By Duane Campbell. Feb. 13, 2017
The chaos created by Donald Trump’s ban on refugees is only the
beginning of a crisis that Trump and his allies are creating. Less noticed was Trump’s rollout
of executive actions on immigration and the border wall on Jan. 25.
These executive orders were the opening act of what is certain to be an
aggressive crackdown on unauthorized immigration. The left responded quickly to the Jan. 27 ban
on refugees with important protests and significant legal
challenges. However, Trump
has created so many crises in his first weeks that it would be easy to miss the long-term
train wreck being created by Trump’s earlier executive actions on the border wall and the expansion
of arrests and deportations.
On Jan. 25 Trump signed an executive
order
on immigration
that directs ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents to
use a broadened definition of
“criminal” and focus deportation efforts not only on those who have been
convicted of crimes, but also those who have been charged, or “have committed
acts that constitute a chargeable criminal offense.” This order will increase the number of persons
subject to deportation by at least 2 million and the order will triple the
number of agents in the ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations office and give
them broad power to ultimately decide who should be deported. Increased
deportations have already begun under this new executive order.
See the numerous posts below.
Past use of aggressive interior enforcement, then called “Secure
Communities,” was an abject failure. ICE agents conducted raids and arrested
people at work sites, schools, and on the streets. Often they jailed complete families. In most cases, these
arrests and deportations depended upon the cooperation of local police and
social service agencies (see sanctuary cities, below).
The campaigns deported parents of U.S.
citizens, disrupting families, schools, and
workplaces. The raids were too often done without proper warrants and other
procedural safeguards.
The Wall
(or Fence)
We should not assume that each of the Trump executive
orders
will be accepted and implemented. On the
contrary. The orders produce contradictions
and will produce resistance.
Yes, the U.S. can build a wall or fencing on the U.S. side of
the border, except for that portion of the border that is on the Tohono O’odhom
reservation in Arizona. But the wall
will be an expensive failure.
Trump’s demand to build the wall and to impose tariffs is
producing a reaction in Mexico. The U.S. not only imports from Mexico, U.S.
corporations also exported to Mexico
$267 billion dollars worth of goods
in 2015. Mexico is the U.S.’s second
largest export market. A tariff on the
U.S. side will likely produce a tariff on the Mexican side that could cost some
1 million jobs in the U.S.
Arturo Rodriguez, President of the United Farmworkers union (UFW)
asks, “Since some 50 % of agricultural labor in California, Florida and Texas
is undocumented, when they arrest all of these workers, who is going to feed
the nation?” The answer to his question
is, if the border is closed and mass arrests make workers not available, most
vegetable production will move to Mexico and to other countries. Is that progress?
The Trump administration is being reckless and poorly informed
in matters of foreign policy as well as domestic issues. Building Trump’s wall and threatening to make
Mexico pay for the wall built on U.S. land
was a belligerent act championed in the
Trump campaign. This poorly informed effort ignores many of
the realities of the U.S.-Mexico relationship. Mexico provides the primary security against
migration to the U.S. on our southern border. Mexican police and military restrict migration
and turn thousands of would-be migrants back each year.
The Mexican army and police also provide the
primary obstacle to migrants from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala from reaching the U.S. border. The U.S. pays the Mexican forces to do this
enforcement. Given Trump’s provocative statements
and acts, they could simply stop serving as a border security force for the
U.S. The end of bi-national police cooperation would massively increase
immigration and severely reduce efforts to restrict drug cartels from moving
drugs into the U.S.
The Mexican political system and the police are corrupt, but the
situation could get much worse. The
Mexican legislature is already considering several bills to prevent Mexico from
cooperating with the Trump surge in deportations. Readers should know that the Mexican presidency
is up for election in 2018, and the current dominant party (PRI) is in disgrace,
in part because it is seen as subservient to the Trump administration.
Nationalism and resisting Yankee
interference is a potent political force in Mexico and a left populist – Manuel Lopez Obrador –
is currently far ahead in the polls.
Deportations
Yet another structural weakness of the Trump
plan for expanding deportations further makes it almost impossible for the plan
to work.
Deportations currently depend
upon the persons arrested agreeing to be quickly deported. Unless they have convicted of a
prior felony, persons arrested are immediately offered a “voluntary”
departure. If they sign it, most of
those arrested will be deported within 2-3 days. (In California it is usually
the same day.)
Immigrant rights activists
have developed a strategy to defeat these deportations. Those arrested are encouraged to refuse to
sign the “voluntary departure.” Instead,
they would insist upon having legal counsel. All persons inside the U.S. have a
right to counsel (not only citizens).
If some 20%- 30% of those
arrested begin to refuse to sign, the jails will fill within days – even the private prisons. If those arrested insist on legal counsel, the
courts will be overloaded.
When those arrested have an
attorney, some 40% win the right to stay. And, another 40% may not win, but they will
delay deportation for 2-5 years while their cases are heard in the back logged
courts (long enough for the children to grow up).
Even with the growth of
private prisons, the detention centers will fail. Immigration hearing officers
in the U.S. had a backlog of 453,948 cases in 2015. It takes some 635 days to process the average
case. While Trump will expand the
number of case officers, the hearings will create a backlog of years.
Sanctuary Cities
Trump’s threatening of sanctuary cities and communities that offer
protection to immigrants because they recognize the injustice in current
immigration laws and practices will undermine public safety.
His threat to take money from sanctuary cities is unconstitutional
overreach. By defending sanctuary cities,
citizens and tax payers can severely limit Trump’s abuse. The
state of Texas is considering defunding sanctuary cities there while the
California legislature is considering a bill to make California a sanctuary
state. Because of shared financing and tax collection, states have more ability
to withhold funds from sanctuary cities than does the federal government. Several
California sanctuary cities are already
preparing the legal groundwork to resist paying specific taxes into the federal
treasury if Trump follows through on his
threats to cut funds to these cities.
Immigration officers (ICE)
need the cooperation of local law enforcement and social services to do their
jobs successfully. ICE has far too few
agents and too few jails to effectively remove large numbers of people. The last time such removal was practiced – in Operation Wetback
in 1952– the effort was
only effective because local cities and
social service institutions cooperated. The removal was popular. This time,
many will not cooperate.
There are some 300 sanctuary
cities and districts in the U.S.
Citizens and voters in these cities can have an important role in their
defense.
Readers should check to see
if your local city, county, or state has sanctuary resolutions. Usually, these resolutions contain statements
such as:
1. Public
resources, including salaries and equipment funded by local and state taxes,
should be limited to serving the jurisdiction supplying these resources and its
residents. City, county and school
district funds should not be used to implement or enforce federal immigration
laws that are the responsibility of federal law enforcement.
2. Local law enforcement
resources should be solely devoted to enforcement of local and state laws,
protecting all residents and serving the community. Enforcement of federal laws, including
immigration laws, should be left to the federal government unless the
individual involved is a convicted felon.
Based upon such sanctuary
resolutions, we can insist that local resources and personnel not spend time
and resources aiding this misguided federal immigration enforcement.
If your local area does not
have a sanctuary resolution, see models on DSA’s Immigration Rights Committee
resource pages and try to pass sanctuary resolutions in your area.
There are numerous groups
working to protect the rights, the safety, and the families of the immigrants
among us. Working with your local DSA, join with these groups to insist that
local resources and personnel not spend time and resources aiding Trump’s enforcement efforts.
Working together, we are not
powerless in the face of executive authority.
Duane
Campbell is a professor emeritus of bilingual multicultural education at
California State University Sacramento, a union activist, and past chair of
Sacramento DSA. He serves on the Immigrant Rights Committee of
DSA’s Anti Racism Working Group.
No comments:
Post a Comment