Migration News

Biden tells migrants not to come to US: 'Don't leave your town'
Maegan Vazquez and Kate Sullivan, CNN
President Joe Biden discouraged would-be migrants from coming to the United States as his administration scrambles to respond to a surge of unaccompanied migrant children coming into the US. "I can say quite clearly: Don't come," Biden told ABC in an interview aired on Tuesday. The President continued: "We're in the process of getting set up, don't leave your town or city or community." There's been a major spike in the number of migrant children in US custody. More than 4,000 migrant children are in Border Patrol custody, stretching federal resources for shelter space thin. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement on Tuesday that "we are on pace to encounter more individuals on the southwest border than we have in the last 20 years."

Republicans' hostility grows toward illegal immigrants as party attacks Biden on border
Chris Kahn and David Morgan, Reuters
Republican voters in the United States are increasingly hostile toward illegal immigrants, Reuters/Ipsos polling shows, an unease that the Republican Party is moving to capitalize on in its bid to retake Congress. The poll findings, based on surveys conducted before and after Donald Trump’s presidency, show that Republicans are becoming more unified around the former president’s hardline views on immigration, even as the rest of the country has become more welcoming. Seventy-seven percent of Republicans said in a Feb. 18-24 poll that they want more fencing along the southern border with Mexico, up six points from 2015. And 56% do not want illegal immigrants to have a path to citizenship, which is up 18 percentage points from a 2018 survey.

Migrants are not overrunning U.S. border towns, despite the political rhetoric
Arelis R. Hernández, The Washington Post
The way many Republicans describe it, President Biden has thrown open the border between Mexico and the United States so that anyone who wants to come into the country can do so, illegally or legally. Former president Donald Trump accused Biden of “recklessly eliminating our border, security measures, controls, all of the things.” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) says Biden has rushed to implement “open border policies.” Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) says the new president “sent a message around South and Central America that our border is open.” But many of those who live along the border in Texas say that while there has been a dramatic increase in the number of migrants caught crossing illegally, the border itself has been heavily restricted for nearly a year because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Trump’s Incomplete Border Wall Is in Pieces That Could Linger for Decades
Simon Romero and Zolan Kanno-Youngs, The New York Times
The sweeping view of undefiled wilderness on the border with Mexico long rewarded hikers who completed the Arizona Trail, an 800-mile route winding through deserts, canyons and forests. Then something else came into focus a few weeks ago at the forbidding site in the Huachuca Mountains: a lonely segment of border wall, connected to nothing at all, in an area where migrants rarely even try to cross into the United States. “There it was, this unfinished piece of completely pointless wall, right in this magical place,” said Julia Sheehan, 31, a nurse and former Air Force mechanic who trekked to the site with three other military veterans who are hiking the Arizona Trail. “It’s one of the most senseless things I’ve ever seen.”

Immigrant advocates push against Arizona’s top prosecutor
Anita Snow, AP/The Herald Sun
A Latino civil rights organization has filed a lawsuit against Arizona's top prosecutor on behalf of nonprofit groups that say his efforts to block President Joe Biden's changes to past immigration policy are unlawful. The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund on Tuesday filed the lawsuit against Attorney General Mark Brnovich for the Arizona-based Puente Human Rights Movement, Chicanos Por La Causa and the Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project. The groups provide services to immigrants. The Tuesday filing seeks to void an agreement Brnovich signed with former President Donald Trump's administration in its waning days. The agreement is among several the outgoing government signed with numerous states, saying they were entitled to to a 180-day consultation period before any executive branch policy changes take effect.

Funding approved for refugee resettlement programs across NYS
Chelsea Siegal, RochesterFirst
On Monday, Assembly member Jon Rivera and Senator Sean Ryan announced that funding for the New York State Enhanced Services to Refugees Program had “overwhelming support” in both Legislative houses. As part of the 2021 state budget, the Assembly approved $3 million in funding. The next steps for the approval process are pending. The Enhanced Services to Refugees Program provides services so that refugees can successfully integrate into local communities. The program began in 2017 in response to the federal government’s pull back on refugee resettlement.

Further Reading

How Boise, Idaho, Became a Sanctuary for Refugees and Their Cuisine
Atlas Obscura

Refugee Status for Yazidi Mothers
The New York Times

When Americans recall their roots, they open up to immigration
The Conversation US