In recent years, and especially during 2018-2020, this organization helped raise awareness and funds to aid immigrants seeking shelter or legal aid. Some of us on the Board volunteered to help migrants fill out asylum applications. They were temporary detainees at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement center near the U.S.-Mexico border. They came from many countries, including Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Cuba, Haiti and the Congo. We witnessed the impact of the Trump administration policy known as “zero tolerance” which translated into automatic detention in prison-like conditions, family separations, and an overall “message” to the world that entry into the U.S. was now closed to migrants. It was an unforgiving policy that dehumanized the identity of the migrant, especially one without money or proper documentation. Zero Tolerance allowed ICE officials to treat migrants like criminals. The story behind their journey didn’t matter. Nor if they arrived with children. Upon arrival, adults were taken one way, children the other. Sometimes there were handcuffs. Sometimes children were lost in the system. The parents and caretakers had often run away from home where they faced death threats. Some had already lost a relative to systemic violence their governments would not or could not control. Zero Tolerance was the catchphrase for tough policy, but it actually translated into criminalizing the identity of anyone daring to invoke the promises for refugees under international human rights law.
We support public education on topics of interest to the issues of humanitarianism and the right of a person to basic human rights, including the right to free movement and the right not to be presumed a criminal just because they came from another country with an “undocumented” status.
We do need to care about this topic that is prominent in the news and of interest to voters in the upcoming election.
Lawyer and author Aviva Chomsky wrote wisely a few years ago in her book Undocumented: How Immigration Became Illegal, that illegality was simply invented sometime after 1965. The following passage from the introduction to her book is worth a moment of reflection:
When people say, “what part of ‘illegal’ don’t you understand?'”they imply that they, in fact, understand everything about it. They take illegality to be self-evident: there’s a law, you break the law, that’s illegal. Obvious, right? Actually, illegality is a lot more complicated than that. Laws are made and enforced by humans, in historical contexts, and for reasons, They change over time, and they are often created and modified to serve the interests of some groups — generally the powerful and privileged — over others. Most of the citizens who brag that their ancestors came here “the right way” are making assumptions based on ignorance. They assume that their ancestors “went through the process” and obtained visas, as people are required to do today. In fact, most of them came before any legal process existed — before the concept of ‘”llegality” existed.” (A. Chomsky, Undocumented, 2014)
Below are links to helpful articles or summaries on the topic of Immigration and Project 2025 which remains part of the platform of former president and candidate Trump:
AMERICA’S VOICE, Project 2025, Immigration
The Leadership Conference: Project 2025, What’s at Stake for Immigrant Rights
Egan Immigration, PLLC, Project 2025: What will happen to immigration if Trump wins the election?