Wednesday, December 18, 2019

Ports and Courts Supplemental Material

Michael Seifert
ACLU of Texas Border Advocacy Strategist
Brownsville Office
mseifert@aclutx.org
956 459 6827

With occasional commentary at https://alongsideaborder.com/

Michael Seifert
ACLU of Texas Border Advocacy Strategist
Brownsville Office
956 459 6827
With occasional commentary at https://alongsideaborder.com/

The Communities of the Rio Grande Valley, Texas

·         1.5 million people live in the four counties that make up what is known as the Rio Grande Valley.
·         300,000 of the residents live in unincorporated communities known as “colonias”
·         “Mixed-status” families (the same family with US citizens, or legal permanent residents sharing life with unauthorized people), form a part of the heart and soul of our Valley.
·         The poorest region in the USA has no public hospital.
·         Border Patrol checkpoints on the two highways leading out of the region restrict access to needed medical care for families of mixed immigration status. A potentially fatal chokepoint in case of hurricane evacuation.
·         According to FBI statistics, the area is one of the safest (in terms of violent crime). Despite this, it is a militarized zone with:
ü  More than 3,000 Border Patrol Agents (a workload of roughly three (3) arrests per agent per month).
ü  230 State Troopers
ü  1000 National Guardsmen
ü  Local police under the strictures of SB 4 (Texas’ anti “sanctuary cities (sic)” law)

Updated material will be at the foot of this document

Immigration:

A guide to understand some of those most common misperceptions around immigration:
               
Since January 2018
A scholar sets out how the Trump anti-immigrant machine got set into place:
The Fresh Air interview with the author is excellent:

Immigration and the Rio Grande Valley
How the federal government came to adopt the notion that it is ok for people to die trying to save their lives:

State troopers use a sniper who kills two immigrants just outside of McAllen:

State troopers roam our neighborhoods, hunting human beings:

In Court: The Government Does Not Want You to See This

A sketch artist goes to immigration court (be sure to watch her video at this site):

A volunteer lawyer goes to try and observe court in the famous “tent courts” recently set up to block public access to the lack of due process and justice for asylum seekers now a part of our national pastime: https://resourcesfortheborder.blogspot.com/2019/10/hidden-courts-hidden-injustices.html

The Border Wall

Bottom line: Residents of the Rio Grande Valley are overwhelmingly against the construction of a border wall. We already have an existing border wall which has been unnecessary (the amount of immigration is at an all-time low; terrorists, drugs and other threats to our nation's well-being come through the border across bridges (smuggled in) or through our northern border.

There are currently more than sixty miles of border presently in place. This construction causes flooding, pushes immigrants into more dangerous crossing areas (remember that most immigrants are young families seeking to surrender to Border Patrol), and benefits human smugglers and government contractors.

For a comprehensive explanation of the wall: https://www.aclu.org/report/death-damage-and-failure

Our New Friends:  Immigrants fleeing violence

Samantha Bee offers an irreverent, but accurate overview of what asylum seekers experience crossing into the Rio Grande Valley:

A moment of great shame was the release of the audio of the screams and tears of children separated from their parents: https://www.propublica.org/article/children-separated-from-parents-border-patrol-cbp-trump-immigration-policy

Local attorney Jodi Goodwin helps reunite a mother and her child.

Ports of Entry:

On April 6, 2018, Attorney General Jeff Sessions notified all U.S. Attorney’s Offices along the Southwest Border of a new “zero-tolerance policy” for offenses under 8 U.S.C. § 1325(a), which prohibits both attempted illegal entry and illegal entry into the United States by an alien. A person who entered the United States, but avoided inspection by a Customs and Border Protection agent could be charged with this crime. In the past, Border Patrol used their discretion whether or not to enforce this offense.  With this announcement, the discretion was removed from CBP and all people who were apprehended were charged with this violation.

Why this matters:
1.      Adults who were in CBP detention centers would be brought to federal magistrate’s court for the hearing on this charge. During their absence, federal agents would remove children from the facility and place them with the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR). More than 2800 children were separated during this time.
2.      This action was one more in a series of moves by the federal government designed to criminalize and humiliate asylum seekers.

Starting June 15, 2018, Customs and Border Patrol agents (CBP) began refusing to allow people seeking asylum their right to a timely entrance into the USA. Before this, asylum seekers would typically cross the international bridge, go inside the Customs and Border Protection offices, present themselves to an officer, and tell the official that they were seeking asylum. After June 15, CBP stationed two or three armed agents at the International Boundary Line on the bridges, stopping asylum seekers for setting foot into the United States.

Why this matters:
1.       There is now no “right way” to enter into the United States. Even is an individual wanted to follow the rules, the US blocks this process from the beginning

Asylum-seeking families were made to wait on the international bridges without access to food, water or restroom facilities. The US would admit only two or three individuals a day, a process that authorities have quietly acknowledged came “from above.”  After the Mexican election (July 1, 2018), Mexican immigration agents began to inspect refugees at the bridge, refusing entry to those without travel documents, detaining and deporting many. During this time, immigrants created a self-organized “list” of those awaiting entry. The list was taken over by the Mexican immigration authorities on the Gateway bridge, demanding bribes of up to $500 for people to jump line on the list.

Over the year, the number of people waiting in Matamoros grew to a thousand people, half of them children. Volunteers from Brownsville and from across the United States responded, offering basic necessities (food, water and other basic needs). There was no access to public restrooms or showers. Many people decided to cross the Rio Grande to enter; most people coming to the northern border were not given the option by their smugglers of even going to the bridge.

On June 10th, 2019, the US threatened Mexico with tariffs if they failed to cooperate with the US in preventing Central Americans from coming to the border with the United States. The president of Mexico created a special national guard charged with enforcing Mexican (read, “American”) immigration law.

On July 19, 2019, the United States implemented the Migrant Protection Protocols in Laredo and the Rio Grande Valley. Asylum seekers who managed to cross into the United States were processed, and then returned to Mexico where they were to await their court date. Several large “soft-sided” structures were set up next to the Gateway International Bridge in Brownsville. These were intentionally constructed on federal land so as to more easily block access to these courts that are supposed to be open to the public.

Asylum seekers who have been given a hearing date are to report to CBP officers on the bridge at 4a.m. where they are inspected for lice and other skin diseases. If one passes this inspection, the hearing takes place with a judge on a video camera. There is no public access to these hearings (in the actual tent court). One can witness the hearing from an immigration court from which the judge is presiding (in Harlingen), although this access is limited as well if the judge is broadcasting from the Port Isabel Processing Center.

Detention Facilities:

The Customs Border Protection operates a number of processing/detention centers in the Rio Grande Valley. These were the sites of the infamous “iceboxes” and “dog kennels.” The ACLU of Texas staff interviewed hundreds of people who were detained in these facilities. The testimonies were horrific evidence of wide-spread abuse of children, of adults, and of our law.

The facilities:

Recently released reports from the internal review of Customs and Border Protection’s detention practices:





New additions to this document:




Ports and Courts opinion piece published:

Immigration as deterrance does not work


Interesting podcast episode attempts to keep Latin American migrants out of the US have had the opposite impact


25:11
We built a wall to keep Mexican migrants out. In fact, the wall has kept them in. People who would otherwise have gone home stayed so long they've put down roots. In March of 2016, Douglas Massey, along with Jorge Durand and Karen Pren, published a brilliant paper in the American Journal of Sociology, Why Border Enforcement Backfired, in which they ask a hypothetical question. What would have happened if the United States had done nothing over the past 30 years, frozen the budget and staff of the border patrol at 1986 levels, allowed for some circular migration?
MG
25:52
The researchers estimate the undocumented Mexican population of the US would be about a third lower, a third lower than it is now. This is according to the people who know more than anyone else about Mexican migration, who have access to one of the biggest immigration databases in the world, and what is their conclusion? That the attempt to solve the problem of illegal Mexican migrants is what has caused the problem of illegal Mexican migrants. You can just hear the frustration in Douglas Massey's voice.
DM
26:29
For me, I've been watching this train wreck in real time for the past two decades, really. And I kept trying to tell people that when it comes to border enforcement, less is more and if you militarize the border, you're going to produce a larger undocumented population. I said this before the House Judiciary Committee, the Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Immigration.
MG
26:49
And what happens after Massey testifies? The same thing happens every time. Nothing.
DM
26:55
And then the ranking minority member, who's Representative King from Texas, gets up and basically says, "Take your lying data and go home because we know what the truth is. We're being invaded and we've got to stop this."
MG
27:09
Massey says we need to do the exact opposite of what we're doing now. When we raised the cost of crossing the border, that shut down circulation. If you want to restore circulation, then you should make the border easier to cross, reduce the size of the Border Patrol; don't increase it. Make it easier for migrants to get legal status; not harder.
DM
27:32
If you want to lower the number of Mexicans living in the United States, give them green cards and a lot of them will go home. The US is not that nice of a place for people, for Mexicans these days, but they have families here. They've got US-born kids and, if they know they can come back, they'll go home.


Thursday, December 5, 2019

Redistricting field hearings

A huge opportunity for us to directly impact our electoral history is coming up in a couple of weeks. The House of Representatives will hold field hearings in Edinburg on Friday, December 13, 2019 at 3:00 PM (Edinburg Conference Center at Renaissance, Conference Halls A & B located at 118 Paseo Del Prado, Edinburg, TX 78539) and in Harlingen on Saturday, December 14, 2019 – 11:00 AM at Texas State Technical College Cultural Arts Center located at 1825 N. Loop 499, Harlingen, Texas 78550.

This is a chance to directly address issues around the manner in which voting districts are drawn.

To that end, the ACLU of Texas, the League of Women Voters and others are offering a workshop (to help prepare comments) in Brownsville, this coming Saturday from 2:30-4:30pm at the Brownsville Public Library, 2600 Central Blvd, Brownsville, TX 78520


Please preregister here 
 https://www.eventbrite.com/e/community-training-on-redistricting-tickets-82678637029
Below is information about field hearing as well as some resources from the League of Women Voters of Texas on how to develop your testimony. In the field hearing link, you can find resources for parking as well as a map of the building. Please arrive at least 30 minutes early so you can register to testify. There should be either an iPad kiosk or a form to register. If you aren’t able to make it to the hearing to testify, you can email, call, or write letters to the lawmakers on the House Redistricting Committee: Redistricting Committee. (Important links below)

Information about the hearings happening in Edinburg and Harlingen.
               WHATEdinburg redistricting field hearing
WHEN: Friday, December 13, 2019 – 3:00 PM
WHERE: Edinburg Conference Center at Renaissance, Conference Halls A & B located at 118 Paseo Del Prado, Edinburg, TX 78539

WHEN: Saturday, December 14, 2019 – 11:00 AM
WHERE: Texas State Technical College Cultural Arts Center located at 1825 N. Loop 499, Harlingen, Texas 78550
 If you can't make the training sessions, here are some helpful resources to help you with writing your testimony:
 Important LINKS: