(Im)migration and Refugee History, Rights & Countering Xenophobia

"A deeply reported, newsbreaking account the humanitarian crisis of our time by the journalist who has been at the center of the story: MSNBC correspondent Jacob Soboroff, winner of the 2019 Walter Cronkite Award, offers a chilling expose of the human cost of the Trump administration's border and immigration policies"--;In June 2018, Donald Trump's most notorious decision as president--the systematic separation of thousands of desperate migrant families at the US-Mexico border--had secretly been in effect for months before most Americans became aware of the astonishing inhumanity being perpetrated by their own government. Jacob Soboroff was among the first journalists to expose this reality after seeing firsthand the living conditions of the children in custody. His influential series of reports ignited public scrutiny that contributed to the president reversing his own policy and earned Soboroff the Cronkite Award for Excellence in Political Broadcast Journalism and, with his colleagues, the 2019 Hillman Prize for Broadcast Journalism. Soboroff has spent the past two years reporting the many strands of this complex narrative, developing sources from within the Trump administration who share critical details for the first time. He also traces the dramatic odyssey of one separated family from Guatemala, where their lives were threatened by narcos, to seek asylum at the U.S. border, where they were separated--the son ending up in Texas, and the father thousands of miles away, in the Mojave desert of central California. And he joins the heroes who emerged to challenge the policy, and who worked on the ground to reunite parents with children.

"Through extensive ethnographic study of the aftermath of an ICE raid in one Latino community in Michigan, the author details the incredible strain that it placed on the community, the families, and the individuals left behind. Lopez's case study reveals the public health impacts of ICE raids on stable immigrant communities in the heartland of the country"--

Immigration is among the most prominent, enduring, and contentious features of our globalized world. Yet, there is little systematic, cross-national research on why countries "do what they do" when it comes to their immigration policies. Rights, Deportation, and Detention in the Age of Immigration Control addresses this gap by examining what are arguably the most contested and dynamic immigration policies--immigration control--across 25 immigrant-receiving countries, including the U.S. and most of the European Union. The book addresses head on three of the most salient aspects of immigration control: the denial of rights to non-citizens, their physical removal and exclusion from the polity through deportation, and their deprivation of liberty and freedom of movement in immigration detention. In addition to answering the question of why states do what they do, the book describes contemporary trends in what Tom K. Wong refers to as the machinery of immigration control, analyzes the determinants of these trends using a combination of quantitative analysis and fieldwork, and explores whether efforts to deter unwanted immigration are actually working.

" "State alert as pregnant asylum seekers aim for Ireland." "Country Being Held Hostage by Con Men, Spongers, and Those Taking Advantage of the Maternity Residency Policy." From 1997 to 2004, headlines such as these dominated Ireland's mainstream media as pregnant immigrants were recast as "illegals" entering the country to gain legal residency through childbirth. As immigration soared, Irish media and politicians began to equate this phenomenon with illegal immigration that threatened to destroy the country's social, cultural, and economic fabric. Pregnant on Arrival explores how pregnant immigrants were made into paradigmatic figures of illegal immigration, as well as the measures this characterization set into motion and the consequences for immigrants and citizens. While focusing on Ireland, Eithne Luibheid's analysis illuminates global struggles over the citizenship status of children born to immigrant parents in countries as diverse as the United States, Hong Kong, and elsewhere. Scholarship on the social construction of the illegal immigrant calls on histories of colonialism, global capitalism, racism, and exclusionary nation building but has been largely silent on the role of nationalist sexual regimes in determining legal status. Eithne Luibheid turns to queer theory to understand how pregnancy, sexuality, and immigrants' relationships to prevailing sexual norms affect their chances of being designated as legal or illegal. Pregnant on Arrival offers unvarnished insight into how categories of immigrant legal status emerge and change, how sexual regimes figure prominently in these processes, and how efforts to prevent illegal immigration ultimately redefine nationalist sexual norms and associated racial, gender, economic, and geopolitical hierarchies. "--

For most of America's history, we simply did not lock people up for migrating here. Yet over the last thirty years, the federal and state governments have increasingly tapped their powers to incarcerate people accused of violating immigration laws. As a result, almost 400,000 people annually now spend some time locked up pending the result of a civil or criminal immigration proceeding. In Migrating to Prison, leading scholar Cesar Cuauhtemoc Garcia Hernandez takes a hard look at the immigration prison system's origins, how it currently operates, and why.

Sheds light on one of the most pressing political issues of our time-the human consequences of US immigration policy. The Land of Open Graves reveals the suffering and deaths that occur daily in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona as thousands of undocumented migrants attempt to cross the border from Mexico into the United States. Drawing on the four major fields of anthropology, De Leon uses an innovative combination of ethnography, archaeology, linguistics, and forensic science to produce a scathing critique of "Prevention through Deterrence," the federal border enforcement policy that encourages migrants to cross in areas characterized by extreme environmental conditions and high risk of death. For two decades, this policy has failed to deter border crossers while successfully turning the rugged terrain of southern Arizona into a killing field. In harrowing detail, De Leon chronicles the journeys of people who have made dozens of attempts to cross the border and uncovers the stories of the objects and bodies left behind in the desert. [from the publisher]

The impact of the U.S. immigration and legal systems on children and youth. In the United States, millions of children are undocumented migrants or have family members who came to the country without authorization. The unique challenges with which these children and youth must cope demand special attention. Illegal Encounters considers illegality, deportability, and deportation in the lives of young people--those who migrate as well as those who are affected by the migration of others. A primary focus of the volume is to understand how children and youth encounter, move through, or are outside of a range of legal processes, including border enforcement, immigration detention, federal custody, courts, and state processes of categorization. Even if young people do not directly interact with state immigration systems--because they are U.S. citizens or have avoided detention--they are nonetheless deeply affected by the reach of the government in its many forms. Contributors privilege the voices and everyday experiences of immigrant children and youth themselves. By combining different perspectives from advocates, service providers, attorneys, researchers, and young immigrants, the volume presents rich accounts that can contribute to informed debates and policy reforms. Illegal Encounters sheds light on the unique ways in which policies, laws, and legal categories shape so much of daily life for young immigrants. The book makes visible the burdens, hopes, and potential of a population of young people and their families who have been largely hidden from public view and are currently under siege, following their movement through complicated immigration systems and institutions in the United States.--Publisher website.

"Criminal prosecutions for immigration offenses have more than doubled over the last two decades, as national debates about immigration and criminal justice reforms became headline topics. What lies behind this unprecedented increase? From Deportation to Prison unpacks how the incarceration of over two million people in the United States gave impetus to a federal immigration initiative--The Criminal Alien Program (CAP)--designed to purge non-citizens from dangerously overcrowded jails and prisons. Drawing on over a decade of ethnographic and archival research, the findings in this book reveal how the Criminal Alien Program quietly set off a punitive turn in immigration enforcement that has fundamentally altered detention, deportation, and criminal prosecutions for immigration offenses. Patrisia Mac��as-Rojas presents a "street-level" perspective on how this new regime has serious lived implications for the day-to-day actions of Border Patrol agents, local law enforcement, civil and human rights advocates, and for migrants and residents of predominantly Latina/o border communities. From Deportation to Prison presents a thorough and captivating exploration of how mass incarceration and law and order policies of the past forty years have transformed immigration and border enforcement in unexpected and important ways."--Back cover

Stories of non-US citizens caught in the jaws of the immigration bureaucracy and subject to indefinite detention are in the headlines daily. These men, women, and children remain almost completely without rights, unprotected by law and the Constitution, and their status as outsiders, even though many of have lived and worked in this country for years, has left them vulnerable to the most extreme forms of state power. Although the rhetoric surrounding these individuals is extreme, the US government has been locking up immigrants since the late 19th century, often for indefinite periods and with limited ability to challenge their confinement. 'Forever Prisoners' offers the first broad history of immigrant detention in the United States.

"An anthology of essays by migration scholars telling fieldwork-based stories of those affected by U.S. immigration law enforcement"--

When David Cole was first writing Enemy Aliens, in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, the anti-immigrant brand of American patriotism was at a fever pitch. Now, as the pendulum swings back, and court after court finds the Bush administration's tactics of secrecy and assumption of guilt unconstitutional, Cole's book stands as a prescient and critical indictment of the double standards we have applied in the war on terror. Called "brilliantly argued" by Edward Said and "the essential book in the field" by former CIA director James Woolsey, Enemy Aliens shows why it is a moral, constitutional, and practical imperative to afford every person in the United States the protections from government excesses that we expect for ourselves.

An intimate look at the people ensnared by the US detention and deportation system, the largest in the world On a bright Phoenix morning, Elena Santiago opened her door to find her house surrounded by a platoon of federal immigration agents. Her children screamed asthe officers handcuffed her and drove her away. Within hours, she was deported to the rough border town of Nogales, Sonora, with nothing but the clothes on her back. Her two-year-old daughter and fifteen-year-old son, both American citizens, were taken by the state of Arizona and consigned to foster care. Their mother's only offense- living undocumented in the United States. Immigrants like Elena, who've lived in the United States for years, are being detained and deported at unprecedented rates. Thousands languish in detention centers-often torn from their families-for months or even years. Deportees are returned to violent Central American nations or unceremoniously dropped off in dangerous Mexican border towns. Despite the dangers of the desert crossing, many immigrants will slip across the border again, stopping at nothing to get home to their children. Drawing on years of reporting in the Arizona-Mexico borderlands, journalist Margaret Regan tells their poignant stories. Inside the massive Eloy Detention Center, a for-profit private prison in Arizona, she meets detainee Yolanda Fontes, a mother separated from her three small children. In a Nogales soup kitchen, deportee Gustavo Sanchez, a young father who'd lived in Phoenix since the age of eight, agonizes about the risks of the journey back. Regan demonstrates how increasingly draconian detention and deportation policies have broadened police powers, while enriching a private prison industry whose profits are derived from human suffering. She also documents the rise of resistance, profiling activists andyoung immigrant "Dreamers" who are fighting for the rights of the undocumented. Compelling and heart-wrenching, Detained and Deportedoffers a rare glimpse into the lives of people ensnared in America's immigration dragnet.

What happens to migrants after they are deported from the United States and dropped off at the Mexican border, often hundreds if not thousands of miles from their hometowns? In this eye-opening work, Jeremy Slack foregrounds the voices and experiences of Mexican deportees, who frequently become targets of extreme forms of violence, including migrant massacres, upon their return to Mexico. Navigating the complex world of the border, Slack investigates how the high-profile drug war has led to more than two hundred thousand deaths in Mexico, and how many deportees, stranded and vulnerable in unfamiliar cities, have become fodder for drug cartel struggles. Like no other book before it, Deported to Death reshapes debates on the long-term impact of border enforcement and illustrates the complex decisions migrants must make about whether to attempt the return to an often dangerous life in Mexico or face increasingly harsh punishment in the United States.

"Having interviewed over one hundred deportees and their families, Caldwell traces deportation's long-term consequences--such as depression, drug use, and homelessness--on both sides of the border. Showing how U.S. deportation law systematically fails to protect the rights of immigrants and their families, Caldwell challenges traditional notions of what it means to be an American and recommends legislative and judicial reforms to mitigate the injustices suffered by the millions of U.S. citizens affected by deportation." -- Publisher's description

The unknown history of deportation and of the fear that shapes immigrants' lives Constant headlines about deportations, detention camps, and border walls drive urgent debates about immigration and what it means to be an American in the twenty-first century. The Deportation Machine traces the long and troubling history of the US government's systematic efforts to terrorize and expel immigrants over the past 140 years. This provocative, eye-opening book provides needed historical perspective on one of the most pressing social and political issues of our time. In a sweeping and engaging narrative, Adam Goodman examines how federal, state, and local officials have targeted various groups for expulsion, from Chinese and Europeans at the turn of the twentieth century to Central Americans and Muslims today. He reveals how authorities have singled out Mexicans, nine out of ten of all deportees, and removed most of them not by orders of immigration judges but through coercive administrative procedures and calculated fear campaigns. Goodman uncovers the machine's three primary mechanisms���formal deportations, voluntary departures, and self-deportations���and examines how public officials have used them to purge immigrants from the country and exert control over those who remain. Exposing the pervasive roots of anti-immigrant sentiment in the United States, The Deportation Machine introduces the politicians, bureaucrats, businesspeople, and ordinary citizens who have pushed for and profited from expulsion. This revelatory book chronicles the devastating human costs of deportation and the innovative strategies people have adopted to fight against the machine and redefine belonging in ways that transcend citizenship.

"Studies popular tropes in the United States for Mexican immigrants, tracing the history and usage of terms that were shaped by race, class, and national borders"--

I worked in a trailer that ICE had set aside for conversations between the women and the attorneys. While we talked, their children, most of whom seemed to be between three and eight years old, played with a few toys on the floor. It was hard for me to get my head around the idea of a jail full of toddlers, but there they were." For decades, advocates for refugee children and families have fought to end the U.S. government's practice of jailing children and families for months or even years until overburdened immigration courts could rule on their claims for asylum. Baby Jails is the history of that legal and political struggle. Philip G. Schrag, the director of Georgetown University's asylum law clinic, takes readers through thirty years of conflict as refugee advocates resisted the detention of migrant children. The saga begins during the Reagan administration with 15-year-old Jenny Lisette Flores, who languished in a Los Angeles motel that the government had turned into a makeshift jail by draining the swimming pool, barring the windows, and surrounding the building with barbed wire. What became the Flores lawsuit was still alive thirty years later, with the Trump administration resorting to the forced separation families when the courts would not allow the long-term jailing of the children. Schrag provides recommendations to reform a system that has caused anguish and trauma for thousands of parents and children. Provocative and timely, Baby Jails exposes the continuing struggle between the government and immigrant advocates over the duration and conditions of confinement of children who seek safety in America.

American presidents, deportations, and human rights violations : from Carter to Trump-book

As a federal report faults ICE's complaint-handling process in detention, a letter from Eloy describes a facility on the brink.

“A Better Life?” explores how America’s failed response to COVID-19 has reshaped immigrants’ lives and their relationship to the United States. Each episode tells a different immigrant story and examines how the crisis has challenged or changed that person’s ideas of what it means to be American. Our first season also included conversations with immigrant elders — grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles — to hear how they are coping during this time, and what they have learned over the years that can help the rest of us survive today’s challenges.

How Fear Changed America. Homeland Insecurity is a new documentary podcast from RAICES that chronicles the untold story of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). We go back to the beginning, when our government built a powerful new agency in the wake of 9/11 to protect America from terrorists—only to use that agency to terrorize immigrants. From family separation to federal agents deployed in Portland, the scope and cruelty of DHS continues to expand, begging the question: Is anyone safe? Season 1 is hosted by civil rights leader Erika Andiola, a galvanizing voice in the fight for migrant justice.

"If there's any reason we need to pay attention, and we need to hold CBP and ICE accountable, it's because these operations impact citizens, not just immigrants."

For decades, the U.S. has run private “shadow prisons” for immigrants convicted of federal crimes. Biden has ordered the government to wind down those contracts.

What happened when Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents showed up in a small town that voted overwhelmingly for President Trump, transforming his campaign rhetoric into reality. Guests: Monica Davey, the Chicago bureau chief for The New York Times; Tim Grigsby, a print shop owner in West Frankfort, Ill.; Nicholas Kulish, an investigative reporter for The Times. For more information on today’s episode, visit http://nyti.ms/2lr2eI6.

NBC News journalist Jacob Soboroff talks about Trump’s zero tolerance immigration policy, its origins and its possible return. When it was first reported that the United States government was systematically separating families at the southern border, the news was met with a kind of disbelief bolstered by a presidential administration that denied it had any such policy. But the signs that America was headed for a hardline approach to immigration policy were abundant in Donald Trump's campaign for the presidency. Once he was elected, his rhetoric turned to action, as his administration sought to transform American immigration policy on almost every front, but especially on the southern border. Eventually public resistance led the president to back down and rescind the policy, the policy the administration had denied existed. But before there was a public battle over the 5,400 immigrant children held by the federal government, there was another battle taking place within the federal government that pitted political appointees against career bureaucrats. This week on the Crosscut Talks podcast, This week on the Crosscut Talks podcast, Soboroff talks about that hidden fight, which he details in his book Separated: Inside an American Tragedy, how it likely prevents more families from being separated and whether the reelection of Donald Trump could result in a return to family separation. Plus, Crosscut reporter Lilly Fowler talks about one of the unintended consequences of pandemic relief in our prisons.

Elora Mukherjee is a prominent US immigration lawyer. Several weeks ago she visited the Clint border facility in Texas, which was holding hundreds of children who had tried to cross the border. What she saw was so shocking she has decided to speak out. And: Jennifer Silvers on how our experiences when we are young can affect the rest of our lives

How is the coronavirus affecting immigration and security along the U.S. border with Mexico? In this episode, join host Glynn Cosker for a conversation with Sylvia Longmire, an expert in border security, immigration and Mexico's drug wars. Learn how COVID-19 has suspended immigration hearings forcing asylum seekers to stay in crowded tent camps along the border for longer periods of time as they wait for courts to reopen. Also learn about the effects on DHS's relatively new migration protocols program (MPP) that changes the way CBP processes asylum requests from migrants. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 2014, 16-year-old Wildin Acosta left Olancho, Honduras and traveled toward the U.S. border. When he arrived, he turned himself in to border patrol agents. He was one of 68,541 unaccompanied minors who crossed the border into the U.S. that year. We spoke to Wildin Acosta shortly after Donald Trump’s inauguration, and after he had spent months in a detention center.  Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts: iTunes.com/CriminalShow. We also make This is Love and Phoebe Reads a Mystery. Artwork by Julienne Alexander. Check out our online shop.  Episode transcripts are posted on our website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

America has not come to grips with, nor atoned for the cruel and inhumane policies carried out at the U.S.-Mexico border or at the migrant detention facilities. It was one of the most gruesome policies carried out by the Trump administration, but the groundwork for his treatment of migrants was laid by previous administrations. Jacob Soboroff was one of the first journalists to gain access to the horrible migrant detention facilities on the U.S.-Mexico border for NBC News and MSNBC. His reports from the border shocked the country and helped force the Trump administration to reverse course on child separation. He joins Michael Moore to share his new reporting and discuss what must be done to fix this crime against humanity come January 20, 2021. Read Jacob's book, "Separated: Inside an American Tragedy" https://bookshop.org/a/1381/9780062992192 or https://amzn.to/3jWyQrj Check out the the four episode series by Jacob Soboroff & Katy Tur for MSNBC, "American Swamp" https://www.msnbc.com/americanswamp Music in the episode: "Mother and Child Reunion" - Paul Simon https://open.spotify.com/track/5vZ1BKMSLgrxxPYGMR904n Special offer for Rumble listeners from NetSuite! Sign up for a free guide from the world’s #1 cloud business system: http://www.netsuite.com/rumble A transcript of this conversation will soon be available at: https://rumble.media/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/rumble-with-michael-moore/message

ICE Acting Director Matthew Albence says fervent political activism put his front-line agents at risk.