Immigration ABCs

Asylum Seeker

Asylum seekers come to the U.S. fleeing danger in their home countries. In recent years, most people seeking asylum in the U.S. have come from the Northern Triangle of Central America, which includes Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala. Most are fleeing gangs and sexual violence from which their own governments are unable to protect them. An asylum-seeker is a person who is inside the united states seeking to be recognized as a refugee. In order to achieve refugee status and protection under international law, the asylum seeker must first pass a Credible Fear interview and then enter into a lengthy legal process to have their asylum claim accepted. Unlike UN refugees, who receive multiple forms of assistance from the federal government when they arrive in the country, asylum seekers receive no federal aid and must rely  on churches, non-profit groups, and their own social networks.

Dreamers / D A C A

Minor immigrants who came to this country underage and have been raised in the U.S. as children of undocumented parents.   Under President Obama, the DACA executive order protected these young non-citizens from deportation.  DACA came out of the failure of Congress to pass the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Act (DREAM). In 2017 President Trump abolished the DACA program leaving these long-term undocumented residents vulnerable to deportation to their parents’ home countries.  In November 2019 the Supreme Court heard arguments in a challenge by DACA recipients asking for its reinstatement. The Court saved DACA.

Family Detention

The imprisonment of mothers and their minor children in immigrant detention centers.  There are currently no facilities in which entire families are detained, although a group of men who had been reunited with their children after the separations in spring of 2018 were held at the Karnes County Residential Center with their sons for about six months later that year.

Family Separation

The number of children separated from their parents at the border increased sharply after the Zero Tolerance policy went into effect between April and June of 2018.  Children were taken into the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR).  Some were held in detention facilities while others were placed with foster families. Although the policy was officially terminated in June 2018, there are still many children who have not been reunited with their parents. The impact of child separation was found by a congressional study to be extremely harmful, traumatic, and chaotic. 

I C E

Immigration and Customs Enforcement is the law enforcement branch of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).  ICE is the agency charged with apprehending undocumented immigrants at the border and at workplaces and homes within the US and also oversees detention and deportation.

ICE Raids

Another aspect of the Trump era policy of Zero Tolerance is increasingly aggressive enforcement of immigration law throughout the US, with raids on workplaces and in immigrant neighborhoods. Minors arriving at the border hoping to reunify with family are detained in immigration jails for longer periods because their relatives fear exposure and arrest by ICE if they try to claim them.

Immigrant Detention

When an undocumented immigrant is apprehended at the border, the person may be detained by a variety of different government agencies, often in combination. These include Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which operates processing facilities at or near the border, including the notorious “hieleras“(ice boxes) and “perreras” (dog pounds). Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) also holds people in a variety of facilities including prisons, jails, detention centers, and motels, both short and long term. The Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) is charged with the sheltering of undocumented children under the age of 18. They are held in shelters (including temporary influx shelters), group homes, and foster care.

Immigrant detention has greatly expanded since 2014.  A surge in unaccompanied minors during the Obama administration led to a policy of using detention, including family detention, as a way to deter people from coming to the US. The majority of immigrant detention centers in the US are run by private, for-profit corporations such as Corrections Corporation of America and GEO Group.

Migrant Caravans

Migrant caravans, which mostly originate in Honduras, are large groups of people who travel together to the U.S. in order to avoid the dangers of the journey. High-profile caravans in 2017 and 2018, organized by Pueblo Sin Fronteras, were used by anti-immigrant forces in the U.S. to stoke fears of invasion, particularly in the run up to the 2018 midterm elections. Historically, such caravans departed during Holy Week and have a symbolic connection to religious pilgrimages (La Viacrucis de Migrante/Migrant’s Way of the Cross). In recent years they have grown larger as families fleeing violence have joined traditional economic migrants in the journey north. The U.S. has increasingly put pressure on Guatemala and Mexico to stop the caravans before they reach the border.

Prevention Through Deterrence

In 1994, US immigration authorities instituted the policy of prevention through deterrence. This involved concentrating enforcement in high-crossing, mostly urban areas, such as downtown El Paso, in order to push migrants into more remote areas where the environment would serve as a natural barrier. As many as ten thousand men, women, and children have died trying to cross the border as a result of these policies, most of them in the Arizona desert where they have fallen victim to the extreme temperatures, rough terrain, and lack of water.

Push Factors & Pull Factors

In studies of migration, scholars have long made a distinction between push factors and pull factors. Push factors are those things that drive people to emigrate, to leave their home countries. Typical push factors are poverty, lack of opportunity, violence, and natural disasters. Pull factors are the things that draw people to a particular country. Typical pull factors are economic opportunity, greater freedoms, the ability to reunite with family members, respect for human rights, and the opportunity to live in peace.

Remain in Mexico

Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) support the policy of forcing asylum seekers to remain in Mexico while they await their hearings in immigration court. This policy, implemented in 2019, has been widely criticized for putting the lives of vulnerable migrants at risk as they wait in dangerous and unhealthy conditions, and for violating the rights of asylum seekers under both US and international law. President Biden terminated the MPP when he came into office in 2021.

Sanctuary City

This term is used to refer to cities in which local law enforcement do not question people about their immigration status in the course of their duties, nor do they hold people in custody when requested to do so by ICE.  Such policies are based on the fact that when undocumented people are afraid to report crimes to law enforcement it makes the whole community less safe. “Sanctuary city” does not mean that immigration enforcement does not take place, it just means that local police and sheriff’s departments do not actively collaborate with ICE.

Title 42

Title 42 is a public health measure that was invoked by the CDC in March 2020 at the request of the Trump administration, as a response to the COVID 19 pandemic. The measure supersedes immigration law and allows for the expulsion of asylum seekers who turn themselves in after having crossed the border without documents. Between March 2020 and January 2023, over 2 million people have been expelled from the US under Title 42 (although that figure includes a large number of repeat crossers). After conflicting lower court rulings, the case was headed for the Supreme Court in March 2023, but arguments were cancelled based on the expectation that the use of Title 42 by immigration officials will automatically be cancelled when President Biden declares an end to the COVID 19 public health emergency in May of 2023.

Unaccompanied Minor

The term “unaccompanied minor” is used to refer to youth under the age of 18 who have come to the US on their own, or to those who traveled with an adult other than their parent from whom they have been separated at the border.  Many unaccompanied minors travel to the US with the intention of reuniting with family members already residing here.

Zero Tolerance

In the spring of 2018, the Trump administration instituted a policy of Zero Tolerance (no more asylum seekers and no more undocumented residents in the USA).  The government has tried to close the border to all migrants arriving at the US-Mexico border, even those requesting asylum.  They are presumed to be criminals.  Under Zero Tolerance the government separated children from their parents or caretakers upon arrival at the border.  Separations also occurred when ICE police raided immigrant neighborhoods and arrested undocumented residents.