September 12, 2019—Wednesday’s Supreme Court decision allows the Trump administration to basically end asylum at the southern border, in a deadly betrayal of U.S. law and international humanitarian principles. While a final decision on the asylum ban regulation is still months away, this decision will be a death sentence for many of the vulnerable asylum seekers now seeking safety.

The asylum ban regulation says that any asylum seekers who cross through a third country will be barred from applying for asylum in the United States.

“Barring asylum seekers is a gross violation of basic human rights and a violation of U.S. asylum law,” said Veena Iyer, executive director of the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota. “Turning away persecuted asylum seekers in 2019 reminds us of our national shame in turning away 900 Jewish asylum seekers on the SS St. Louis in 1939. We are refusing to grant safe haven to people who will die because of our refusal.”

Among the asylum seekers now barred from the United States are:

• Venezuelans fleeing Maduro
• Nicaraguans fleeing government crackdowns
• Guatemalans and Hondurans and Salvadorans fleeing violence and persecution
• Transgender and LGBTQ people fleeing persecution.

U.S. asylum law says that time spent in a third country is only a bar to people who have passed through a designated “safe third country” or who have “firmly resettled” in a third country. Only Canada is officially designated as a “safe third country.” Neither Mexico nor any Central American country is designated as a “safe third country” for the very good reason that none of these countries is safe for asylum seekers.

 

 

Throughout the summer, threats of raids and deportation of “millions” reverberated over Twitter, spreading fear to immigrant communities across the country. On July 14, more than 400 people at the Spanish mass at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Worthington listened intently as ILCM attorneys Joyce Bennett and Kathy Klos joined Padre Marcos Galvis at the front of the church (photo above). After Joyce gave an abbreviated Know Your Rights presentation, she invited people to stay after Mass to speak to the two attorneys about their concerns.  

The July Know Your Rights presentation was scheduled because of the big (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) ICE raid that was announced for 10 different cities, which raised the tension about raids in general. “We wanted people to be prepared,” Kathy Klos said. “We know ICE is continuing to do regular enforcement, so it’s a good reminder to people to know what their rights are.”  

Many of the more than 400 people at the church had questions after the presentation, with the greatest number of questions focusing on removal proceedings, on where they could get legal representation, and  on whether there is any way to legalize their status. “Not a lot of remedies are available under current laws,” Kathy Klos said. “That’s the hard part.” 

“Everyone you talked to knows someone who was deported or is in removal proceedings,” she continued. “When someone is in danger, like a man who was deported after living here for decades, the whole community writes letters and signs petitions. Everyone is impacted by these stories, and it’s part of the reality they live.  

“We can help them by arming them with their rights. We talk to them about preparing their families so that, in the worst case scenario, there is a plan for their kids and spouse. They can prepare by getting passports for children, and by identifying a place to go if the kids come home from school and parents aren’t there. That kind of planning has been happening a lot.”  

Know Your Rights presentations offer an opportunity to debunk myths and to ensure that people have accurate information and know where to go for help.  Besides answering questions, ILCM staff handed out the popular “red cards” and one-page Know Your Rights flyers for encounters with ICE at home, at work, and in public places. The flyers, published in English and Spanish, were prepared by the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

In Worthington, where the specter of the 2006 raid still lingers, “you want to arm people with what they want to know, but not raise panic levels so they can’t sleep at night,” Kathy Klos said. “They are already living it, so you just try to make it better.”   

ILCM and other organizations work to make legal information available to immigrants across Minnesota. In 2018, ILCM reached more than 5,000 people with 125 presentations. If your organization would like to have a presentation on general Know Your Rights information or on another topic, click here to request one. To request a presentation on the new public charge regulation, click here.  

 

August 28, 2019 – Minnesota, along with 19 other states and the district of Columbia, is suing the Trump administration to end its most recent attack on immigrant children and families. The challenged regulation will permit indefinite detention of children and decrease the minimum standards of care. Ignoring the need for protection and oversight, the regulation provides for “self-licensing” of child detention facilities by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Right now, long-term centers holding migrant children ordinarily are required to abide by state licensing standards. The new rule would take away state licensing authority, and instead give that authority to the very agencies that have brutally mistreated children and adults in immigrant detention centers. Six children have died in U.S. immigration custody or shortly after release since September 2018. Prior to September 2018, no children had died in U.S. immigration custody for a decade. The new rule was published shortly after U.S. Customs, and Border Protection (CBP) announced it would not be providing flu vaccines to people in detention, despite three youth deaths having occurred because of the flu. This denial of healthcare is yet another indication of the inhumane and senseless definition of “safe and sanitary” DHS applies to detention facilities.

“The Flores settlement establishes rules for protecting migrant children by limiting their time in custody and requiring humane treatment,” said Lenore Millibergity the interim executive director of the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota (ILCM). “This move violates the letter and the spirit of those protections and ignores the basic human rights of the children and adults detained. DHS argued in court that “safe and sanitary” conditions do not necessarily include beds, soap, or a toothbrush. Now they claim the authority to self-regulate and self-license child detention facilities. That is just wrong. Children do not belong behind bars. Children deserve homes, not cages.

“We need to support vulnerable children and adults, not legalize the practice of denying them beds to sleep in or soap and a toothbrush. We need alternatives to detention and better case management. When families seeking asylum are placed into Case Management programs run by community refugee and migrant groups and have attorneys, 99 percent comply with court appointments and follow through on their asylum application process. The administration should focus on helping families, not on caging children.

“Thank you to Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison for joining in the national challenge to the anti-Flores regulation.”
The new regulation, scheduled to take effect in 60 days, would end the protection given to children under the Flores settlement, which limits detention to 20 days, orders humane care, and maintains speedy and consistent review of issues with child detention by a federal court. That federal court could reject the regulation, keeping the Flores settlement in place while the administration appeals.