Migrant Justice Newsletter - AUG 2023

Migrant Justice Newsletter and Urgent Actions – AUG 2023

Welcome to IRTF’s August 2023 newsletter on Migrant Justice and the current situation at the US-Mexico border! After you’ve looked through the articles, we hope you can take a few minutes to see the TAKE ACTION items at the bottom.

In this newsletter, please read about 

1.    Immigration Court in Cleveland, OH

2.    ICE Air: Update on Removal Flight Trends 

3.    Biden’s Asylum Restrictions May Remain in Place, Federal Court Appeals Rules  

4.    Shocking Conditions in ICE detention centers

5.    DHS announces new family reunification process for nationals of Colombia, Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras

6.    At the Border: Recent Incidents at and around the US-Mexico Border 

7.    U.S. Immigration Courts–the Face of Institutionalized Racism

TAKE ACTION NOW

Here is what you can do to take action this week and act in solidarity with migrants and their families. (See details at the bottom of this newsletter.)

A) Stop Border Militarization 

B) TPS for Mauritanians, not Deportation

C) Support the New Way Forward Act for DREAMers

D) Support the Protect Vulnerable Immigrant Youth Act

E) Tell Congress to Cease Hostility toward Venezuela

F) Urge the Biden Administration and Congress To Choose Welcome Over Harsh Policies!

1- Immigration Court in Cleveland, OH

Cleveland EOIR - Deportations proceedings filed 

Ohio ranks #14 in filing deportation proceedings (out of 31 states that have immigration courts).

Ohio ranks #11 in ordering deportations. 

In July 2023 the short trend of a slowdown in the filing of deportation proceedings ended. Over the duration of the month, the United States’ immigration courts have filed 148,133 new deportation proceedings, 32,013 more than in June (116,120), an increase of 27%.. The recent rise in new proceedings has not only exceeded June, but also overtook May by 2,255 (145,878 filed in May). With the new cases filed, the United States has now filed 1,052,693 deportation proceedings this fiscal year, crossing the one million mark for the first time.  

In the Cleveland EOIR (the only immigration court in Ohio), the numbers of new deporations filed were also on the rise.  In July, 3,298 new cases were filed, 758 more than in June (2,540), but still 191 fewer than in May (949 cases). This increase brings the total number of deportation proceedings filed in Cleveland up to 20,154 this fiscal year. In the national rankings, Ohio, with its single immigration court, ranks #14, being in the upper half of the 31 states with migration courts. Ohio shares the national trend of a rise in cases, filing 3,298 new ones in July. 

In Cleveland, Mauritania is now number two in new deportation proceedings filed, with Venezuela being number one. Haiti takes the number four spot, pushing Colombia to the number 5 spot.

In the Cleveland EOIR as of JULY 2023, these are the top 5 nationalities this fiscal year:

1- Venezuela (2,172)

2- Mauritania (2,146)

3- Mexico (1,938)

4- Haiti (1,713)

5- Colombia (1,400)

Nationally, Venezuelans, Mexicans, and Colombians still top of the list.

New Deportation proceedings filed at the Cleveland EOIR:

April: 2,261 new deportation proceedings filed

May: 3,489 new deportation proceedings filed

June: 2,540 new deportation proceedings filed

July: 3,298 new deportation proceedings filed  

Brazil: 25,045 nationally; 597 Ohio

Ecuador: 45,429 nationally; 329 Ohio

Mauritania: 11,623 nationally; 2,146 Ohio

Uzbekistan: 10,092 nationally; 1,202 Ohio 

Cleveland EOIR - Deportations Ordered

(please see the chart below)

Nationwide: The total number of deportations ordered this fiscal year is now 191,158.

June: 20,088 deportations ordered nationwide; 511 in Cleveland, OH

July: 18,757 deportations ordered nationwide; 470 in Cleveland, OH

In Ohio, the total number of deportations ordered this fiscal year is now 4,491.

Ohio still ranks #11 in total deportations ordered this year. The four countries topping the list in July are: Guatemala (990 cases), Honduras (749), Nicaragua (594) and Mexico (503).    

MINORS GIVEN DEPORTATION ORDERS

In July the Juvenile Court Docket Cleveland ordered 13 new deportations against minors, four fewer than in June and 18 fewer than in May. Over the course of the fiscal year, the Cleveland Juvenile Court has now ordered 267 deportations. Like in the previous month, most orders affected Guatemalans with 8 new deportations ordered, bringing the total up to 148 deportations ordered. Hondurans still are number 2 with 95 orders, two ordered in July. In addition one Salvadoran minor, as well as two Nicaraguans received deportation orders in July. Over the fiscal year, the Cleveland immigration court has ordered 10 deportations against Salvadorans, and 9 against Nicaraguan minors. There were no further deportations ordered. The number of Mexican minors with deportation orders stayed at 4 and Chilan at 1.  

MINORS ordered deported from Cleveland EOIR (juvenile docket) in recent months:

Ordered deported in July 2023:

13 Overall

8 Guatemalan minors

2 Honduran minors

1 Salvadoran minors

2 Nicaraguan minor

0 Mexican minors 

 0 Chilean minors 

Current fiscal year - minors ordered deported from Cleveland (since OCT 2022)

Juvenile: 

All: 267 (+13 compared to last month)

Guatemala:148 (+8)

Honduras: 95 (+2)

El Salvador: 10 (+1)

Nicaragua: 9 (+2)

Mexico: 4 

Chile: 1

148 Guatemalan

95 Honduran

10 Salvadoran

9 Nicaraguan

4  Mexican

1 Chilean 

267 TOTAL

MINORS ordered deported from Cleveland EOIR (juvenile docket) each month of FY 2023:

30: OCT 2022

27: NOV 2022 

37: DEC 2022 

27: JAN 2023 

47: FEB - MAR 2023

38: APR 2023 

31: MAY 2023

17: JUN 2023

13: JUL 2023

Source: TRAC at Syracuse University (Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse)

2- ICE Air: Update on Removal Flight Trends

The U.S. government’s COVID-19 public health emergency order expired on May 11, 2023 — this includes the termination of the Title 42 order that resulted in the expulsion of over 2.5 million migrants from the US-Mexico border. With the end of Title 42, in June the government started to ramp up expedited removal deportations under Title 8.

Since the Biden Administration took office, there have been:

a total of 18,528 ICE Air Flights

3,206 Removal Flights

ICE Air Flights

The number of observed removal flights to ten different countries in Latin America and the Caribbean continues to rise. Over the last 12 months, there have been 8,203 ICE Air flights; 1,325 of those have been removal flights.  With an estimated average of 100 passengers per flight, this means that over the past 12 months, as many as 132,500 people could have been returned to Latin America, the Caribbean and a small number to Africa by air by the U.S.

Removal Flights, Lateral Flights, Domestic Shuffles:

In July 2023, there were 565 ICE Air flights, utilizing 24 different planes operated by 5 different charter carriers (IAero aka Swift, World Atlantic, GlobalX, Eastern, and Gryphon). This went down 105 from June and remained below the average of the prior 6 months (687) by 122. 

Removal flights:

In July 2023, removal flights decreased from 122 in June to 99 in July. Of the 23 removal flight decrease, Guatemala accounted for a reduction of 6 (34 to 28), El Salvador down 5 (13 to 8), Ecuador down 2 (6 to 4), Peru down 2 (5 to 3), Colombia down 2 (11 to 9), and Africa (small 15 passenger jets) down 4 (6 to 2). All other removal flight decreases were by 1. The only increase was a small jet route to Vietnam and Cambodia. All removal flights to South America continue to touch Alexandria, LA, while those to Northern Triangle Countries of Central America are significantly weighted to Texas originations.

Flights to Northern Triangle countries: 75% of all removal flights in July compared to 70% in June.  

Removal flights are a mix of migrants being sent back to their home countries under  Title 8 (“inadmissables”),  and deportations. 

Lateral flights:

Lateral flights in July increased from 21 to 26. All lateral flights originated in Tucson to “decompress” southern Arizona where, according to the Washington Post, encounters reached 40,000, the highest in 15 years.  

Shuffle flights:

Shuffle flights decreased from 354 in June to 316 in July. Shuffle flights are domestic flights transporting migrants from either from one processing center along the border to another, or from one detention center to another.  Shuffle flights include the lateral flights, listed above.

Honduras

Flights to Honduras remained unchanged at 38 in July. In July, ICE Air returned 3,496 Hondurans, down 4,351 on the same number of planes in June.

For the 4th month in a row, there weren’t any removal flights to Honduras from Mexico, and land returns from El Carmen, Mexico, remained very low at 374. 

Guatemala

ICE Air flights to Guatemala decreased by 6 from 34 to 28.  ICE Air returned 3,231 Guatemalans in July; these returns represented 31% of June encounters. After 2 months each of only 1 Mexico deportation flight to Guatemala, there were 0 in June, the only month without a flight since at least May 2021 when IRTF started to follow the monitoring. Mexico did, however, return 2,057 Guatemalans by land at Tecún Úman.

Ecuador

Ice Air Flights to Ecuador decreased to 4. 

Colombia

ICE Air Flights to Colombia decreased to 9 (July) from 11 (June).

El Salvador

Flights to El Salvador decreased to 8  in July.

Dominican Republic

Flights decreased by 1 (3 in June; 2 in July). 

Peru

Dropped by 2 (5 in June; 3 in July)

Haiti

Experienced no flights in July.

Brazil

Flights decreased to 0 in July from 1 in June. 

Cuba

Experienced the first return flight since December 2020 on April 24. Followed by 1 in May, 1 in June and 1 in July.  The Government of Cuba announced that only 33 people were returned in July.

Nicaragua

2 removal flights in July.

Jamaica

1 removal flight in July

Small Jet Removals

Observations included two flights on a Gryphon Air Gulfstream that carries 12-15 passengers as a maximum. Deportations on this route included Mauritania (1), Senegal (1), Cambodia (1), and Vietnam (1).

Mexico Operated Removal

Flights surprisingly stopped altogether in June and now July following just 1 flight each in April and May to Guatemala. 

Land returns of Guatemalans and Hondurans by Mexico fell by an estimated 7,365 (85%) from July 2022 (8,617) to June 2023.  

Source: Witness At the Border

3- Biden’s Asylum Restrictions May Remain in Place, Federal Court Appeals Rules  

In a  2-1 decision on August 3, a federal appeals court granted a reprieve to the Biden administration. It approved the administration’s emergency request to keep its asylum restrictions in place on the U.S.-Mexico border while the legal battle over the policy makes its way through the courts, which could go through September. The 9th Circuit’s decision stayed a July 25 ruling by U.S. District Court of Northern California Judge Jon S. Tigar (an Obama appointee who struck down a Trump administration “asylum transit ban” in 2019) saying that the restrictions violate federal law that says anyone fleeing persecution may request asylum once they set foot on U.S. territory. Dissenting 9th Circuit Judge Lawrence VanDyke wrote that Biden’s asylum restrictions were so similar to the Trump administration’s that it looks like they “got together, had a baby, and then dolled it up in a stylish modern outfit, complete with a phone app.” He is referring to the new requirement that migrants who do not have a sponsor to invite them into the US must schedule an appointment via an app to request a preliminary asylum appointment (credible fear of removal) at the border. If they did not apply for asylum in a third country, or if they do not follow the protocol with the CBP One app, they can be deported or face criminal prosecution for entering the country illegally.

To review, in May of this year, the Biden Administration introduced a rule that makes people ineligible for asylum if they traveled through another country on their way to the U.S. UNLESS they applied for asylum in a third country and were denied OR scheduled one of the limited asylum appointments through CBP One, a smartphone app. This new rule is very confusing and full of glitches along the way. The CBP One app has several technical issues that block migrants from successfully using the app and a safe “third country” doesn’t exist for migrants. The countries that have an asylum system, like Mexico, are overwhelmed, too dangerous, or lack economic opportunity. Most of the Central American countries, like Panama and Honduras, don’t have an asylum process. 

At the end of July, Judge Tigar in the Northern District of California struck down the Biden Administration’s Circumvention of Lawful Pathways policy. This policy layered on restrictions to seeking asylum that the judge found to contradict Congress’s clear intent to allow migrants in the US to access asylum. The DOJ has already appealed Judge Tigar’s ruling. However, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, Judge VanDyke, dissented from the appellate panel’s decision saying that the administrations ‘Pathways Rule’ is not different from the prior administration’s rules.   

“My colleagues, who made all that precedent, should not be able to now just elide it. It’s hard to shake the impression that something other than the law is at work here,” he wrote, adding that he would have liked to have voted in favor of reinstating the asylum policy but that wasn’t “permitted by the outcome-oriented mess we’ve made of our immigration precedent.”

The Biden Administration has rejected the comparison to Trump-era rules and has rolled out ways to manage the US-Mexico border. However, they are facing multiple lawsuits from Republican states as well as advocates. 

SOURCES

https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/2023/08/03/asylum-ruling-tigar-biden/

Quixote Center

CNN News

4- Shocking Conditions in ICE detention centers

An NPR investigation, which required Freedom of Information Act litigation to compel the release of inspection reports about shocking conditions in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)  detention centers, revealed “‘negligent’ medical care (including mental health care), ‘unsafe and filthy’ conditions, racist abuse of detainees , inappropriate pepper-spraying of mentally ill detainees and other problems that, in some cases, contributed to detainee deaths.”

Michigan: a man in ICE detention was sent into a jail's general population unit with an open wound from surgery, no bandages and no follow-up medical appointment scheduled, even though he still had surgical drains in place.

Georgia: a nurse ignored an ICE detainee who urgently asked for an inhaler to treat his asthma. Even though he was never examined by the medical staff, the nurse put a note in the medical record that "he was seen in sick call."

Pennsylvania: a group of correctional officers strapped a mentally ill male ICE detainee into a restraint chair and gave the lone female officer a pair of scissors to cut off his clothes for a strip search.

The Department of Homeland Security's Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties hired experts to examine more than two dozen facilities across 16 states from 2017 to 2019. The expert inspectors found "negligent" medical care (including mental health care), "unsafe and filthy" conditions, racist abuse of detainees, inappropriate pepper-spraying of mentally ill detainees and other problems that, in some cases, contributed to detainee deaths.

The records were obtained in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by NPR. After two years, a federal judge found that the government had violated the nation's public records law and ordered the release of the documents.

SOURCE

https://www.npr.org/2023/08/16/1190767610/ice-detention-immigration-government-inspectors-barbaric-negligent-conditions

5- DHS announces new family reunification process for nationals of Colombia, Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras

US citizens and LPRs (Lawful Permanent Residents, or green card holders) can petition for certain relatives to immigrate to the US. But the backlog of these visa petitions makes relatives wait for many years.

USCIS (US Citizenship and Immigration Services) announced a new parole program in August 2023 for nationals of these countries: Colombia, Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, and  Honduras. The new process allows relatives in the US to initiate a process for their foreign relatives to be paroled into the United States while they wait for their family-based immigrant visas to become available. Individuals granted parole will generally be paroled into the United States for a period of up to three years.

Invitations are being emailed/mailed on a rolling basis to petitioners who are awaiting their family visas (I-130, Petition for Alien Relative). The relative can file Form I-134A (the request for parole) free of charge, but they must file a separate form for each relative. USCIS uses the Federal Poverty Guidelines to determine whether the relative in the US will be able to support the relative they are requesting be paroled into the US.

The beneficiaries (i.e., parolees) cannot be currently residing in the US. They don’t have to be currently residing in their country of origin, but they cannot be inside the US already. Children under the age of 18 can be paroled into the US with their parents. Children who are not traveling with a parent or legal guardian but are coming to the United States to meet a parent or legal guardian who is already present in the U.S. may instead seek parole through the standard Form I-131 parole process.

CBP (Customs and Border Protection) is also involved in this process. Each beneficiary must undergo a medical examination and be medically cleared for travel by a Panel Physician in their country of residence and attest to this before CBP will consider whether to issue advance travel authorization. The parolee must download the CPB One app (the one that is used to schedule “credible fear” interviews at ports of entry) and submit a live photo and biometrics. Once CBP gives them the green light, they pass on that info to USCIS to move the parole application forward. Petitioners must create an online USCIS account where they can monitor the progress of the application.

Work Authorization: This is a separate matter. Beneficiaries who are permitted to enter the US under the family reunification parole process are not automatically give work authorization. They must apply for that separately (Form I-765). Fees can be waived if the beneficiary can show financial hardship.

DHS warns: “This is one of the lawful pathways that families can access rather than placing themselves at the mercy of smugglers to make the dangerous journey or waiting many years to be reunited with qualified family members. Non-citizens who do not use this process or other lawful, safe, and orderly pathways and attempt to enter the United States unlawfully will face tougher consequences, including removal, a minimum five year bar on admission, and potential criminal prosecution for unlawful reentry.”

 SOURCES

https://www.uscis.gov/faq-family-reunification-parole-processes

https://hn.usembassy.gov/fact-sheet-new-family-reunification-parole-processes-provide-lawful-pathway-for-family-unity/

6- At the Border: Recent Incidents at and around the US-Mexico Border 

This is a space where we share current incidents from the US southern border to show that these issues that we write about do, in fact, immediately affect people at the border and in detention, and the horrible things many migrants have to experience while seeking refuge in the U.S. 

Aug 2 – Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) released the report Abuses at the U.S.- Mexico Border: How To Address Failures and Protect Rights. The findings about  CBP (Customs and Border Protection) include:  

- complaints from migrants, such as  unprovoked violence during arrests, abusive language, denial of food or medical attention, family separations, non-return of documents and valuables, dangerous deportations, racial profiling, and falsifying migration paperwork. (WOLA maintains an ongoing database of these.)

-existing investigations into frequent and severe abuse allegations are flawed and incomplete, while disciplinary procedures are not credible enough to change the behaviors of abusive agents.

-without the work of outside actors (human rights defenders, journalists, whistleblowers and the victims themselves) most investigations would never happen. And this report shows that many still don’t get investigated.

RECOMMENDATIONS

WOLA has made 40 recommendations to improve the complaint and investigation process, including:

-increase personnel capacity for investigations

- make changes in top-level management at the Office of the DHS Inspector General (OIG)

-empower the National Use of Force Review Board to issue quicker, tougher decisions.

-Congress needs to carry out more hearings, issue more written inquiries, and add more reporting requirements about accountability

- remove Border Patrol agents from asylum processing

- take stronger measures on sexual harassment and bolster the recruitment of women agets

- protect whistleblowers

- close the current loophole allowing racial profiling

Read the full report in English or Spanish here. 

Aug 2 – A body was found on the razor wire buoys installed in the Rio Grande by Texas Governor Greg Abbott near Eagle Pass, TX. Another body was found floating 3 miles upstream. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador condemned the deaths at a daily news conference: "This is inhumane and no person should be treated like this.” The Department of Justice has sued Texas over the buoys, which stretch the length of three football fields, arguing Texas installed them without proper federal approvals and studies of their impact on public safety and the environment. The Justice Department is asking for an injunction to require Texas to remove the buoys within 10 days and to block Abbott from installing any more river barriers without prior approval from the Army Corps of Engineers. U.S. District Court Judge David Alan Ezra is expected to hear arguments on the lawsuit in San Antonio on August 22.

Texas was warned in December 2022 that its idea of installing a floating net/razor wire barrier in the river was in violation of the border treaty with Mexico and in violation of US federal law. Governor Abbott has responded by saying that Texas has sovereign authority to defend its border under both the U.S. Constitution and the Texas Constitution.

Aug 10 – The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) is investigating the Aug 10 death of who died on a bus of migrants sent to Chicago by Texas Governor Greg Abbott. The bus pulled over in Illinois, and security personnel called 911, whose responders took Jismary Alejandra Barboza Gonzalez (age 3, from Venezuela) to a hospital, where she died. Governor Abbott boasts that he has sent more than 30,000 migrants from Texas (“Operation Lone Star”) to other cities since last spring, 4,900 of them to Chicago, although Mayor Lori Lightfoot has pleaded with him to stop.

The governor’s Operation Lone Star is not only deadly for migrants but for security personnel as well. Since the program was initiated in March 2021, eight Texas National Guardsmen have died at the border, most during non-duty activities, some by suicide. On June 23, Sgt. Bishop Evans drowned when he jumped into the river to save two migrants from drowning. On June 28, Spc. Anthony Hernandez-Dominguez, 26, of Houston died in a non-duty related incident near Bakersfield, Texas. His death is under investigation.

Aug 10 - The government of Panama posted July statistics documenting migration through the Darién Gap, a highly treacherous region straddling the country’s eastern border with Colombia. Until a few years ago, the 60-mile walk through inhospitable jungle was considered an impassable barrier to most transit. While Samira Gozaine, director of Panama’s National Migration Service (SNM), told the U.S. Southern Command’s Diálogo that the Darién jungle “is not a migratory route,” the stats show otherwise.  During the first 7 months of 2023, Panama counted 251,758 migrants passing through the Darién Gap. That number already exceeds the 248,284 migrants counted in all of 2022. The 2010-2020 average was 10,717 migrants per year. Of the migrants documented thus far in 2023, 55% are Venezuelan, 21% are minors. But not all of the migrants are from the Western Hemisphere. There are records of migrants from China, India, Afghanistan, Nepal, and Cameroon. The US Southern Command’s Diálogo website reported that Panama has deployed 1,200 security-force personnel to the Darién region.

Aug 15 – In a joint letter to DHS (Homeland Security) and DOJ (Dept of Justice), 15 members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) called for an investigation into the separation of families being conducted by the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS). Texas DPS has confirmed that they are separating families by arresting and incarcerating men who arrive with their wives and children as part of Operation Lone Star.  Based on news reports and confirmed by CHC members during a recent Congressional Delegation (CODEL) visit to the Rio Grande sector of the U.S.- Mexico border, Texas DPS troopers have broken up at least 26 families by arresting the fathers for criminal trespass and incarcerating them in state prison since July 10. “This appears to be an attempt by Governor Greg Abbott to reinvent cruel and unpopular policies of the previous Trump Administration and is a blatant contradiction to the Biden Administration’s efforts to keep families together.”

SOURCES

https://www.wola.org/analysis/accountability-for-abuses-at-the-u-s-mexico-border-how-to-address-failures-and-protect-rights/

https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/15/us/migrant-child-death-texas-bus/index.html

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/aug/11/venezuela-child-dies-bussed-texas-chicago

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/us-world/article/guardsman-assigned-operation-lone-star-dies-south-18188268.php#:~:text=A%20Texas%20National%20Guard%20soldier,near%20Bakersfield%20in%20Pecos%20County.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/texas-national-guardsman-dies-save-drowning-migrants-family/story?id=85564667

https://tmd.texas.gov/Data/Sites/1/media/press-releases/2023/july/july06/texas-national-guard-releases-name-of-soldier.pdf

https://www.tpr.org/border-immigration/2023-08-03/dead-body-found-stuck-to-texas-gov-abbotts-border-buoys-in-the-rio-grande

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/aug/11/texas-mexico-border-ecos...

https://www.wola.org/2023/08/weekly-u-s-mexico-border-update-girl-dies-on-texas-bus-darien-gap-white-house-budget-request/

https://d3i6fh83elv35t.cloudfront.net/static/2023/08/CHC-LTR_DOJ-AG-Garland-and-DHS-Sec-Mayorkas_Texas-DPS-Family-Seperation_081523-1.pdf

https://www.lirs.org/texas-migrant-family-separations-press-release-08-2023

Want to find out more about the conditions at the southern US border? Sign up for the weekly Border Update from WOLA. https://www.wola.org/tag/weekly-border-update/ 

7- U.S. Immigration Courts–The Face of Institutionalized Racism

For years, many news outlets have reported on the United States’ fight against “illegal immigration” of Latin America migrants, work that is a cornerstone of the migration solidarity movement. But that is only part of the picture. One extremely concerning issue which has been passing under the radar for many years is the unjust and unfair treatment of Black, African and Caribbean migrants seeking safety in the United States.

Over a 20-year period leading up to 2022, the number of Black migrants has tripled from 600,000 to more than two million. In 2022, the mostly African and Caribbean migrants made up around 5% of the Black American population overall. While the number of Black immigrants in the United States was only accounting for 6% of undocumented migrants between 2003 and 2015, the migration courts have filed over 10% of deportation proceedings against Black migrants in the timespan. Once in a deportation proceeding, Black migrants face unique challenges and discrimination, deeply rooted in institutional racism and pursued by individual judges. For many African, Caribbean and other Black migrants, this means higher rates of detention and deportation, longer detention period and a six times higher rate of solitary confinement compared to others. In addition, Black migrants are denied asylum at a higher rate than other migrants. In 2017, for instance, while the total number of deportations ordered against all nationalities decreased, deportations of Black migrants increased. 

In 2022 this unjust treatment hit Haitian refugees especially harsh. Not only were migrants victims of mass expulsion and deportations, they also made up more than 40% of individuals in ICE detention facilities. In addition to mass imprisonment, judges also regularly set higher bonds for Haitian migrants with a 54% higher average ($16,700) than other nationalities.  

The racist treatment of Black migrants is very much reflected in Ohio’s sole immigration court. This bias is especially visible in the migration court’s treatment of Mauritanian refugees. People fleeing violence, torture, and poverty in Africa are often disregarded by the primarily white, Christian judges who often uphold prejudice against Africans and Muslims. In many cases, the prejudice is based on the narrative of immigration fraud pushed by government attorneys and is regularly picked up by immigration judges who are allowed to deny asylum if they find a migrant’s testimony not “credible.” To prove their credibility, many migrants must undergo extreme measures like humiliating themselves by undressing to show scars and prove their need for asylum in the United States. 

Even after going through all that, judges frequently look for mistakes in immigrants’ testimonies as a base for deportation. The tip of the iceberg of mistreatment was reached with two cases in Cleveland and New York where the immigration court did not provide interpreters who spoke the dialect of the Fulani ethnic Black Mauritanians. Was this out of incompetence? Was it done intentionally?  The fact that immigration judges used the difference in wording between the testimony and hearing to deny asylum proved once more that judges in immigration courts label migrants as liars rather than as people in need of help. For many migrants from Mauritania, the bias leads to deportation to the unsafe environment to which they were exposed before fleeing for the US.  Between 2002 and 2022,  713 Mauritanians were processed in the Cleveland immigration court;  443 of those were denied asylum. 

Racist bias against Black immigrants all over the United States is deeply institutionalized. It is the job of all of us to expose this behavior and stand in solidarity with Black immigrants in the United States.  

Sources:

https://mailchi.mp/ohioimmigrant/dispatch-bias-vs-black-immigrants-in-cle-immigration-court?e=ef1a960c73

https://humanrightsfirst.org/library/black-immigrants-face-unique-challenges/

--------------------------------------------

TAKE ACTION NOW

Now that you are up to date on the issues at and around the southern border of the U.S., here is what you can do to take action this week and act in solidarity with migrants and their families.

A) Stop Border Militarization

As the Biden administration and Congress consider a new funding bill for FY24, please join us in urging them to cut funding for these agencies: Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Border walls and abusive immigration enforcement have deadly impacts. The Biden administration is asking Congress for $40.1 billion in additional emergency spending for what remains of 2023, including about $4 billion for border and migration-related priorities, including nearly $1 billion for “responding to migration surges.” The Biden administration deployed 1,500 active-duty military personnel to the border in May, as Title 42 was ending. That mission is being drawn down now, in August, though 2,500 National Guard personnel remain on federal duty

TAKE ACTION

Click here to take action now.

SOURCES

https://afsc.org/action/take-action-stop-border-militarization

https://www.wola.org/2023/08/weekly-u-s-mexico-border-update-girl-dies-on-texas-bus-darien-gap-white-house-budget-request/

B) TPS for Mauritanians, not Deportation

Under the current system, Black Mauritanians encounter asylum denials, expedited Credible Fear Interviews, truncated appeals, interpreters unversed in their specific dialects, arbitrary detention impeding legal representation and asylum preparation, and eventual deportation to the very nation they fled. Deporting people to Mauritania is dangerous because of the country’s system of apartheid and slavery. Mauritania has the highest rate of slavery in the world. Because of the efforts of the Ohio Immigrant Alliance, Ohio lawmakers US Senator Sherrod Brown and US Representative Mike Carey (Republican from Springfield/Columbus, OH) sent a letter to DHS Secretary Mayorkas in January 2023, requesting an 18-month designation of TPS (Temporary Protected Status) for Mauritanians. In August, IRTF joined 104 other organizations in sending a letter to Mayorkas and President Biden.

TAKE ACTION

Learn more here.

C) Support the New Way Forward Act for DREAMers

In March 2023, Rep Chuy García (D-IL-04) introduced the New Way  Forward Act to provide a pathway to citizenship for tens of thousands of migrants who find themselves in legal limbo, i.e. recipients of DACA (aka DREAMers) and TPS (Temporary Protected Status). With 30 co-sponsors, the bill currently sits in the House Judiciary Committee awaiting a hearing.

TAKE  ACTION

Contact your US rep and ask them to co-sponsor H.R.2374 - New Way Forward Act. Find contact info for your congressperson here.

D) Support the Protect Vulnerable Immigrant Youth Act

Right now, thousands of children and young people are in the United States under the protected "Special Immigrant Juvenile" (SIJ) classification. These youths had to prove to a state court judge that they cannot be returned to their parents or their home country due to abandonment, neglect, or abuse. They cannot be deported, but they will not be authorized for employment unless they apply for a visa. The Protect Vulnerable Immigrant Youth Act would help reduce the extreme backlog for EB-4 visas by excluding Special Immigrant Juveniles from the annual caps placed on that visa category.

TAKE  ACTION

Contact your US representative to co-sponsor H.R. 4285 (currently with 34 co-sponsors). Find your US rep here

Contact your two US senators to co-sponsors S.1885 (currently with 5 co-sponsors). Find your US senators here

You can also do this Click Action here to send one message to all 3 of your federal lawmakers.

E) Tell Congress to Cease Hostility toward Venezuela

 As a result of broad U.S. economic sanctions, the people in countries such as Venezuela, Iran, Syria, North Korea, Sudan, and Zimbabwe struggle without adequate food, electricity, medicine, medical supplies, masks and respirators. Those who suffer most under sanctions include pregnant women, children, and the chronically ill, as has been reflected in a report on Venezuela by the Special Rapporteur for Unilateral Coercive Measures of the United Nations Human Rights Council.

TAKE ACTION

Click here to tell Congress to lift economic sanctions on Venezuela.

SOURCES include

https://cepr.net/report/the-human-consequences-of-economic-sanctions/?emci=3a634ede-b62f-ee11-b8f0-00224832eb73&emdi=3ba2186a-bc2f-ee11-b8f0-00224832eb73&ceid=4629123

https://www.wsj.com/articles/bidens-new-border-rules-dont-deter-desperate-venezuelans-9a3c022b?mod=hp_listb_pos1&emci=3a634ede-b62f-ee11-b8f0-00224832eb73&emdi=3ba2186a-bc2f-ee11-b8f0-00224832eb73&ceid=4629123

F) Urge the Biden Administration and Congress To Choose Welcome Over Harsh Policies!

Since the end of Title 42, the administration has largely relied on punitive enforcement and deterrence measures in an attempt to curtail migration at our southern border, including the enhanced use of expedited removal, a process that leads to summary deportations while depriving people of meaningful access to legal counsel when going through asylum proceedings. 

Please urge President Biden to abide by the July 25 federal court ruling (now under appeal) that struck down his post-May 11 anti-asylum policies. Please tell your legislators to 1) oppose any anti-immigrant legislation that would codify Title 42 or curtail existing pathways to protection, 2) ensure safe, humane, and orderly access to asylum for all who seek safety and are in need of protection, as consistent with U.S. law and international agreements, and 3) develop solutions that welcome and honor the dignity of the protection-seeking migrant and support organizations assisting migrants at the border and across the country.

TAKE ACTION

Click here to contact President Biden and your federal legislators now.

Read the full IRTF Migrant Justice Newsletter each month at https://www.irtfcleveland.org/blog .