THE ANGRY TIAS AND ABUELAS CALL FOR IMMIGRATION REFORMS
THE ANGRY TIAS AND ABUELAS CALL FOR IMMIGRATION REFORMS
November 11, 2020
Now that the elections are over, many of us are breathing a collective sigh of relief. We are celebrating and filled with hope. Yet we also grieve for the thousands upon thousands of asylum seekers who suffered rape, battery, torture, kidnapping, trafficking, arbitrary imprisonment and death during the last four years as the direct result of U.S. policies. These refugees sought only survival, especially for their children. Yet we have brutalized them.
What have we done? Why have we turned against our own heritage as a nation of immigrants? We cannot and must not forget the horror we have witnessed at the Texas Mexico border. But we must also answer the question “What should we do now?” We Angry Tias and Abuelas urge the following and immediate reforms.
1. All Asylum and Torture-Related Withholding Applicants should be heard in a United States District Court by a United States magistrate, with full access to standard appeals procedures.
It is time to recognize that the grant or denial of asylum and/or withholding are decisions that carry life and death consequences. The Executive branch must not simultaneously serve as the police, jailor, prosecutor and judge in these cases. Recent and tragic history underscores this principle. Refugees should be heard by fully neutral, professional, and well- trained judges, with the due process protections fully appropriate for matters of such gravity. If our country has the funds to build a wall of hate, then it can afford to strengthen our system of justice.
2. Migrants seeking asylum and/or Torture Related Withholding must not be detained. When refugees first arrive with their families, they may be temporarily detained to permit processing. This period should not exceed twenty-four hours. Sufficient administrative staff must be provided to achieve compliance. After processing, the person or persons must be automatically released unless ICE officials present proof in a United States District Court, with clear and substantial evidence, that the person is either a danger to society or a flight risk. These risks cannot be based merely on the person’s status as a recently arrived immigrant, such as lack of direct community ties. Moreover, friends, family, church networks and community ngos should all be permitted to sponsor refugee families.
We note that personal freedom is a human right. Even persons accused of a serious crime, and with solid evidence creating probable cause, will almost always be released on bond. Refugees are not criminals at all. They merit even stronger protections.
3. The COVID19 pandemic cannot foreclose asylum and protection from torture. We note that each and every day thousands of pedestrians and vehicles enter the United States from Mexico, and vice versa. These people enter for the purposes of business, education, employment, familial visits and many other reasons. Our borders are not closed. Yet there is a mass ban on the entry of asylum seekers. The anti-immigrant intent here is all too plain here, and has left many refugees trapped in the most dangerous regions of Mexico. Refugees and their families should be treated like all other persons arriving at the United States border. They can most certainly be quarantined and/or tested for the virus, so long as their treatment is humane and transparent. No quarantine period should exceed 14 days. Our government should also seek the support of local families, churches and humanitarian groups willing to provide quarantine locations.
4. Abolish all Waiting in Mexico practices: Migrants seeking asylum and/or Torture Related Withholding must promptly be admitted into United States territory and remain there for processing. During the last four years we have watched U.S. immigration officers drive countless refugee families back into Mexico. In the Rio Grande Valley, that has meant forcing the families to wait in the state of Tamaulipas. This region has long been wracked by terrible cartel violence and is deemed so dangerous that U.S. agents are forbidden to travel there. Cities like Reynosa and Matamoros are given safety designations equal to those of Iraq and Afghanistan. After years of meeting with families in Reynosa or Nuevo Laredo, we would estimate that 50% to 80% have suffered kidnappings or armed assaults at least once there. Their pain and trauma are palpable. Yet all families were ordered by our government to return to this area to “wait their turn”. This meant months of waiting with their children in an utterly dangerous area, and with little or no support. Later, many of the Central American and other families were put in the MPP program, which forced them to wait in Mexico for months or more as their cases were processed by the immigration courts. The inhumanity of these practices speaks for itself. Forcing refugees into a region of danger is also prohibited by both United States law as well as our international treaties. There are many friends, relatives and civic organizations willing to receive and support these people as their cases are processed. We have no excuse for sending them to their deaths.
5. We also urge in- depth Congressional hearings: Many of the abusive practices we have watched our government engage in, have in fact been highly unlawful. The proffered justifications have been based upon agency pretexts and false statements. We need immediate and in-depth hearings, so that the grim realities of this era can be fully understood, recognized, and addressed. Our entire citizenry, as well as our leadership, must know what has been done.
6. Our Asylum laws must be amended to more clearly include victims of persecution by cartels/criminal networks, in regions where the government cannot or will not control them. Our laws were written in a time period when most genocide and pervasive persecution were carried out by government security forces. The massive narco-trafficking networks in this hemisphere are a more recent, but equally deadly, phenomenon and are now so powerful that they operate freely without government control. The horrors they inflict on local communities are every bit as brutal as those of World War II, in Bosnia, and in Rwanda. Our laws do not withhold asylum protections from persons fleeing cartel violence. However, those laws are being interpreted to disqualify victims of cartel persecution for reasons deeply rooted in our xenophobia and racism. We must amend our statutes to curtail any such wrongful interpretations.
