By Ali Noorani
“LEGAL, NOT JUST ILLEGAL” – While the family separation crisis on the border has led to a focus on unauthorized immigration, behind the scenes, the Trump administration has been quietly “slowing and restricting legal immigration,” according to the American Immigration Lawyers Association. The Wall Street Journal expanded on the report and drew on the recent work of the National Foundation for American Policy, finding that “this new posture is having a chilling effect on the issuance of H-1B visas, the main vehicle businesses use to hire highly educated foreign nationals who, they say, often fill skill gaps not met by the supply of American workers.” Our economy needs the skilled engineer as much as it needs the skilled farmworker. The administration is keeping both out.
SURGE IN ARRESTS – Federal arrests of undocumented immigrants with no criminal record have more than tripled in the Trump era, according to an NBC News analysis of Immigration and Customs Enforcement data from the administration’s first 14 months. “The surge has been caused by a new ICE tactic of arresting — without warrants — people who are driving or walking down the street and using large-scale ‘sweeps’ of likely immigrants, according to a class-action lawsuit filed in June by immigration rights advocates in Chicago.” An incredibly expensive use of law enforcement resources that does little, if anything, to increase public safety.
DEPORTING ADOPTEES – The Child Citizenship Act, passed by Congress in 2000, granted automatic citizenship to 140,000 child adoptees. In order to get Republicans on board, the bill excluded those ages 18 and up – between 25,000 and 49,000 adult adoptees. The Intercept tells the heart wrenching, tragic, story of Mauricio Oviedo Soto. Adopted and brought to America at the age of six, Mauricio made some mistakes, got his life back together and, 32 years after his arrival in the U.S., was deported to his birthplace in Costa Rica.
IT’S A TRAP – Emails between ICE and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services show that the two agencies coordinated to set traps, disguised as citizenship interviews for immigrants seeking legal status. There is an interesting nugget in the Boston Globe’s reporting – “In May, Thomas Brophy, the acting director of Boston’s ICE field office, told US District Court Judge Mark L. Wolf that agents would no longer arrest immigrants during scheduled visits to immigration offices and would instead focus on immigrants who posed a threat to public safety.” Wait for the kicker. “Soon after that, Brophy was replaced by interim field office director Rebecca Adducci, who said in a June affidavit that the practice would still be permitted.”
BAKERIES AND BUSINESS – St. Agnes Baking Company in downtown St. Paul, MN was shut down in January “as a result of an immigration audit that found half its employees were unauthorized to work in the United States.” Minnesota Public Radio reports that “the company wasn’t the only business in Minnesota to receive this type of audit under the Trump administration. Minnesota businesses that range in size and industry — from construction and hospitality to manufacturing and agriculture — have been hit with these employment authorization inspections, as part of the government’s ramped up enforcement to discourage illegal work.” FWIW, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in Minnesota is 3.1 percent.
HELPING FAMILIES REUNITE – Julie Schwietert Collazo, a freelance writer in New York, founded the Immigrant Families Together network, which has “raised money to pay the bonds of 20 women — which range from $1,500 to $25,000,” PBS reports. “For the immigrants whose trust in Americans might have been lost in the detention process, gestures of goodwill from the group can help restore it. ‘A lot of what instills trust are these magical boxes of Legos that appear at their doorstep. It’s pretty awesome,’ says Sara Farrington, another member of the network.”
Ali Noorani
e-mail: anoorani@immigrationforum.org
