ILCM et al. – Comments on Public Charge Rule

City leaders say card will help immigrants, transgender people,and City Council approval was unanimous, but concerns about data security persist.

The wall is unlikely to be built, but Trump administration policies are keeping  migrants out and punishing those already here.

Minneapolis is one step closer to creating municipal IDs for undocumented immigrants.

The first members of the caravan arrived at the borderto find about 3,000 people already waiting to be processed into the U.S.

November 26, 2018 – On Sunday afternoon, the world saw U.S. immigration officials lobbing tear gas across the border into a crowd of migrants. The world saw barefoot, choking children, and mothers crying as they dragged toddlers away from tear gas.

“This is not the American way: this action does not represent American values nor the ideals engraved on the Statue of Liberty,” said John Keller, Executive Director of the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota. “The current administration has intentionally escalated and manipulated this refugee crisis. It has shown its cynical bad faith by acting unlawfully and without regard for international human rights, settled U.S. law, and human dignity.”

“The unlivable violence in Central America has created a refugee crisis, and unambiguous U.S. law requires that any person who seeks asylum must be given a chance to be heard,” he continued. “These people fleeing violence cannot simply apply for asylum in their home country. They must come to the United States to do so. The Trump administration has intentionally misrepresented the character of both the migrants and the law at every turn.”

Over the past months, the Trump administration closed down border crossings to asylum seekers, arbitrarily claiming they could only process a handful of applicants each day. That resulted in thousands of asylum seekers waiting in Mexico, even before the Central American caravan’s arrival. As people waited for weeks in difficult conditions, not even allowed to approach the border crossing, some decided to cross without permission and ask for asylum once they were inside the United States.

Again, the law is clear: anyone entering the United States, either at a border crossing or without permission, is allowed to seek asylum. With more than a month’s notice to prepare, instead of sending judges or asylum officers to process their lawful petitions for protection, this Administration preferred the political optics of sending 5,000 troops.

The president even tried to rewrite long-settled immigration laws via an executive proclamation restricting asylum to only those presented at official border crossings. A federal judge almost immediately enjoined that order on November 19, rebuking the president for seeking to reverse a law clearly passed by Congress.

This intentional stoking of the refugee and border crisis led to the use of tear gas on children and the complete closing of part of the border on both sides on Sunday.

“Rows of razor wire, full border closings, and armed border forces intentionally tear gassing choking, barefooted children and toddlers in traumatized mothers’ arms are images not from a faraway war zone but from California and this Administration’s cruel and unlawful assault on unarmed asylum seekers,” said Keller. “This Administration’s actions towards immigrants and refugees continue to corrupt the very soul of who we strive to be as expressed by our national motto, E Pluribus Unum.”

Trump’s plan raises the risk of summary deportation for thousands of asylum seekers — if it’s allowed to move forward.

November 9, 2018—Today the president issued an emergency proclamation that unabashedly violates the clear law of the land and our international human rights obligations, and betrays our national values and commitment to offer safe haven to those who come to the United States seeking to escape violence and persecution.

Asylum seekers are clearly protected under U.S. and international law. Any person may make claims for asylum whether or not they have entered through border checkpoints:

“Any alien who is physically present in the United States or who arrives in the United States (whether or not at a designated port of arrival…), irrespective of such alien’s status, may apply for asylum in accordance with this section…” 8 U.S.C. §1158(a)(1) [emphasis added]

In contravention of this clear language, today the president has ordered that anyone who enters the United States outside a designated border checkpoint will not be allowed to apply for asylum. In support of this illegal proclamation, he claims a national emergency, based on an increase in the number of Central American families and children seeking asylum. Absent from his rationale is the reality that the increase of Central American migrants is due to crisis levels of violence in Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala, and to the utter failure of those governments to protect their most vulnerable citizens.

In desperation, mothers and fathers risk everything, including the lives of their children, as they walk more than a thousand grueling miles seeking safety. Along their route, people in Mexico have greeted these hungry and footsore refugees with food and bandages and compassion.

The response of the United States government has been to shut down access to legal border crossing points to all but a trickle of applicants, leaving others sleeping on sidewalks and bridges, waiting for a chance to apply. Further, this administration just a few months ago took the unprecedented step of intentionally separating children from their parents, some still remaining separated to this day, in a cynical attempt to discourage future migration. The former Attorney General has also unilaterally restricted asylum claims that will even be considered. Now the president recklessly and autocratically seeks to discard U.S. asylum law and the values embodied in the United States as a champion of human rights, defender of the democratic rule of law, and place of refuge for the persecuted. .

“This action cannot and will not be allowed to stand,” said John Keller, executive director of the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota. “The United States is a nation governed by laws, not by presidential prejudice or whim. The United States is an idea and promise of fairness and freedom, when we are at our best. We are strongest when our laws reflect the promise of equal access to the law, protection and opportunity for all that seek to call the United States home. We are strongest when we act out of compassion, justice and equality. Like the good people of Mexico, the everyday people of the United States and Minnesota, given the chance, have welcomed their immigrant brothers and sisters, bound up their wounds and helped heal their trauma, offered shelter and a seat in their churches, synagogues and mosques, and given thanks for the richness, strength and energy that they and their families bring to our country and state.

“The president’s latest illegal, anti-immigrant action will be challenged in court. We will not give up the values of the United States, the commitment to this nation of laws and checks and balances, and our obligation to respect human rights and human dignity.”