Migration News

Biden's first 100 days: How U.S. immigration policy has — and hasn't — changed
Camilo Montoya-Galvez, CBS News
President Biden came into office pledging to usher in a new era of U.S. immigration policy by rolling back his predecessor's hard-line agenda, proposing to legalize undocumented immigrants, expanding legal immigration and making America a safe haven for refugees. During his first 100 days as president, Mr. Biden halted border wall construction and ended some Trump-era policies, including broad restrictions on green cards. However, Mr. Biden has kept several of his predecessor's immigration changes, including a historic-low cap on refugees and limits on asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Justice Department ends Trump-era limits on grants to ‘sanctuary cities’
Sarah Lynch, Reuters
The U.S. Justice Department has repealed a policy put in place during Donald Trump’s presidency that cut off hundreds of millions of dollars in grants to sanctuary cities that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities. In an internal memo seen by Reuters, acting head of the Office of Justice Programs Maureen Henneberg said that prior grant recipients, including cities, counties and states that were recipients of the department's popular $250 million annual grant program for local law enforcement, will no longer be required to cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as a condition of their funding.

DHS launches operation to combat transnational organizations trafficking migrants across border
Luke Barr, ABC News
As the world has seen images of migrant children being dropped over the border or left for dead, the Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday announced an effort to prevent transnational crime organizations from smuggling migrants across the border. DHS said "Operation Sentinel" will be focused not only on cutting off transnational crime organizations funding, but on the actual operations of smuggling. "We know all too well that these organizations put profit over human life with devastating consequences," DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told reporters on a conference call. "With the help of our federal and foreign partners, we aim to cut off access to that profit by denying these criminal organizations, the ability to engage in travel trade and finance in the United States. We intend to disrupt every facet of the logistical network that these organizations use to succeed," he said. "Operation Sentinel will focus on disrupting the transnational criminal organizations that smuggle migrants into the United States."

DHS launches enforcement operation targeting smugglers
Nick Niedzwiadek, Politico
The Biden administration on Tuesday announced a stepped-up enforcement initiative targeting smuggling operations as part of its ongoing response to a record number of migrants arriving at the nation's southern border. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said that federal officials are targeting transnational criminal organizations and their members by going after their ability to travel, trade and access financial assets within the United States. “We intend to disrupt every facet of the logistical network that these organizations use to succeed,” Mayorkas said on a call with reporters announcing the plan, dubbed “Operation Sentinel.”

Biden Administration Limits Power Of ICE To Arrest Immigrants In Courthouses
Mark Katkov, NPR
In another reversal of Trump administration immigration enforcement policy, the Department of Homeland Security announced Tuesday that federal agents would no longer be permitted to arrest people in or near courthouses for most immigration violations. In a statement, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said such arrests interfered with the administration of justice and public safety. "The expansion of civil immigration arrests at courthouses during the prior administration had a chilling effect on individuals' willingness to come to court or work cooperatively with law enforcement," Mayorkas said. The previous policy, formalized in 2018, authorized ICE to enter federal, state and local courthouses to arrest people who were there for reasons unrelated to their immigration status. Witnesses in trials, people seeking court protection from abusive partners and others pursuing mundane civil complaints were among persons seized by federal agents.

Undocumented immigrants, passed over for COVID relief, press Murphy for financial help
Monsy Alvarado, NorthJersey.com
Dolores Huerta, a legendary labor leader for migrant farmworkers, joined activists across New Jersey on Tuesday to pressure Gov. Phil Murphy and state lawmakers to provide funding for immigrants who have so far been left out of coronavirus relief. In a video posted on social media by immigrants rights group Make the Road New Jersey, Huerta called on theDemocratic governor, who's seeking reelection this year, to provide what she termed a "meaningful recovery for all'' — and pointed to a $125 million fund set up by California to help undocumented immigrants ineligible for other forms of pandemic aid. "These are agricultural workers, horticulture workers; they are putting food on the table of all New Jersey residents,'' Huerta said in the one-minute video. "I want you also to understand how important these workers are for the economy of New Jersey, not only for the food that they are providing, but also for all that they consume, and all they contribute in taxes and into the economy."

Report shows higher-than-average COVID-19 spread among immigrant detainees
Rhina Guidos, Catholic News Service
A recent analysis by The New York Times found evidence for what many Catholic organizations and other entities warned about at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States — the faster spread of the coronavirus among those detained in facilities for immigration violations. The newspaper in an April 25 report said Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, facilities had “an average infection rate five times that of prisons and 20 times that of the general population.” In the most current data, the agency has reported 12,000 cases of COVID-19 in its facilities since the start of the pandemic. In an April 2020 statement, El Paso Bishop Mark J. Seitz, Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin of Newark, New Jersey, and Cardinal Alvaro Ramazzini of Huehuetenango, Guatemala, called for an immediate release “of as many migrants and asylum-seekers from detention as possible,” fearing the spread of the virus inside and outside the immigration detention centers.

New York man charged with attempted murder in attack on Chinese immigrant
Rich Mckay, Reuters
A New York City man was arrested and charged on Tuesday with attempted murder in what police have classified as a hate crime against a Chinese immigrant, authorities said. The victim, identified by police as 61-year-old Yao Pan Ma, was attacked in the East Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan on April 23. The assault is the latest in a spate of attacks targeting Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders across the nation. A recent report by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University at San Bernardino showed that crimes against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) jumped by 145% in 2020, even as hate crimes overall in the United States fell slightly. In March, a shooting spree at three spas in and around Atlanta left eight people dead, including six Asian women. Police said that they have not ruled out charging the suspect with a hate crime.

Senate Democrats push Biden over raising refugee cap
Jordain Carney, The Hill
President Biden is facing new pressure from Senate Democrats to increase the number of refugees being admitted into the United States. Thirty-four Senate Democrats including Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) sent a letter, spearheaded by Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), to Biden urging him to lift the cap on refugee admissions to 62,500 for the current fiscal year and to set it at a minimum of 125,000 for fiscal 2022, which starts Oct. 1. "The United States must reject the previous Administration’s cruel legacy of anti-refugee policies and return to our longstanding bipartisan tradition of providing safety to the world’s most vulnerable refugees," the senators wrote in the letter, referring to the Trump administration's decision to set the cap at a historic low of 15,000.

Activists in Tampa call for passage of immigration bills
Mitch Perry, Bay News 9
With polls showing increasing disapproval of President Joe Biden’s handling of the surge of Central Americans at the border, immigration groups around the country are rallying this week around two bills that would create a pathway to citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants. “We are caregivers, educators, hospitality, agricultural, transportation and health care workers, and more importantly, we are taxpayers with families who contribute to the development of our communities,” said William Joel Bravo, the deputy political director for the Florida Immigrant Coalition at a press conference Tuesday in front of the U.S. Federal Building in Tampa. Similar press events have been taking place across the country over the past week as part of the March to Victory: Relay Across America campaign, which is advocating support for two specific pieces of immigration-related legislation.

Further Reading

A New York Post story about Kamala Harris triggered conservative outrage. Almost all of it was wrong. Now the reporter has resigned.
The Washington Post

Opinion: Some bad news about our future gives Biden a big opening. Will he seize it?
The Washington Post

Op-Ed: A recovery that leaves out undocumented immigrants is not a recovery
NJ Spotlight News

Human Smuggling a Profitable Business at Migrants' Expense
Voice of America