The Friday Immigration News Wrap-Up
Do Republicans want war with Mexico? Are immigrants in the military getting a fair deal? Is the Biden administration falling short on promises to provide attorneys to asylum seekers? + more.
It’s Friday! Or Friyay (although I have a feeling that’s already out of style). Let’s wrap up the week and enjoy the weekend, shall we?
I have a fairly rigorous and mostly automated system for tracking immigration news and policy these days, especially compared to just a few years ago.
At the end of each week, I typically go back through the key news items to see what I missed, what I need to read up on in greater detail, and to gauge the temperature of the national and international discourse on migration.
Here are a few key stories from the week that stick out to me as worth passing along to you.
Are there major stories from the news that I missed? Leave a comment with a link.
Do Republicans Want a War with Mexico?
If you blinked you might have missed it. In January two Republican members of the House—Dan Crenshaw and Mike Waltz—introduced a bill to authorize military force in Mexico to supposedly combat fentanyl production and distribution. It’s not just Crenshaw and Waltz; other prominent Republicans from Lindsey Graham to Tom Cotton have endorsed versions of this theory that unprecedented U.S. military operations in Mexico are the way forward.
David Frum’s article for the Atlantic looks at this new potential “litmus test” for Republicans heading into the 2024 elections and raises several concerns. Perhaps the most important point he raises is this one: this inflammatory political rhetoric may actually strengthen organized crime. Sending the message that the U.S. might take military action in Mexico could set both the Mexican government and cartels on edge and actually expand the cartel’s political influence in the region.
Frum doesn’t say this exactly, but it’s implied: unsanctioned U.S. operations inside their borders could easily distract Mexico from any programs (such as they are) to crack down on organized crime. Not to mention this rhetoric is likely to further radicalize voters and does nothing to resolve the market for drug use inside the United States.
Fentanyl is a serious problem, but the unfortunate transformation of this into an unhinged moral panic among some on the right means that we are even less likely to find serious solutions.
Recommended reading: “The New Republican Litmus Test Is Very Dangerous” by David Frum in the Atlantic.
What do you think: is this rhetoric justified? Is it just for show? How should responsibility for the fentanyl problem be distributed between Mexico and the United States?
The Military is Recruiting More Immigrants; It’s Not Always a Win-Win
The Army is failing—massively—to meet its recruiting goals and sees immigrants as a potential solution. Non-citizens who enlist are typically put on a path to citizenship, and for many, naturalization can happen as early as basic training. But even after going through the same basic training as citizen enlistees, immigrants in the military still face discrimination. Others don’t necessarily join to get citizenship, but for other reasons, as Sofya Aptekar, a professor at CUNY who studies immigrants in the military, described in a recent interview with Slate.
Recommended reading: “The Faustian Bargain the U.S. Military Offers Immigrants” by Mary Harris for Slate.
What do you think: should immigrants receive citizenship upon enlistment? Are there other jobs — becoming a public school teacher, perhaps — where immigrants should receive a path to citizenship?
Immigrants Aren’t Getting the Attorneys Biden Promised
The Biden administration’s “Enhanced Expedited Removal” program is intended to funnel asylum seekers through an accelerated screening process at the border. A core principle of this program—like the Biden administration’s other failed accelerated asylum programs—is that immigrants will have access to attorneys. Research repeatedly finds that attorneys are a determinate factor in the outcomes of immigration proceedings of all kinds.
Recent reporting on the ground and conversations with people inside the administration reveal that migrants are not getting the attorneys they promised and, furthermore, that the rate of passing credible fear screenings under this accelerated model is down considerably from 77% to 52%. Forcing asylum seekers to find an attorney in as little as one day is simply bound to produce these outcomes.
By the way, this is all entirely consistent with what Schrag, Ramji-Nogales, and Schoenholtz argued in their recent article “The New Border Asylum Adjudication System: Speed, Fairness, And The Representation Problem“. And it’s similar to what I wrote about in my own book chapter from 2019 titled “Immigration Courts, Judicial Acceleration, and the Intensification of Immigration Enforcement in the First Year of the Trump Administration.”
Recommended reading: “The Biden administration guaranteed attorney access for all migrant screenings. Most don’t have it“ by Elliot Spagat for the Associated Press.
What do you think: should asylum seekers be provided an attorney? Should asylum cases move faster through the system, and at what cost?
In Other Immigration News
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The U.S. has been deporting veterans for decades. The Unified U.S. Deported Veterans office in Tijuana has been fighting to repatriate vets, some of whom have been stuck in Mexico and other countries for many years. These men and women served in the U.S. military, got into trouble later and were deported when their immigration status was discovered. Some have said they were misled by recruiters as far as military service being a path to citizenship. Unified U.S. Deported Veterans has had success in recent years fighting for returns to the U.S., but others have died in Mexico before getting that chance. Here is their website, and they are active on Facebook as well. https://www.uusdepvets.org/
Thank you for this! Will you make this summary/review of recent immigration news a regular feature? Very useful to see some articles I missed.