Immigration Processes are Never 'Automatic'
Language is key to thinking and writing clearly about immigration. Improve your thinking and your writing today by removing this one deceptive word from your vocabulary.
I talk to about a dozen reporters, researchers, and policy analysts every week about the U.S. immigration system.
People often reach out to me to help explain key parts of the immigration system and to connect them to data that accurately and objectively reflects the current realities of how immigrants are processed through the complex apparatus of immigration control.
As a result, I have a fairly good pulse on the kinds of questions that are in the air around immigration policy. I have wanted for some time now to write about this experience so that more people can benefit from questions and answers.
To that end, this is the first in a series of posts about how to write about immigration. My goal is to help each of you become better thinkers and writers, learn pitfalls to avoid, and discover resources you can turn to when things get confusing.
Welcome back. My name is Austin Kocher, and I’m a professor who writes about the fascinating world of immigration. If you’re new, welcome! 🙏🏼 You can learn more about this newsletter on the “about” page—and please consider subscribing.
“Automatic”? Never.
Over the past month, I’ve spoken with several reports about the process for asylum seekers arriving at the border, getting processed into the country, pursuing their asylum cases in court, and getting a decision.
The fundamentals are fairly routine. The Biden administration prefers migrants to go to ports of entry using the CBP One app and purportedly discourages migrants from crossing between ports of entry, but either way, migrants who are seeking asylum and make it into the country are likely to end up in immigration court at some point where they may be able to seek asylum.
One thing stuck out to me recently. I’ve been asked some version of the question, “Are migrants automatically put into court?” or “So migrants that cross illegally are automatically prevented from applying for asylum?”
I am highlighting the use of the term “automatically” here to emphasize a simple but important point: nothing in the immigration system is automatic. We should banish the term automatic from our collective vocabularies—at least when writing about immigration.
Automatic suggests a clear “if this, then that” relationship between two interrelated actions or processes. When you’re driving, if you press on the brake pedal, then the car will stop. (If not, you’ve got bigger problems than this post can solve.) The connection between the brake pedal and the car stopping is automatic. The car doesn’t think about whether to slow down or stop. It doesn’t take a variety of factors into account, and then decide whether to stop. It stops.
One way of describing automatic relationships is that they are relationships that lack discretion or contingency. There is no decision-making mechanism in an automatic action, no “if this, then maybe something else” possibility.
By contrast, the immigration system is chock full of discretion, contingency, and conditionality. Most of the decisions in the immigration system involve some level of human input, which means that human behaviors, human error, and human variability play a significant role in shaping what happens to immigrants (and in what order, and when, etc.).
Some of these contingencies are highly specific legal and bureaucratic factors that are not entirely due to human input but have more to do with systems-level complexity that is not easily observable from the outside.
The key lesson here is that nothing (well, almost nothing) in immigration is automatic.
Let me explain with a concrete example.
Let’s suppose a migrant crosses between ports of entry to seek asylum. Are they automatically deported because the Biden administration has created what they call a “presumption of ineligibility” for asylum? Well, no. Maybe some are turned back, a lot of them are not.
So if they are allowed in, they are automatically put into the immigration courts, right? Well, no. Many clearly are, and those people are given what’s called an NTA (Notice to Appear), which starts the deportation process. But many are not given an NTA until later when they reach their destination (e.g., Miami, NYC, etc.).
Got it. Immigrants in immigration court are automatically allowed to apply for asylum, then? Again, no. Some conditions have to be met before an immigrant can apply for asylum, so it depends on whether the individual meets those conditions. It also depends on whether the immigrant has the resources to find an attorney to help them even file an asylum application. So many contingencies!
Here’s one of my favorite ones. If immigrants are granted asylum, they are automatically granted a green card, right? Yes and no. There is a difference between an asylum application, which is filed and adjudicated in immigration court, and a pending deportation case. So being granted asylum is a different thing than terminating a deportation case (although, yes, they are often closely bound up together—but not automatic). Then the process of getting a green card from USCIS (a separate agency from the courts) is yet another process that takes time and discretion, too.
It’s not automatic like hitting the brakes on your car. It requires human labor and is affected by a variety of contingencies. Just ask any immigration attorney about weird and unusual cases they’ve had!
It Depends…
Immigration attorneys laugh about how often they use this phrase: it depends. But it’s a good one to adopt when thinking and writing about immigration.
The difference between novice immigration writing and expert immigration writing typically comes down to understanding how much dependency there is in the it-depends-ness of the question being asked.
Some questions, such as “Once someone is granted asylum, they are automatically allowed to stay in the U.S., right?” is straightforward enough that I would say (more or less) “yes”. However, other questions, like, “If someone is denied asylum, they will automatically be ordered deported, right?” need a more nuanced answer like, “no, not automatically, let’s get into it…”.
One phrase I like to use when I’m formulating questions is, “What are the conditions under which X happens?”
What are the conditions under which someone who enters between ports of entry will be allowed to apply for asylum?
What are the conditions under which someone who is denied asylum might be allowed to stay in the country on other grounds?
What are the conditions under which Biden’s policy on prohibiting border crossers from seeking asylum is actually put into practice?
Once we formulate questions in this way, we can start to answer them both as abstract questions of institutional process as well as empirical questions that involve various sources of immigration data.
Key Takeaway
Here’s the lesson in a nutshell. If you find yourself introducing the word automatic into your thinking or writing, pause 🛑, think about what you’re really asking, and replace this concept of automaticity with one that reflects the precise type of contingency that you’re trying to unpack. This is an easy way to level up your writing and thinking.
What do you think?
Does this discussion track with your understanding of the immigration system? Please add your own perspective in the comments, and take this quick poll to let me know if you found this helpful.
Support public scholarship.
Thank you for reading. If you would like to support public scholarship and receive this newsletter in your inbox, click below to subscribe for free. And if you find this information useful, consider sharing it online or with friends and colleagues.
Shout this from the rooftops!! People so often want a cut-and-dry, easy soundbite, and that's just not typically available in the immigration context.