Stasis in the Southern heat - Village Magazine

VILLAGEAugust/September 

INTERNATIONAL US IMMIGRATION

a family

crossing

into

Mexico

from

Guatemala

into Texas from Honduras, El Salvador and

Guatemala – that’s double the number from

the same period a year earlier.

Of the funds, as yet to be approved, some

$.bn will be spent on providing care for

unaccompanied children while they await

detention. $m of the $.bn allocated

to the Department of Homeland Security will

go towards paying the cost of transporting

unaccompanied children back to their origi-

nal countries, and a further $m will be

spent in Central America supporting bor-

der control.

As Obama’s plans continue to hinge on a

decision from Congress, some Republicans

have stated that the funds should be drawn

from existing foreign-aid programs that

assist the immigrants’ home countries.

Republicans blame Obama for previous

legislation he enacted to defer deportation

of some immigrants who had entered the US

illegally as children, claiming this has sent

the wrong message.

On the other hand Obama is also running

into trouble with some in his own party for

his attempts to circumvent or reverse legis-

lation brought into law in  by George W

Bush; the ‘William Wilberforce Traﬃcking

Victims Protection Reauthorization Act’

guarantees extra legal protection to Central

American immigrants. Reversing it would

allow, for example, such immigrants to be

returned to their countries in as little as a

week.

The American Civil Liberties Union

has ﬁled a class action lawsuit against the

Obama administration’s attempt to reverse

the  anti-traﬃcking act, claiming

that the government is violating the ﬁfth

amendment due process clause, as well as the

Immigration and Nationality Act’s require-

ment of a “full and fair hearing”.

According to US Department of Justice ﬁg-

ures, % of migrants appeared in court in

 without legal representation; few are

entitled to court-appointed attorneys and

most rely on pro bono lawyers or non-proﬁt

groups.

However, with over , outstand-

ing immigration cases currently waiting

to be heard by just  specialist judges

across the US, Obama is keen to be seen to

be taking action, even if he was elected on an

Immigration liberalisation platform.

The inﬂux of migrants through Texas

has less to do with just economics or simple

opportunism than with myriad socio-eco-

nomic problems throughout Central

America. Honduras has the world’s high-

est murder rate, while both El Salvador and

Guatemala are riven with both extreme pov-

erty and crime.

Central America itself functions as a stop-

oﬀ point for drug smuggling between South

America and the US – yielding a long history

of gang violence. The problem has intensi-

ﬁed in recent years due to turf wars fought

by Mexican cartels. For many in Central

America, who have witnessed friends, fam-

ily or neighbours being killed on the streets,

the perilous trip to the Mexican border is

worth risking.

Republicans castigate Obama for his inac-

tion, while most Democrats oppose any

change to the  anti-traﬃcking act. The

President attracted further criticism when

he failed to visit the border on a recent visit

to Texas. He has criticised Congress for its

inaction and pointed out how a bill, passed

by the senate last year, but rejected by the

House, would have added an extra ,

border patrol agents.

The solution seems to comprise four

elements: a pathway to citizenship for

undocumented immigrants, an easier legal

immigration system, better enforcement

and more border security. But as usual in

the US, stasis is the fruit of partisanship as

a visceral xenophobia substitutes for ideol-

ogy or clarity of purpose. •

N a typically ﬁne July afternoon in

California, three buses pull into

the small, parched border town of

Murrieta, but don’t outstay their welcome.

Awaiting their arrival is a group of pro-

testers, ventilating placards and pent-up

vitriol in the heat. “USA, USA”, they chant,

“Go back home!”. Inside the buses, approx-

imately  undocumented migrants – all

women and children from Central America

ﬂeeing abject poverty and violence – have

submitted their fates at the border patrol sta-

tion in Murrieta. But it won’t be so easy: they

are turned around to be driven to processing

centres at least  miles away in San Diego

and El Centro.

An inﬂux of illegal immigrants crossing

the border from Texas into the US has led to

widespread hysteria amongst protesters in

border towns. One republican, Phil Gingrey,

in a letter to the Centers for Disease Control

and Prevention, expressed his own concern

at imminent danger by writing: “Reports of

illegal immigrants carrying deadly diseases

such as swine ﬂu, dengue fever, Ebola virus

and tuberculosis are particularly concern-

ing. I have serious concerns that the diseases

carried by these children may begin to

spread too rapidly to control”.

In July, the Obama administration warned

lawmakers that US border-control agencies

would run out of resources and that migrant

children would run out of beds if Congress

did not approve $.bn in funds. More than

, children have arrived at the south-

ern US border since last October, traﬃcked

Immigration reform should provide a pathway to citizenship for undocumented

immigrants, an easier legal immigration system, better enforcement and more

border security. By Ken Phelan

Stasis in the Southern heat

Under pressure from republicans, Obama is

attempting to assuage the anti-immigrant

lobby by stemming the ﬂow of migrants and

by changing immigration law

“