One of the reasons our rather dramatically-failed
immigration system seems unfixable is the barrier of extreme factions in
Congress. Clinton couldn’t push reform through Congress, and even
Spanish-speaking Texas Republican, George W Bush, could not move his own party
to champion his vision of immigration reform. Obama struck out too. Bills get
buried in committee or face die-hards from both sides. Left wing’s desire to
shut down ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and a right-wing commitment
to oust anyone who entered this country other than as a documented immigration…
even as babies.
The underlying assumption is that immigrants, particularly
black or brown, skew liberal, thus diluting the traditional white conservative
base, and, for the benefit of nationalist conservatives, should be pushed out
of the United States. The effort even is directed at finding reasons to
denaturalize many black and brown documented aliens who actually became U.S.
citizens.
In June of 2018, “the Trump administration set up a denaturalization
task force with the goal of deporting some 2,000 naturalized
citizens who are suspected of ‘cheating’ on their citizenship applications by
omitting or failing to mention any aliases or iterations of their names that
may have been used before… But in the imagination of the denaturalization task
force, those 2,000 naturalized citizens omitted an alias in order to hide a
previous deportation order. Now these naturalized citizens are about to be
taken to civil court where they will not have the right to a court-appointed
lawyer, and some may not have the means to seek proper representation.” USA
Today, July 24, 2018. Forgetting a maiden name, a nickname in high school or college
or even a shortened version of your own name can be fatal.
One way or the other, the system does not work. Nobody is
happy. Even our highest-tech companies are facing new, hostile barriers,
against their importing highly-educated STEM candidates for jobs that our
failing educational system seems incapable of producing in sufficient numbers
to satisfy demand. Even when these experts qualify for that coveted H-1 visa,
they are often forced to leave their families behind, a non-starter in a world
where other countries (like Canada!) will make them the same job offers with
the ability to bring their loved ones along. You can tell when someone is
advocating an immigration program that defeats the purpose of letting in those
qualified engineers and mathematicians, true job-creators, when they use the
words “chain immigration.” That little dog whistle is so virulently opposed by
most of our highest-tech companies, many of whom are forced to open research
facilities in other countries as a result.
So, what does a viable immigration reform package look like?
The non-partisan American Bar Association outlines the major variables they
would recommend in their online March 22nd ABA Journal:
• Restructure the immigration court system. Long-standing
ABA House of Delegates policy calls for independence for the immigration
courts, which currently are part of the Department of Justice and subject to
the control of a politically appointed attorney general. There is even more
evidence now that political interference could threaten judges’ independence,
such as the announcement last year of case
completion quotas for immigration judges that are tied to their
employee evaluations. The report also criticizes former Attorney General Jeff
Sessions for referring a large number of immigration cases (such as Matter
of A-B-) to himself and then “substantially rewriting immigration law” by
deciding those cases.
• Overhaul how immigrants are represented. Currently,
most immigrants have no right to court-appointed counsel. They have a right to
counsel at their own expense, and those who can’t afford counsel must compete
for a limited pool of public interest lawyers in most cities. Bad lawyers and
even nonlawyers are stepping into the gap to provide ineffective legal services
or outright cheat immigrants, according to the report.
The good news is that representation is more available these
days, thanks to private organizations and publicly funded programs such as
the New
York Immigrant Family Unity Project. However, the report says, these can
only serve a ‘lucky few.’ Like the 2010 report, the 2019 report calls for
Congress and the U.S. attorney general to require court-appointed counsel,
permit immigration judges to exercise contempt powers, and more.
• Improve the role of law enforcement in the immigration
system through legislation. The law enforcement end of the system is run
by the Department of Homeland Security. Some of the recent developments
the report criticizes are political and highly publicized, such as the
government’s increased use of immigration detention or changes in enforcement
priorities. But there are also inefficiencies caused by the fact that the DHS
and the DOJ do some of the same things, said Dora
Schriro of the ABA commission’s advisory committee at the 2019 ABA
Midyear Meeting in Las Vegas. Schriro also faulted the government for a lack of
organization that results in inefficient decisions.
In all, the immigration system’s problems may even have
worsened since the 2010 report was released, the 2019 report concludes. Few
improvements have been made in the past nine years, and certain parts of the
system have moved even further away from the ABA’s goals of fairness, due
process and judicial independence.
The system can be fixed. There are logical steps. If the
nation were true to its values, we would have dealt with these issues a long
time ago. We are simply too polarized to operate as the United States of
America, a true symptom of the beginning of the end.
I’m Peter
Dekom, and because fairness might be difficult to achieve is no justification
to stop trying to implement a better system.
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