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Papeles! the tall man with baggy eyes and a black Carhartt sweatshirt demanded through a small opening in the glass door.

Frightened, the young woman, who Ill refer to as Diana, rushed back to her car. Shaking, she drove down the road several blocks with her young child, where she waited for me to arrive.

I tried to explain our situation, Diana said. But he just kept screaming, Papeles!

A few minutes later, I drove up Shepard Drive toward the local U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office, which is located on the corner of Shepard and Turner. An old car wash sign towers over the parking lot, providing evidence of the buildings once civilian past.

I assured Diana that everything would be alright. Although, to be honest, I didnt know if it would. The same man who had startled her earlier cracked open the door. I explained myself, and asked if I could accompany them inside.

No, the man replied curtly.

Will they have an interpreter? I replied.

Yes, he said, but as I knew from other immigrants, interpretation is often done with Google translator.

When will they be released? I asked.

I cant say, he responded.

As I waited outside, I reflected on Dianas recent journey. Alongside her family, she fled Latin America in early May after receiving countless death threats. Members of a local guerilla group killed her husband after he refused to support the rebels cause with monthly payments. Now, they were coming after the entire family. So, they fled to the United States with the hope of being granted asylum.

Every year, over 1 million people migrate to the U.S., but only a fraction of these individuals are eligible for asylum. And even fewer receive it. In 2019, which is the most recent year with accurate data, only 46,500 people were granted asylum, down from nearly 150,000 per year in the mid-1990s. Callously, as the demand for asylum has increased, the U.S. government has consistently reduced the number of annual slots available. Under the Trump administration, the number of people granted asylum nearly bottomed out.

During the Trump years, the Durango ICE facility was a lively place. Agents roamed the county, hunting down undocumented migrants. Unmarked cars were so common in trailer parks that residents set up neighborhood watch groups via WhatsApp and installed security cameras. One agent would even post up undercover on Friday nights at El Rancho Tavern.

Hed get drunk with us, and start asking questions that implicated people we knew, one member of the immigrant community recently told me. Hed even run his finger under his nose to try and bait people into selling him drugs. Can you believe that?

ICE was created in 2002 under the Homeland Security Act. As a branch of the Department of Homeland Security, ICEs ostensible mission is to protect America from the cross-border crime and illegal immigration that threaten national security and public safety. However, in practice, ICE has ushered in a historic level of government intrusion and has facilitated the abuse of individual rights and liberties.

Today, ICE continues to seed fear in our local community and they do so with absolutely no citizen oversight. Everyday immigrants like Diana are forced to attend meetings with ICE agents where their very future in this country may be determined alone. No other government agency in our community operates with such anonymity nor should they.

Democracy depends on the transparency of elections and the accountability of government officials. In the absence of these conditions, democracy withers away. In this sense, supporting the rights of local immigrants is about much more than individual lives, its about our collective future as a nation.

Ben Waddell is an associate professor of sociology at Fort Lewis College and serves on the board of Compaeros, a Durango-based immigration rights nonprofit.

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Local immigrants, ICE, our collective future converge The Durango Herald - The Durango Herald

In a blow to states that sued the Biden administration to bring the border under control, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the Department of Homeland Security isnt required to continue the Trump-era Migrant Protection Protocols better known as Remain in Mexico and that lower courts cant force the government to send illegal migrants back across the border to await their immigration hearings.

That opinion punted to the lower courts the most important questions: Can the administration continue releasing thousands of migrants daily? And what obligations does the president have to enforce the laws Congress wrote?

Unlike every previous president, Joe Biden has no policy to deter illegal entrants. Instead, his administration believes its responsibility is ensuring that there are safe, orderly, and legal pathways for every alien who enters the United States legally or otherwise to seek asylum.

That is, in part, why the administration is fighting to terminate pandemic-related orders issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention under Title 42, directing the expulsion of migrants who have entered illegally. Expelled aliens cant apply for asylum, a process that can take years and a protection that only 14% of border asylum claimants historically have received.

In the absence of a border deterrence policy, illegal entries have soared. Border Patrol agents at the southwest border apprehended a record number of illegal entrants in fiscal year 2021 and set a new monthly record for apprehensions there in May.

All told, CBP has encountered more than 2.7 million illegal immigrants at the US-Mexico line since February 2021. DHS expelled about 53% of them under Title 42, but more than 1.28 million others were processed for removal proceedings, and the administration has released nearly 1.05 million of those into the United States where they will remain indefinitely through the end of May.

Thats not how its supposed to work. The immigration laws require DHS to detain illegal migrants, with one exception. Congress gave the department very limited authority to parole individuals into the United States, but only for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit.

DHS asserts the surge of migrants at the southwest border has overwhelmed its detention capacity, though Immigration and Customs Enforcement is not using all of its detention beds and the president wants Congress to cut detention space by more than a quarter in FY 2023. Therefore, the administration argues, releasing illegal migrants into the United States on parole is a significant public benefit.

The Supreme Court ruled narrowly, finding that DHS has discretion to return illegal migrants back to Mexico to await their hearings and thus also has discretion not to. Additionally, the justices held that DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas latest memo terminating MPP was a final agency action, separate from an earlier version courts had found violated the Administrative Procedure Act. Finally, it determined that lower courts cant order the sorts of class-wide injunctive relief that had stymied numerous Trump administration immigration initiatives.

That leaves it to the lower courts to determine whether the law requires illegal migrants to be detained and to assess whether Congress has placed restrictions on the administrations authority to release illegal migrants on parole and, if so, what those restrictions entail.

Congressional Republicans hostile to the presidents border policy will have their say on these issues if they gain control in November, too. Thursdays Supreme Court opinion is a setback to the states, but its far from the last word on Bidens border policies.

Andrew Arthur is a former INS associate general counsel, congressional staffer and staff director, and immigration judge who now serves as the resident fellow in law and policy at the Center for Immigration Studies.

Read more:
Biden has no policy to deter illegal immigration, but the fight isn't over yet - New York Post

With thousands of people a day pouring into Eagle Pass, Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott said at a news conference Wednesday in the small border town that the state's border security operations are expanding.

He made the announcement after sheriffs deputies in a county further north apprehended human smugglers and dropped them off at the port of entry in Eagle Pass, effectively deporting them.

Abbott said he is expanding Texas Department of Public Safety operations within Operation Lone Star to include new strike teams of 20 troopers each. Theyve already begun targeting semi-trucks and establishing new vehicle checkpoints in order to detect and deter smuggling operations, the governor said.

The Texas Military Department also is deploying more razor wire along the Rio Grande River, adding more miles of fencing and barriers on state and local property, and deploying additional boat teams, he said. Texas is continuing to do the federal governments job in response to a crisis the president created, Abbott argues.

"The Lone Star State will not sit idly by as the federal government chooses to ignore the historic number of illegal crossings, human smuggling, and drug trafficking of deadly fentanyl from Mexico into the United States, he said. Our government has no greater responsibility than to provide public safety to its citizens. Until President Biden decides to uphold immigration laws passed by Congress, the state of Texas will continue utilizing every tool available to secure the border and keep Texans and Americans safe."

The thousands of people daily entering the Eagle Pass region have crossed the Rio Grande River from Piedras Negras in Coahuila, Mexico. The constant flow of people, drugs and smuggling through their communities, some residents argue, is evidence that the memorandum of understanding Abbott signed with the governor of Coahuila hasnt stopped illegal crossing or crime.

On April 14, Gov. Abbott signed memorandas of understanding with Coahuila Gov. Miguel ngel Riquelme Sols and Chihuahua Gov. Mara Eugenia Campos Galvn in Austin. Hes signed four agreements in total. Since then, illegal entry into Texas from these governors states has only increased, not decreased, according to federal data.

On Wednesday morning, farther north of Eagle Pass in Kinney County, Sheriff Brad Coe's deputies engaged in a vehicle pursuit of human smugglers, which ended with the vehicle rolling over. Deputies, due to a range of factors, transported four illegal immigrants to the Eagle Pass Port of Entry and dropped them off in the middle of the international bridge, effectively deporting them. Federal officers staffing the bridge applauded the deputies, retired Border Patrol agent Frank Lopez Jr., whos running for Congress in the district covering this part of the border, told The Center Square.

Coe couldnt be reached for comment.

Law enforcement officers have sworn an oath to uphold the constitution, Lopez said, and what the Biden administration is doing is ignoring, disregarding, and violating it.

Im surprised that we havent had more of a righteous disregard for unlawful and unconstitutional orders within the Border Patrol, he added of those working in his former agency of 30-plus years. What Border Patrol agents are being ordered to do isnt what they signed up for, he said, referring to processing and releasing illegal immigrants into the U.S. instead of deporting them in accordance with federal law.

Sheriff Coe will always place the safety of Kinney County residents above all else, Kinney County Attorney Brent Smith told The Center Square. If that means transporting illegal aliens to the border, then so be it. The safety of Texans should be placed before the comfort of others illegally within our country.

Smith helped prosecute the first convicted illegal immigrant apprehended through Operation Lone Star. Kinney County leads in the number of OLS arrests for criminal trespassing, human smuggling and other crimes committed out of all counties participating in Texas border security operation.

Kinney County was the first to declare a disaster declaration last April in response to the impact illegal immigration has had on its residents. Other counties followed suit, also issuing disaster declarations. One month later, Abbott declared a disaster declaration for multiple counties in response.

Abbotts and local sheriffs efforts continue after a record number of people have been apprehended entering the U.S. illegally at the southwestern border and a record number are estimated to have evaded capture and are living somewhere in the U.S. illegally.

Link:
Texas to Expand Border Security to cut Constant Flow of Illegal Immigrants and Drugs - bigcountrynewsconnection.com

The liberal media has characterized the Supreme Courts decision allowing President Biden to terminate the Remain in Mexico policy as a win for the president.

Not so fast. In reality, the court has handed the struggling president yet another political hot potato. Already there are a record number of people traveling north to cross into the U.S. illegally; this decision will likely increase the flow, causing headaches for an overwhelmed border patrol, and for the White House.

A recent Economist poll shows Bidens approval on immigration at 32 percent; chaos at the border is not popular.

Bidens approach so far has been to ignore the problem, despite pleas from border states, which absorb the brunt of the influx. Now, however, after the horrific deaths of 53 migrants left to die inside a scorching truck, Democrats and the liberal media are finally paying attention. Its about time.

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) has called the slaughter a Uvalde moment, likening the impact of those deaths to the galvanizing murders of 19 school children last month in Uvalde, Texas. That terrible event led to the first gun reform laws being passed in decades.

Similarly inspired, Durbin and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) are reportedly in talks aimed at reaching a broad compromise on immigration.

This could throw Biden a lifeline. Were the president to encourage Democrats in Congress to propose sensible immigration reforms, he might actually improve his standing.

The odds are long.

Over many years, repeated efforts to agree on common sense immigration rules that might stem the flow of people coming across our border illegally now at over 200,000 per month have flopped. Many Democrats welcome the flood of mostly Hispanic people entering our country, convinced that they will ultimately become voters for their party. That was not always the case.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) declared in 2009 to the Migration Policy Institute, Illegal immigration is wrong, and a primary goal of comprehensive immigration reform must be to dramatically curtail future illegal immigration. Today, for Schumer and other Democrats, border security is a non-starter.

At the other end of the spectrum, Republicans think illegal immigration is a running sore, undermining the rule of law. They argue that you cannot have a secure country without a secure border.

Neither side has put forward a workable compromise in decades.

Biden took office determined to undo everything President Trump had accomplished, including his success in driving down the number of people attempting to enter the U.S. illegally. Trumps Remain in Mexico policy helped; the numbers were not large but news percolated south that the welcome mat had been removed.

On entering the Oval Office, Biden ordered the end of that approach but was initially blocked by the courts. Nonetheless, the presidents campaign promised to end detention of migrant families, to stop building the border wall and generally to be more welcoming to those seeking asylum; those signals encouraged the caravans to start making their way north.

The costs of Bidens see no evil attitude are evident. The deadly drug fentanyl, imported across our southern border, has become the number one cause of death among young people; 80,000 Americans died from fentanyl poisoning just last year. Fentanyl used to come from China; smugglers have now teamed up with Mexican drug cartels, which are reaping billions from easy access to U.S. buyers.

Meanwhile, the cartels are also earning a fortune from their smuggling operations. At the same time, an overwhelmed border patrol apprehended 50 people on the terror watch list last year; who knows how many slipped through undetected.

This is unacceptable. The administrations point person on immigration, Alejandro Mayorkas, was wrong when he told Congress that our border was closed. What he presumably meant was that the subject is closed not just within the White House, which has studiously refused to discuss the disaster at the border, but also among Democrats generally.

Which is why Durbins sudden awakening is welcome, as would be some reasonable new immigration rules. For instance:

Rewriting our dysfunctional and unpopular immigration laws seems like a heavy lift for a president unable to inspire even his own party.

But if Biden can lead Congress to common sense reforms, he might go down as a president who did something right. At this point, that seems like a long shot.

Liz Peek is a former partner of major bracket Wall Street firm Wertheim & Company. Follow her on Twitter @lizpeek.

Read more:
Could immigration reform reboot Joe Bidens presidency? - The Hill

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) Following the horror of a human-smuggling attempt that left 53 people dead, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott ordered state troopers to inspect more trucks again expanding a border security mission that has cost billions, given the National Guard arrest powers and bused migrants to Washington, D.C.

What Abbotts get-tough plans havent done in the year since he began rolling them out is curb the number of people crossing the border.

Along the border in Texas, where officials say Mondays fatal tractor-trailer journey began, U.S. authorities stopped migrants from crossing illegally 523,000 times between January and May, up from 417,000 over the same span a year ago. It reflects how, across the nations entire southern border, crossings are at or near the highest in about two decades.

The deadliest smuggling attempt in U.S. history illustrated the limitations of Abbotts massive border apparatus as the two-term governor, who is up for reelection in November, points the finger at President Joe Biden. Immigration advocates have disagreed with Abbotts criticism and said Biden is focused on enforcement.

Texas is going to take action to do our part to try to reduce the illegal immigration coming into our country, Abbott said Wednesday while on the border in the town of Eagle Pass.

He said that state troopers would begin inspecting more tractor-trailers in wake of the tragedy. He did not provide details about the extent or location of the inspections. But unlike an inspection effort three months ago that gridlocked the states 1,200-mile (1,930-kilometer) border for a week, troopers are not checking every tractor-trailer as it comes into Texas.

The Texas Department of Public Safety did not respond to questions Friday about how many trucks have been inspected since the governors order or whether any migrants have been found.

Critics have questioned the transparency and metrics of what is now a $3 billion mission since Operation Lone Star was launched in the spring of 2021. Some arrests, including for low-level amounts of marijuana during traffic stops, appear to have little to do with border security. After a rushed deployment of the Texas National Guard, some members complained of low morale, late paychecks and having little to do.

Since April, Abbott has offered bus rides to Washington, D.C., to migrants who cross the border, saying he was taking the immigration issue to Congress doorstep. So far, about 3,000 migrants have taken the trip at a cost of more than $5 million.

Greg Abbott, all he wants to do is gotcha phrases and gotcha stunts without any real solutions, said state Sen. Roland Gutierrez, a Democrat whose district includes the back road in San Antonio where the truck was found abandoned. Hes spent over $10 billion supposedly securing the border and hasnt done one damn thing to fix this.

U.S. border authorities are stopping migrants more often on the southern border than at any time in at least two decades. Migrants were stopped nearly 240,000 times in May, up by one-third from a year ago.

Comparisons to pre-pandemic levels are complicated because migrants expelled under a public health authority known as Title 42 face no legal consequences, encouraging repeat attempts. Authorities say 25% of encounters in May were with people who had been stopped at least once in the previous year.

Abbotts earlier truck inspection effort drew wide backlash and caused deep economic losses, and troopers found no migrants or drugs.

Abbott stopped the checks after signing agreements with governors in Mexicos four neighboring states, but warned he might reimpose them if he didnt see improvement. The number of migrants crossing in May was higher than in April.

Asked about it Wednesday, Abbott said accountability may come soon. He also blamed Mexicos federal government, saying it needs to do more.

He says the operation overall has been successful, pointing to more than 4,000 migrants arrested on state criminal trespassing charges, 14,000 felony arrests and drug seizures. He also said Texas has turned back more than 22,000 migrants over the last year a fraction of the attempted border crossings across the southern border in a single month.

Before Mondays tragedy, the deadliest attempted smuggling in Texas was in 2003 when the bodies of 19 people were found dead in a sweltering trailer about 100 miles (160 kilometers) southwest of San Antonio. Jeff Vaden, a former U.S. attorney who helped prosecute that case, said sentences for smuggling migrants are not high enough.

Its not a deterrent for people taking that risk, he said.

One of the first to visit some of the migrants pulled from the truck and hospitalized in San Antonio was Antonio Fernandez, president and CEO of Catholic Charities, which provides migrants and their families with housing and assistance.

Fernandez said summer is usually a slower time, but not this year. A hotel used by Catholic Charities that typically shelters 50 people has lately been filled with 100 every night, and he now has eight members of staff who help families with immigration, up from just one.

My conversations with a lot of these people, clearly, they have nothing in their countries, Fernandez said. They dont have a life and they dont feel safe. Theyre hungry. For them, America is not a choice. Its the only option they have.

Continued here:
Texas' border mission grows, but crossings still high - The Associated Press