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Sharlee Mullins Glenn and Jennifer Fuentes Langi, Opinion contributors Published 3:15 a.m. ET March 26, 2021

Cruelly separating families for such long periods of time serves no one. It has also turned out to be an incentive for people to remain here illegally.

Silvia Avelar Floresis a soft-spoken, devoted mother of three young children. She came to the United Statesfrom Mexico with her family when she was just 7 years old, and has lived here ever since. She graduated from school here, married, had children, works, pays taxes, has no criminal record of any kind, and is a highly respected member of her community. Her husband Carlos, a long-time legal resident, recently became a U.S. citizen. As soon as he could, he filed an I-130 immigrant petition formfor Silvia the important first step in obtaining a green card allowing her to live and work in America. Happily, the I-130 was approved.

There is now a pathway to citizenship for Silvia, but she is unable to move forward. Why? Because of a counterproductive provision that was put in place in 1996 by the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act. This provision established the so-called bars to reentry for immigrants who leave the country for any reason after having lived here unlawfully. If such an immigrant has been in the United Statesfor more than 180 days but less than a year, they are barred from reentering the country for three years. If for more than a year, they are barred from reentry for 10 years.

These bars create a nightmarish catch-22 for people like Silvia because current law requires that they must return to their country of origin to apply for a green card, but as soon as they leave, they are immediately barred from returning.

In Silvias case, because her husband is a citizen, she qualifies for a waiver which would allow her to return sooner, but she would still be separated from her family (her husband and her three U.S. citizen children, ages 6, 12and 14) for a minimum of two to three years. Without the waiver, it would be a full 10years.

Many of the issues around immigration are complex and messy. There are no easy answers to the knotty questions surrounding border security, enforcement, immigration court backlogs, guest worker programs, trafficking, and so on. By all accounts, our immigration system is broken and needs a complete overhaul. Comprehensive immigration reform so necessary, but so difficult to achieve will take time, effort and compromise.

Silvia Avelar Flores with her husband, Carlos, and three children in Salt Lake City in 2019.(Photo: Terra Cooper)

But eliminating these inhumane bars to reentry is a simple fix that Congress could tackle right now. And its a move that already has bipartisan support. Former Republican Rep. Raul Labrador of Idaho, who worked for 15 years as an immigration attorney, said of the bars: If we get rid of what we call the bars . . . we could fix the problem for about 25 percent of the people that are here illegally. And we would do it through the proper legal system.

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This one simple fix would have an enormous positive impact on millions of American families. The Migration Policy Institute estimates that more than 1.2 million spouses of U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents are blocked from becoming legal residents themselves because of these bars. Eliminating them would not create any new pathways to citizenship. It would merely eliminate the barriers to pathways that already exist. And itwould allow those who already qualify for green cards to move forward without having to make the excruciating decision to be separated from their families for many years a decision that can have terribly damaging repercussions on children, spousesand other family members.

Cruelly separating families for such long periods of time serves no one. There are no benefits,only costs including to society. In many cases, families that have been stable and self-sufficient suddenly find themselves dependent on government assistance for childcare, health care, and other basic necessities when a parent is barred from reentry.

Not only are these bars inhumane, they are also ineffective and even counterproductive. The bars were intended to be a deterrent, but in fact have turned out to be an incentive for people to remain in the country illegally so that they are not barred from being with their families. Far from curtailing illegal immigration and deterring people from overstaying their visas as intended," Paul Virtue, former general counsel of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, has told Congress, the legal bars to admissibility "are actuallycontributing to the unprecedented risein the number of undocumented immigrants.

Silvia and her family have lived in a state of uncertainty and fear for many years now as theyve done everything they possibly can to get legal. Until she has a green card, her situation is precarious and she could be deported at any time. The toll on Silvia and her family, financially (due to the never-ending legal fees), mentally, and especially emotionally, has been immense. Her young children have spent their entire lives fearful that their beloved mother might be snatched away from them at any time.

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These inhumane 3- and 10-year bars to reentry create insurmountable obstacles for people who, like Silvia, are trying as hard as they can to get in line (as they are so often told to do) so that they can follow the outlinedprocedure to become legal residents.

Immigration reform is inherently nuanced and complicated, and policymakers must often weigh many different competing factors. But in the case of these bars, its a no brainer. They are both cruel and ineffective. They harm American families and have actually led to an increase in the number of undocumented immigrants in the United States.

Sharlee Mullins Glenn, founder of the nonprofitMormon Women for Ethical Government and a longtime advocate working with Silvia,isan executive officer of the Everyone Belongs Project and sits on the external advisory board of Brigham Young University's Civic Engagement program.Jennifer Fuentes Langi, Silvia's attorney, is afounding partner and lead immigration attorney at Fuentes Langi Immigration in Salt Lake City. She was born and raised in Mexico.

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Congress could help this young mom and other families trapped in an immigration Catch-22 - USA TODAY

Illegal alien and undocumented immigrant are descriptions muttered by politicians in the news and maybe sometimes even among our family and friends.

The Biden administration as part of its proposed overhaul of the immigration system is pushing for dropping the term illegal alien for language that is more inclusive.

We have only been in office for 50 days, but again were building a government thats inclusive, were building a government that truly reflects America and a big part of that is ensuring that were using the correct terminology and words, stated White House Senior Director of Coalition Media, Jennifer Molina.

Hearing the words inclusion and immigration reform may conjure up many feelings in many people. It puts people in camps about issues. You may see these words as necessary, you may see them as buzzwords.

So, do words really matter?

Words matter because words have power, they reflect whats happening and help construct whats happening. They shape our thinking, and they shape our reality, said ASU professor Eileen Diaz-McConnell.

How we talk about immigration impacts how we think about immigrants.

The battle to stop using words such as illegal alien began in 2010 with the Drop the I-word" campaign which was led by the organization Race Forward.

Many news outlets stopped using it in 2013, but the term is still used today to describe undocumented immigrants whether it is in some news outlets or in social media by federal agencies such as U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

CBPAZ

Professor Diaz-McConnel says the term criminalizes people. She says its been racialized since its not used to describe all undocumented immigrants.

Its associated to particular groups such as Mexican migrants and potentially all Mexican migrants, but its not to other people such as Irish migrants who overstayed their visas to a variety of other people.

Being called the I-word damages people of color regardless of their immigration status.

It upsets me, it burns right in my chest because were not aliens, said Lucinda Hinojos.

Hinojos was raised and born in Arizona, she identifies herself as Chicana and Native American. She recently painted a mural of an indigenous and Chicana woman on 14th Street and McDowell Road to bring awareness about the dehumanization of people of color.

She says an indigenous and Chicana woman on a mural is the reflection of why representation and dropping words like illegal alien matter.

We need to throw that out of the vocabulary because were all human beings. Were all different, but were one spirit being and so these words carry power.

So, if words carry power, what happens when we use hateful words?

If you do a quick Google or YouTube search and use search words street vending you will see a lot of examples where ordinary citizens are harassing, violently attacking our street vendors, said Emir Estrada, Assistant professor at ASU.

Estrada says theres been a spike in violent attacks against communities of color such as street vendors. She says the attacker usually believes street vending is illegal because they associate the individual with illegality and as an illegal immigrant.

They're told wetbacks, go back to your country, says Estrada.

Professor Diaz-McConnell says theres a long history of xenophobic language about immigrants.

This exclusion of immigrants has been reflected in U.S. immigration policy since the very beginning. For example, in 1790, one of the requirements to become naturalized was being a free white person and it wasnt removed until many decades later.

But history can be wrong sometimes, in this case, the act of being in the U.S. without documents is in fact illegal, but the person is not.

Estrada says being undocumented is usually a civil offense rather than a criminal.

Many of them had visas, came with a visa to visit a family member and for various circumstances overstayed their visas so again these labels are not being properly attached to these communities that were talking about."

Just like undocumented immigrants who were brought to the country as children.

Its not like I'm asking you to call me by a different name, like call me God or your majesty, Im just asking you to call me a human being, said Jose Patio, a DREAMer in Phoenix.

So how do we fix this?

I think it is really important to broaden our perspective and think about the things that unite us and try to be more thoughtful about the way we talk about or think about other groups of people, stated Diaz-McConnell.

Here is the original post:
Words Matter: A conversation with the community about words that dehumanize people - ABC15 Arizona

Mr Speaker, I wish to make a statement on our New Plan for Immigration.

The government has taken back control of legal immigration by ending free movement and introducing a points-based immigration system.

We are now addressing the challenge of illegal immigration - head on.

I am introducing the most significant overhaul of our asylum system in decades.

A new, comprehensive, fair but firm, long-term plan.

Because while people are dying, we have a responsibility to act.

People are dying - at sea, in lorries and in shipping containers - having put their lives in the hands of criminal gangs that facilitate illegal journeys to the UK.

To stop the deaths, we must stop the trade in people that cause them.

Our society is enriched by legal immigration.

We celebrate those who have come to the UK lawfully and helped build Britain. We always will.

Since 2015, we have resettled almost 25,000 men, women and children seeking refuge from persecution across the world - more than any EU country.

Welcomed more than 29,000 close relatives through refugee family reunion.

And created a pathway to citizenship to enable over five million people in Hong Kong to come to the UK.

Nobody can say that the British public are not fair or generous when it comes to helping those in need.

But the British public also recognise that for too long parts of the immigration system have been open to abuse.

At the heart of our New Plan for Immigration is a simple principle: fairness.

Access to the UKs asylum system should be based on need, not the ability to pay people smugglers.

If you enter illegally from a safe country like France where you should and could have claimed asylum, you are not seeking refuge from persecution as is the intended purpose of the asylum system.

Instead, you are choosing the UK as your preferred destination.

And you are doing so at the expense of those with nowhere else to go.

Our system is collapsing under the pressure of parallel illegal routes to asylum, facilitated by criminal smugglers.

The existence of parallel routes is deeply unfair, advancing those with the means to pay smugglers over those in desperate need.

The capacity of our asylum system is not unlimited.

And so the presence of economic migrants which these illegal routes introduce, limits our ability to properly support others in genuine need of protection.

This is manifestly unfair to those desperately waiting to be resettled in the UK.

And it is not fair to the British people either; whose taxes pay for vital public services and an asylum system which has skyrocketed in cost now costing over 1 billion pounds this year.

There were more than 32,000 attempts tried to enter the UK illegally in 2019.

With 8,500 people arriving by small boat in 2020.

Of those, 87% were men, 74% were aged between 18-39.

We should ask ourselves, where are the vulnerable women and children that this system should exist to protect?

The system is becoming overwhelmed 109,000 claims are sitting in the asylum queue 52,000 awaiting an initial asylum decision. Almost three quarters of those waiting a year or more.

42,000 failed asylum seekers have not left the country, despite having their claim refused.

The persistent failure to enforce our immigration laws, with a system that is open to gaming by economic migrants and exploitation by criminals, is eroding public trust, and disadvantaging vulnerable people who need our help.

Which is why our New Plan for Immigration is driven by three fair but firm objectives:

First. To increase the fairness of our system so we can protect and support those in genuine need of asylum.

Second. To deter illegal entry into the UK breaking the business model of people smugglers and protecting the lives of those they endanger.

Third. To remove more easily from the UK, those with no right to be here.

Let me take each in turn, Mr Speaker.

First. We will continue to provide safe refuge to those in need strengthening support for those arriving through safe and legal routes.

People coming to the UK through resettlement routes will be granted indefinite leave to remain.

They will receive more support to learn English, find work and integrate.

And I will also act to help those who have suffered injustices.

By amending British Nationality Law so that members of the Windrush Generation will be able to obtain British citizenship more easily.

Second. This plan marks a step change in our approach as we toughen our stance to deter illegal entry and the criminals that endanger life by enabling it.

Many illegal arrivals have travelled through a safe country like France to get to the UK where they could and should have claimed asylum.

We must act to reduce the pull factors of our system and disincentivise illegal entry.

For the first time, whether people enter the UK legally or illegally will have an impact on how their asylum claim progresses, and on their status in the UK if that claim is successful.

We will deem their claim as inadmissible, and make every effort to remove those who enter the UK illegally having travelled through a safe country first in which they could and should have claimed asylum.

Only where removal is not possible, will those who have successful claims having entered illegally receive a new temporary protection status.

This is not an automatic right to settle, they will be regularly reassessed for removal, and will include limited access to benefits, and limited family reunion rights. Our tough new stance will also include:

New maximum life sentences for people smugglers and facilitators.

New rules to stop unscrupulous people posing as children.

And strengthen enforcement powers for Border Force.

Third. We will seek to rapidly remove those with no right to be here in the UK.

Establishing a fast-track appeals process.

Streamlining the appeals system and making quicker removal decisions for failed asylum seekers and dangerous foreign criminals.

We will tackle the practice of meritless claims which clog up the courts with last minute claims and appeals.

A fundamental unfairness that lawyers tell me frustrates them too.

Because for too long our justice system has been gamed.

Almost three quarters of migrants in detention raised last-minute new claims, challenges or other issues with over eight in ten of these eventually being denied as valid reasons to stay in the UK.

Enough is enough.

Our new plan sets out a one-stop process to require all claims to be made upfront.

No more endless meritless claims to frustrate removal. No more stalling justice.

Our new system will be faster and fairer and will help us better support the most vulnerable.

Mr Speaker, our new plan builds on the work already done to take back control of our borders.

Building a system that upholds our reputation as a country where criminality is not rewarded, but which is a haven for those in need.

There are no quick fixes, or shortcuts to success.

But this long-term plan, pursued doggedly, will fix our broken system.

We know that members of the Opposition would prefer a different plan, one that embraces the idea of Open Borders.

Many of them were reluctant to end Free Movement.

With members opposite on record as having said that all immigration controls are racist or sexist.

And to those who say we lack compassion, I simply say, while people are dying we must act to deter these journeys.

And if you dont like our plan, where is yours?

This government promised to take a common-sense approach to controlling immigration legal and illegal and we will deliver on that promise.

The UK is playing its part to tackle the inhumanity of illegal migration, and today I will press for global action at the G6.

I commend this statement to the House

More:
Home Secretary's statement on the New Plan for Immigration - GOV.UK

U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) on Thursday introduced a bill that would prohibit detained illegal aliens from being freely released into the United States without at least receiving a court date.

Due to the surge of migrants at the southwest border and overcrowding at detention facilities, U.S. Customs and Border Protection has started to release migrants, who have illegally entered the country before claiming asylum, without issuing a Notice to Appear (NTA) in immigration court for a hearing. An NTA provides illegal migrants with a date and time certain to appear before an immigration judge and plead their case for asylum.

Tubervilles legislation would require the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to issue an NTA for removal proceedings to any migrant who has illegally entered the U.S. prior to releasing them into the country or granting parole.

A release from Tubervilles office underscored that releasing illegal migrants from detention without an NTA runs counter to the spirit and letter of the law and erodes the integrity of Americas immigration system. By not providing an NTA, the government loses control over who is being released into the United States and deprives migrants of the opportunity to make legitimate asylum claims before an immigration judge.

The bill further stipulates that a migrants parole, deferred action or any other immigration status and associated employment authorization will be terminated if they fail to appear for the subsequent hearing after receiving an NTA.

Senators Ted Crux (R-TX), Mike Lee (R-UT), Kevin Cramer (R-ND), Mike Braun (R-IN) and John Barrasso (R-WY) are original cosponsors of Tubervilles bill.

Our facilities at the border are bursting at the seams, and because weve simply run out of space, were releasing illegal migrants into our country with no real accountability, or date to appear in court, stated Alabamas junior senator. At best, it hurts those who come to this country actually looking to plead their asylum case. At worst, its giving free rein into our country for breaking the law.

This bill would prohibit migrants who came into the country illegally from being released into communities without a notice to appear in immigration court, Tuberville concluded. The Biden administration says they want humane and compassionate improvements to our immigration system releasing someone without an NTA is neither. President Biden dismantled the successful policies President Trump put in place, but this bill will help restore integrity in our immigration system.

This comes as Tuberville on Thursday and Friday joins Senators John Cornyn (R-TX) and Cruz, and other Republican Senators, on a trip to the southern border. The delegation is visiting McAllen, TX, to speak with CBP officers and see firsthand the processing facilities and ports of entry.

RELATED: Tuberville cosponsors Stopping Border Surges Act

Sean Ross is the editor of Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on Twitter @sean_yhn

Read more:
Tuberville introduces bill to bar illegal aliens from receiving 'free pass' into the United States - Yellowhammer News

WASHINGTON, D.C., Fri. March 26, 2021: (Reuters) The U.S. government plans in the next 90 days on going after smuggling and trafficking organizations that Washington accuses of manipulating migrants into heading for the U.S.-Mexico border, a senior Biden administration official said on Thursday.

The official, who briefed reporters on meetings by U.S. envoys in Mexico City earlier this week, forecast a continuing surge of migrants on the way in spring caravans.

The U.S. and Mexican officials discussed ways to improve U.S.-Mexico border enforcement as well as making sure Central American governments have the resources to help secure Mexicos southern border, the official said on condition of anonymity.

We see a convergence of interests, the official said.

The official added a particular emphasis for the U.S. government in the next three months was going after trafficking organizations and smuggling organizations. You have organizations that are miscommunicating the immigration policies of the United States and for a profit.

President Joe Biden said he would not apologize for rolling back the hardline immigration policies of his Republican predecessor, Donald Trump, and brushed off criticism that migrants were making the journey because they perceived him to be a nice guy.

Speaking at his first White House news conference, Biden defended his handling of rising migration. While he mostly struck an empathetic tone, he said the United States was expelling the vast majority of migrants under a COVID-19 public health order but that some families had been allowed in because Mexico would not accept their return.

He said the United States was in talks with Mexico for that country to take back more migrant families, many of whom are fleeing violence and poverty in Central America.

Asked to expand on Bidens comment, the administration official did not cite any specific progress made on Mexico accepting more migrant families, but stressed that the two countries were working together on the issue.

El Salvadors Congress, meanwhile, approved a special law against human trafficking later on Thursday, establishing harsher prison sentences for smugglers known as coyotes of between eight and 12 years, compared with six to ten years previously.

The law also marks the first time the Central American country would punish the organizers of migrant caravans bound for the United States, making it a crime that carries a prison sentence of up to eight years.

U.S. administration officials said a visit to Guatemala by White House senior Latin America adviser Juan Gonzalez and Northern Triangle envoy Ricardo Zuniga, which was called off this week due to a volcanic eruption, would be rescheduled and they would soon hold a virtual meeting with Guatemalan leaders.

Biden on Wednesday named Vice President Kamala Harris to lead U.S. efforts with Mexico and Central Americas Northern Triangle countries of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador to try to stem the flow of migration to the United States.

(Reporting by Matt Spetalnick and Steve Holland; additional reporting by Nelson Renteria in San Salvador; writing by Cassandra Garrison; Editing by Leslie Adler, Peter Cooney and Ana Nicolaci da Costa)

Link:
US To Target Smuggling, Trafficking Organizations On Illegal Immigration - Caribbean and Latin America Daily News - News Americas