President Obama's Thursday evening speech was short on details of the executive action being taken to defer deportation for up to 5 million undocumented immigrants. Below are some summaries and links to the pertinent details:
A summary from the Law Firm of Karen Crawford:
PRESIDENT OBAMA’S EXECUTIVE ACTION
November 21, 2014
1)EXPANSION OF DACA –
a.Age cap lifted – if you fulfill all other
requirements, it does not matter how old you are now [this will impact journalist and activist Jose Antonio Vargas]
a.He changed the date of entry– if you entered before
your 16th birthday before January 1, 2010, you are now eligible (it was
6/15/07)
b.They will give permits for three years instead of two
c.Rules will be released within 90 days
2)DEFERRED ACTION FOR PARENTS – DAP
a.Three year work permits for parents of US citizens and
permanent residents
b.You must have arrived before January 1, 2010
c.The child must have been born by 11/20/14, but the age
of the child doesn’t matter
d.You must have been present in the US without lawful
status on 11/20/14
e.We do not know yet what documents are required nor the
criminal eligibility, but the Immigration fee will be $465
f.Rules will be
released within 180 days
g.In the meantime,
gather evidence of identity (Passport or national ID), birth certificates of
children and their resident cards if applicable, and evidence of your residence
since 2010
3)EXTENSION OF PROVISIONAL WAIVER PROGRAM
a.You can request
your waiver before you depart the US
b.Extended to anyone
with a currently available visa – specifically spouses of residents and
sons/daughters of citizens and residents
c.It may be easier to prove extreme hardship
The Department of Homeland Security has a website with a summary of the executive action and series of memos detailing policy changes and implementation
Despite threats from GOP leaders, President Obama took a major step today to provide relief from deportation for approximately 4 million undocumented immigrants. After nearly two years of inaction by Congress, the President had been pressured by immigrant activists to take the action he had promised during his re-election campaign. He had originally planned to take action before the midterm election but was convinced by congressional democrats to wait. Some had urged him to wait until the new Congress was in place, to see if they would take action - the consequences of this executive action, including implementation, the response from conservatives and other issues remain to be seen:
Would grant more visas to victims of crimes or human trafficking
Would emphasize deporting criminals and persons suspected of involvement in terrorism or gang activity.
Would allow about 4 million immigrants to take a background check and apply for limited permission to stay in the country.
Would expand a deferred action program to cover more of the Dreamers — children of illegal immigrants brought to this country as children.
It's important to note that Obama's action does not extend to the parents of Dreamers (undocumented immigrants currently getting relief from deportation via Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals or DACA)
Frustrated Hispanic-American voters might strike out on their own. Then what?
In the late 1800s, disgruntled farmers in the Midwest and South
decided they could no longer support the Democratic or Republican
Parties. Neither of the major parties was responsive to their concerns
amid crop failures and falling prices during a recession, so the farmers
decided to throw their weight behind an upstart, the Populist or People’s Party.
White and black farmers joined together, even in the South, to support
candidates who called for the federal government to provide credit and
financial support during a time of low crop yields and economic
downturn. They succeeded in electing governors,
congressmen and hundreds of minor officials and legislators, primarily
throughout the Midwest. The party was geographically concentrated, which
allowed them to focus their efforts to elect congressional candidates.
The Populists lasted only a few years as an independent
entity, but their success clearly got the attention of the mainstream
parties. Most important, it had a lasting impact on policy, even beyond
the issues pushed by the farmers. Many of the Populists’ demands
became law by the 1920s—including the direct election of U. S.
senators, the development of a progressive federal income tax and the
availability of short-term credit in rural areas.
Latinos in the United States are now confronting a dilemma similar to the one faced by the farmers. A recent Gallup poll
indicates that the number of Latinos ranking immigration as a top issue
doubled since the first half of this year. Yet Latinos have been forced
to endure bitter disappointment from a Democratic president who has
broken many immigration promises, in no small measure because the
Republican-led House of Representatives refuses to act on immigration
reform in Congress. The president’s decision to defer deportation of
newly arrived children—a decision announced just five months before the
2012 presidential election—increased enthusiasm for Obama among Latinos;
71 percent of the record 11.2 million Latinos who turned out to vote
cast their ballot for Obama.
Many of them are now deeply disappointed. The president—who had
campaigned in 2008 on a pledge to reform the immigration system—again
promised to make the issue an early and top priority during his second
term. Congress stymied those efforts, so Obama pledged to take executive
action—only to delay it until after the midterms. No wonder a new Pew Research Center poll
shows that a majority of Latino voters think the Democratic Party is
doing a poor job on immigration, and a different recent survey indicates
substantially dampened enthusiasm
for Obama and the Democrats among Latino voters because of inaction on
immigration reform. Even as the president tried to smooth over
differences this week at an appearance before the Congressional Hispanic
Caucus annual gala, some frustrated Latino activists are contemplating deliberately sitting out the midterm election to make Democrats pay a price at the polls.
Many of them are now deeply disappointed. The president—who had
campaigned in 2008 on a pledge to reform the immigration system—again
promised to make the issue an early and top priority during his second
term. Congress stymied those efforts, so Obama pledged to take executive
action—only to delay it until after the midterms. Now wonder a new Pew Research Center poll
shows that a majority of Latino voters think the Democratic Party is
doing a poor job on immigration, and a different recent survey indicates
substantially dampened enthusiasm
for Obama and the Democrats among Latino voters because of inaction on
immigration reform. Because of their profound disappointment with the
Democrats’ inaction, some frustrated Latino activists are even contemplating deliberately sitting out the midterm election to make Democrats pay a price at the polls.
But
are these the only alternatives—stay home and sulk, or accept the
better of two bad options? Could it be time for Latinos to follow the
path forged by the disgruntled farmers? Or follow the model in Europe,
where third parties are fairly common?
In Europe, minorities and
special interests often form their own parties when they feel their
issues are not being championed by larger parties. This is most easily
done in countries with proportional representation,
which allows more than one representative for each district and—unlike
winner-take-all systems like most of the United States—allocate seats
based on the percentage of votes garnered by each contender. In such a
system, minor parties are often able to gain enough support to win seats
in legislatures. Examples include Basque nationalists in Spain, as well
as Green and far-right parties across Europe. In places like Britain
that have majoritarian systems with single-member districts,
geographically concentrated parties like the Scottish National Party are
able to win seats in Parliament. Even here in the United States, the
occasional small party or independent can win a seat, including in the
U.S. Senate. (One example: Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont Independent
who caucuses with Democrats.)
As relative newcomers, immigrants
often don’t have the money or other resources needed to start a new
party. Far-right party leaders, on the other hand, tend to come from
existing parties and have a built-in support network.
Indeed, in Europe’s multi-party system, it has been anti-immigrant far right parties that have taken hold. We have an analogue in the Tea Party in
the United States. Yet the Tea Party is not truly a separate party—at
least for now, it is a faction within the Republican Party that has
managed to set the agenda on issues like immigration.
By and
large, majoritarian electoral rules like ours produce two-party systems.
There is no hope in the foreseeable future that those rules will change
and that means that small parties, like the Populist Party, inevitably
disappear or, like the Libertarian and Green Parties, remain on the fringes of a system dominated by the two major parties.
Still,
there are some reasons—42 million of them, to start with—to think that a
Latino party could be different. Various ethnic groups have
historically wielded a great deal of influence within political parties,
particularly at the local and state levels. The German-American
Alliance, the Ancient Order of Hibernians (“the oldest and largest Irish Catholic organization in the United States”) and the Immigrant’s Protection League all mobilized against the restriction of immigration in
the early 20th century. Latinos also have an important advantage which
supports the idea of starting a separate party: They still tend to be
geographically concentrated in such states as California, Florida and
Texas which allows them to focus their efforts, like the Populist party
did in the 1890s.
Another relevant historical example is the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP). Fifty
years ago Fannie Lou Hamer appealed to the conscience of the Democratic
Party, asking for the Democratic National Committee’s credential
committee to recognize their delegation in place of the all-white
Democratic delegation from the state. The leadership came to a
compromise and agreed to seat two members of the delegation, but the
white delegation walked off and wouldn’t accept the compromise.
Nevertheless, the example set by the MFDP would have a clear impact on
the Democratic Party in the South going forward. Despite the prospect of
losing white support in the South, the Democratic Party supported civil
rights legislation and gained the support of a majority of black
voters.
An ethnic party did arise in the United States in the
late 1960s as the Chicano Movement organized and called for a third
party to focus on self-determination for Mexican-Americans. The main
focus of organizers was in Texas, where La Raza Unida party
won seats on city councils, school boards, and even ran a candidate for
governor in 1972 and 1978. However, the party’s support declined as
party activism slowed in the late 1970s.
Hispanic Americans are
in a better political position today than either the MFDP was five
decades ago or even La Raza Unida was in the ‘70s. In terms of
representation, there is the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and the
113th Congress has a record number of Latino elected officials,
with 35 representatives and three senators. Most of these
representatives are Democrats, and the immigration issue has been a high
priority, as evidenced by the scathing criticism recently lobbed at the
president by Representatives Raul Grijalva (Ariz.) and Luis Gutierrez (Ill.). Organizations like the National Council of La Raza, the Mexican American Legal Defense and
Education Fund and a variety of pro-immigration organizations have
lobbied for immigration reform and deportation relief. How long will it
be before such groups grow exasperated with the Democrats’ failure to
move these issues forward?
A Latino party might even help solve
the biggest obstacle to greater political clout—boosting turnout. At the
time of the last midterm election, data from the Pew Research Center shows,
Latinos chalked up a sharp increase in the number of eligible voters,
while the number of actual voters is increasing more slowly. Also, as
Pew notes, “even among eligible voters, Latino participation rates have
lagged behind that of other groups in recent elections.” For example,
31.2 percent of Latino eligible voters said they voted in 2010, compared
with nearly half of white eligible voters and 44 percent of black
eligible voters. An independent Latino Party or a cohesive Latino bloc
within an existing party that focused on the issues most important to
Latinos could spur increased participation—and thus more political
clout.
The smartest approach in the short run might be for
Latinos to work within the existing party system, even as they continue
to organize and swell their ranks within the electorate. In the
long-term—especially if Democrats and Republicans continue to
disappoint—they will need to assess their potential for working together
as a voting bloc and whether this could lead to support for a party. Is
this a long shot? Yes, but it’s better than sitting on the sidelines or
waiting for others to act. How long will it be before
Hispanic-Americans’ patience runs out?
The Washington Post's Monkey Cage blog is hosting series of blogs this week on Muslim integration in Europe, starting with a post by Terri Givens and Pete Mohanty of the University of Texas at Austin:
The big news for this weeks is President Obama's decision to delay taking action on immigration/deportations, despite pressure from immigrant advocates. Here's a range of coverage from the media beginning with an analysis from BuzzFeed:
From the New York Times: “Because of the Republicans’ extreme politicization of this issue, the
president believes it would be harmful to the policy itself and to the
long-term prospects for comprehensive immigration reform to announce
administrative action before the elections,” a White House official
said. “Because he wants to do this in a way that’s sustainable, the
president will take action on immigration before the end of the year.”
Protesters outside the White
House last month. President Obama had promised to issue broad directives
to overhaul the immigration system by summer’s end. More in-depth analysis from the New York Times:Political Shift Stalls Efforts to Overhaul Immigration NBC news had an exclusive interview with President Obama on today's Meet the Press:
Lots of analysis this week about the House GOP's actions on immigration, the first a bill that focused on deportations and a funding bill that doesn't come close to the President's request. The GOP is clearly concerned about taking action on immigration before the midterm elections, but the bills passed are of concern to those who want to reach out to Latino voters.
Republican Rep. Steve King was confronted Monday night at his own fundraiser by an undocumented immigrant and activist.
Meanwhile the focus remains on the border, particularly here in Texas where legislators this week questioned Governor Perry's calling up of the National Guard and how that will be paid for, in the absence of federal funds.
The numbers of children crossing the border has dropped but concerns over housing remain, although plans to house families at military bases have been dropped and some shelters were closed.
Texas Governor Rick Perry announced this week that he would deploy 1000 National Guard troops to deal with the crisis at the Texas border. This raised a variety of issues (including the impact on Perry's potential run for president), particularly what kind of coordination there might be with the Border Patrol, if the Guard troops would have the authority to arrest people caught crossing the border, the impact on children crossing the border, etc...Fusion news raised a set of questions as well:
Major General Nichols of the Texas National Guard held a press briefing on Tuesday hoping to clarify the role of the Guard and raising the hope that many of the troops would volunteer for the duty:
In Washington, DC, the Wilson Center's Latin American Program is doing a series of reports and panels on the issue of migrants from Central America. This included a panel with the foreign ministers from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras discussing issues of violence, transnational criminal organizations, and what can be done to deal with the underlying factors that are driving migrants to the U.S. [panel starts at 10 minute point]
Several outlets have developed background materials for understanding the factors that have led to the current crisis of refugees/migrants on the border from Central America.
The first link is a blog post from an immigration lawyer detailing the hurdles lawyers face in trying to represent families in detention centers:
The Wilson Quarterly has put together an interactive set of maps and graphs which detail the underlying factors which lead people to leave places like Honduras and El Salvador:
Protests against the influx were set for this weekend, although turn-outs tended to be small, it is an illustration of the divides in public opinion created by the crisis:
from the Austin American-Statesman: Seeking Asylum in the United States: Fleeing gang brutality in El Salvador, Jose has made the dangerous trek to the United States to seek asylum. Casa Marianella in Austin has been his home for the past three months.
The situation for unaccompanied minors at the border continues to create headlines. Protests are continuing and have spread to Arizona where many are calling for the children to be deported immediately, but this would be against current law, and due process.
The Catholic church has already taken an active role in helping the children and families and Pope Francis has taken a strong position in support of the child migrants:
I recently learned of a new resource called TRAC immigration (h/t Karen Crawford):
"TRAC's Immigration Project is a unique new multi-year effort to systematically go after very detailed information
from the government, check it for accuracy and completeness and then make it available in an understandable way
to the American people, Congress, immigration groups and others."
They just posted data on unaccompanied children and how they fare in court:
Immigration ended up high on the agenda for President Obama's trip to Texas, that was planned to focus on economic growth and support for the middle class. Earlier this week, President Obama proposed a $3.7 billion emergency budget measure that would in part address housing issues for the large number of unaccompanied minors who have entered the country from Central America in the last few months.
After some back and forth over if and when a meeting would occur, Governor Rick Perry agreed to join President Obama in Dallas at a round-table discussion about the border.
Gov. Rick Perry of Texas greeted President Obama on Wednesday in Dallas, where the two attended a meeting on immigration.CreditDoug Mills/The New York Times
President Obama came out of the meeting urging Congress to approve funds to deal with the crisis.
The roots of the crisis in Central America are still being discussed, with a variety of factors being considered, some argue that President Obama's executive order allowing Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals is encouraging children from Central America to come to the U.S. or that criminal gangs are telling people in these countries that there children won't be deported:
Beyond the political posturing of Republicans and Democrats on the issue of immigration, there has been the on the ground response of citizens in cities that have been affected by the influx. As noted in our previous post, the number of children, particularly unaccompanied minors is unprecendented in recent times. It harkens back to the 1960s exodus of Cuban children known as Operation Pedro Pan.
The media has focused attention on the protest by citizens of Murrieta, California who blocked busloads of migrants begin brought to the town for processing -- as in this report from NBC news:
"'What people need to understand is that they [protesters] are showing their emotion and passion about a federal policy that isn’t working,' Murrieta Mayor Alan Long said Wednesday, speaking in support of crowds that blocked buses full of undocumented immigrants trying to enter the town a day earlier."
However, the protests in Murrieta are an outlier - in most border cities, organizations like Catholic Charities are reaching out to help house and feed the migrants as noted in this report from NBC news:
In Some Towns, Immigrants Met With Aid Instead of Anger
"'Right now it’s not about politics. It’s about a humanitarian crisis,' said Ofelia de los Santos of Catholic Charities, whose group helps about
200 people a day. McAllen and the other small towns in the Rio Grande
Valley were described as a region where most are first-, second- or
third-generation Mexican-Americans."
Meanwhile, militia groups are heading onto the scene, raising concerns about armed civilians encountering immigrants as they come across the border:
This will be the first of several posts on the crisis of unaccompanied minors coming from Central America. Described as a "humanitarian crisis" by some and an "illegal immigration crisis" by others, the current situation with refugees/undocumented immigrants from Central America has shifted the agenda of the politics of immigration in the last month. In particular, the number of unaccompanied minors has increased dramatically from 26,000 last year, to 52,000 since October. This is a multi-faceted issues, that raises many issues, but it is not necessarily an issue of border enforcement. Most of the minors crossing the border are surrendering to the Border Patrol, and are not necessarily trying to sneak into the U.S. It is a humanitarian crisis because our own laws require these children to be processed and the system is not equipped to handle these numbers.
Check out my latest post on my Europe blog that deals with immigration: Europe and the World: The Role of Cities in Immigrant Integration: My week in Berlin continues, as I was walking around the Alexanderplatz I happened to run into a protest of some refugees and recorded a bit...
In October of 1999 politicians around the European Union (EU) were stunned by the success of Jörg Haider’s far right Freedom Party. When Haider’s party became part of the Austrian government in early 2000, the other EU countries responded with diplomatic sanctions and within a few months would pass the Racial Equality Directive (RED), a measure which would require all 15 member states (and future members) to pass antidiscrimination policy into national law. Ten years later, despite some initial success with the development of national level equality bodies, many EU governments were slashing funding and moving once-independent entities into larger human rights bodies, thereby diluting their influence. The institutions created by the RED were under fire partially because of the ongoing fiscal crisis, but also due to political pressure. The RED and consequent Equal employment and Gender equality directives were a set of policies which developed along with European integration in the 1990s, but ran into the integration slowdown after enlargement in the mid-2000s, a fiscal crisis, and a lack of prioritization by mostly conservative governments.
In our book, Legislating Equality: The Politics of Antidiscrimination Policy in Europe, we examine the development and implementation of the RED in Europe. Two factors played an important role for the development of antidiscrimination policy in the EU. The first is racist anti-immigrant sentiment, and the second is Left vs. Right politics, i.e. the rise of the radical right as a catalyst for the passage of legislation and Left support for antidiscrimination policy. However, these policy developments were also dependent upon the process of Europeanization – as the European Union developed, political opportunities developed which allowed the issue of racism and antidiscrimination policy to move forward as a policy issue.
The RED’s most visible accomplishment was the creation of national equality bodies tasked with combating discrimination. The equality bodies have three principal goals: to assist and support victims to pursue complaints, to conduct independent surveys, and to publish independent reports on discrimination. The European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) delineated the following competencies as central to a body’s success:
Providing aid and assistance to victims, including legal aid, and (where appropriate) to ensure victims have recourse to the courts or other judicial authorities.
Monitoring the content and impact of legislation intended to combat racial discrimination, and recommending, where necessary, improvements to this legislation.
Advising policymakers on how to improve regulations and practices.
Hearing complaints concerning specific cases of discrimination and seeking resolutions either through mediation or through binding and enforceable decisions.
Sharing information with other national and European institutions tasked with promoting equality.
Issuing advice on best practices of anti-discriminatory practice.
Promoting public awareness of discrimination and disseminating pertinent information (European Commission against Racism and Intolerance, 1997).
By 2008 most countries in the EU, including those that had recently joined, had passed laws implementing the EU’s equality directives. In the first few years after the transposition of the Equal Treatment Directives there was growth in both the number and staffing of the equality bodies and in some cases success in “naming and shaming” corporations and other entities for discrimination. The equality bodies were also somewhat successful in bringing awareness to the issues around discrimination. However, by the ten year anniversary of the passage of the RED in 2010 it was clear that both politics and the European fiscal crisis were having a negative impact on the equality bodies.
The global economic downturn has been perceived to be a “trigger” for increased intolerance and discrimination against migrants and members of minority groups, exacerbated by budget cuts and waning political will to combat it. However, this is likely a temporary spike that does not yet point to an increase in institutional discrimination. This does point to a need for governments to act quickly: the right measures need to be put in place during countries’ recovery period from the crisis to stave off a worsening of the situation of migrants and minorities—groups already at risk.
In light of these challenges, the European Union’s antidiscrimination priority for the next decade should not be to create more legislation or more institutions; instead, the EU needs to strengthen the ones it already has. European governments, EU institutions, and civil society partners will continue to evaluate what is working and what is not, and reinforce the existing structures.
Homeland Security's new Secretary, Jeh Johnson hit the Sunday morning talk shows to defend the Obama administration's record on immigration enforcement: "This Week" Jeh Johnson
Many were surprised by Congressman John Boehner's comments about his Republican colleagues in the House and their unwillingness to address immigration reform:
With comprehensive immigration reform off the table for now, immigration advocates have turned to the issue of deportations, particularly of family members. The Obama administration has reached 2 million deportations and advocates are urging the President to change his policies and consider the welfare of children and families:
UT students were among those protesting deportations both Wednesday afternoon and Thursday during the Civil Rights Summit, with a large march from the UT Tower to the LBJ Library:
House Speaker John Boehner surprised many analysts last week, saying that passing immigration reform was unlikely before the 2014 midterm elections. The rationale behind this is complicated as noted in this article from the New York Times:
"The quandary for Mr. Obama is clear: He has vowed to overhaul immigration in two presidential campaigns, but to make good on the promise, he may have to agree to conditions from House Republicans that will be hard for many Democrats to accept. Mr. Boehner is facing pressure of his own to come up with a plan that will appeal to Hispanic voters."
The Department of Homeland Security has a website with a summary of the executive action and series of memos detailing policy changes and implementation 
