US Immigration Policy Megathread

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > US Immigration Policy Megathread

Ruzihm: Aug 11, 2010; Group up and push mid, proletariat!

what is inappropriate about responding to a gish gallop with a small reply to the weakest part of the argument?

# ¿ Mar 24, 2021 22:27

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 16, 2024 23:33

Ruzihm: Aug 11, 2010; Group up and push mid, proletariat!

BougieBitch posted:

I HAVE said wait and see, but I explicitly said "wait and see for no longer than one week" either here or in the USPOL thread. In terms of what to hope for, we have this from this morning:
https://www.axios.com/senior-biden-officials-make-border-visit-4eb4c8ea-340b-466c-b3be-c252a7afd86f.html

Which, if you read the article and not just the headline, specifically includes letting congresspeople and a news camera in to view the facility, so you can literally just put a lid on this discussion for another day and then start it back up with video evidence, witness testimony, and maybe an interview with some of the people there.

Okay, so we waited a week to see that it wasn't a fisheye lens or whatever

# ¿ Mar 30, 2021 22:11

Ruzihm: Aug 11, 2010; Group up and push mid, proletariat!

BougieBitch posted:

The question isn't actually "why are they not concentration camps?", the question is "why are these not refugee camps?"

The people were on the Mexico side two months ago and could have just...not come in. They weren't rounded up, they came across the border to apply for refugee status using the international refugee agreement that the US is party to. If you want to call them something other than refugee camps, the onus is on YOU to describe something about the conditions or duration that is non-standard as compared to, for example, Syrian refugee camps.

You can call them anything you want when you call or send a letter to Joe Biden or any other government official, but no one here is in a position to do anything about the conditions and it does nothing to "push Biden left".

There isn't a question of if they are refugee camps. Obviously, they are. It should not be a controversial point that the set of all refugee camps and the set of all concentration camps are not disjoint sets.

Also, since cherry picked dictionary citations are apparently relevant to this conversation, here's one:

American Heritage Dictionary posted:

concentration camp
n.
1. A camp where persons are confined, usually without hearings and typically under harsh conditions, often as a result of their membership in a group the government has identified as dangerous or undesirable.
2. A place or situation in which extremely harsh conditions are imposed by those in authority.

# ¿ Mar 31, 2021 06:52

Ruzihm: Aug 11, 2010; Group up and push mid, proletariat!

Thorn Wishes Talon posted:

[1] Nazis killed millions of people in gas chambers and cremated their bodies in ovens that were specifically designed for that purpose, and spent a lot of time and energy making that funnel as efficient as possible so that they could kill more people faster.

[2] That is why the parallels to the US refugee camps are utterly inappropriate.

The difference is that when a refugee dies in US custody it is a huge loving deal.

Point [2] does not follow from point [1].

It would be incorrect on both counts to say that

1. The Japanese internment camps were not concentration camps.
2. Naming them as such is unacceptably disrespectful to victims of nazi extermination camps and such usage ought be prevented.

NYTimes posted:

Cooling a debate about using ''concentration camps'' in the title of an exhibition about the incarceration of Japanese-Americans in World War II, curators of the show and their critics agreed yesterday to display a prominent footnote to explain the term's origins and its shades of meaning.

At issue was the name of an exhibition organized by the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles, scheduled to open next month at the Ellis Island Immigration Museum. The exhibition, ''America's Concentration Camps: Remembering the Japanese-American Experience,'' is about the incarceration of 110,000 Japanese-American civilians, mostly United States civilians.

After a two-hour meeting yesterday at the American Jewish Committee here, both sides agreed to display a footnote in the museum lobby and include it in the program booklet. The explanation will offer a definition of ''concentration camps,'' distinguish the Nazi death camps from the barracks in which Japanese-Americans were held and cite other examples of concentration camps in the former Soviet Union, Cambodia and Bosnia.

''A concentration camp is a place where people are imprisoned not because of any crimes they have committed, but simply because of who they are,'' the passage will read. ''Nazi camps were places of torture, barbarous medical experiments and summary executions; some were extermination centers with gas chambers.''

The resolution comes after some Jewish-American groups, as well as museum officials, had expressed concerns that using the term to describe the Japanese-American experience would diminish the suffering of Jews in the Nazi camps. Curators of the exhibition had said they had not intended to equate the two and defended the term as an accurate description of their history.

I'm curious if you have a particular distinction in mind for the migrant camps.

Ruzihm fucked around with this message at 07:33 on Mar 31, 2021

# ¿ Mar 31, 2021 07:13

Ruzihm: Aug 11, 2010; Group up and push mid, proletariat!

question. Where are the refugees, geographically speaking, when they are released from detention or whatever. i just assume they are kind of released into the desert and they have to pay for a ride out of there if they want one.

# ¿ Mar 31, 2021 17:33

Ruzihm: Aug 11, 2010; Group up and push mid, proletariat!

UCS Hellmaker posted:

Literally all this thread is is people screaming about what to call a camp, and not about what could be done right now by the government or even themselves to potentially mitigate this issue humanely.

Hang on there, it's also about trying to deduce if the conditions present in the camps are as horrific as photos portray, or if it is just a trick of a lens.

BougieBitch posted:

Okay, so are you going to address the argument about how you can tell how close or far apart people are based on the photos, cuz so far no one has made even a cursory attempt to explain how that is somehow more good or useful as evidence than actual numbers of people in detention in a particular place in comparison to the rated capacity under pandemic conditions. Eyeballing crowding based on where people are standing in a single snapshot is not useful or broadly indicative. The whole reason I linked to the article about news stories running wide-angle lens photos is because we have spent the whole past year seeing people do this exact thing, and when you add in the fact that "my inauguration was the biggest ever" was the first Trump admin lie I have no idea why people would ever trust a photo to be an accurate reflection of the distance between people. Don't settle for low-value evidence just because you don't have high-value evidence at hand, research and agitate for better reporting standards, more transparency from the admin, and then make a judgment once you have the facts rather than using incomplete evidence to draw low-certainty conclusions.

# ¿ Mar 31, 2021 18:31

Ruzihm: Aug 11, 2010; Group up and push mid, proletariat!

Thorn Wishes Talon posted:

You don't know what people in this thread are and are not doing. Why fling these types of accusations? Who is posting in bad faith now?

I don't count making some basic assumptions about the power of those in the thread as posting in bad faith but if it is, so far I count Pentecoastal Elites and BougieBitch :shrug:

BougieBitch posted:

no one here is in a position to do anything about the conditions

# ¿ Mar 31, 2021 18:45

Ruzihm: Aug 11, 2010; Group up and push mid, proletariat!

BougieBitch posted:

I can't do anything about the camps, but I am dedicating like 20 hrs a week to an org that provides services primarily to local undocumented immigrant communities.

Thank you. I mean this sincerely.

Speaking of JPT's excellent posts, I'm curious if we can get a followup on this

Neurolimal posted:

Hello, I would appreciate it if you could respond to Joepinetree's excellent post in response to yours on the last page:

JPT makes a lot of great Immigration & Foreign Policy related posts that I feel don't receive the attention they duly deserve.

Crosby B. Alfred posted:

I saw it, I'm still thinking about it and don't have a reply just yet.

Ruzihm fucked around with this message at 19:18 on Mar 31, 2021

# ¿ Mar 31, 2021 19:16

Ruzihm: Aug 11, 2010; Group up and push mid, proletariat!

1337JiveTurkey posted:

Releasing them into cities where they'll quickly be starving and homeless with no real employment prospects apart from sex work. They won't be getting education, healthcare or anything like that. They have no supervision or protection from anyone who would want to harm them and a homeless person with no ties to the area has a target painted right on them.

Consequences don't magically go away if you feel you have a pure enough heart.

Hey just lettin you know I think you clicked the wrong link when you went to read the pdf.

# ¿ Mar 31, 2021 19:48

Ruzihm: Aug 11, 2010; Group up and push mid, proletariat!

Crosby B. Alfred posted:

Agreed. It's a terrible and rather inappropriate way to describe the situation the border but I don't think the majority of folks are doing so with that intent but merely raise awareness.

No doubt, it's bad call, potentially insulting to those who had families that have been in actual concentration camps and in all honestly it really isn't that hard to turn a refugee camp into a concentration camp but still label that should be not be used.

Is it insulting to families of people who were in trump's concentration camps?

# ¿ Apr 2, 2021 01:18

Ruzihm: Aug 11, 2010; Group up and push mid, proletariat!

x-posting this (few days old) article from the gently caress ice thread in cspam

Algund Eenboom posted:

Dead thread https://prismreports.org/2021/04/01/bidens-treatment-of-asylum-seekers-looks-a-lot-like-trumps/

A man calls the Phoenix Police Department on January 29�his uncle has been kidnapped. Smugglers are holding his uncle at a drop house. They had helped his uncle, a newly arrived undocumented immigrant, cross the border. Now, they want more money.

After the police arrive, agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement show up. They apprehend the uncle and dozens of migrants from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua, including three children.

So far, the events that unfolded are disturbing but standard practice. In Phoenix, local police and federal immigration authorities have long cooperated.

But what happened next was part of something new.

To find out where these migrants were taken, grassroots migrant justice organization Puente Human Rights Movement tapped its network of activists and legal advocates. Some were detained at the Florence Correctional Center in Florence, Ariz. Others, at the Eloy Detention Center in Eloy Ariz. According to advocates (who spoke with one migrant�s family members), the migrants were never asked if they were asylum seekers, and they were never asked to participate in a criminal investigation into human trafficking, which could have earned them temporary immigration visas.

Instead, advocates say, the migrants were held and expelled under an obscure provision in U.S. Code Title 42, the part of the law that covers public health and welfare. President Donald Trump weaponized Title 42 during the Covid-19 pandemic as a way to expel border-crossers more quickly and with less fuss, a practice that continues under President Joe Biden.

Title 42 explained

The Trump administration invoked Title 42 early in the Covid-19 pandemic, under the pretense of protecting public health, to authorize Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to expel migrants without documentation near the border or at ports of entry. Migrants subjected to Title 42 are whisked away, leaving almost no trace in the U.S. immigration system.

That mechanism�expulsion�is different from deportation.

In deportation, migrants are first admitted into the United States. They receive an Alien Registration Number, or A-Number. And, unless they qualify for �expedited removal,� they get to appear before a judge. Even in expedited removal cases, asylum seekers who pass a �credible fear interview� get a hearing. No matter how broken and punitive the process is, there is, at least, a process. Expulsion results in the same ejection of migrants from the United States, but without any of this process.

Title 42 has sealed the border in a way that anti-immigrant zealot Stephen Miller, a top Trump aide and the policy�s biggest proponent, could have only dreamt of.

At the start of the pandemic, Title 42�s forerunner, the 2019 Remain in Mexico policy, had already pushed approximately 60,000 asylum seekers to Mexico�people who previously would have been allowed to wait in the United States for their cases to be adjudicated. At the urging of Miller, the Trump administration effectively closed the border using Title 42. Remain in Mexico hearings were indefinitely postponed and newly arrived migrants�including asylum seekers�were expelled.

Of course, for the anti-immigrant Trump administration, public health concerns were a mere fig leaf. According to the Associated Press, experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention balked at the Title 42 order, saying there was no evidence it would slow the virus. Public health experts stated that there was no scientific justification for the policy. Masks, social distancing and screening measures at the border could make migration safe.

Crucially, experts noted, the government would also need to stop holding newly arrived migrants in group detention centers and instead allow them to shelter with their families or community contacts in the United States. These alternatives to detention programs have existed for years, enabling asylum seekers to reside in the United States as their cases are adjudicated.

Beginning in February, the Biden administration began its slow reversal of Remain in Mexico (frustrating those who wanted it immediately rescinded) by processing a couple dozen asylum seekers a day in some ports of entry, including San Diego and El Paso.

Title 42 expulsions continue on a daily basis.

On February 10, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki had a message for migrants seeking life-saving asylum: �Now is not the time to come.� Psaki cited Biden�s limited time in office as the reason �a humane, comprehensive process for processing individuals� at the border does not yet exist. In the meantime, Psaki said, a �vast majority of people will be turned away.�

Trump�s kids

Outrage over the Trump administration�s Title 42 expulsions exploded in summer 2020 after federal immigration authorities secretly contracted with a private security firm to detain children and families at hotels. Unaccompanied children were of particular concern.

Otherwise known in the immigration system as �unaccompanied alien child[ren],� these minors migrate alone to the United States without authorization. In theory, minors have significantly more protections than adults, because of laws such as the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act and the Flores settlement agreement (which outlines basic standards of care for immigrant children in federal custody). Before being sent back across the border, Mexican and Canadian children must be screened to determine if they are trafficking victims, eligible for asylum, or can�t make decisions for themselves. Unaccompanied children from other countries are transferred to the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, where they are detained in shelters or placed with a sponsor (typically a family member) until a judge hears their case.

This process for unaccompanied children impeded the Trump administration�s ability to deport newly arrived children as easily as it wanted. So, instead, under Title 42, children as young as one year old were put into black sites under the supervision of unlicensed transportation workers employed by a private company, contracted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The Texas Civil Rights Project (TCRP) spoke with some of these children. According to TCRP senior attorney Karla Marisol Vargas, the organization learned that there were children held in hotel rooms, watched over by guards, for days. Phone calls were generally forbidden. This meant children could be driven to the airport for expulsion flights in the middle of the night, with many of their families not even knowing they had been in federal custody.

Beyond violating asylum laws, the Trump administration�s use of Title 42 also created a shadow system that made tracking these migrants impossible.

There was no record of these children in the regular immigration system, no A-Number, no information about where they were detained. It was as if they didn�t exist, according to Vargas, who has advocated for children subject to Title 42. Attorneys eventually learned these children instead received Title 42 identification numbers, which were entered into a shadow tracking system.

An ongoing class action lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children prompted a judge in November 2020 to block the federal government�s ability to continue using Title 42 to detain children in black sites. Another court reversed the ban on January 29, but there have been no reports to date of children being held in hotels under the Biden administration.

The use of Title 42 to expel adults who cross the border without documentation, however, continues.

Biden�s migrants

Presently, under Title 42, adult migrants found at the border without documentation (who are not �amenable to immediate expulsion to Mexico or Canada,� per a CBP memo) are detained, then expelled to their home country. Border Patrol�s �portable command stations� process migrants in the field, allowing �expeditious� expulsion�meaning they are transferred to ICE custody, where, in the name of public health, they are detained in crowded facilities where Covid-19 is known to spread. ICE then expels these immigrants (and the virus, if they have contracted it) all over the world.

In total, between March 2020 and January 2021, Title 42 was used more than 450,000 times at the U.S.-Mexico border. Many of these people would otherwise have undergone the asylum process.

In the first 11 days of February, the Biden administration commissioned planes to fly about 900 Haitians seeking asylum back to Port-au-Prince under Title 42, according to an analysis by Jake Johnston of the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

On February 23, more than 60 members of Congress signed a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas calling for an end to Title 42 expulsions, focusing specifically on expulsions to Haiti.

�Many migrants are at high risk of exposure to Covid-19 while being detained in the United States pending their expulsion or deportation to less-resourced countries with severely strained health systems,� the letter says. �Haiti, for example, has only 124 [intensive care] beds and the capacity to ventilate 62 patients for a country of 11 million. The island nation also is mired in severe economic, security, and constitutional crises, yet has received more than 900 migrants since February 1. This includes a recent February 8 flight in which 72 people were deported to Port-au-Prince, including a two-month-old baby and 21 other children.� (Although the letter used the term �deported,� this was actually an expulsion.)

Red flags

The use of Title 42 in Arizona is unprecedented.

Phoenix is a major metropolitan area that is a 150-mile drive from the nearest U.S. border, far from where enforcement of Title 42 would be expected, given that the policy is directed at people in the act of crossing over. But in September 2020 and January 2021, under Title 42�in different operations and during different presidential administrations�advocates report at least 125 newly arrived migrants were apprehended and processed.

The morning of Sept. 16, 2020, Sandra Solis, director of organizing and movement building for Puente, received a text message from a colleague about a multi-agency raid unfolding in Phoenix. Solis is accustomed to providing support when immigrant communities are targeted, but when she arrived at a home on residential 27th Avenue, something seemed off.

According to Solis, the chaotic scene included about 30 officials with the Department of Homeland Security (including CBP), the Phoenix Police Department and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). Undercover officers mixed with armed officers in paramilitary gear as unmarked SUVs and trucks�and a tank�stood in front of the house. Migrants apprehended in the raid were herded into vans parked in an alley.

Solis says she became suspicious because CBP and DEA officials were on the scene�two agencies that almost never participate in Phoenix-area immigration raids. Later that day, in nearby Chandler, a similar raid was staged. Grassroots organizers and legal advocates were able to determine the migrants apprehended were expelled from the United States within hours.

No records of these migrants exist by A-Number in the U.S. immigration system, Solis says. They were disappeared.

The speed of the expulsions meant Puente was unable to establish contact with the migrants. Advocates never learned if they were trafficked or asylum seekers.

�The city of Phoenix has its own protocol for when people are victims of trafficking [and] essentially this was trafficking,� Solis says. �All of these people should have been provided U-Visas [for victims of crime]. Instead, they were [expelled] without due process.

�I think that�s one of the biggest, most important things to note: They�re utilizing Title 42 to deny people who are victims of trafficking.�

Local news outlets reported on the raids and cited narcotics search warrants, potential criminal activity and the apprehension of several dozen people �suspected of entering the country illegally,� but only one referenced Title 42.

The use of Title 42 was confirmed, however, by Javier Gurrola, CBP executive officer of law enforcement operations, in an email to Losmin Jim�nez, who worked in partnership with Puente as a former senior attorney at the Advancement Project, a racial justice nonprofit in Washington, D.C. First, he confirmed Border Patrol participated in a �multi-agency operation� Sept. 16, 2020, in two Phoenix-area locations, and took custody of 65 people, including unaccompanied minors, suspected of being undocumented.

Then, the email reads: �The majority of these detainees have been processed as per [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] guidelines (T42) to prevent the introduction of Covid-19 into the United States.�

Solis says the multi-agency September raids remind her of how Arizona has piloted a partnership between local law enforcement and federal immigration authorities before, with a 2010 law known as SB 1070 that attracted attention and outrage nationwide for explicitly allowing racial profiling. The law, at the time, was the strictest anti-immigrant measure in the United States. Portions of the law were struck down by the Supreme Court, but the �papers please� provision that critics say allows racial profiling was not� meaning that police officers in Arizona are still required to make a reasonable attempt to determine the immigration status of anyone lawfully stopped if the officer has �reasonable suspicion� they are undocumented.

Copycat bills were introduced in other states, although most failed to make it into law.

SB 1070 solidified a police-ICE partnership in Arizona, creating what advocates call a poli-migra state, a slang term used in some Spanish-speaking immigrant communities to refer to the coordination of local police with federal immigration authorities.

Expelling victims

Even before Arizona�s SB 1070 law, the state had a history of piloting deeply harmful immigration policies and practices. For example, in 2006, Arizona became one of the first places to implement Operation Streamline, under the radar. This joint Homeland Security and Justice Department initiative created �zero-tolerance immigration enforcement zones� in which authorities could criminally prosecute migrants for �illegal entry��where, previously, Mexican migrants would be returned to Mexico and non-Mexican migrants would have to appear before an immigration judge.

In effect, Operation Streamline pioneered the �crimmigration� system the U.S. now has, in which undocumented migrants are prosecuted through the criminal justice system, rather than processed through the civil immigration system.

Advocates with Puente fear it�s only a matter of time before immigration authorities use Title 42 to expel migrants in cities beyond Phoenix�if it�s not happening already.

After the September 2020 raids, Jim�nez thought the use of Title 42 so far from the border could have been a �one-off thing.� Then, it happened again.

On January 29, someone called Puente�s crisis line to report a number of unmarked vehicles in front of a house on 14th Avenue. There are few media reports about the January 29 raid, but a statement to Prism and In These Times from Mercedes Fortune, Phoenix Police Department public information sergeant, confirms police responded to a caller reporting �a person who was being held against their will.�

Officers found more than 50 people inside the residence and �determined the persons were involved in human smuggling,� according to the February 19 statement. �The United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement were advised and they have taken over the investigation.�

In instances of suspected human trafficking, the Phoenix Police Department is supposed to perform its own investigation. According to the department�s Operations Order 4.48, the �papers, please� provision of SB 1070 does not apply if it may hinder an investigation by undermining cooperation. The order notes, in particular, the need for �significant cooperation of those involved� in human trafficking cases.

Instead, in the January 29 raid, the Phoenix Police Department appears to have simply handed the case to ICE. The police department did not respond to a query about whether it was conducting its own investigation. ICE, in an emailed statement to Prism and In These Times, says it took 60 people to the ICE office for processing. From there, according to advocates, the migrants wound up at the Florence and Eloy Detention Centers. (The Eloy Detention Center, in June and July of 2020, had one of the largest coronavirus outbreaks of any immigration detention facility in the country, and both centers had confirmed cases as of January.)

Solis and her colleagues at Puente maintain ICE processed the migrants under Title 42, based on information from someone who was picked up in the raid and held at Eloy. (The names of undocumented migrants and their family members have been withheld for their protection.) Puente says it confirmed with a legal-aid attorney that the person was detained at Eloy and that they do not appear to have an A-Number. Since this person�s release, members of Puente say another aid group has confirmed similar Title 42 findings.

A great deal of murkiness still surrounds the use of Title 42, including whether ICE even has authority to use it. The Trump administration�s original memo outlining the use of Title 42 was directed at CBP and �specifically the United States Border Patrol,� separate from ICE. In the first Arizona raid in September 2020, CBP was at the scene; at the January raid, advocates saw only ICE and the Phoenix Police Department.

When asked directly whether ICE has authorization to process newly arrived undocumented migrants under Title 42 without coordination from CBP, ICE spokesperson Alexx Pons would only say Title 42 is within the purview of CBP and �expulsions under Title 42 are not based on immigration status and are tracked separately from immigration enforcement actions.�

ICE referred further questions to CBP. CBP did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

A rogue system

The raids that unfolded around Phoenix are perhaps the first (documented) cases of Title 42 used to expel migrants far from the borders.

It is relevant to note that, while many associate CBP directly with the U.S. border, its reach is actually much larger. It has authority within 100 air miles of any land border or coastline, a territory that encompasses Phoenix, New York and many other major cities. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, nearly two-thirds of the U.S. population resides within CBP�s jurisdiction�in other words, the territory where Title 42 grants CBP license to quickly expel newly arrived migrants under the guise of public health.

That the Biden administration has so far chosen to continue Title 42 expulsions may surprise some, but not Solis. The community organizer anticipated Biden taking an �Obama-style� approach, a nod to the raids and mass deportations that occurred during President Barack Obama�s years, when Biden was vice president.

�The people affected the most are those whose lives are affected by the immigration system, and this administration�s not really doing anything super proactive,� Solis says. �Title 42 is serving its purpose. It�s doing what [Homeland Security] intended it to do, which is create a rogue system.

�Regardless of the presidency, when it comes to immigration, there�s always a rogue system.�

As mentioned before, this is not exactly news, so I'm wondering if the Biden admin has commented on a timeframe to reduce these expulsions.

Ruzihm fucked around with this message at 16:17 on Apr 7, 2021

# ¿ Apr 7, 2021 16:12

Ruzihm: Aug 11, 2010; Group up and push mid, proletariat!

I'm having trouble believing the anti-busing figure of the obama-biden admin, which wanted to keep Haitian wages below 40 cents an hour, really is going to improve the material conditions of these countries but let's hope :shepface:

Ruzihm fucked around with this message at 17:41 on Jun 2, 2021

# ¿ Jun 2, 2021 17:37

Ruzihm: Aug 11, 2010; Group up and push mid, proletariat!

I couldn't find the source but I recall reading somewhere here on the forums that oversight by lawyers and not media would be sufficient.

That seems to be not the case :eng99:

# ¿ Jun 24, 2021 22:35

Ruzihm: Aug 11, 2010; Group up and push mid, proletariat!

Looks like Biden's Assistant Attorney General submitted an "appeal to a federal court order requiring U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to vaccinate medically vulnerable people in its custody."

https://dralegal.org/press/ice-vaccine-appeal/

quote:

August 24, 2021�Riverside, CA�Yesterday, the Biden Administration took the surprising step of filing an appeal to a federal court order requiring U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to vaccinate medically vulnerable people in its custody. The filing was in Fraihat v. ICE, which challenges the inhumane and traumatic experience of ICE detention, affecting tens of thousands across the country. Read the government�s vaccine appeal here.

On June 23, Judge Jesus Bernal of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California ordered the agency to make COVID-19 vaccines available to all people in ICE detention with medical risk factors that increase their risk of serious COVID-19 complications. Read the order requiring ICE to offer vaccines to medically vulnerable people in detention. This followed multiple previous court orders admonishing ICE for systemic failures in their response to the pandemic, starting with the Court�s April 2020 injunction ordering ICE to identify and review for release those with risk factors in its custody and establish other procedures for limiting the spread of COVID-19 inside detention centers.

�As a legal matter, this appeal is disappointing. As a public health matter, it�s outrageous,� said Elizabeth Jordan, Director of the Immigration Detention Accountability Project at the Civil Rights Education and Enforcement Center. �Judge Bernal�s order is consistent with legal standards and protecting people in ICE detention from the Delta variant by offering vaccines is something the Biden Administration should be enthusiastically embracing, not fighting tooth and nail.�

�It is truly appalling that ICE, a known superspreader agency, would seek to reverse a court order recognizing its obligation to vaccinate medically vulnerable people it chooses to jail. The Biden Administration�s appeal completely contradicts its own rhetoric on the importance of vaccination to end this pandemic. It threatens to place in jeopardy the lives of thousands of people at increased medical risk at a time when a dangerous variant of COVID-19 is rising across the country and more and more people are being admitted to ICE detention,� said Rosa Lee Bichell, an attorney at Disability Rights Advocates. �This kind of disregard for human life highlights the importance of reviewing people for release from this unjust system, as ordered by the Court nearly a year and a half ago.�

�The court only ordered vaccines be offered because ICE had no real plan in place, resulting in unacceptably low vaccination levels in these extremely high-risk settings,� said Veronica Salama, an attorney at the Southern Poverty Law Center. �The order gave ICE 30 days to vaccinate a few thousand high-risk people, a fairly straightforward proposition. But, rather than fulfilling its responsibilities, ICE has chosen to fight the order as COVID cases once again spike across the country and the ICE detained population balloons. It is abhorrent.�

Fraihat v. ICE was filed by the Civil Rights Education and Enforcement Center (CREEC), Disability Rights Advocates (DRA), Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP, and Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP in August of 2019. Read more about the case here.

I think it's a bad appeal and I hope it fails.

# ¿ Aug 26, 2021 17:32

Ruzihm: Aug 11, 2010; Group up and push mid, proletariat!

Don't forget the detail about if the covid vaccine is of the "two-shot protocol". Because let's not beat around the bush, this order is (present tense) concerned about the covid vaccinations. The original suit could predate the spanish flu and what its creation predates still wouldn't be relevant to this discussion.

Ruzihm fucked around with this message at 05:29 on Aug 27, 2021

# ¿ Aug 27, 2021 02:50

Ruzihm: Aug 11, 2010; Group up and push mid, proletariat!

I don't know about anyone else but I still have not found a rationale for the appeal.

Has anyone else had more luck?

# ¿ Sep 16, 2021 14:15

Ruzihm: Aug 11, 2010; Group up and push mid, proletariat!

Ruzihm posted:

Looks like Biden's Assistant Attorney General submitted an "appeal to a federal court order requiring U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to vaccinate medically vulnerable people in its custody."

https://dralegal.org/press/ice-vaccine-appeal/

I think it's a bad appeal and I hope it fails.

In an update to this - the 9th court has overturned the original injunction :sigh:

quote:

SUMMARY*
Immigration
The panel reversed the district court�s grant of a
preliminary injunction in a class action in which plaintiffs
contended that as to all immigration detention facilities
nationwide, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement�s
directives in response to the COVID-19 pandemic reflected
�deliberate indifference� to medical needs and �reckless
disregard� of known health risks; and remanded with
instructions that all orders premised on the preliminary
injunction be vacated.
In April 2020, the district court entered a preliminary
injunction and provisionally certified two nationwide
subclasses: (1) ICE detainees with certain risk factors
placing them at heighted risk of severe illness and death from
COVID-19; and (2) ICE detainees whose disabilities placed
them at heighted risk of severe illness and death from
COVID-19. The district court found that plaintiffs were
likely to succeed on the merits of three claims: (1) deliberate
indifference to the medical needs of detainees, in violation
of the Fifth Amendment; (2) punitive conditions of
confinement, in violation of the Fifth Amendment; and
(3) violation of section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act,
29 U.S.C. � 794. The district court�s preliminary injunction
applied to all immigration detention facilities in the United
States and imposed a broad range of obligations on the
federal government, including ordering ICE to identify and
track detainees with certain risk factors; requiring ICE to
issue a comprehensive Performance Standard covering
COVID-19-related topics, and setting directives for
releasing detainees from custody altogether. The
government appealed in June 2020, but did not seek a stay
pending appeal.
In September 2021, the parties asked to refer this case to
the Court�s mediation program. The panel denied that
request, concluding that it came much too late. Given the
substantial judicial and court resources that the parties
already required be expended on their behalf, the panel
declined their request to now use further resources in the
form of the mediation program�itself a not unlimited
resource.
On appeal, the government argued that the district court
erred both in issuing a preliminary injunction and in granting
provisional class certification. Noting that it had jurisdiction
to reach the latter issue, the panel concluded it need not do
so here. The panel explained that the district court�s class
certification ruling depended on, and was in service of, its
preliminary injunction, and therefore, if the preliminary
injunction was infirm, the class certification order
necessarily fell as well.
In concluding that the preliminary injunction must be set
aside, the panel held that plaintiffs failed to demonstrate a
likelihood of success or serious questions on the merits. The
panel wrote that neither the facts nor the law supported a
judicial intervention of the magnitude here, and that the
standards governing plaintiffs� request reflected not only the
all-embracing relief they sought but the core principle,
grounded in the separation of powers, that far-reaching
intrusion into matters initially committed to a coordinate

Branch requires a commensurately high showing sufficient
to warrant such a significant exercise of judicial power.

First, the panel addressed plaintiffs� claim that ICE
�failed to promulgate and implement medically necessary
protocols and practices to protect medically vulnerable
people� from COVID-19. The panel concluded that
plaintiffs did not make a clear showing that ICE acted with
deliberate indifference to medical needs or in reckless
disregard of health risks, explaining that the various ICE
mandates and guidance documents demonstrated that far
from recklessly disregarding the threat of COVID-19, ICE
in the spring of 2020 (and earlier) took steps to address
COVID-19. The panel also rejected plaintiffs� contrary
arguments, which the district court had accepted, and held
that plaintiffs had not made a clear showing of entitlement
to relief commensurate with the scope of their request.

Second, the panel concluded that plaintiffs had not
shown a likelihood of success on their claim that ICE�s
COVID-19 policies reflected unconstitutional
�punishment.� The panel observed that if a particular
condition or restriction of pretrial detention is reasonably
related to a legitimate governmental objective, it does not,
without more, amount to punishment. The panel easily
concluded that there was a legitimate governmental
objective here, explaining that ICE was holding detainees
because they were suspected of having violated the
immigration laws or were otherwise removable. The panel
concluded that just as ICE�s national directives did not
reflect deliberate indifference, they did not create excessive
conditions of �punishment� either. The panel also rejected
plaintiffs� theory that a presumption of punitive conditions
arose here.

Third, the panel concluded that plaintiffs had not
established a likelihood of success on their statutory claim
under the Rehabilitation Act, which prohibits a program
receiving federal financial assistance from discriminating
based on disability. As relevant here, plaintiffs bringing a
section 504 claim must show that they were denied the
benefits of the program solely by reason of a disability.
Here, the panel concluded that plaintiffs had not identified
any �benefit� that they were denied. Plaintiffs at most
demonstrated that they were subjected to inadequate national
policies; they did not show they were treated differently
from other detainees �solely by reason� of their disabilities.
Finally, the panel concluded that because plaintiffs had
not demonstrated a likelihood of success on any claim, it
need not address the other preliminary injunction factors that
plaintiffs also would have needed to establish.
Judge Berzon dissented from both the majority�s opinion
vacating the district court�s preliminary injunction and its
order denying the parties� joint request for mediation. Judge
Berzon wrote that, in vacating the district court�s
preliminary injunction, the majority applied incorrect
standards three times. First, the majority recited but did not
engage with the applicable sliding scale approach for
reviewing a preliminary injunction. Second, it correctly
identified but then flouted the court�s mandate to review the
grant of a preliminary injunction for abuse of discretion, not
de novo. Third, it evaluated plaintiffs� Fifth Amendment
reckless disregard claim under a subjective, instead of the
proper, objective, standard.
Judge Berzon wrote that the majority repeatedly
characterized as �sweeping,� �far-reaching� and of great
�magnitude,� an injunction that was actually limited,
modest, and deferential to the government�s primary role in
crafting policy and administering the detention facilities.
Beyond these analytical errors, Judge Berzon concluded that
the majority did precisely what it chastised the district court
for: by declining the parties� joint request for mediation, the
majority imposes its own will on the parties.

source: https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2021/10/20/20-55634.pdf

The civil rights groups responsible for the case are not pleased with this:

https://twitter.com/creeclaw/status/1450888614800285711
https://twitter.com/splcenter/status/1451215454140313613

splc posted:

Montgomery, Ala. � The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) issued the following statement by Ben Salk, Senior Staff Attorney, following the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals� decision to reverse a federal judge�s April 2020 order, which required Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to identify and release people with medical risk factors from ICE detention centers across the country, offer vaccinations, and take other steps to protect vulnerable people in its custody from COVID-19.

�We are deeply disappointed the court chose to undo an order that protected the health and saved the lives of tens of thousands of people in ICE detention over the last 18 months. This decision will needlessly put people at risk of serious illness and death.

�Ultimately it is not the courts but the Biden administration that bears responsibility for the suffering, illness, and death that will result from today�s decision. The Biden administration continues to needlessly detain tens of thousands of people and has chosen to fight and appeal every order requiring ICE to show common sense and basic human decency to medically vulnerable immigrants during the pandemic. The Biden administration could release such immigrants but instead chooses to keep them imprisoned.

�Despite today�s setback, we will not be deterred in our fight to secure safe and decent conditions for the tens of thousands of people who remain in detention today and to end the inhumanity of ICE detention.�

The Fraihat v. ICE lawsuit filed by the Civil Rights Education and Enforcement Center (CREEC), Disability Rights Advocates (DRA), Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP, and Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP in August of 2019 seeks an end to inhumane and traumatic conditions of ICE detention affecting tens of thousands across the country.

# ¿ Oct 21, 2021 18:42

Ruzihm: Aug 11, 2010; Group up and push mid, proletariat!

Biden administration exits talks over compensation for families separated at border

quote:

WASHINGTON � The Biden administration walked away from negotiations to financially compensate families separated at the border by the Trump administration, three lawyers for the families told NBC News on Thursday.

�There�s no explanation for not settling these cases other than the Biden administration is unwilling to use literally any political capital to help the young children deliberately abused by our government,� said Lee Gelernt, deputy director for the ACLU�s Immigrants� Rights Project.

Gelernt said that the Biden administration �will now be in court not just defending the United States but also the individual federal officials responsible for family separation.� These families had been separated at the border by the Trump administration.

NBC News previously reported that the administration had been in talks to offer separated migrant parents and children hundreds of thousands per person.

The lawyers for these migrants represented them in a number of cases that have claimed the families experienced harm when they were forcibly separated.

In a statement, the Department of Justice said, �While the parties have been unable to reach a global settlement agreement at this time, we remain committed to engaging with the plaintiffs and to bringing justice to the victims of this abhorrent policy.�

Under former President Donald Trump�s �zero tolerance� policy in 2018, and a similar pilot program in 2017, more than 5,600 children were separated from their parents simply because their parents crossed the border illegally with them. The Biden administration ended the "zero tolerance" program earlier this year.

The Trump administration did not have a system to quickly reunite the families it separated.

As of late October, more than 1,000 families were estimated to still be separated from each other, the White House said at the time. In many cases the parents were deported back to their home countries while their children remained in the U.S. And, according to court records, more than 300 parents of separated children have still not been located.

Looks like Biden's DOJ has committed to declining to settle with the victims of trump's family separation policy. Here's hoping the suit is successful without the settlement.

# ¿ Dec 16, 2021 21:20

Ruzihm: Aug 11, 2010; Group up and push mid, proletariat!

Interesting account of discrimination at the border from an attorney.

https://twitter.com/JuliaNeusner/status/1506798123305234432
https://twitter.com/JuliaNeusner/status/1506798126387982340

quote:

Today at the San Ysidro port of entry in Tijuana I watched as MX and US authorities allowed 26 Ukrainian asylum seekers to enter the U.S. and turned away a Mexican family who'd been waiting alongside them, saying they couldn't seek asylum bc of Title 42 and would have to wait.
A Mexican municipal police officer asked the group their county of origin. When they told him they were Ukrainian, he counted them and reported the number by radio. The officer told us MX municipal police are now monitoring the POE at all times to coordinate entry of Ukrainians.
The Mexican family with young children who was waiting with the Ukrainians fled death threats by an organized criminal group who'd brutally murdered their family members. The mom told the same officer through tears that they were afraid to be in MX. He sent them away from the POE
It was great to see the US welcome Ukrainian refugees at the border. But continuing to use T42 to turn away all other asylum seekers on the increasingly absurd pretext of protecting public health is shameful and violates US and international law. It's past time to end Title 42.

For more info on Title 42, check out our latest factsheet! https://www.humanrightsfirst.org/sites/default/files/TwoYearsofSuffering.pdf

Is the CDC's 2020 regulation concerning Title 42 established under Trump a racist one? Why has it remained under Biden? I think these are important questions to ask ourselves if we are to seriously confront racism in this country.

# ¿ Mar 24, 2022 17:01

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 16, 2024 23:33

Ruzihm: Aug 11, 2010; Group up and push mid, proletariat!

OMGVBFLOL posted:

Is it unrealistically pessimistic to see this lawsuit as a duel between the following ideologies:

We just killed a million people and:

neolibs: We have to replace them with immigrants asap before the dip in labor supply raises wages and working conditions

conservatives: tons of em were nonwhite and replacing them with more nonwhites will be one step forward two steps back

I think that's a completely justified viewpoint, yeah.

# ¿ May 24, 2022 22:07

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > US Immigration Policy Megathread