Unraveling Complexities of Latino Racialization

This paper introduces a special collection of 15 papers that chart a course for long-term reform of the US immigration system. The papers look beyond recent legislative debates and the current era of rising nationalism and restrictionism to outline the elements of a forward-looking immigration policy that would serve the nation's interests, honor its liberal democratic ideals, promote the full participation of immigrants in the nation's life, and exploit the opportunities offered by the increasingly interdependent world. This paper highlights several overarching themes from the collection, as well as dozens of proposals for reform. Together, the papers in the collection make the case that: • Immigration policymaking should be embedded in a larger set of partnerships, processes, and commitments that respond to the conditions that force persons to migrate. • The US immigration system should reflect liberal democratic values and an inclusive vision of national identity. • It is incumbent on policy and opinion makers to publicize the broad national interests served by US immigration policies. • Policymakers should, in turn, evaluate and adjust US immigration policies based on their success in furthering the nation's interests. • The United States should prioritize the gathering and dissemination of the best available evidence on migration and on the nation's migration-related needs and programs, and should use this information to respond flexibly to changing migration patterns and new economic developments. • Immigrant integration strengthens communities and represents an important, overarching metric for US immigration policies. • The successful integration of the United States' 43 million foreign-born residents and their progeny should be a national priority. • An immigration federalism agenda should prioritize cooperation on shared federal, state, and local priorities. • An immigration federalism agenda should recognize the federal government's enforcement obligations; the interests of local communities in the safety, well-being and participation of their residents; the importance of federal leadership in resolving the challenges posed by the US undocumented population; and the need for civil society institutions to serve as mediators of immigrant integration. • Immigration reform should be coupled with strong, well-enforced labor standards in order to promote fair wages and safe and healthy working conditions for all US workers. • Fairness and due process should characterize US admission, custody, and removal decisions. • Family unity should remain a central goal of US immigration policy and a pillar of the US immigration system. • The United States should seek to craft “win-win” immigration policies that serve its own interests and that benefit migrant-sending states. • US immigration law and policy should be coherent and consistent, and the United States should create legal migration opportunities for persons uprooted by US foreign interventions, trade policies, and immigration laws. • The United States should reduce the size of its undocumented population through a substantial legalization program and seek to ensure that this population never again approximates its current size.

The conventional wisdom holds that the only point of consensus in the fractious US immigration debate is that the system is broken. Yet, the US public has consistently expressed a desire for a legal and orderly immigration system that serves compelling national interests. This paper describes how to create such a system. It focuses on the cornerstone of immigration reform,1 the legal immigration system,2 and addresses the widespread belief that broad reform will incentivize illegal migration and ultimately lead to another large undocumented population. The paper begins with an analysis of presidential signing statements on seminal immigration legislation over nearly a century. These statements reveal broad consensus on the interests and values that the United States seeks to advance through its immigration and refugee policies. They constitute additional common ground in the immigration debate. To serve these interests, immigration and refugee considerations must be “mainstreamed” into other policy processes. In addition, its policies will be more successful if they are seen to benefit or, at least, not to discriminate against migrant-sending states. Not surprisingly, the US immigration system does not reflect the vast, mostly unanticipated changes in the nation and the world since Congress last meaningfully reformed this system (27 years ago) and last overhauled the law (52 years ago). The paper does not detail the well-documented ways that US immigration laws fall short of serving the nation's economic, family, humanitarian, and rule of law objectives. Nor does it propose specific changes in categories and levels of admission. Rather, it describes how a legal immigration system might be broadly structured to deliver on its promises. In particular, it makes the case that Congress should create a flexible system that serves compelling national interests, allows for real time adjustments in admission based on evidence and independent analysis, and vests the executive with appropriate discretion in administering the law. The paper also argues that the United States should anticipate and accommodate the needs of persons compelled to migrate by its military, trade, development, and other commitments. In addition, the US immigration system needs to be able to distinguish between undocumented immigrants, and refugees and asylum seekers, and to treat these two populations differently. The paper assumes that there will be continued bipartisan support for immigration enforcement. However, even with a strong enforcement apparatus in place and an adaptable, coherent, evidence-based legal immigration system that closely aligns with US interests, some (reduced) level of illegal migration will persist. The paper offers a sweeping, historical analysis of how this population emerged, why it has grown and contracted, and how estimates of its size have been politically exploited. Legalization is often viewed as the third rail of immigration reform. Yet, Congress has regularly legalized discrete undocumented populations, and the combination of a well-structured legalization program, strengthened legal immigration system, and strong enforcement policies can prevent the reemergence of a large-scale undocumented population. In contrast, the immense US enforcement apparatus will work at cross-purposes to US interests and values, absent broader reform. The paper ends with a series of recommendations to reform the legal immigration system, downsize the current undocumented population, and ensure its permanent reduction. It proposes that the United States “reissue” (or reuse) the visas of persons who emigrate, as a way to promote legal immigration reform without significantly increasing annual visa numbers.

U nlocking Human Dignity: A Plan to Transform the US Immigrant Detention System addresses one of the most troubled features of the US immigration system and highlights the need for fundamental changes to it. The report comes six years since the inception of the Obama administration’s detention reform initiative. In the interim, the number of immigrant detainees per year has risen to more than 400,000, the administration has opened immense new family detention centers, and the overwhelming majority of persons in the custody of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have remained in prisons, jails and other secure facilities where they are subject to standards designed for criminal defendants and, in many ways, treated more harshly than criminals. The report’s overarching recommendation is that the US immigrant detention system be dismantled and replaced with a network of supervised release, case management, and community support programs, designed to ensure court appearances. It recognizes that detention may be necessary for short periods and in certain cases, but it rejects detention as a central immigrant “management” tool, and argues that detention should only be used as a last resort if less harmful strategies and programs—viewed on a continuum beginning with the least restrictive and moving to release programs with different levels of supervision, monitoring, and support—cannot reasonably ensure court appearances or (in rare cases) protect the public. It opposes the detention of pregnant and nursing women, bona fide asylum seekers, the very ill, the disabled, the elderly, and other vulnerable persons. It calls for the substantial contraction of detention facilities and “bed space.” As the first step in this process, the report urges Congress to commission a comprehensive study on the benefits, challenges, cost, and time frame for creating a civil immigration detention system. It also proposes that the administration create a full menu of court compliance programs, with varying degrees of supervision, reporting, oversight and monitoring. In order to realize this vision, it offers several additional recommendations. T he Obama administration should desist from using detention as a “deterrent” to illegal migration and de facto refugee flows . DHS should close its family detention centers in favor of community-based supervision and support programs for immigrant families. The vast majority of families would appear for removal proceedings with appropriate orientation, supervision and community support. The growth of an immense family detention infrastructure will not (as intended) deter imperiled persons from seeking refuge in the United States, but will invariably lead to the return of de facto refugees to their persecutors in violation of international law. C ongress should pass legislation to repeal mandatory detention in all but the most egregious criminal and national security cases . US mandatory detention laws cover lawful permanent residents, asylum seekers, petty offenders, and persons with US families and other enduring ties to the United States. By definition, they prevent individualized release determinations based on family ties, employment, housing, criminal history, and other factors. In the overwhelming majority of cases, immigration judges or judicial officers should be permitted to consider the full range of equities and release options for persons in removal proceedings, whether formal court proceedings or non-court, administrative and summary processes. P r ivate corporations should have a more limited, regulated and modest role in a shrinking detention system . The federal government has increasingly ceded responsibility for detention to entities whose loyalties run to their shareholders, not the common good. By some estimates, for-profit prison corporations administer more than 60 percent of the “beds” in the US immigrant detention system. Rather than expanding its reliance on for-profit prison companies, the federal government ought to decrease the use of detention, develop greater government expertise, and strengthen oversight of private contractors. D etention reform should include a significant expansion of Alternative to Detention programs (ATD) . Detention should only be used sparingly, for brief periods (when necessary), and as a last resort when less restrictive strategies cannot reasonably ensure appearances during the adjudication and removal process and cannot protect the public. ATD programs can offer effective, humane alternatives to detention. However, they should not be used to expand detention capacity. Like detention, intensive reporting and monitoring programs can stigmatize and incapacitate persons. If necessary, ATD programs should be treated as a form of custody, which would open them to mandatory detainees. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) should undertake a comprehensive analysis of its information systems . The proposed review should identify the information ICE tracks on those who are subject to its custody; how, when, and which officials collect, enter, and can access this information; its quality control procedures; and the accessibility of information to congressional oversight committees, government watchdog agencies, relevant ICE officials, and the public. D etained immigrants—those who do not qualify for release or ATD programs—should be held in non-penal settings which reflect the conditions of normal life to the extent feasible . DHS should provide generous access to international organizations, faith-based groups, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and the press, to all of its facilities. Immigration judges should adjudicate removal cases now handled through administrative, informal and non-court processes, and should make release and custody determinations soon after their detention for all persons in DHS custody . They should also regularly revisit custody decisions for detainees. However, these responsibilities—added to an immense yearly workload and a daunting backlog of more than 440,000 cases—will require increases in funding and staffing by an order of magnitude. As it stands, the immigration court system receives less than two percent of the combined funding of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and ICE. The cost of “right-sizing” the immigration court system may well be offset by reductions in DHS detention funding and diminished federal court expenses from habeas corpus petitions. U nrepresented, indigent persons in removal proceedings should be provided with legal representation at the government’s expense . As numerous studies have revealed, legal counsel is one of the most important factors, even more important than the strength of the underlying legal claim, in influencing asylum and other case outcomes. Representation also increases court appearance rates and leads to decreased overall costs to the government due to reduced use of detention, more efficient court proceedings, and less frequent placement of the children of detainees in foster care. More importantly, it contributes to the right decisions being made under the law. Migration and Refugee Services of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (MRS/USCCB) and the Center for Migration Studies (CMS) approach the detention of immigrants from a pastoral perspective. Each day US Catholic institutions minister to detained immigrants, represent them in removal proceedings, tend to the material and spiritual needs of their families, and witness the pain of traumatized children and the anguish of divided families. Because of the detention system’s devastating effect on the lives of millions of persons each year, MRS/USCCB and CMS strongly support the transformation of this system and urge the Obama administration and Congress to proceed with the proposed reforms with all deliberate haste.

This article addresses the failures of the United States immigration system to protect Central American minors who were trafficked for exploitation in criminal activities by gangs. In particular, it focuses on the ways in which the US immigration system denies humanitarian protection to Central American minors who were forced to participate in criminal activity by the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) and 18th Street gangs, and instead detains them. The article will examine this trend in the context of a larger proclivity to criminalise immigration in the US, particularly minors fleeing violence in Central America. We draw upon our experience representing Central American minors in their applications for humanitarian immigration relief to highlight how the US immigration system fails to protect this vulnerable population and penalises these children for their own victimisation.

Executive Summary The US Department of State (DOS) reports that as of November 2018, nearly 3.7 million persons had been found by US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to have a close family relationship to a US citizen or lawful permanent resident (LPR) that qualified them for a visa, but were on “the waiting list in the various numerically-limited immigrant categories” ( DOS 2018 ). These backlogs in family-based “preference” (numerically capped) categories represent one of the most egregious examples of the dysfunction of the US immigration system. They consign family members of US citizens and LPRs that potentially qualify for a visa and that avail themselves of US legal procedures to years of insecurity, frustration, and (often) separation from their families. Often criticized in the public sphere for jumping the visa queue, it would be more accurate to say that this population, in large part, comprises the queue. While they wait for their visa priority date to become current, those without immigration status are subject to removal. In addition, most cannot adjust to LPR status in the United States, but must leave the country for consular processing and, when they do, face three- or 10-year bars on readmission, depending on the duration of their unlawful presence in the United States. This population will also be negatively affected by the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) proposed rule to expand the public charge ground of inadmissibility ( Kerwin, Warren, and Nicholson 2018 ). In addition, persons languishing in backlogs enjoy few prospects in the short term for executive or legislative relief, given political gridlock over immigration reform and the Trump administration’s support for reduced family-based immigration.

US immigration enforcement policy seeks to change the behaviors and views of not only individuals in the United States but also those of prospective migrants outside the United States. Yet we still know relatively little about the behavioral and attitudinal effects of US enforcement policy on the population abroad. This study uses a randomized experiment embedded in a nationally representative survey that was administered in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico to analyze the effects of US deterrence policies on individuals' migration intentions and their attitudes toward the US immigration system. The two policies that the current study examines are immigration detention and nonjudicial removals. The survey results provide no evidence that a heightened awareness of these US immigration enforcement policies affects individuals' intentions to migrate to the United States. But heightened awareness about the widespread use of immigration detention in the United States does negatively impact individuals' assessments about the procedural and outcome fairness of the US immigration system. These findings suggest that immigration detention may foster delegitimating beliefs about the US legal system without producing the intended deterrent effect.

Historically, the US immigration system (ie, institutions, agencies, and laws) has served the goals and principles of white supremacy through its treatment of globally displaced people and this appears to have continued through the COVID pandemic. Yet, the implications for immigrant health are not routinely addressed in mainstream public health discourse, and especially so in regard to public health disasters. This study conducted a series of focus groups with participants from social justice organizations working with immigrants, migrants, undocumented persons, refugees, persons seeking asylum, and persons detained in immigration jails to collect stories on how the immigration system undermined efforts to control the spread of COVID-19 and exacerbated health inequity within immigrant jails and across related community contexts during the pandemic. Focus groups were conducted to explore issues related to immigrants and immigration detention during the COVID-19 pandemic. There was a total of N=14 participants across the 4 focus groups with a dedicated focus group on perspectives of Black immigrants/from Black immigrant organizations only. Each focus group consisted of 3 to 4 participants. Five key themes emerged: 1) dehumanization of immigrants and migrants and devaluation of their lives; 2) inhumane conditions of confinement that propagate risk of disease; 3) denial of resources for COVID-19 prevention and mitigation; 4) expansion of intersecting oppressive systems; and 5) community-based resistance and mobilization against immigration policies and enforcement. Our findings highlight the harms from policing, criminalization, and exclusion that racialized communities face as a result of the (in)actions within the immigration system during a public health disaster including the COVID context.

Chapter 2 begins with Tito being denied an F-1 student visa at the US embassy in Panama City due to his “lack of English proficiency.” This chapter explores the intersection of Tito’s journey with the US immigration system and connects it to the historical surveillance, policing, and exploitation of Black West Indians and their descendants in Panama. Tito, a Black boy from Colón City, faces various forms of anti-Blackness and Negrophobia from both Panamanian society and the US immigration system. The chapter illustrates the challenges young Black men encounter when seeking an education visa to enter the United States, emphasizing that these obstacles stem not only from US anti-Blackness but also from local prejudices. The racialized character of the English language in Panama is underscored through the use of the Panamanian pejorative chombo, highlighting the complexities of language and race in Tito’s experience.

This paper proposes that the United States treat naturalization not as the culmination of a long and uncertain individual process, but as an organizing principle of the US immigration system and its expectation for new Americans. It comes at a historic inflection point, following the chaotic departure of one of the most nativist administrations in US history and in the early months of a new administration whose executive orders, administrative actions, and legislative proposals augur a different view of immigrants and immigration. The paper examines two main ways that the Biden–Harris administration can realize its immigration, naturalization and integration goals: i.e., by expanding access to permanent residence and by increasing naturalization numbers and rates. First, it proposes administrative and, to a lesser degree, legislative measures that would expand the pool of eligible-to-naturalize immigrants. Second, it identifies three underlying factors—financial resources, English language proficiency, and education—that strongly influence naturalization rates. These factors must be addressed, in large part, outside of and prior to the naturalization process. In addition, it provides detailed estimates of populations with large eligible-to-naturalize numbers, populations that naturalize at low rates, and populations with increasing naturalization rates. It argues that the administration's immigration strategy should prioritize all three groups for naturalization. The paper endorses the provisions of the US Citizenship Act that would place undocumented and temporary residents on a path to permanent residence and citizenship, would reduce family- and employment-based visa backlogs, and would eliminate disincentives and barriers to permanent residence. It supports the Biden-Harris administration's early executive actions and proposes additional measures to increase access to permanent residence and naturalization. It also endorses and seeks to inform the administration's plan to improve and expedite the naturalization process and to promote naturalization. The paper's major findings regarding the eligible-to-naturalize population include the following: In 2019, about 74 percent, or 23.1 million, of the 31.2 million immigrants (that were eligible for naturalization) had naturalized. Three states—Indiana, Arizona, and Texas—had naturalization rates of 67 percent, well below the national average of 74 percent. Fresno, California had the lowest naturalization rate (58 percent) of the 25 metropolitan (metro) areas with the largest eligible-to-naturalize populations, followed by Phoenix at 66 percent and San Antonio and Austin at 67 percent. Four cities in California had rates of 52–58 percent—Salinas, Bakersfield, Fresno, and Santa Maria-Santa Barbara. McAllen, Laredo, and Brownsville had the lowest naturalization rates in Texas. Immigrants from Japan had the lowest naturalization rate (47 percent) by country of origin, followed by four countries in the 60–63 percent range—Mexico, Canada, Honduras, and the United Kingdom. Guatemala and El Salvador each had rates of 67 percent. Median household income was $25,800, or 27 percent, higher for the naturalized population, compared to the population that had not naturalized (after an average of 23 years in the United States for both groups). In the past 10 years, naturalization rates for China and India have fallen, and rates for Mexico and Central America have increased (keeping duration of residence constant). In short, the paper provides a roadmap of policy measures to expand the eligible-to-naturalize population, and the factors and populations that the Biden–Harris administration should prioritize to increase naturalization rates, as a prerequisite to the full integration and participation of immigrants, their families, and their descendants in the nation's life.

This paper introduces a special collection of 15 papers that chart a course for long-term reform of the US immigration system. The papers look beyond recent legislative debates and the current era ...

Executive Summary This paper examines the staffing needs of the US Department of Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), as it seeks to eliminate an immigration court backlog, which approached 2.5 million pending cases at the end of fiscal year (FY) 2023. A previous study by the Center for Migration Studies of New York (CMS) attributed the backlog to systemic, long-neglected problems in the broader US immigration system. This paper provides updated estimates of the number of immigration judges (IJs) and “judge teams” (IJ teams) needed to eliminate the backlog over ten and five years based on different case receipt and completion scenarios. It also introduces a data tool that will permit policymakers, administrators and researchers to make their own estimates of IJ team hiring needs based on changing case receipt and completion data. Finally, the paper outlines the pressing need for reform of the US immigration system, including a well-resourced, robust, and independent court system, particularly in light of record “encounters” of migrants at US borders in FY 2022 and 2023.

The repeal of Title 42, an emergency immigration restriction, represents a significant policy shift in how the United States treats migrants who arrive at the southern border, particularly those seeking asylum. For over three years, U.S. border officers used Title 42 to deport hundreds of thousands of migrants to Mexico or their home countries, claiming that their presence could contribute to the spread of the coronavirus. While Title 42 is allegedly a public health policy, it has been utilized to regulate and prevent unauthorized border crossings. Democrats and campaigners have denounced title 42 because it prevents refugees from obtaining asylum, a legal right they normally have once they reach US territory. Republicans described it as an effective border control tool, requesting that Title 42 should be codified into law so that it may be utilized outside of the pandemic setting. The period of Title 42 ended, which created more obstacles than solutions for asylum seekers. As the US ends Title 42, the rules for asylum seeking are changing once again, the United States will revert to Title 8 under the new standards. The Title 8 Code outlines a strict asylum policy which makes it harder for immigrants to file claims and to seek asylum. Under this new regulation everyone coming from Latin-America, except for Mexico, has to face the harsh reality that the requirements of Title 8 make most of them ineligible for asylum. How does the repealing of Title 42 affect the US immigration system and how will it influence the 2024 elections as the termination was introduced at a critical time, when Biden is seeking a second term?

The article focuses upon the problem of a comprehensive reform of the US immigration system. The reform was supposed to increase the effectiveness of immigration policy, make it able to respond the needs of the economy. The author notes the extreme politicization of the problem of immigration. Acute inter-party contradictions made it impossible to carry out a comprehensive immigration reform, the need for which was recognized at the beginning of this century. Many developed countries successfully compete with the United States, attracting thousands of foreign specialists to their countries.

This chapter studies how immigration policy can be deployed as a key instrument of grand strategy, a site where state actors might use the levers of immigrant and refugee admissions to advance both a comprehensive and integrated set of social, economic, and security goals at home. Indeed, a diverse array of US presidents, lawmakers, and activists have had grand strategies in mind as they pursued major immigration reform. The chapter focuses on a particularly significant effort to remake the US immigration system—the 1960s struggle to dismantle national origins quotas and reopen US gates to immigrants and refugees—in order to illustrate the possibilities and limitations of grand strategizing in this policy realm. One can discern these dynamics in immigration reforms and executive actions from the 1920s to the present, but the successful battle for the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 provides an especially illuminating example. Before turning to this case, however, the chapter first considers immigration control and grand strategy in the early American republic and the rise of rival interests and ideals that make significant policy innovation contingent on incongruous coalitions and uneasy compromises.

This study explored Black and Latinx youth organizers' experiences of racism within national gun violence prevention organizing spaces. Interview data were analyzed from 17 Black and/or Latinx youth (Mage = 20.17, 47% women) across the United States who organized against gun violence. The findings identified three forms of racism that Black and Latinx organizers experienced in national organizations: (1) being tokenized for their racial identities and experiences without having real decision making power; (2) feeling a burden to educate their white peers about the structural causes of gun violence and how to improve organizing spaces for other youth of color; and (3) being silenced in their racially conscious organizing efforts to address the structural causes of gun violence in their communities. This research highlights how Black and Latinx youth gun violence prevention organizers contend both with structural racism in their everyday lives and racism in organizing spaces.