Wednesday, October 10, 2018
Immigrants-Again
“[Man] is immortal . . . because he …has a spirit capable of compassion. . . .”
— William Faulkner, Speech upon receiving the 1950 Nobel Prize
My apologies to my readers. I am sure they get tired of hearing about immigrants. Immigrants get tired of being in a position where the likes of me are compelled to write about them.
This week we do not focus on children and how they have been treated. It’s not that we couldn’t. Consider the recent story in the New York Times. It tells us that there are now 12,800 children being detained by the U.S. government. Many of these are children in foster homes, or living with sponsors in relatively comfortable circumstances. Now we have learned that some of these children were transferred from foster homes and other shelters in the middle of the night without advance warning. That was done because it was feared that if they were told about the impending transfers, or if the transfers took place in the middle of the day, they might have tried to run away.
The abducted children were taken to a new facility built in Tornillo, Texas. It is described as a “temporary” tent city. It costs about $750 a day per child according to Rosa DeLauro, the ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations subcommittee. That’s about what a REALLY nice hotel costs, but Tornillo lacks many of the amenities provided by those hotels. Furthermore, schooling is not available in Tornillo, and only very limited legal services are available. Like very nice hotels, however, there is air conditioning in the tents in which the children live. Soon, 3,800 children will be in residence in Tornillo.
But we’re not talking about children today. We’re talking about grown-ups-among them the ones involved in a program known as MAVNI, and beneficiaries of another program known as TPS. MAVNI is short for “Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest,” and is a program for immigrants coming from Sudan, El Salvador, Haiti, and Nicaragua.
MAVNI was created to attract immigrants skilled in medicine and linguistics into the armed forces. In exchange for their willingness to serve, they were promised an accelerated route to citizenship. Not all immigrants were eligible to participate in the program. Participants had to have a green card or a valid visa, and in exchange for their service, were placed on an accelerated path to citizenship.
One immigrant explained to an Associated Press interviewer his reason for entering MAVNI. He was almost certainly speaking for many others in the program. He said: “It was my dream to serve in the military. Since this country has been so good to me, I thought it was the least I could do to give back to my adopted country and serve in the United States military.” Being given an accelerated path to permanent residency was, of course, an additional benefit.
In 2016, 5000 immigrants were recruited into the program, and more than 10,000 were then serving. For those seeking permanent resident status it seemed like a great program-until it wasn’t. People who had signed contracts to participate in the program, and had done so with the promise that they would be on an accelerated path to citizenship, suddenly found the United States government slimily led by the man called Trump, reneging on the promises it had made to the participants. In the middle of 2016, the program was ended and the government began unilaterally revoking the contracts that the immigrants had entered into with the United States government, claiming that the participants had not been sufficiently vetted and posed security threats.
Confronted with lawsuits challenging the discharges, the government quietly ended the discharge practice in the middle of 2018. It is now reportedly trying to come up with different reasons for discharging participants in the MAVNI program. The consequences of being discharged from the program can be severe, since many of those whose contracts were terminated had temporary visas or green cards that had expired while they were participating in the program. With their protected status revoked, they are subject to immediate deportation instead of being on an accelerated path to permanent residency.
Participants in the MAVNI program are not the only members of a group of immigrants suddenly confronted with the threat of deportation. There are 220,000 people living in the United States with Temporary Protected Status (TPS). They come from 10 different countries and attained that status having fled their homes because of war, floods, droughts, epidemics, or armed conflict. In many cases they have lived here for decades starting businesses, raising children, and in all respects mirroring the lives of those born and raised here.
In another demonstration of his determination to appeal to the bigots in the country who, like him, dislike immigrants, the White House fool has decreed an end to the TPS program, and ordered its participants to return home. A class action has been brought seeking to block the administration from ending the program. Federal Judge Edward Chen has temporarily blocked the administration from kicking out those in the program. Only time will tell how secure its beneficiaries are as the lawsuit progresses.
Perhaps the children in Tornillo are not as bad off as other classes of immigrants. Their tents are air conditioned. The other classes of immigrants described above may soon find themselves, once again, in the countries they fled, probably without air conditioning.
Thursday, October 4, 2018
L'amour
L’amour, l’amour fair tourner le monde.
— Anonymous French song
I know I speak for all my readers when I say that we greeted the news with sighs of relief. It seemed we had gone to the precipice, and walked back into a warm embrace that could not have been imagined only one year earlier. It was then, at the meeting of the United Nations General Assembly, that our beloved president addressed the assembly, and in strident tones called the esteemed leader of North Korea, Kim Jong Un: “rocket man,” and went on to say: “he is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime.” Earlier in the year he had said that: “continued threats against the U.S. would be ‘met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.’”
The United States and the world breathed a huge sigh of relief when Mr. Trump and Mr. Kim agreed to hold a summit meeting in Singapore. At the conclusion of that meeting, Mr. Trump held a press conference. He described the atmosphere between himself and Mr. Kim, saying: “We laughed until we cried;” “We got to know each other well in a very confined period of time, under very strong, strong circumstances.” He went on to say that: “It’s a very great moment in the history of the world.”
Although there were no parades in capitals around the world, celebrating this momentous achievement by two presidents who had been greatly underestimated by all of us, it was indeed a “great moment in the history of the world” and we all eagerly awaited the next steps that would be taken. We could not have anticipated that only four months later our hopes would be dashed, and dashed they were, by none other than Mr. Trump’s Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo. Mr. Pompeo had apparently failed to capture the euphoria that poured out of the Singapore meeting.
On August 8, 2018, Mr. Pompeo made an appearance before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In his appearance he was asked by Democratic Senator, Ed Markey, whether North Korea was still in the business of making bomb fuel. Mr. Pompeo said: “Yes, they continue to produce fissile material.” That response was troubling to those of us who believed that following the Singapore meeting, North Korea’s production of fissile material would come to a halt. Mr. Pompeo’s response to yet another question about whether North Korea was still pursuing the construction of submarine launched missiles, and whether its nuclear program in general was continuing apace, was even more disturbing. Mr. Pompeo said that question had to be answered in a private setting since responding publicly would not help “a complex negotiation with a difficult adversary.” The substance of that response was troubling since it seemed to suggest that there was dark matter that could only be discussed in a confidential setting. Even more troubling was his referring to North Korea as a “difficult adversary.” That does not sound like a description of a leader with whom our president “laughed until we cried.” Indeed, following the Singapore summit, we were left with the impression that all that was required was wrapping up a few minor details and the relations between North Korea, South Korea, and the rest of the world would be on a path that led to a state of sublime happiness.
Whatever fears were awakened by Mr. Pompeo’s response to questions posed by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, they were dispelled by Mr. Trump’s most recent revelations about his dealings with Mr. Kim.
Speaking at a rally at the West Banco Arena in Wheeling, West Virginia, on September 28, 2018, Mr. Trump reassured those who had been troubled by Mr. Pompeo’s testimony a few months earlier. For the assembled multitude, he described the negotiations he and Mr. Kim had, saying: “I was really tough and so was he, and we went back and forth” But then came the good news that put joy in the hearts of all who had been worried by Mr. Pompeo’s words. Mr. Trump told the adoring crowd: “And then we fell in love, OK? No, really, he wrote me beautiful letters, and they’re great letters. We fell in love.” That was great news and reassured an anxious world.
We can be confident that Mr. Pompeo got the message, and Mr. Kim will certainly let his foreign minister, Ri Yong-ho, know. That is especially important since speaking to the U.N. General Assembly in New York on September 29th, Mr. Ri, unaware of the love letters, said: “Without any trust in the U.S., there will be no confidence in our national security, and under such circumstances, there is no way we will unilaterally disarm ourselves first.” That is no more the language of love than were the words of Mr. Pompeo.
In the interests of world peace, Mr. Trump should immediately share the love letters with Messrs. Ri and Pompeo. Only then will we all breathe easier.
Thursday, September 27, 2018
Yearning to be Free
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1944 Campaign speechAll of our people all over the country-except the pure-blooded Indians-are immigrants or descendants of immigrants . . .
It is almost unbelievable-except it isn’t. It could make immigration even less appealing-it may. It affects those undeterred by the assorted methods of ill-treatment that the Trump administration has used on immigrants at the border. It’s the newest immigration policy change proposed by Trumpsters. It’s not like separating children at the border from their parents, and then losing track of them, the way they did until the courts said they couldn’t. It’s a whole new set of rules.
The proposed new rules apply to those who have successfully navigated the stormy seas of immigration at the border, and are now legal residents of the United States without, however, the assurance that they can remain permanently. The Department of Homeland Security has created a new way in which to get them out. It introduces into the lives of the applicants something called: “heavily weighted negative factors.” Here is how “heavily weighted negative factors” affect immigrants seeking permanent residency status.
If a family succeeds in its asylum request made at the border and is granted residency in the United States, it immediately will be subject to the provisions of the new rule. It is not a simple rule. It is 447 pages long. It has the catchy name of “Inadmissibility on Public Charge Grounds.” A comprehensive report on the new rule by Michael Shear and Emily Baumgaertner can be found in the New York Times.
Many of the newly arrived residents may not read the entire text, but here is what they need to know. The rule creates a new world for immigrants who had hoped to be here permanently when their plea for asylum was granted. It is a world in which the Trump administration has decided to force them to prove their determination to become permanent residents. They can do that by foregoing the benefits of living in this country to which we once thought all residents were entitled.
One of the foregone benefits is accepting assistance with obtaining food when a family lacks the resources to adequately feed its members. Another is accepting housing assistance, if a family is in need of shelter and cannot afford to pay for it. Another is accepting medical care if an immigrant or a family requires it, but cannot afford to pay for it and lacks insurance. Immigrants living here who decline to accept those benefits are smiled on by the Trumpsters and they will more readily grant them permanent residency status.
Under the proposed regulations, those who apply for green cards or permanent residency status who appear to be well nourished, and whose children appear to be in good health, will immediately become suspect and, in all likelihood, face additional scrutiny before being given green cards or granted permanent residency status. That is because the examiner may conclude that the reason they appear to be healthy and well fed, is because they have taken advantage of government programs designed to help those in need.
Declining to accept proscribed benefits is not the only action immigrants should take. Conventional wisdom has it that to avoid becoming suspect, those hoping to become permanent residents who have already enrolled in any of those programs, should withdraw from all public assistance programs even if that means they will lose assistance for food, shelter and medical care.
The results are not hard to foresee. Immigrant families who hope to become permanent residents will find themselves confronted with two choices-avail themselves of the benefits to which most of us thought all people living here were entitled, or, eschew those benefits in favor of malnourishment, inadequate housing, and lack of medical care, all in the hope of being granted permanent residency status when their applications are considered. Once permanent residency status has been granted they can, of course, accept the benefits they were forced to forego in order to gain the sought after status.
The foregoing may make it seem that the administration is heartless and wants to make life unpleasant for immigrants so they will leave and, word of their plight will reach others who are considering attempting to immigrate. That, it turns out, is not the case.
Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, an agency that favors making it harder for immigrants to gain residency status by application of the new rules, is not concerned about immigrants. He is advocating the new rules because he thinks being hard on immigrants is a winning issue for Republicans in upcoming elections. The actual needs of the immigrants are nothing more than a by-product of what Mark believes is a winning political strategy.
Who’d have thought that sacrificing the well-being of people who came to this country seeking the life for which this country was once well known, on the altar of politics, would become a priority for a president. It has.
As Mr. Trump movingly said in his speech in front of the United Nations on September 28th, “Ultimately, the only long-term solution to the migration crisis is to help people build more hopeful futures in their home countries. Make their countries great again.” As his administration has shown, giving people more hopeful futures can be achieved by depriving them of basic human needs so long as they are in the United States, in order to encourage them to voluntarily leave. Who’d have thought this country would ever descend to such a low level. It has, and it is still falling.