{"id":18511,"date":"2021-01-19T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-01-19T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inthesetimes.com\/article\/ice-joe-biden-deportations-immigration-deportation-moratorium"},"modified":"2021-01-19T16:00:00","modified_gmt":"2021-01-19T16:00:00","slug":"immigration-activists-prepare-to-fight-a-timid-biden-after-he-walks-back-key-promise-waiting-for-a-bill-wont-cut-it-activists-say-biden-could-halt-the-cruel-detention-and-deportation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/01\/19\/immigration-activists-prepare-to-fight-a-timid-biden-after-he-walks-back-key-promise-waiting-for-a-bill-wont-cut-it-activists-say-biden-could-halt-the-cruel-detention-and-deportation\/","title":{"rendered":"Immigration Activists Prepare to Fight a “Timid” Biden After He Walks Back Key Promise – Waiting for a bill won’t cut it, activists say\u2014Biden could halt the cruel detention and deportation machine tomorrow."},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t\t\t\t

One initiative stood out as especially (and cruelly) effective in President Donald Trump\u2019s often inept White House: his administration\u2019s monomaniacal attack on immigrants. Starting with an unconstitutional Muslim ban his first week in office, Trump signed more than 400 executive actions<\/a> against migrants in a single term\u2014curtailing legal immigration, casting out tens\nof thousands of refugees and asylum seekers, separating undocumented families\nand sowing terror in immigrant communities. Trump\u2019s caging of migrant children\nat the border sparked nationwide protests in 2018 under the banner \u201cKeep\nFamilies Together.\u201d<\/p>\n

But despite mass outrage among liberals, the\nenormous bipartisan machine built to surveil, catch and imprison migrants\npredates Trump. While separating children from their parents at the border was\na cruel Trumpian twist, the U.S. immigration system has long torn apart\nfamilies through deportation. The current iteration of that system, which\ncriminalizes migrants for making mistakes once considered paperwork errors,\ntook three decades to construct before Trump arrived\u2014from the landmark\nimmigration reform act under the Reagan administration in 1986, to the founding\nof Immigration and Customs Enforcement under President George W. Bush in 2003,\nto ICE\u2019s massive raids under President Barack Obama.<\/p>\n

President\nJoe Biden has promised to reverse some of Trump\u2019s most egregious anti-immigrant\npolicies, but few signs suggest he will address what paved their way: the\nongoing criminalization of simply existing in the United States as an immigrant.<\/p>\n

Biden has declared a moratorium on\ndeportations<\/a> during his first 100 days in office. He also promises to send an\nimmigration reform bill to Congress. But neither of these measures, advocates\nsay, would necessarily effect a meaningful change; the moratorium is a\ntemporary measure, and a bill could be delayed in Congress and might expand\nimmigration enforcement as a trade-off for pro-migrant measures.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

The\npresident has already walked back one campaign commitment on immigration: his\npromise that \u201con day one\u201d he would end Trump\u2019s Migrant Protection Protocols\n(also known as MPP or the \u201cRemain in Mexico\u201d policy). Under MPP, more than\n68,000 asylum seekers have been expelled<\/a> from the United States since January\n2019, sent to some of Mexico\u2019s most dangerous regions to await their U.S. court\nhearings. As of December 2020, according to Human Rights First, there had been\nat least 1,314 publicly reported cases of murder, rape, torture, kidnapping and\nother violent assaults against asylum seekers and migrants forced into Mexico\nunder MPP. A federal court enjoined the policy as illegal, but the conservative\nSupreme Court reinstated it until an appeal is heard.<\/p>\n

Biden told reporters, at an event in\nDelaware on Dec. 22, 2020, that he would need \u201cprobably the next six months<\/a>\u201d to\nrebuild the asylum processing system and secure funding for immigration judges.\nHe also said an immediate change in policies was \u201cthe last thing we need\u201d\nbecause it could lead to \u201c2 million people on our border.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brenda Valladares, an organizer with\nMovimiento Cosecha<\/a>, a group that advocates for the permanent protection of all\nmigrants, thinks the Biden team is raising the specter of migrants at the\nborder as a ploy \u201cto alarm people and get excuses as to why they won\u2019t do what\nthey said they were going to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of fear that this\nadministration is going to be very timid,\u201d says Jacinta Gonz\u00e1lez, senior\ncampaign organizer at Mijente<\/a>, a nonprofit that advocates for racial, economic,\ngender and climate justice. \u201cThat is why we have actually seen tremendous unity\nin the immigrant rights movement to be pushing against policies of\ncriminalization, against detentions, against ICE raids and deportations.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Immigration Reform and Control Act of\n1986 normalized the idea that any interaction with law enforcement, from a\nsimple traffic stop to reporting a witnessed crime, could lead to\ndeportation\u2014even for legal permanent residents. Well-established by the Obama\nera, the criminalization strategy of immigration enforcement was aggressively\nexpanded by the Trump administration.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

Gabriela Parra P\u00e9rez, a 26-year-old Mexican,\nmigrated to the United States with her mother and sister in 2001. Fleeing her\nviolent and sexually abusive father, she and her family came to live with her\nmaternal grandfather. After living in the United States for nearly two decades,\nand after being paroled for a DUI incident in a Portland, Ore., suburb, Parra\nP\u00e9rez got into a fight with her son\u2019s father, with whom she had \u201ca difficult\nrelationship,\u201d and broke his car window. She was placed in deportation\nproceedings and jailed in January 2020 in a detention center in Tacoma, Wash.,\naway from her then-1-year-old son, Ezekiel\u2014\u201cZeke.\u201d <\/p>\n

She tried several legal routes to stay in\nthe country (10-year cancellation of removal, withholding of removal, relief\nunder the Convention Against Torture and applying for asylum), but an\nimmigration judge rejected her applications. The judge argued that Parra P\u00e9rez\nhad not proven her son would suffer \u201cexceptional and extremely unusual\nhardship\u201d if she were deported. The boy now lives with his father. <\/p>\n

The judge\nreasoned that, because Parra P\u00e9rez and her son had spent only one year\ntogether, Zeke \u201cdoes not even know me,\u201d Parra P\u00e9rez told In These Times<\/em> over the phone. <\/p>\n

Biden\u2019s campaign platform promised to\nreunite families separated at the border, and in the Oct. 22, 2020,\npresidential debate, Biden spoke witheringly of the \u201ckids ripped from their\n[parents\u2019] arms\u201d by Trump, calling the practice \u201ccriminal.\u201d But Biden has been silent\non the separation of families through detention and deportation, like Parra\nP\u00e9rez\u2019s.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\n

Parra P\u00e9rez pleads, \u201cI would ask [President\nBiden] to be aware that families in detention [across the United States] are\nalso separated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Parra P\u00e9rez took her case to the Board of\nImmigration Appeals, the highest administrative body for interpreting\nimmigration rulings, currently packed with Trump appointees. In January, they\ndenied her appeal and ordered that she be deported. <\/p>\n

The board wrote in its ruling, \u201cThe lack of\na stable home is not ideal for a young child, but this is often the case when a\nparent of a young child is ordered removed from the United States.\u201d <\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

The power of the pen<\/strong><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

Unpacking immigration courts that have been stacked with judges sympathetic to the\nTrump administration will take time and effort. So, too, will reversing Trump\u2019s\nmore than 400 changes to immigration rules, says Sarah Pierce, senior analyst\nat the Migration Policy Institute (MPI).<\/p>\n

The office of the president, however, does have considerable authority to interpret and enforce immigration laws.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf anything, the Trump administration\ntaught us how much executive power there is on immigration,\u201d says Silky Shah,\nexecutive director of Detention Watch Network, a national coalition dedicated to\nabolishing immigration detention.<\/p>\n

Biden seems reluctant to wield those\nexecutive powers broadly. In a Dec. 8, 2020, meeting with civil rights leaders\nabout a range of issues, Biden said<\/a>, \u201cExecutive authority that my progressive\nfriends talk about is way beyond the bounds.\u201d<\/p>\n

Progressive\nimmigration advocates are demanding concrete and immediate steps forward. The\nMigrant Justice Platform<\/a> is a blueprint of actions for the next administration\nand Congress, issued in 2019 by a commission of migrant rights advocates from\nvarious organizations, including the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education\nand Legal Services (RAICES<\/a>), the National Day Laborer Organizing Network<\/a>, the\nBlack Alliance for Just Immigration<\/a>, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers <\/a>and\nMovimiento Cosecha. The platform recommends the White House eliminate obstacles\nto asylum, demilitarize the border and impose indefinite moratoriums on all ICE\noperations, deportations and detentions\u2014a strategy that moves beyond the slow\nand costly \u201ccomprehensive reform\u201d legislation attempted during previous\nadministrations.<\/p>\n

Within\nthe immigrant rights movement, the memory of the Obama administration looms\nlarge. During the Obama years, while Congress endlessly debated reform, more\nthan 3 million migrants were forcibly removed<\/a> from the country, a record\nnumber. In fiscal years 2012, 2013 and 2014, Obama deported more than 400,000\npeople per year<\/a> (a record), compared to Trump\u2019s peak of 267,000 <\/a>in fiscal year\n2019.<\/p>\n

Biden was\nasked in February 2020\u2014as Sen. Bernie Sanders surged in the Democratic\npresidential primary\u2014whether he would apologize for the number of deportations\ncarried out while he served as President Barack Obama\u2019s vice president. \u201cI\nthink it was a big mistake,\u201d Biden said. \u201c[It] took too long to get it right.\u201d\nBiden disputed, however, that the Obama administration held the record on\ndeportations. That distinction goes to President Bill Clinton when people\napprehended at the border are included in the tally. <\/p>\n

Shah,\nfrom Detention Watch Network, says that what Biden meant by \u201ca big mistake\u201d in\n2020 remains \u201ca real question mark.\u201d She asks, \u201cWhat are the parts of the Obama\nstrategy he sees as mistakes and how is he going to reckon with that?\u201d (Perhaps\ntellingly, in a town hall meeting in 2019<\/a>, when confronted about Obama\u2019s\ndeportation legacy by an activist from Movimiento Cosecha, Biden sarcastically\nsnapped, \u201cWell, you should vote for Trump.\u201d)<\/p>\n

\u201cBiden does not have the motivation to make\nprofound changes because he is not a progressive,\u201d says Maru Mora Villalpando,\nfounder of La Resistencia, a grassroots and undocumented-led organization. The\nincoming administration \u201cwon\u2019t be willing to address the root of the problem,\nwhich is precisely what Biden and Obama strengthened.\u201d That root, she says, is\ntreating migrants as expendable commodities. Despite their contributions to the\nUnited States, undocumented migrants live exposed to poor health and\nquality-of-life conditions, ever in danger of removal from a country that\nrefuses to acknowledge basic human rights.<\/p>\n

The\nCovid-19 pandemic has rendered the exploitation of migrants more visible.\nAlthough half of the 10.5 million undocumented migrants<\/a> in the United States\nare considered essential workers, they have not received financial aid from the government\u2014as if they did not exist. Migrant workers,\nnotes the Migrant Justice Platform, subsidize the U.S. economy: \u201cThat\u2019s not up\nfor debate.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Biden has made a new Covid-19 aid\npackage a priority, he has not mentioned assisting undocumented workers.<\/p>\n

Biden did not respond to requests for\ncomment for this article on the topics of Covid-19 assistance for undocumented\nworkers, deportation proceedings, detention and immigration enforcement\npolicies.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe never\nbelieved that Biden was going to be our savior,\u201d Gonz\u00e1lez says. \u201cThat is why we\nare being so unequivocal about demanding policies that are against\ncriminalization, that are for racial justice and that really dismantle the\nenforcement system that has created so much harm in our communities.\u201d<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

Obama 2.0?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

When Biden first announced\nthe plan for a 100-day moratorium on deportations, in February 2020<\/a>, he seemed\nto suggest deportations would resume only for those convicted of felonies. \u201cThe\nonly rationale for deportation will be whether or not\u2014whether or not you\u2019ve\ncommitted a felony while in the country,\u201d he said. Such a policy would\neliminate the terror many migrants experienced under Trump, who signed an\nexecutive order to detain undocumented migrants regardless of their criminal\nrecords in 2017. Biden\u2019s directive, nonetheless, could simply mean a reprise of\none of Obama\u2019s most harmful policies.<\/p>\n

After an\noutcry over the Obama administration\u2019s mass deportations in 2014, Obama\nannounced a policy informally known as \u201cfelons, not families<\/a>\u201d to focus on the\ndeportation of those with a felony in their background. But in immigration law,\nwhat constitutes a \u201cfelony\u201d is expansive, and migrants can be considered \u201caggravated felons\u201d after committing less serious crimes, such as misdemeanors\n(like one \u201cfelon\u201d who stole some Tylenol<\/a>). Migrants who reenter the U.S. after\nbeing deported can receive felony convictions, as can those who get a job and\npay taxes under a false Social Security number (considered a crime of \u201cmoral\nturpitude<\/a>\u201d).<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are looking at millions of people being\ndeported if we continue to have this language of \u2018felons, not families,\u2019 \u201d says\nValladares. \u201c[When Biden] said, \u2018We should have done better,\u2019 he actually did\nnot learn. We can see an apology but it is empty.\u201d<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\n

Advocates\ndemand the Biden administration shut off programs that entangle the criminal justice\nand immigration systems, such as the Secure Communities program and the 287(g)\nprogram<\/a>. Both programs enable cooperation between ICE and local law enforcement\nagencies, and both ensnare people regardless of their criminal records. They\nhave caused the deportation of migrants who reported or were victims of crimes\nor were unlawfully arrested\u2014even with legal immigration status. The programs,\nthen, actually deter migrants from reporting crimes, seeking protection from\ndomestic violence and serving as witnesses in criminal prosecutions, all of\nwhich arguably make the country less safe.<\/p>\n

In 2018, the call to \u201cAbolish ICE\u201d <\/a>became a\nshorthand for ending the criminalization of migrants and dismantling the\ndetention and deportation system (and became a polarizing demand within the\nDemocratic Party). Now, advocates are taking a broader approach.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe\nproblem is not just one agency,\u201d says Valladares. \u201cIt\u2019s the whole system,\ndesigned to have people come to this country, be forced into an undocumented\nstatus, be abused at the workplace for cheap labor and then be detained and\ndeported.\u201d<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

Private detention<\/strong><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

The new Biden administration immigration platform does offer \u201calternatives\u201d to the current system of detaining migrants\u2014which makes sense, considering that most people in deportation proceedings show up to their court hearings. According to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a research center at Syracuse University, migrant families with legal representation have a 99% court appearance rate<\/a>.
<\/p>\n\n

Advocates are pushing for more, however,\nwith the demand to end migrant detention entirely. They call for the federal\ngovernment to end its detention contracts with private corporations and local\njails, as well as its contracts for surveillance and facial recognition\ntechnologies used to target migrants.<\/p>\n

The\npandemic enabled advocates to win a partial victory in their decades-long push\nagainst detention. Given detainees\u2019 vulnerability to Covid-19, activists\nsuccessfully pressured ICE to release some migrants. In December 2020, there\nwas an average of 16,135 migrants in detention each day, compared with more\nthan 30,000 a day during the Obama administration<\/a> and more than 50,000 a day in\nfiscal year 2019.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWe are now in a very important moment: We\nhave the lowest number of detainees in a very long time,\u201d says Mora Villalpando\nof La Resistencia<\/a>. The Biden administration will decide whether the detention\ncenters will return to pre-pandemic levels.<\/p>\n

Detaining migrants is expensive, and the current U.S. migrant detention system is the most expensive in the world. The more than 200 ICE-administered centers cost $3.2 billion in fiscal year 2019<\/a>, according to Detention Watch Network. It\u2019s also deadly. Unlike defendants in criminal proceedings, migrants are not granted public attorneys and are often denied urgent medical attention. More than 210 people have died in ICE custody since 2003.<\/p>\n

Just a fraction of that $3.2 billion budget\ncould provide legal representation for migrants in court, Shah says, and render\nthe migrant detention system unnecessary. \u201cInstead, the U.S. invests in a model\nthat retraumatizes people and that can cause them long-lasting damage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Biden has stated his intention to end the\nuse of private prisons by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, a repeat of a 2016\nObama directive scrapped by the Trump administration. He has also pledged to\n\u201cmake clear that the federal government should not use private facilities\u201d for\nimmigrant detention. For-profit corporations administer 81% of all detention\nbeds<\/a>. But the two largest private prison\ncompanies, Geo Group and CoreCivic, are in fact \u201cnot panicking\u201d after Biden\u2019s\nvictory, according to an investigation by nonprofit reporting organization The\nMarshall Project<\/a>. Both companies derive about half their revenue from contracts\nwith the federal government, mostly through their migrant detention facilities.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

The struggle ahead<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n

Biden\u2019s historic nomination\nof three Latinos to his Cabinet\u2014Miguel Cardona\nat the Department of Education, Xavier Becerra at the Department of Health and\nHuman Services, and Obama alumnus Alejandro Mayorkas at the Department of\nHomeland Security (DHS)\u2014has not assuaged advocates\u2019 concerns.<\/p>\n

\"We cannot confuse representation with power\nin these moments,\u201d says Gonz\u00e1lez from Mijente. \u201cI think it is dependent on\ncommunities to stay vigilant.\u201d<\/p>\n

Advocates\nworry that, with Trump out and Mayorkas at the head of DHS\u2014the agency that\noversees ICE and Border Patrol\u2014liberals may be lulled into a sense of\ncomplacency about immigration issues. Local pressure on Democratic mayors led\nto the strengthening of \u201csanctuary\u201d policies, in which municipalities refused\nto work with ICE. Mora Villalpando fears that local elected officials may stop\nadvocating for migrant rights, expecting Biden to push for an immigration\nreform bill. (In an email to In These Time<\/em>s, the\noffice of Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot affirmed the mayor\u2019s commitment to\nstrengthening the city\u2019s sanctuary policy.) <\/p>\n

It\u2019s unclear if Congressional Democrats who\nrallied around demands like \u201cAbolish ICE\u201d during the Trump administration will\npush Biden for executive action or will wait to hash out legislation. Members\nof the Congressional Progressive Caucus did not respond to In These Times<\/em>\u2019 request for comment.<\/p>\n

Valladares\nsays immigrant rights groups will not take a \u201cwait and see\u201d approach with the\nBiden administration. \u201cWe have already experienced a Democratic administration\nthat told us that everything would be okay, and we know that we should not\ntrust that,\u201d she says. Instead, expect the migrant rights community \u201cto take\nactions and to take to the streets [in 2021] and beyond.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed,\nadvocates did not wait for Inauguration Day to bring their concerns to Biden\u2019s\ndoorstep. On January 13, undocumented activist Jeanette Vizguerra (who has been\nliving in sanctuary at the First Unitarian Society of Denver since 2015)\naccompanied a grassroots coalition at Biden\u2019s transition headquarters in\nWilmington, Del. The coalition demanded immediate action<\/a> on immigration and an\nend to detentions and deportations.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am here\ntoday to personally ask Joe Biden ... to act immediately when he takes office\nnext week,\u201d said Vizguerra, who risks arrest by ICE just for stepping out of\nthe church. \u201c[Biden must] protect families like mine that have been hunted and\nterrorized simply for daring to exist in this \u2018land of the free.\u2019\u2009\u201d\u2003<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\n

This post was originally published on In These Times<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\tOne initiative stood out as especially (and cruelly) effective in President Donald Trump\u2019s often inept White House: his administration\u2019s monomaniacal attack on immigrants. Starting with an unconstitutional Muslim ban his first week in office, Trum…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1439,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18511"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1439"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18511"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18511\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18512,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18511\/revisions\/18512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}