Rumors race through Minnesota’s immigrant communities, intensifying fear sparked by Trump’s aggressive enforcement campaign.

St. Olaf’s Manitou Messenger reports on John Keller’s talk.

During the campaign, Donald Trump got cheers every time he promised to “build that wall” between Mexico and the United States. He promised his loyal supporters that “Mexico will pay for it.” Fast forward to April 2017, and both promises have gone down in flames.

First, there’s the wall itself. The federal government solicited bids to build prototypes – not the wall, just prototypes. This bidding period ended on April 4, with more than 200 companies listed on an “interested vendors list,” though no one knows how many actually submitted bids. The Trump administration is expected to pick up to ten companies. Each will build a prototype costing between $200,000 and $500,000.

The specs for the wall call for a pretty side facing the U.S., and an overall design that can withstand  sledgehammers, climbers, tunnels, anymore.

Paying for the wall

Finding a contractor is the least of DT’s problems with the wall. More important:

The U.S.-Mexico border stretches more than 2,000 miles. According to NPR, “The Department of Homeland Security has estimated the cost of the wall at $21 billion. An MIT study puts the price tag at $38 billion.” Mexico is not going to pay, and there is no way for Trump to make them pay. Some Republicans floated an idea for a tax on goods imported from Mexico. Aside from dubious legality, such a tax would just be passed on to U.S. consumers. That doesn’t sound like “making Mexico pay.”

Who wants the wall?

Nobody who knows anything thinks a continuous border wall will happen – or should. The head of the Border Patrol agents union told the Senate, “We don’t need a great wall of the United States. We do not need 2,000 miles of border wall. I will tell you, however, that a wall in strategic locations is absolutely necessary.” He says agents are more important than a wall.

Even John Kelly, Trump’s head of the Department of Homeland Security, concedes that the wall will not cover the entire border. He told the Senate Homeland Security Committee that he is committed to putting the wall where immigration agents think it is needed, but not “from sea to shining sea.”

Most Americans do not think a wall would work. A Pew Research poll in February 2017 showed 62 percent of all Americans opposing the wall. Most also think a wall would not work:

“The latest national survey by Pew Research Center, conducted Feb. 7-12, 2017 among 1,503 adults, finds the public holds mixed views on a border wall’s potential impact on illegal immigration. About three-in-ten (29%) think a wall along the entire border with Mexico would lead to a “major reduction” in illegal immigration into the U.S.; another 25% think it would result in a “minor reduction.” A 43% plurality thinks a border wall would not have much impact on illegal immigration into the U.S.”

Opposition to a border wall ran much higher among people under 50 years of age, and among black and Hispanic residents.

Violating tribal sovereignty

The Tohono O’odham tribe says building a wall across its territory would violate tribal sovereignty – as well as separating the Tohono O’odham nation members on both sides of the border. Indian Country Today talked to Jose García, the Tohono O’odham Nation Lieutenant Governor for the O’odham in Mexico:

“If a wall was built it would completely shut off the visitations between O’odham families and medical services,” Garcia said.

“Furthermore, a border wall would break off the relationship O’odham in Mexico have with the Tohono O’odham Nation, and affect the O’odham language, which Garcia is trying to revive in certain areas of Mexico.”

Eminent Domain: Not really a Republican favorite

To build the wall, the Trump administration would have to take land from Americans who don’t want to sell and don’t want the wall – people like 88-year-old Pamela Taylor, who voted for Trump, but told The Atlantic:

“As far as we’re concerned, the fence is not going to work. This fence is not working,” she said. “When you’re not here and you don’t know the area and then you say something, it’s best to get your ducks in a row.” If the administration were to present her a condemnation notice, she told me she would “definitely” take it to court.”

She’s not alone – landowner opposition to eminent domain – government taking of private property – is deep-rooted and traditionally Republican.

Will any wall get built?

At this point, the future of “the wall” seems dim. Something will probably get built, somewhere, some time, but it won’t look much like the “big, beautiful wall” that Trump promised/threatened and still claims will happen.

Maybe he should have listened to American poet Robert Frost’s Mending Wall warning:

Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.

 

For more information:

• Most Americans continue to oppose U.S. border wall, doubt Mexico would pay for it (Pew Research, 2/24/17)
• Bidding Closes for Building Trump’s Border Wall (NPR, 4/4/17)
• Trump’s Border Barrier Hits a Wall (The Atlantic, 4/6/17)
• Wall won’t span the entire U.S.-Mexico border, Homeland Security secretary concedes (Los Angeles Times, 4/5/17)
• Border Agency Fields Pitches for Trump’s Wall With Mexico (AP, 4/4/17)
• U.S.-Mexico border wall needed only in ‘strategic locations,’ says border patrol union head (ABC News, 3/23/17)
• Border Wall Would Cut Across Land Sacred to Native Tribe (NPR, 2/23/17)
• Border Wall Would Cleave Tribe and Its Connection to Ancestral Land (New York Times, 2/20/17)
• Trump’s Border Wall Builds Apprehension Across Tohono O’odham Nation (Indian Country Today, 2/9/17)

“Their story is pretty extraordinary,” said Bao Thao, a Staff attorney at the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota (ILCM). “So many people have touched these files.” She was flipping through the large stack of papers on her desk, the paper trail representing the phone calls, interviews, and bureaucratic red tape that amounted to 12 years of legal work.

On October 9, 2015, Dia Yang saw her husband, Yang Sea Thao, for the first time in 12 years. Dia Yang’s journey had been a long, arduous one. Her road to entering the United States from Thailand began in 2005, when her husband, a 49-year-old asylee, filed a petition for his family to come join him in the United States.

But the family’s story began before the reunification process started, when Yang Thao first fled persecution in Laos. As the Secretary General of the Democratic Chao Fa Party of Laos, Yang Thao was a target of the rising Communist Party. When the Communist Party established itself in the Laotian government, Thao Yang, Dia Yang, and their nine children fled together to a refugee camp in Thailand. However, the refugee camp could not guarantee safety for such a high-ranking Democratic party official and his family. Thao and his family eventually left the camp to go into hiding under false identities in Thailand.

In Thailand, Thao and his family tried to begin their lives again. However, despite the miles they had walked and the precautions they had taken, the Laotian Communist government had pursued Thao beyond the refugee camp to Thailand. Soon, it became evident that Thao had no choice: to truly escape the reaches of the Communist government, and keep his family safe, he had to travel farther. He made the difficult choice to come to the United States on his own in 2003, and to apply for asylum.

While Thao’s family remained in Thailand, Thao turned to anyone he thought could help, first with his petition for asylum, and then with a petition to allow his family to join him in the United States. By the time Thao contacted ILCM and started working with John Keller, then a staff attorney and not yet ILCM’s executive director, Thao’s asylum application had already been approved. John helped him with the next step: filing I-730 petitions for his wife and children. An approved I-730 petition would allow Dia Yang and their nine children to join Yang Thao in the United States.

When John Keller began work on the case, he did not realize that it would last 12 years, years during which Thao never gave up on reuniting with his family.

After several years of legal work, the United States government approved the petitions for Thao’s wife and children, with the exception of married children over a certain age. Despite the good news, the Yang family was not able to celebrate: the Thai government denied the family exit permits. Without exit permits, the family could not leave Thailand to join Thao in the United States.

Only legal advocacy directed at the Thai government could challenge this denial of exit permits. ILCM staff contacted the offices of United States Senators and Representatives, asking them to plead Thao’s case to the United States Embassy in Laos as well as United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). The USCIS office continued to give the same response – there is nothing we can do.

“It’s been going on for so long,” said Bao, the last ILCM attorney to represent the family. “It’s not just ILCM that has worked on this case. National congressional staff helped write letters and call – contact the U.S. embassy in Thailand, and USCIS, to see if there was something they could do to move the case forward… Senator Coleman from 2006, Klobuchar and Franken,” she said, tapping her finger on the list of names of those that had provided advocacy on behalf of Yang Thao and Dia Yang’s family.

Despite the pessimism of U.S. and Thai government offices, Yang Thao remained determined. “We couldn’t tell what to do. It was like shooting in the dark, hoping to hit the right target,” Bao acknowledged. When it was clear that there was nothing more ILCM could do, the case was closed.

In October of 2015, Lenore Millibergity, an attorney at ILCM who had also worked on the case, received a call from a private attorney who had been approached by Thao for help. Dia had made her way to Minnesota for her father’s funeral, ten years after Thao filed the petition for her. Now that Dia had found a way out of Thailand on a tourist visa, ILCM could take back the case for investigation and re-evaluation. With the invaluable help of key people in the local USCIS office, ILCM was able to successfully help Dia obtain asylum status and a work card. Dia will be eligible to apply for her green card in late October of this year.

Today, Dia Yang and Yang Sea Thao are together in Minnesota. Their nine children are still in Thailand. While most of them are now married and so are ineligible to come to the United States through the original family petition, Dia and Thao are still trying to bring their 14-year-old daughter to the United States.

When Dia and Yang came to ILCM’s offices to close the case on January 25, 2017, several ILCM attorneys who had represented the family over the past 12 years came to offer their congratulations. “We are so happy that this family can finally spend time together,” said John Keller. “But unfortunately, there is more work to be done.”

 

UPDATED 3/30/17 – originally published 3/15/17: U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson granted a temporary restraining order (TRO) on March 15, halting the parts of the executive order barring residents of six countries from entering the United States and suspending refugee admissions. That means these parts of the executive order may not be implemented anywhere in the country until there is a full hearing on the motion for a preliminary injunction. The Hawaii court order was quickly followed by a Maryland order, granting a preliminary injunction barring enforcement of the travel ban.

On March 29, Judge Watson heard arguments from both sides and then extended the TRO, making it a preliminary injunction that will prevent enforcement of the travel ban and refugee ban parts of the executive order while the case proceeds through full federal court hearings.

Vox reported on the March 29 ruling:

“But the judge’s decision came in yet another strongly worded ruling smacking around the Trump administration for revamping the legal language of the executive order to scrub away any implication of Islamophobic animus while still making political statements to winkingly acknowledge their real goal wasn’t going to change. “The Court will not crawl into a corner, pull the shutters closed, and pretend it has not seen what it has,” Judge Watson declared.”

Judge Watson’s original March 15 ruling was based on the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution. In part of the 43-page opinion, he wrote:

“…. a reasonable, objective observer—enlightened by the specific historical context, contemporaneous public statements, and specific sequence of events leading to the issuance—would conclude that the Executive Order was issued with a purpose to disfavor a particular religion, in spite of its stated, religiously-neutral purpose…” [pp. 28-29]

In order to grant the temporary restraining order, Judge Watson found that:

1. There is a likelihood that the plaintiffs – the State of Hawaii and Dr. Elshikh – will succeed on the merits;
2. If the temporary restraining order is not granted, the plaintiffs will suffer irreparable harm, and;
3. Equity and public interest weigh in favor of granting emergency relief.

The president chose not to appeal Watson’s TRO, as he did (unsuccessfully) when U.S. District Judge James Robart blocked the first executive order for travel and refugee bans. The Ninth Circuit upheld Judge Robart’s suspension of the previous executive order. Hawaii, like Washington, is in the Ninth Circuit, so any appeal of Judge Watson’s order would have gone to the Ninth Circuit.

With each new ruling, the Trump administration’s ability to implement a travel ban narrows. Vox summarizes:

“At this point, the only way the Trump administration is going to get the travel ban into effect is to get the Supreme Court to rule in its favor. And the only question is whether it’s going to do it with different courts of appeals having ruled on opposite sides — with the Fourth Circuit siding with the president, and the Ninth Circuit with the challengers — or whether it’s going to get a case where the Trump administration has been knocked around by judges from, literally, coast to coast.”

For more information:

Read the entire March 15 opinion here (PDF). If that link does not work, scroll to the bottom of this page to read it as a Scribd document.

Read the entire March 29 opinion here.

• Trump just lost his best chance to avoid a Supreme Court battle over the travel ban (Vox, 3/30/17)
• Hawaii Judge Extends Order Blocking Trump’s Travel Ban (New York Times, 3/29/17)
• Hawaii judge extends national halt on Trump’s travel ban (Los Angeles Times, 3/29/17)

• Judge blocks Trump’s revised travel ban (The Hill)
• Federal judge in Hawaii freezes President Trump’s new entry ban (Washington Post)
• A Hawaii judge has just blocked President Trump’s revised travel ban (Vox)
• Federal judge blocks Trump’s latest travel ban nationwide (New York Times)

 

LEAP High School, based in St Paul, has been dedicated to working with new immigrants, aged 15-20 years old, for 23 years. Earlier this week, Minnesota Women’s Press reached out to LEAP’s principal, Rose Santos, to talk about the challenges and rewards surrounding LEAP.

The high school based in St Paul, aims to provide educational opportunities for students whose needs cannot be met at traditional high schools. LEAP works with over 200 students enrolled from more than 20 countries.

Despite LEAP’s commitment to helping the Twin Cities’ new members, their goal is a difficult one felt by the staff and students alike. The truth is Many LEAP students age out before they can graduate. The Principal of LEAP High School, in a Minnesota Women’s Press interview, said “Time is not on our side or the students’ side. They have to learn 12 years of education before they turn 21 years of age in order to get the diploma.” In addition,  “about 60 percent of LEAP students have never gone to school before, so they need to learn how to read and how to study, [on top of] learning a new language and the regular high school curriculum.”

These students have to surpass many hurdles. However, many are able to move forward. According to Rose Santos , “Some 85 percent of LEAP graduates go on to college. LEAP graduates include nurses, medical technicians, social workers and teachers.”

Minnesota Women’s Press reports on LEAP’s students, principal and programs:

 

 

 

“It kind of humbled me — not only just finding the child but seeing the community come together, just running around to save a child’s life,” she said. “It just made me feel like ‘Wow, what a community we have here.’”

Aida Simon, an Eritrean immigrant and long-time ILCM supporter, was honored with a Lifesaving Award from the Worthington Police Department. The Worthington Daily Globe reported on her Lifesaving Award from the Worthington Police Department and the city of Worthington.

When 4-year old Simon Legesse, was reportedly missing, Aida Simon, parent engagement specialist at the Nobles County Integration Collaborative, immediately went to Legesse’s mother to support and serve as an interpreter. Simon Legesse had been dropped off near his home at Knollwood apartments by the school bus like usual. Yet, as hours went by, Simon never came home.

Policemen, firefighters, co-workers, and community members all came out to help in the search for Simon Legesse.

“While officers searched the area, Simon noticed a rug tucked underneath a chair on the patio outside of the apartment. She felt something in her gut — an unshakable feeling that Legesse was there. When she walked outside to check, she found Legesse tucked under the rug, ending the search and saving his life.” 

As a Somali and practicing Muslim, Yussuf Shafie has made outstanding impacts in his community. Somali immigrant Yussuf Shafie came to Burnsville in 2000, and has achieved success as a business owner and a social worker. The Inver Hills News reported on Shafie being named Outstanding Alumnus of the Year. In an interview with him, Yussuf admitted, “I love having the chance to help others. You meet people where they are. Understanding the whole concept of social work is knowing how to be there for people in need.”

In 2014, while earning his Masters of Social Work at the U of M, Yussuf along with his sister, opened the first Somali restaurant, Tawakal, in the town of Bursnville. The following year, Yussuf founded the Alliance Wellness Center in Bloomington. The Alliance Wellness center focuses on, “offering multicultural care delivered by a multicultural team with a focus on mental health issues and addiction.” The center is focused on serving clients with East African backgrounds. As the first of its kind, the Alliance Wellness Center is innovative, and has helped provide services to under served groups.

Along with serving as executive director of the Alliance Wellness Center, Yussuf works at Howry Residential Services in Eagan, assisting with the daily living needs of vulnerable adult clients. On top of his  work as a direct support professional at Howry, Yussuf also serves as a social worker at Roosevelt High School providing counseling services to troubled students.

 

More than 40 Twin Cities restaurants and some bookstores and galleries joined together on March 15 to support the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota. Donating a percentage of their sales, these small businesses raised more than $30,000.

The Facebook page for Restaurants Rising explained:

“With so many people in our community threatened by the divisive and discriminatory stance the new Trump administration has taken on immigration, many of us are looking for ways to stand up in support of Minnesota’s immigrant community.

“One of the groups standing up locally is the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota (ILCM). ILCM provides legal representation for low-income immigrants and refugees and education and advocacy with diverse communities throughout Minnesota. They urgently need additional funds to help them prepare to defend against a significant increase in deportations and stand up for people caught up in the Muslim ban.”

ILCM Executive Director John Keller thanked Restaurants Rising for their effort and success:

“ILCM is extremely grateful for the overwhelming support for our work and the families and communities we serve. We have spoken widely to the immigrant and refugee community of how deep and wide Minnesota’s support and welcome is – and Restaurants Rising’s leadership and generosity is among the clearest and most visible representations yet. Muchisimas Gracias!”

Individual support for ILCM is growing, too, with the number of sustaining donors rising from three to 55. You can join them with a monthly, quarterly, annual or one-time donation.

Want to support the small businesses that support the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota? Click on over to Restaurants Rising to see the list, and also check out the host organization for the event, Minnesota Small Businesses United.