In the News:

Immigration. Unaccompanied minors. Terrible holding facilities. Overstays in detention. COVID. Asylum seekers. Families being sent back. Smugglers.

It‘s all so confusing. As you hear journalists describing the problems at the border do you find yourself asking more questions and getting confused about the variety of angles from which to worry? How the focus in a story is on the great numbers, conjuring up images of hordes of migrants cramming the entrances or finding ways to get around the border cops? And the reports on the unaccompanied minors rarely get into questions about the root causes for the migration but have one getting all upset when they describe the shelters, yet never reveal how it’s for-profit corporations that operate as cheaply as possible immigration detention facilities on behalf of the government.

Sometimes I hear the news and wait for that possible linking of the human wave of desperation to the impact of the last administration’s policies, like its family separation tactics or its Stay in Mexico program for asylum seekers. Some news reports describe what’s wrong at the border, but it’s sometimes superficial; it doesn’t examine the larger historical context for current immigration policy. One key historical aspect is the gradual transformation described by author Aviva Chomsky as “immigration becoming illegal.” So if you came here for work it’s OK if you go back; but if you stayed and created a family and never had access to the resources for legal residency then you’re a criminal. And migrants of all kinds are lumped together and presumed to be one more “illegal alien” when we know that yes, some people come here looking to better their lives economically, while others are literally escaping death threats back home and are running for their lives. And we’ve dismissed the importance of the provision in the Violence Against Women Act that protects women who are victims of domestic abuse, or a woman who is fleeing a complicated and abusive relationship with a man who is a gang leader and known murderer.

The topic of immigration reform is not an easy one and the subject of the unaccompanied minors is rife with opinions from politicians, activists, social critics, caregivers, immigration workers and of course, citizens and legal residents. The subject of the unaccompanied kid triggers anger, judgment and that desperate feeling of wanting to help them feel safe and be safe. For it’s often been a matter of safety that pushed them out of the country in the first place and made them travel all alone towards the U.S.

Yes, they’re kids. Mostly boys. And their motives are diverse although there are probably some patterns found in the stories of migrants I met as a volunteer at a detention center in recent years – like the one who is hoping to find a relative who’s been living in the U.S. for years, their address is on a crumpled piece of paper he’s had in his pocket since he left; or there’s the migrant who would rather have her boy go to the U.S. then be at risk of being kidnapped by a local gang who will turn him into a drug dealer, or worse train him to harass, assault and sometimes kill innocent people. Or maybe these are kids that came with a parent, but then got stuck at the border so the parent sent them back home and told them, wait until the situation changes.

The situation did change with the recent election, and the only thing we know for sure is that the current problems surrounding immigration don’t have easy and quick answers.

What we do know is that under the Trump administration, an anti-immigrant policy agenda effectively closed the border to all migrants, forced the legitimate asylum seeker to wait and start their application in Mexico and exploited fears of COVID-19 to establish a summary immigration expulsion process under Title 42 of the US Code which covers public health.   We also know that current U.S. immigration law and practice function on the presumption that immigrants are criminals and with attitudes toward asylum seekers that deny the basic human right to movement in and out of one’s country. .

There are some news reports doing a pretty good job at straightening out the facts. They are listed below. There is a lot of history on immigration law, policy and practices that you can explore on this website. And there’s even a basic Immigration ABCs that can help you get a handle on the general terms and subjects that come up with every story on the news.

SUGGESTED READS:

1. Tom K. Wong, Gabriel de Roche, Jesus Rojas Venzor, “There’s No Migrant ‘Surge’ at the Border. Here’s the Data (Washington Post, March 23, 2021).
2. Lindy Qiu, “Fact-Checking Claims on the Migrant Surge at the U.S.-Mexico Border (New York Times, March 20, 2021).
3. Migrants and Human Rights Bibliography.
4. Border Timeline