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This month, the C.D.C. announced plans to end Title 42, a public-health order, issued by the Trump Administration at the start of the pandemic, that gives the federal government broad authority to turn away migrants and asylum seekers at the southern border. Public-health experts and some Democrats have pressured President Biden to repeal the order, but others, including several of his own top advisers, argue that the repeal will substantially increase the number of migrants at the southern border, further straining a chaotic immigration system, and hand Republicans a campaign issue for the midterms: a migrant surge approved by the Administration. Jonathan Blitzer joins Dorothy Wickenden to talk about how immigration is becoming another political liability for the Biden Administration.

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How Biden Stumbled on Immigration Reform - The New Yorker

When Joe Biden ran againstPresident Donald Trump in 2020, he promised to fight back against anti-immigrant policies, including those that punished "sanctuary cities" and that gave more local authorities power to act as an extra arm of federal immigration enforcement.

More than one year into Biden's presidency, his administration has done little to support so-called sanctuaries cities, counties or states that limit how much they help federal agents to investigate, arrest or detain immigrants.

Biden told voters he would dial back Trump's expansion of cooperation agreements between local police officers and agencies like Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Instead, the Biden administration has left such collaborations in place and is even trying to convince local governments that refused to cooperate with ICE under Trump to start doing so now, a Capital & Main review of government documents and speeches shows.

While Trump used the presidential pulpit to drive sanctuary cities, and undocumented immigration more broadly, into a kind of culture war, the Biden White House has made it a lower priority, said Benjamin Gonzalez O'Brien, a San Diego State University political science professor who co-wrote a 2019 book about thehistory and politicsof sanctuary policies.

In Congress, deep partisan divisions and internal party disagreements endure, and have caused immigration reform efforts tostall out, as Republicans falsely accuse Biden of overseeing "open borders" and Democrats fail to pass any of the nearly half-dozen immigration bills introduced so far.

But immigration remains a part of daily life in communities across the country, and local and state governments continue to pass laws and elect officials on one or the other side of the issue. These local decisions on whether or not to collaborate with federal enforcement canaffect public safetyand trust in law enforcement, including by diverting resources or encouraging racial profiling.

"We're going to see the battle over sanctuary policies play out [in different localities] until we get some kind of national legislation," said O'Brien. "There are still millions of people living in a legal gray zone who are afraid of leaving the house and interacting with other members of their community because that threat of deportation hangs over their head."

The 'Main Engine' of Deportation

As a presidential candidate, Biden pledged to end Trump'shistoric expansionof local-federal cooperation on immigration enforcement because the partnerships known as 287(g) agreements "undermine trust and cooperation between local law enforcement and the communities they are charged to protect."

But under Biden, the federal government is still relying on local police partnerships as "the main engine of the deportation system," said Lena Graber, a senior staff attorney with the Immigrant Legal Resource Center in San Francisco who studies the role of local police in immigration enforcement.

More than 140 local law enforcement agencies are currently signed up to help ICE, including by sharing information with federal agents when they arrest, detain or intend to release an undocumented immigrant.

A Capital & Main analysis of ICE data shows that under Trump, 111 sheriffs' departments began partnering with ICE for the first time through the 287(g) program. Nearly half of all local agencies that did so were in Florida and Texas. Some pro-immigrant advocates, policy analysts and civil rights groups say Trump's aggressive recruitment of local sheriffs facilitateddiscriminatory policing, such as racial profiling, that has separated families and created legal and financial challenges for people otherwise living quietly in the community.

Under Biden, ICE has only ended its collaboration with one sheriff's office, Bristol County in Massachusetts, after guards responded to immigrant detainees protesting conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic byshooting pepper ballsand siccing dogs on them.

The Biden administration has the authority to order ICE to cancel such partnerships at any time, Graber said. "It's the easiest policy thing for them to do."

Instead, contrary to campaign promises, the administration intends to expand local cooperation. Alejandro Mayorkas, the head of the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, recently sought toconvince mayorsthat they should resume collaborating with federal immigration authorities because "the agency of today, and what it is focused upon, and what it is doing, is not the agency of the past."

But the mayors of several cities including Berkeley, Philadelphia and New York have already said through spokespeople that theydon't intendto expand cooperation with ICE.

Prominent immigrant legal services groups called Mayorkas' pitch abetrayalof the president's commitments and warned in a public statement directed to him that such partnerships "co-opt local resources into questionable, racially discriminatory purposes, and strip communities of safety and public trust."

Biden's pick to run ICE, Ed Gonzalez, haspromisedto continue such local cooperation if he is confirmed by Congress, despite the fact that as sheriff of Harris County, Texas' most populous, hecanceledhis department's 287(g) agreement. During Trump's final year in office, Gonzalezcriticized the tactic, tweeting that "Diverting valuable law enforcement resources away from public safety threats would drive undocumented families further into the shadows & damage our community safety."

When it comes to supporting sanctuaries, the Biden administration has taken some steps.

Biden's administration hasrepealeda Trump-era ban thatbarredsanctuary cities like New York from receiving some federal grants. Under Biden, ICE haslimitedthe scope of who its agents should arrest and detain, has committed toending worksite raidsand is now arresting and detainingfewer peoplewithin the United States than under Trump.

But the biggest change so far has been in how the administration talks about undocumented people, said Cesar Cuauhtemoc Garcia Hernandez, an Ohio State University law professor who specializes in the intersection of criminal and immigration law.

In contrast with Trump, "we don't see the kind of racist, abrasive, offensive language coming from the president," Garcia Hernandez said. But the Biden administration is still struggling to find its footing when it comes to differentiating its actual immigration policies.

Garcia Hernandez said that city, county and state governments still have a "good amount of wiggle room when it comes to making life easier or harder for immigrants to live in their communities."

The direction in which local authorities go is not so much a matter of law, but of their politics, he said.

The Tug-of-War Over Undocumented Immigrants

In the years since Trump turned up the pressure on immigrant sanctuaries, some state legislatures across the country have passed laws pushing in opposite directions, with some enacting sanctuary-style policies and others banning them.

Within the last year, states likeIllinoisandNew Jerseypassed laws limiting the ways their police departments and jails can cooperate with immigration enforcement, including by banning them from entering any new contracts to detain immigrants for ICE.

Some states have strengthened long-standing protections for undocumented immigrants. Oregon, the nation's oldest sanctuary state, faced pushback from conservative state legislators over such policies during the Trump administration, and responded last summer. The state's Democratic lawmakers passed a "sanctuary promise" law intended to reinforce immigrant access to social services and block local police from sharing information with ICE or detaining immigrants.

Some local agencies have pushed back against such efforts, including the counties of Kankakee and McHenry, outside of Chicago. They sued Illinois, saying the state couldn't stop them from getting paid tens of millions of dollars per year to detain immigrants for ICE. But a federal judge recentlyruledthat the state does have the constitutional power to ban its counties from doing so.

At the same time, some states are going in the opposite direction by requiring their local agencies to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement. Texas, Florida and South Carolina are among at least 10 states that passed laws during Trump's presidency blocking their cities and counties from engaging in "sanctuary" practices. A federal judge ruled that Florida's ban isunconstitutionalbecause it was adopted with discriminatory motives. A federal appeals court upheld most ofTexas' 2017 law, but legal challenges are pending.

No matter which way states go, immigration enforcement agencies still have the power to investigate, arrest and detain people anywhere in the country, including in sanctuaries.

To do so, ICE relies heavily on its expansive and long-standing partnership networks with local and state authorities. "Some are so deeply embedded that they remain in place irrespective of whether or not a community is a so-called sanctuary jurisdiction," said Jorge Loweree, policy director of the American Immigration Council.

For example, California has passedseverallawsover the years intended to stop state and local police from sharing information with ICE or transferring people into ICE custody. But despite these protections, some sheriff's offices haveworked with ICEanyway. At times, these partnerships have led to potentially illegal practices, such as when California's prison system transferred a U.S. citizen into ICE custody in 2020. The man wasdetainedfor a month by immigration authorities during the pandemic, until a judge finally ordered him released. In Seattle, also a longtime sanctuary, ICE similarly detainedanother U.S. citizenin 2019.

ICE also has access to a wide range of databases created by police agencies and information companies, such as the data mining corporation LexisNexis and the software creator Palantir, which was co-founded by the Trump-supporting billionaire Peter Thiel. Some immigrant rights advocates told Capital & Main these databases can help immigration officersobtain informationthat local agencies decline to provide.

Nonetheless, since Trump made anti-immigrant policies a centerpiece of his presidency and both campaign runs, some pro-immigrant activists have pushed back through local elections.

Max Rose, who directs the North Carolina-based Sheriffs for Trusting Communities, said his group works with local organizers across the country to elect more progressive sheriffs to replace those who have "fueled mass deportation, doubled down on over-policing in communities of color, and built jails that prioritize expansion rather than treatment and reentry."

Rose said the communities he works with "are pretty tired of law enforcement demonizing immigrant families, and doing so at the expense of doing their job." As a result, some sheriffs with a history of cooperating with ICE paid an electoral price in 2020, particularly in progressive pockets of the South. Democratic sheriffs ran and won on promises tocut such ties, including in Georgia's populousGwinnettandCobbcounties, where advocates claim community safety and relations have sinceimproved.

The immigrant-friendly sheriffs "showed there's a winning message on immigration," Rose said. "It's a line that the Democrats are trying to walk around the country. But I think there's a path that was cleared in 2020."

Some hardline sheriffs who had close relationships with the Trump administration are also expected to face challengers in elections later this year. Among them isSheriff Thomas Hodgsonin Bristol, the only county to have its ICE partnershipterminatedby the Biden administration.

Rose said that because Trump so polarized immigration enforcement and cooperation with local police, it's no longer "politically palatable" for Biden to continue those same policies.

While some sheriffs continue "demonizing and scapegoating immigrants in their community," Rose said, "we know it should no longer be acceptable for any sheriff to abuse that power, and to play the role of federal immigration enforcement."

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Despite Biden's campaign promises, immigration reform is on the back burner - Salon

A second group of asylum seekers arrived in Washington, D.C., Thursday on a charter bus after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott directed the Texas Division of Emergency Management to transport migrants from Texas to D.C.

This comes just one day after the first bus of undocumented migrants from Colombia, Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, was transported to the nations capital.

Abbott said the order is a direct response to President Joe Biden's plans to end Title 42 expulsions on May 23. The controversial policy, which the Trump administration implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic, restricts migrants from coming into the country under the auspices of a public health emergency.

Leaders in Congress have no idea about the chaos they have caused by the open border policies and they refuse to come down and see firsthand and talk to the people who are really they're just dropping bombs of illegal immigrants from countries across the entire globe, leaving those local communities to have to grapple with it, Abbott told reporters on Wednesday.

The Texas governor added, there will be more that will be arriving whether by bus or plane so that Washington is going to have to respond and deal with the same challenges that we're doing.

A worker with Catholic Charities speaks to a person who was one of around twenty people who arrived on a bus from Texas in Washington, April 13, 2022.

Chris Magnus, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CPD) commissioner, expressed concerns over Abbott leading the operation without adequate coordination with the federal government.

As individuals await the outcome of their immigration proceedings, they are legally obligated to report in for the next steps in their immigration process and permitted to travel elsewhere. CBPs close partnerships with other government and non-governmental stakeholders are essential to this effort, and to ensuring fairness, order, and humanity in the process." Magnus said in a statement. Governor Abbott is taking actions to move migrants without adequately coordinating with the federal government and local border communities. CBP has always worked closely with and supported border communities in Texas, many of which CBP personnel call home."

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowsers press secretary Susana Castillo told ABC News in a statement on Wednesday, Our Administration continues to work with NGOs [Non-Government Organizations] who are providing resources to the arriving individuals and families. Our partners were able to triage the first bus, which included individuals hoping to settle outside of the region.

Immigration advocacy groups and faith leaders held a joint press conference in front of Washington, D.C.,s Union Station to welcome asylum seekers who arrived in Washington D.C. on Thursday.

Around twenty people who crossed the U.S. border from Venezuela gather in Union Station after arriving from Texas in Washington, April 13, 2022.

Organizers from Welcome with Dignity, Carecen, and CASA, told reporters they plan to help asylum seekers as they connect with their family members in the United States, as well as, provide legal services if needed.

Our community is ready to receive any immigrants that the governor of Texas wants to send here. We are an open city. We are a welcoming city. We will continue to be that. We have the support of the local government, Abel Nunez, the executive director of Carecen, a Central American refugee nonprofit, said.

I invite the governor of Texas, if he wants to continue to send immigrants to this region, to coordinate with us so that we can ensure that we can provide the best service and we can meet all their legal obligations, Nunez said.

Ordalis Rodriguez, 26, a migrant originally from Venezuela who was transported on a bus from Texas, holds her daughter Luciana, 1, as her husband Victor Rodriguez, 27, looks on outside of Union Station in Washington, DC, April 13, 2022.

During the presser, immigration advocates also called out Biden for the delays in passing immigration reform. Gustavo Torres, executive director of CASA, said federal legislation is the only long-term solution to address the ongoing crisis.

I want to send a very clear message to the Biden administration: It is time to pass immigration reform. I remember when he was running for president, he promised that if he controlled the White House and Congress, they were going to pass immigration reform. We are still demanding that. That is the only real solution to this crisis that we are facing, Torres said.

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Gov. Abbott sends 2nd bus of migrants to Washington DC to protest end of Title 42 - ABC News

Democrats are bracing for a grueling election in November, thanks mostly to the twin issues of inflation and immigration. What seems to elude policymakers on both sides of the aisle, however, is how closely tied the two problems are and why increasing immigration levels could help lower inflation. Instead, moderate Democrats are wringing their hands over the Biden administrations plan to lift Trump-era Title 42 health restrictions at the border, which will make it more difficult to turn back undocumented border crossers. Democrats fear that scenes of thousands of asylum seekers allowed temporary entry while their claims are adjudicated will reignite the anti-immigrant firestorm that launched Trumps campaign in 2015. They may be right about the politics of immigration among the Republican base, but thats a small slice of the electorate, and and influx of working-age migrants is just what the economy needs right now.

The pandemic has drastically changed the American workforce. More than 47 million Americans quit their jobs in 2021, the highest level in 20 years, including almost a quarter of Hispanic and Asian workers. A Pew study shows that most people who quit cited low pay and no opportunity for advancement (63 percent) or said they felt disrespected at work (57 percent). Most of these workers found other jobs, with a majority (56 percent) earning more than they did previously. While that increased pay accrues benefits to individual workers, the costs are born by employers and consumers in the form of higher prices.

Job dissatisfaction may spur upward mobility, but then who is going to do the jobs ambitious workers leave? For decades, new immigrants filled the first rungs on the economic ladder, taking entry-level jobs in the service, food, and construction industries while building the work experience and language skills needed to move up over time. But immigration restrictions over the last half-decade stemmed the flow of new workers into the United Statesand the combination of the Trump administration and COVID restricted it even more.

The best solution, of course, would be for Congress to enact legislation allowing more workers to enter the country and granting legal status to the millions of undocumented workers already here, two-thirds of whom have lived here more than 10 years. And there is some hope that a bipartisan compromise might be possible, with Sens. Thom Tillis and Dick Durbin planning to convene bipartisan talks after the recess to see whether a 60-vote margin is possible on some elements of immigration reform. The only way that were going to get real progress is have a four-pillar discussionso immigration reform, DACA, border security, and then I think asylum reform is pretty important particularly with thats going on with Title 42, Tillis told the Hill last week.

The last time the Senate successfully tackled immigration reform was in 2013, but despite passing bipartisan legislation 68-32, the bill died in the House thanks to overwhelming GOP opposition, so Im not holding my breath. In the meantime, admitting asylees and giving them work authorizations, as well as allowing in more Ukrainian and Afghan refugees, could alleviate some of the countrys labor shortage.

The Department of Labor reported last month that there were 11.3 million job openings in February, a number that has remained at historic highs for months. We should be opening our doors wider so that those seeking refuge in the United States can come here and help fill those jobs. Not all those who will likely gather at the southern border as Title 42 restrictions are lifted will fit the bill, but enough will that it could improve employment conditions in many areas. Even among Central American families who comprise the largest group of asylum seekers, adult family members will be eager to work if given the chance. College graduates in the Ukrainian and Afghan refugee population as well as truck drivers, electricians, plumbers, roofers, and others with needed skills would be a welcome addition to many communities. With hundreds of thousands of Russias most highly educated, employable, and liberal-minded citizens fleeing for countries with freer societies and brighter futures, surely some of them would be welcome in the offices of American companies struggling to hire.

Though policymakers dont like to talk about it, unauthorized immigration has played an important role in the labor market for the last several decades. Americans intuitively understand this. A 2020 Pew poll found that 77 percent of Americans believed that undocumented immigrants fill jobs Americans dont wantand this was during the height of the pandemic when unemployment was rising. Certainly it would be better if Congress came together to fashion a sensible immigration reform bill that included better border security to keep out drugs and dangerous criminals, but let in needed workers.

In the meantime, the numbers of asylees and refugees likely to be admitted in the coming months will help ease inflationary pressures on wages and supply chain backlogs that labor shortages have created. The challenge for Democrats will be to accelerate the process so Americans can start to feel the economic benefits before the midterm elections, and to talk about those benefits rather than panicking.

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More Immigration, Less Inflation - The Bulwark

What do we want? Pastor Emma Lozano of Lincoln United Methodist Church asked in Spanish to a small crowd in Chicagos Little Village neighborhood Wednesday. Justice! they chanted back. And when? Lozano asked. Now! they answered.

The crowd gathered on 26th Street between Troy Street and Albany Avenue, to welcome Omar Gomez and Homero Ocon, immigration activists with United for Immigration Reform Colorado, who arrived in Chicago on the 24th day of a 40-day bicycle ride from Colorado to Washington, D.C. The trek is expected to last through May 1.

Theyre biking for immigration reform, and calling for an end to deportations. They hope to pressure federal officials to make changes prior to Novembers midterm elections.

So far, Gomez has biked 1,106 miles, accompanied for much of that by Ocon, who has taken a few days off. Theyve been joined by other bikers on some legs of the journey, too.

Its been grueling for Gomez. Every day, I stand up, and my body sometimes dont want to go on the bike, Gomez said but, I dont have a choice, he added.

U.S. Rep. Jesus Chuy Garcia speaks about getting Immigration reform passed during a rally to welcome immigration activists Omar Gomez and Homero Ocon.

Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times

The activist cyclists from Colorado were welcomed by a group of local leaders including U.S. Rep. Jesus Chuy Garcia.

League of United Latin American Citizens Illinois State Director Maggie Rivera said community members have been waiting years for President Joe Biden to finally fulfill promises on immigration reform.

I know that so many families here and around the country are still living in fear of deportation, Rivera said. Many others have already lost a loved one to deportation, the trauma and grief these families deal with is not only unjust. It is inhumane.

Mahalea Velasco, 16, experienced that trauma personally 11 years ago at age 5, she said. Her father was driving with an expired license plate when he was stopped by a police officer in Chicago. He had no papers, and was deported within 24 hours, Velasco said.

Its been a real struggle, she said. I never really got to have that experience with my father, so everyday things like going to the store, going to the park, its something I missed out on.

Velasco said she has been working to get her father back since the day he was deported, joining the anti-deportation group Right 2 Family.

I wouldnt even wish this on my worst enemy, dealing with deportation, Velasco said.

Many immigrants are forced from their homes due to war, violence or other disasters, Little Village Community Council president Baltazar Enriquez said. We dont want to break the law, he said, but many have no choice but to flee dangerous situations.

And they are tired of being disrespected, Enriquez said.

Were the ones that pick your fruit, pick your vegetables. Were the ones who clean your bedrooms in the hotels. We do that for you. We put food on the table, Enriquez said. So please, give us some respect as human beings.

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Immigration activists welcomed in Chicago in middle of 40-day bike ride to Washington - Chicago Sun-Times