toosi, POLITICO
Avoiding an escalation of conservative attacks against President Joe Biden’s immigration policies was one of the factors the White House considered when it initially decided to keep his predecessor’s controversial cap on refugees. Though the issues are separate, administration officials predicted raising the number of refugees, as Biden had promised to in February, would turbocharge the false claim on the right that the administration was “opening” its U.S. borders. They feared the ramifications, as they would come at a time when the White House is also asking Republicans to negotiate on a massive infrastructure package.

'Words we use matter': Biden administration chucks 'illegal alien' for 'noncitizen'
Suzanne Gamboa, NBC News
The Biden administration, in a public departure from previous immigration policy, has declared that words such as "alien" and "illegal alien" are out and "noncitizen" and "integration" are in. The administration has asked the heads of Customs and Border Protection, or CBP, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, to update their terminology "in response to the vision set by the administration." "We enforce our nation's laws while also maintaining the dignity of every individual with whom we interact. The words we use matter and will serve to further confer that dignity to those in custody," says a memo to the agencies' leaders dated Monday.

'It was terrible timing, he told officials': New reports shed light on Biden admin's refugee debacle
Gabe Ortiz, Daily Kos Staff
A New York Times report this week sheds more light on President Joe Biden’s refugee debacle last week when he initially decided to keep the prior administration’s cap in place, including revelations that he ignored a plea from Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other administration officials last month to raise the historically low number. The president’s excuse to not raise the cap for this fiscal year to 62,500 as he had pledged, the report said and as advocates had suspected, was entirely political. “It was terrible timing, he told officials, especially with federal agencies already struggling to manage the highest number of migrant children and teenagers at the border in more than a decade,” the report said. But as advocates and legislators have importantly noted, refugee and asylum admissions are two different systems. But the report said that Biden “was unmoved. The attitude of the president during the meeting, according to one person to whom the conversation was later described, was, essentially: Why are you bothering me with this?”

Immigrants Rally to Demand Congress Legalize Essential Immigrant Workers
InsiderNJ
Immigrant community members, immigrant rights organizations, and allies hosted a press conference and rally in Jersey City to take action to demand citizenship for undocumented essential workers and the 11 million undocumented immigrants who call this country home. Immigrant families and workers from Make the Road New Jersey, Wind of the Spirit, ACLU of New Jersey, New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice, 32BJ SEIU, CATA the Farmworkers Committee, American Friends Service Committee, and Faith in New Jersey, and allies participated in The March to Victory: Relay Across America as a part of a nationwide effort to demand a pathway to citizenship for all 11 million undocumented immigrants, and essential workers. As we near the first “100 Days” of the Biden Administration, we have yet to see legislation that creates a pathway to citizenship reach Biden’s desk. In order for our nation to battle the ongoing pandemic, we need economic relief for immigrants left behind from aid and a pathway to citizenship for all 11 million undocumented people.

An Early Promise Broken: Inside Biden’s Reversal on Refugees
Michael D. Shear and Zolan Kanno-Youngs, The New York Times
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken was in the Oval Office, pleading with President Biden. In the meeting, on March 3, Mr. Blinken implored the president to end Trump-era restrictions on immigration and to allow tens of thousands of desperate refugees fleeing war, poverty and natural disasters into the United States, according to several people familiar with the exchange. But Mr. Biden, already under intense political pressure because of the surge of migrant children at the border with Mexico, was unmoved. The attitude of the president during the meeting, according to one person to whom the conversation was later described, was, essentially: Why are you bothering me with this?

Advocates ‘shocked’ to learn Biden considered keeping Trump’s cap on refugees
Salvador Rivera, KTSM 9 News
Even as the Trump administration kept refugee numbers to record lows, the International Rescue Committee in San Diego was helping settle thousands of refugees from places such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Afghanistan and Iraq. There was hope that under President Joe Biden the numbers would go up and more people would be brought to the U.S. But last week, Biden temporarily dashed those hopes when the White House announced the cap on refugees would remain at 15,000 for the fiscal year 2021, the same total imposed during the Trump era.

Biden’s open to doing immigration through reconciliation, Hispanic lawmakers say
Laura Barrón-López and Nicholas Wu, POLITICO
President Joe Biden promised Hispanic lawmakers on Tuesday that he would make a more proactive case for the economic benefits of immigration. In the process, he left the impression that it would not just be a portion of his upcoming address to a joint session of Congress, but that he’d support moving immigration measures through budget rules allowing a simple majority vote in the Senate. “We can expect the president to be talking about the economic benefits of the immigration bill” in the future, said Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez (D-N.M.), one of multiple Congressional Hispanic Caucus members who met with the president at the White House.

‘The wheels fell off’: How Biden’s misgivings on border surge upended plan on refugees
Tyler Pager, Sean Sullivan and Seung Min Kim, The New York Times
President Biden overruled his top foreign policy and national security aides, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, when he kept in place the Trump administration’s record low cap on the number of refugees admitted to the United States, according to three people familiar with the matter, a decision that was reversed after a public outcry. Biden harbored concerns about what the sharp increase in migrants at the southern border meant for the government’s capacity to handle an influx of refugees from elsewhere, according to the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share private deliberations. In the end, the president’s own misgivings fueled the decision more than anything else, the people said.