Going deeper on immigration
compiled by Carol Scott, January 2020
Comprehensive coverage: The War on Immigrants series from The Intercept
Border Patrol: Greg Grandin, 1/12/2019, The Border Patrol has been a Cult Of Brutality Since 1924
The Injustice of This Moment Is Not an ‘Aberration’: From mass incarceration to mass deportation, our nation remains in deep denial, Michelle Alexander
Water
Ryan Devereaux, 1/17/2018 – A new report says that humanitarian groups working along the U.S. border with Mexico have documented the systematic destruction of thousands of jugs of water left for migrants trekking north through the desert — and that U.S. Border Patrol agents are to blame.
Ryan Deveraux, 11/23/2019 – Scott Warren reflects on the borderlands and two years of government persecution
Family separation – “Zero Tolerance”
Debbie Nathan, 7/19/2018 – Chaos Prevails in Immigrant Detention Centers, with Children Under 5 Still Separated from Parents
American Immigration Lawyers Association, 5/7/2018 – Then AG Jeff Sessions announces existing law will be enforced 100% – “Zero tolerance” for crossing borders anywhere except official entry points.
Debbie Nathan, 10/29/2019 – Children are leaving their families trapped in MX and crossing alone
Shaun King for The Intercept “Voices,” 6/20/2018 – history of racist separation of families in US
Nick Pinto, 6/3/2018, Debora’s story
Public Charge
Natasha Lennard, 9/26/2018 – Trump’s Plan to Deny Green Cards to People on Medicaid or Food Stamps Is a Full-Blown Attack on the Immigrant Poor
Asylum Ban
Maryam Saleh, 1/22/2019 – Trump’s offer to open the federal government in exchange for border wall funding includes a ban on asylum-seeking Central American minors, requiring those fleeing violence or persecution to apply in their own country instead of presenting themselves at the US border.
human rights first, 9/13/2019 – downloadable pdf fact sheet and explainer on third-country transit asylum ban – “…bans refugees at the southern border, as of July 16, 2019, from receiving asylum if they transited through a third country en route to the United States”
Muslim Ban
National Immigration Law Center, 6/2019 – Understanding the Muslim Ban and how we’ll keep fighting it
ACLU Washington – timeline of the Muslim Ban 1/27/2017 – 6/26/2018
MPP, Migrant Protection Plan, aka Remain in Mexico policy
Homeland Security, 1/2412019 – public facing info page – “We have implemented an unprecedented action that will address the urgent humanitarian and security crisis at the Southern border. This humanitarian approach will help to end the exploitation of our generous immigration laws. The Migrant Protection Protocols represent a methodical commonsense approach, exercising long-standing statutory authority to help address the crisis at our Southern border.” – Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen M. Nielsen
Debbie Nathan, 7/14/2019 – Dangers for migrants in Mexican border towns
Debbie Nathan, 6/28/2019 – “…[T]he Department of Homeland Security appears ready to vastly expand the MPP, not just with more crowded courts, but with mass video hearings held in tents presided over by distant judges.”
Detention conditions
Spencer Woodman, Maryam Saleh, Hannah rapplete, Karrie Kehoe, 5/21/2019 – Immigrants held in solitary confinement
Ryan Deveraux, 3/24/2018 – African immigrants/ private prisons
Nick Pinto, 2/2/2019, “‘Vicious’ And ‘Brutal’” — Life Inside a Freezing Federal Prison With No Heat
Caitlin Dickerson, 12/9/2029, Despite Warnings, Trump Moves to Expand Migrant Family Detention. Dr. Amy Cohen, child psychiatrist: “It becomes extremely clear that it is detention which is the variable which is creating, literally, mental illness in these children”; Acting ICE Director Matthew Albence: “I would say many of these kids, it’s probably the first time they’ve had their own bed, it’s probably the first time that any of them have had access to medical…. This is a very nurturing environment.”