By Tom K. Wong 

On May 13th, 2023, the U.S. Immigration Policy Center (USIPC) at UC San Diego interviewed asylum seekers detained by Border Patrol (BP) in the Jacumba desert. Over 1,000 people seeking asylum and refuge from nearly every part of the world were held in three makeshift encampments on the U.S. side of the U.S.-Mexico border without adequate food, water, or shelter. Under the hot desert sun, the USIPC donated supplies and joined volunteers as they brought food, baby food, water, hygiene kits, clothes, blankets, diapers, and other supplies to these migrants. Using stratified random sampling during aid distribution in Camp 2, USIPC conducted fifteen structured interviews with asylum seekers. With approximately 150 people in Camp 2, these interviews represent a 10 percent sample. These data make clear that despite assertions by Border Patrol that the migrants were not being detained, they were surrounded by Border Patrol agents and would be apprehended if they tried to leave. This is consequential because those in Border Patrol custody, according to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) National Standards on Transport, Escort, Detention, and Search (TEDS), are entitled to basic humane treatment. The asylum seekers that we interviewed were only given one water bottle each day in the morning, were not given any food, were not given any shelter to protect themselves from the sun, and were not given blankets to keep themselves warm at night. Lastly, the data show that those seeking asylum have been ignored by Border Patrol agents, have been unable to formally request asylum, and have been denied due process.   

La Jolla, CA:  US Immigration Policy Center University of California San Diego (UCSD), 2023. 8p.

By the American Civil Liberties Associations of New Mexico and Texas

Vehicle pursuits make for exciting movie scenes and capture the interest of reality TV viewers, but police chases are dangerous and often deadly.1 Law enforcement agencies across the country are increasingly restricting when such pursuits may be undertaken. Many have issued policies authorizing chases only when the public faces immediate danger. 2 The United States Border Patrol, the largest law enforcement agency in the country, has taken no such steps. In fact, the agency is increasingly engaged in high-speed chases throughout the Southwest border region, with deadly results. The number of fatalities resulting from Border Patrol vehicle pursuits has skyrocketed in recent years, from just 2 deaths in 2019 to 22 in 2021. Despite this trend, Border Patrol does not provide statistics on the number of car chases conducted by its agents unless the agency itself deems it a “use of force” incident, such as when a Border Patrol unit intentionally collides with a vehicle to cause it to crash or agents deploy spike strips to stop a vehicle.3 Senator Dianne Feinstein demanded in 2019 that Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reevaluate its vehicle pursuit policy, stating: “CBP’s pursuit policy does not follow the Justice Department guidelines for vehicle pursuits, but instead offers insufficient protection against possible injuries and fatalities, either to bystander members of the public or occupants of a pursued vehicle. This has led to catastrophic and unwarranted results.   

Albuquerque, NM: ACLU, 2022. 13p.

By Amalia Campos-Delgado & Karine Côté-Boucher

By focusing on the externalisation of US bordering into Mexico, we consider the institutional setting that both limits and channels gestures of care and empathy in migrant detention. Working within a framework that highlights the connections between the global and the intimate, and by proposing to read these connections as they unfold into an intimate geopolitics of humanitarian borderwork, we unpack the effects of Mexico’s recent shift towards humanitarian border politics on the interactions between detained migrants and border agents. Together with the material scarcity in which border officers operate, horrendous detention conditions and increased investments in detention facilities, this shift produces care-control dynamics that are specific to bordering in transit countries. We identify three ‘tactics of empathy’ deployed by Mexican border officers as they attempt to morally legitimise border control in this new environment, while concurrently avoiding legal liabilities and taming migrants under their custody. We argue that these tactics are less a manifestation of an ethics of care than a response to situations occurring in transit migrant detention where morality and instrumental rationality become entangled.

Geopolitics, Feb. 2022.

By Ariel G. Ruiz Soto, Rodrigo Dominguez-Villegas, Luis Argueta and Randy Capps

As U.S. deportations to Mexico continue at substantial levels and the numbers returned by both the U.S. and Mexican governments to El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras are increasing, it has become more urgent for countries in the region to develop successful reception and reintegration programs that meet the diverse needs of returning migrants.

Between fiscal years 2012-18, the United States carried out approximately 1.8 million repatriations of Mexican migrants, and the United States and Mexico together accomplished 1.4 million returns of migrants from the three Northern Triangle countries.

Drawing on fieldwork and interviews with government officials, researchers, representatives of civil-society and international organizations, as well as returning migrants, this report highlights promising reintegration strategies and pressing challenges. Mexico and the three Northern Triangle countries exhibit different levels of capacity and degrees of implementation in their reception and reintegration programs. While most deported migrants now receive basic reception services, their access to reintegration services is somewhat more mixed. Among the challenges: Difficulty obtaining the official ID that allows returning migrants to access these services, limited awareness and geographic distribution of services, difficulty matching returning migrants’ skills with labor-market needs, and barriers to reintegration posed by social stigmatization and employment discrimination.

The report offers a range of recommendations to governments and others, including: Prepare migrants for reintegration prior to their return, even before deportation; issue primary ID documents from abroad or upon reception; and ensure reintegration services tap into returning migrants' cultural roots. Improving reception and reintegration services represents a long-term investment for both destination and origin countries, the authors conclude, holding the potential to reduce re-migration while enabling countries of origin to benefit from the skills and assets migrants have acquired abroad.

Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute, 2019. 43p.

https://www.migrationpolicy.org/sites/default/files/publications/MPI-ReceptionReintegration-FinalWeb.pdf

At the Breaking Point: Rethinking the U.S. Immigration Court System

By Muzaffar Chishti, Doris Meissner, Stephen Yale-Loehr, Kathleen Bush-Joseph and Christopher Levesque

With a backlog of nearly 2 million cases, the U.S. immigration court system is in crisis. Many cases now take years to adjudicate, with asylum seekers, for example, waiting four years on average for their initial hearing and longer for a final decision. Serious concerns have also been raised about the quality of court decisions.

These twin issues of caseload quantity and decision quality have wide-ranging roots, from long-standing operational challenges in the courts to new crises in the Americas that have intensified humanitarian protection needs and other migration pressures. The courts' dysfunction has had severe knock-on effects for other parts of the nation’s immigration infrastructure, including notably the immigration enforcement and asylum systems.

This report takes stock of the many challenges facing the immigration courts and outlines recommendations that would advance the goal of delivering decisions that are both timely and fair. It explores issues including court caseload and personnel levels, docket management strategies, the use of technology in the courts, and access to representation. Importantly, the report focuses on changes that can be accomplished administratively—a necessity in a time when Congress has proven itself unlikely to tackle significant immigration matters.

Washington, DC:Migration Policy Institute, 2023. 51p.

https://www.migrationpolicy.org/sites/default/files/publications/mpi-courts-report-2023_final.pdf

Betting on Legality: Latin American and Caribbean Responses to the Venezuelan Displacement Crisis

By Luciana Gandini and Andrew Selee

More than half, and as many as two-thirds, of the estimated 6.4 million displaced Venezuelans who have settled in Latin America and the Caribbean since 2016 have been granted legal status in their host country. Most of the receiving countries in the region have responded with pragmatic measures that offer some form of legal status as well as the right to access the labor market, basic education, and emergency health care. The measures implemented are uneven and often not fully institutionalized, but they have been surprisingly generalized for a region with limited experience with large-scale immigration.

This report explores the response to Venezuelan displacement in the 15 principal host countries in Latin America and the Caribbean between 2016 and 2022. It examines the reach of different mechanisms for providing legal status and humanitarian protection—asylum systems, mobility and residence agreements, regular visas, and regularization campaigns that offer temporary status—and offers estimates of the share of Venezuelans in each country who have obtained legal status.

The report also considers the trend of governments coupling measures to provide legal status with new visa requirements that have made it increasingly difficult for more Venezuelans to arrive, pushing some into irregular migration channels. Finally, the report looks at variations in Venezuelans’ access to education and health care across the 15 countries.

Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute, 2023. 55p.

https://www.migrationpolicy.org/sites/default/files/publications/mpi-venezuelans-legal-status-2023_eng_final.pdf

Migration Narratives in Northern Central America: How Competing Stories Shape Policy and Public Opinion in Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador

By Ariel G. Ruiz Soto, Natalia Banulescu-Bogdan, Aaron Clark-Ginsberg, Alejandra Lopez and Alejandro Vélez Salas

The stories told within a society about migration and migrants paint a rich picture of how its members view the opportunities and challenges associated with the movement of people, and through what lenses. These migration narratives both inform policymaking and shape the public’s reaction to government policy, affecting the policies’ chances of achieving their goals.

While El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras are primarily known for emigration to the United States and Mexico, these northern Central American countries have seen notable changes in migration trends in recent years. The number of migrants from South America and the Caribbean who transit through these countries on their way north has increased, as has the number of Central Americans returning to their countries of origin.

This report presents the findings of research conducted by the Migration Policy Institute, RAND Corporation, Metropolitan Group, and National Immigration Forum, comparing migration narratives within El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras—as well as a selection of migration narratives from Mexico and the United States that relate to Central America—over the 2018–22 period. The study explores how these narratives about emigration, transit migration, return, and other issues intersect, how they contradict or compound each other, and how they influence critical policy debates and decisions in the region.

Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute, 2023. 49p.

https://www.migrationpolicy.org/sites/default/files/publications/CentAm-MigrationNarratives-2023_final.pdf

Inhumane and Counterproductive: Asylum Ban Inflicts Mounting Harm

By

Christina Asencio

Rebecca Gendelman

Five months after the Biden administration initiated its new bar on asylum, the policy continues to strand vulnerable people in places where they are targets of widespread kidnapping, torture, and violent assaults. People seeking asylum are forced to risk their lives waiting in danger in Mexico for one of the limited CBP One appointments or risk suffering the ban’s punitive asylum denials or wrongful returns to harm and persecution if they attempt to seek protection at a port of entry or cross outside ports of entry without a CBP One appointment. The targeting of migrants and asylum seekers waiting for these appointments has risen sharply recently, driving many people to cross the border in urgent search of safety. Humanitarian workers assisting asylum seekers forced to wait in Mexico are also facing alarming—and increasing—risks as well.

This harmful bar on asylum (the “asylum ban”) is a new iteration of similar transit and entry bans promulgated by the Trump administration that federal courts repeatedly struck down because they violated U.S. law. A federal district court ruled in July that the Biden asylum ban is unlawful, but it remains in place while on appeal. The asylum ban renders nearly all asylum seekers who traveled through another country on their way to the U.S. southern border ineligible for asylum due to their transit routes and/or manner of entry unless they (1) applied for and were denied asylum in one of those countries (regardless of their safety there), or (2) managed to secure one of the asylum ban’s limited “pre-scheduled” appointments to enter at an official port of entry. To try to get a U.S. port of entry appointment, people seeking asylum (as well as other migrants who are not seeking asylum) are left to struggle to obtain an appointment via CBP One, a smartphone app that operates much like a daily lottery and is plagued by deficiencies that impede equitable access.

Not only does the asylum ban violate both U.S. and international law, but it has generated strong and diverse opposition from faith groups, Holocaust survivors, major unions, civil rights organizations, members of the president’s political party and other key Biden administration allies. President Biden should honor his campaign promise to end such restrictions by bringing this harmful policy—which his administration has pledged is only temporary—to its end now. Every day that it is left in place, it endangers refugees’ lives and subverts refugee law.

Instead, the Biden administration should double down on some of the effective, humane, and legal policies that it has already initiated or announced, and reject those that punish, ban, and block people seeking asylum, contrary to core tenets of international refugee protection. Key steps include to: quickly ramp up plans to expand regional refugee resettlement, strengthen the administration’s pivotal parole initiatives, increase critical aid to address regional protection gaps driving many to flee north, urgently increase support for safe shelter and other dire needs of people waiting in Mexico, uphold fundamental human rights in regional migration coordination, maximize access to asylum at ports of entry, properly staff asylum and immigration court adjudications, and improve and restart use of the Biden administration’s new asylum processing rule to help adjudicate a greater number of asylum cases more efficiently.

New York: Human Rights First, 2023. 67p.

https://humanrightsfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Inhumane-and-Counterproductive-final-report.pdf

Digital Border Governance: A Human Rights Based Approach

By Lorna McGregor and Petra Molnar

In an era where digital technologies are increasingly integrated into migration processes, these technologies are reshaping border governance in a manner that impacts the human rights of people on the move and communities worldwide. As we navigate these evolving dynamics, it becomes paramount to address the potential harms the use of digital technologies poses to human rights, while also harnessing the opportunities they offer to facilitate safe and dignified migration. This collaborative study, conducted by the UN Human Rights Office and the University of Essex, analyses the human rights implications of specific border technologies. It provides recommendations for States and stakeholders on how to take a human rights-based approach in ensuring the use of digital technologies at borders aligns with international human rights law and standards. The study draws from a collective body of expertise, research, and evidence, as well as extensive interviews and collaborative meetings with experts.

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights , 2023. 26p.

Edited by Christian Larsen

This timely book explores how Northern European countries have sought to balance their welfare states with increased levels of migration from low-income countries outside the EU. Using case studies of the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, and Sweden, leading scholars analyse the varying approaches to this so-called ‘progressive dilemma’.

Cheltenham, UK: Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar, 2022. 228p.

By Alia Fakhry

Since 2015, European partners have funded interventions in the Sahel to help countries like Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali increase their capacity to regulate and control migration. Through these interventions, the European Union has set precedents and encouraged securitised policies that reinforce the security interests of governments in the Sahel, and undermine the capacity of regional and continental organisations to establish comprehensive migration frameworks.

Pretoria: Institute for Security Studies, 2023. 24p.

By United States Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations - Minority Report

INTRODUCTION The illegal migration crisis at the U.S. southern border presents a grave security threat to the United States and a humanitarian catastrophe for the vulnerable people involved. Illegal migration to the United States has reached astronomical levels since the Biden Administration entered office in January 2021.1 The sheer number of illegal migrants, combined with the evolving tactics that transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) employ to smuggle and traffic individuals, presents an untenable security and humanitarian situation. Weak U.S. border security and enforcement of immigration laws undermines U.S. efforts to improve the rule of law and humanitarian conditions in the region, takes a mental and physical toll on U.S. law enforcement personnel, and challenges their ability to defend our nation’s borders. The prevailing conditions benefit dangerous criminals and expose vulnerable populations to unspeakable dangers and abuse. The Biden Administration’s failure to secure our nation’s borders is worsening this crisis. Further, it undermines efforts to address inadequate law enforcement as well as asylum processing policies and capabilities in Mexico and the northern Central American countries of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. This report puts forward concrete ideas to: • Establish effective migration controls in the United States; • Strengthen border security and migration management capacities in the region; and • Target TCOs smuggling and trafficking migrants.

Washington, DC: The Committee, 2023. 56p.

By Peter J. Meyer

U.S. policy toward Central America has been a subject of significant debate and oversight over the past decade as Congress has sought to address the underlying factors driving migration from the region to the United States. Recent Trends According to a model developed at the University of Texas at Austin, an estimated 377,000 people, on average, left Northern Central America (see Figure 1) annually from FY2018 to FY2021, with the majority bound for the United States. Flows have varied from year to year, with an estimated 651,000 people leaving the region in FY2019, followed by 92,000 in FY2020, and 487,000 in FY2021. Surveys conducted in 2020 found many potential migrants had postponed their plans in the midst of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic but intended to undertake their journeys once governments lifted crossborder travel restrictions.

In FY2022, U.S. Border Patrol encountered nearly 521,000 foreign nationals from Northern Central America at the U.S. Southwest border, including 199,000 Hondurans, 228,000 Guatemalans, and 93,000 Salvadorans (see Figure 2). The Border Patrol apprehended 177,000 of those individuals under Title 8 of the U.S. Code (immigration) and expelled nearly 344,000 under Title 42 of the U.S. Code (public health). According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the use of Title 42 corresponded with an increase in recidivism, with repeat encounters accounting for 26.5% of total encounters in FY2020 and FY2021, up from an average of 11.8% in FY2015-FY2019. Of those encountered from Northern Central America in FY2022, about 22% were unaccompanied minors, 24% were traveling with family members, and 54% were single adults.

Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 2023. 3p.

By The United States Government Accountability Office; Rebecca Gambler, et al.

In fiscal year 2021, Border Patrol reported about 1.7 million apprehensions of noncitizens between ports of entry—a 300 percent increase over fiscal year 2020. This included approximately 451,000 apprehensions of family unit members. Compounding this increase were continued concerns related to COVID-19 and physical distancing protocols that imposed space limitations on facilities. To address these concerns and reduce time in custody, Border Patrol and ICE initiated two new processes in 2021, referred to as NTR and parole plus ATD. Border Patrol released family units into the U.S. without first issuing them a charging document—generally a Notice to Appear—which places them into immigration court removal proceedings. Instead, Border Patrol instructed them to report to an ICE field office. ICE officials are to further process family unit members who report to field offices, such as issuing them a Notice to Appear. GAO was asked to review Border Patrol’s and ICE’s implementation of the NTR and parole plus ATD processes. This report describes (1) Border Patrol and ICE implementation of the NTR and parole plus ATD processes, and (2) ICE’s efforts to initiate removal proceedings for family unit members processed with NTRs or under parole plus ATD. GAO analyzed Border Patrol and ICE policies, guidance, and data on individuals processed with an NTR or under parole plus ATD and who reported to ICE as required. GAO also interviewed officials in Border Patrol and ICE headquarters and selected field locations.

Washington, DC: GAO, 2022. 58p.

By Chris Jones, Romain Lanneau, Yasha Maccanico

The use of new technologies is fundamental to the EU’s system of border control and migration management. This report explores their development and deployment over the last three decades, during which time an extensive infrastructure of surveillance systems, databases, biometric identification techniques and information networks has been put in place to provide state authorities with knowledge of – and thus control over – foreign nationals seeking to enter EU or staying in Schengen territory. Digital technologies underpin invasions of privacy, brutal violations of human rights, and make the border ‘mobile’, for example through the increased use of mobile biometric identification technologies, such as handheld fingerprint scanners used by police and border authorities. On the one hand, new technologies are deployed to facilitate the movements of “bona fide” travellers. In the years to come, tourists and businesspeople will be required to hand over increasing amounts of personal information to EU and member state authorities in exchange for being granted entry to the EU. That information will then be used to train algorithms that will be applied to new applications to enter the bloc, in order to assess the level of risk or threat posed by individuals (and, where that level is deemed too high, to deny them the ability to travel to the EU). On the other hand, new technologies are deployed to detect, deter and repel refugees and migrants seeking to enter EU territory through irregular journeys. Drones, cameras, social media monitoring, satellite imagery and networks of sensors form part of an elaborate surveillance architecture that is being continually extended. Those who do manage to enter EU territory – which is to say, if they are not illegally pushed back by EU authorities, or prevented from leaving a “third country” – are also biometrically registered and screened against a multitude of national and international databases. If they are deported, international data-sharing systems are increasingly being used to facilitate that task

London: Statewatch, 2023. 45p.

Edited by  Dirk Hoerder and Nora Faires

Presenting an unprecedented, integrated view of migration in North America, this interdisciplinary collection of essays illuminates the movements of people within and between Canada, the Caribbean, Mexico, and the United States over the past two centuries. Several essays discuss recent migrations from Central America as well. In the introduction, Dirk Hoerder provides a sweeping historical overview of North American societies in the Atlantic world. He also develops and advocates what he and Nora Faires call “transcultural societal studies,” an interdisciplinary approach to migration studies that combines migration research across disciplines and at the local, regional, national, and transnational levels. The contributors examine the movements of diverse populations across North America in relation to changing cultural, political, and economic patterns.

Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011. 458p.

By The U.S. Civil Rights Commission

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights last addressed civil rights and constitutional concerns in connection with the immigration detention of families and children, including conditions of detention centers in its 2015 report, With Liberty and Justice for All: The State of Civil Rights at Immigration Detention Facilities(“2015 Report”).  In 2018, public reports documented worsening conditions at the southern border. Changes in federal policy further resulted in substantially increased law enforcement activity at the southern border and the separation of thousands of migrant children from their parents. Recent developments have resulted in serious civil rights implications, including the protection of the physical and mental well-being of both adult and child immigration detainees and their due process rights. In light of these concerns the Commission formed a bipartisan subcommittee and reopened its 2015 Report to update its investigation of the immigration detention of families and children.  The subcommittee ) sought information from the Departments of Homeland Security and Health and Human Services, ) held a public comment session where it took in testimony from experts, impacted individuals, witnesses to the impacts of family separation, and other interested members of the public, and solicited written comments from the public….

Washington, DC: USCCR, 2019. 208p.

By Sanae Youbi  

In September 2020, the European Commission proposed a reform of the current European Union (EU) approach to migration and asylum entitled a ‘Common European Framework for Migration and Asylum’. A major novelty of this ‘New Pact on Migration and Asylum’ is the proposal to introduce a ‘Pre-Entry Screening’ procedure (Screening Regulation), allowing European authorities at EU external borders to channel irregular third-country nationals towards either an asylum or a return procedure. > As it stands, the proposed Screening Regulation seeks to address the issue of irregular entries and asylum-seekers’ mobility through policing via one single tool, namely a fast screening procedure. This may lead to policy incoherence and human rights abuses justified in the name of internal security and public safety. > Instead of endorsing this restrictive approach, this policy brief argues that the Council and the European Parliament should amend the proposed Regulation by designing an approach inspired by a solidarity-driven system, aligned with EU values. Detention outside the EU borders must not be generalized but based on real security risks, not assumptions based on threat perceptions. The instrumentalization of migration should be rejected, and the focus should be on more sustainable legal venues for humanitarian and labour migration.

Bruges, Belgium, College of Europe, 2023. 15p.

Edited by Hastings Donnan, Madeleine Hurd and Carolin Leutloff-Grandits  

Migrating Borders and Moving Times analyses migrant border crossings in relation to their everyday experiences of time, and connects these to wider social and political structures. Sometimes border crossing takes no more than a moment; sometimes hours; some crossers find themselves in the limbo of detention; for others, the crossing lasts a lifetime to be interrupted only by death. Borders not only define separate spaces, but different temporalities. This book provides both a single interpretative frame and a novel approach to border crossing: an analysis of the reconfiguration of memory, personal and group time that follows the migrants' renegotiation of cross-border space and recalibrations of temporality. Using original field data from Israel and northern and south-eastern Europe, the contributors argue that new insights are generated by approaching border crossing as a process with diverse temporalities whose relationship to space has always to be empirically determined.
Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2017. 201p.

By Maureen Meyer and Adam Isaacson

In particular, we analyze how the National Guard deployment has driven migrants to travel through more remote areas where they are more likely to fall prey to criminal groups, and how smugglers are adapting to this new shift. The report further examines how this crackdown has overwhelmed migrant detention centers, heightened concerns of inadequate screening of potential asylum seekers, and resulted in a rapid increase in asylum requests in Mexico. Finally, the report examines how U.S. assistance has supported Mexico’s migration enforcement and border security efforts along its southern border. The report’s final section provides recommendations on how the Mexican government can work to ensure the safety and well-being of migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees, and root out any corruption and abuse linked to security forces and migration agents who interact with these vulnerable populations. It also provides recommendations on how the U.S. government can support these efforts, while upholding its own national and international commitments to asylum seekers.   

Washington, DC: Washington Office on Latin America, 2019. 56p.

By The American Immigration Council

For generations, the United States has been a place of safe haven for people seeking freedom and safety. In 1980, Congress passed the Refugee Act, codifying basic refugee protections into law and enshrining a global commitment to asylum which emerged from the tragedy of the Holocaust. In the decades since then, hundreds of thousands of refugees and asylees have been granted status, strengthening communities around the nation, contributing economically, and enriching the national fabric.

But in the 21st century, a global displacement crisis is affecting nearly every country in the world. Multiple nations across the Western Hemisphere have become destabilized due to a wide variety of factors, including rising authoritarianism, political assassinations, natural disasters, powerful transnational criminal organizations, climate change, and the global socioeconomic shocks of the COVID-19 pandemic. The end result is humanitarian migration at levels far above what the 20th-century system can handle.

Presidential administrations of both parties have failed to meet this challenge. Instead of an orderly, humane, and consistent approach to humanitarian protection and border management, we have been left with a dysfunctional system that serves the needs of no one: not the government, border communities, or asylum seekers themselves.

Today, the U.S. government faces an enormous challenge. The number of asylum seekers seeking to enter each day is significantly higher than the number the United States can process at official border crossings. The location and manner of crossings varies widely across the border, often changing unpredictably based on misinformation, rumor, or the demands of powerful transnational criminal organizations which maintain control over many of the migration routes with a bloody fist. The system is constantly at risk of bottlenecks and overcrowding, building the perception of chaos at the border. And inside the United States, underfunding, neglect, and deliberate sabotage have left the adjudicatory process in shambles.

Washington, DC: American Immigration Council, 2023. 60p

By  Christopher Horwood

Just as the world’s governments have, for some decades, waged war on international drug trafficking, there are increasing signals that global authorities have embarked on a major offensive against the growing phenomenon of migrant smuggling in addition to their existing fight against human trafficking.1 One of the most unambiguous of these signals came in April 2015, when Dimitris Avramopoulos, the European Union’s top official for migration,2 told a news conference: “we will take action now. Europe is declaring war on [migrant] smugglers. Europe is united in this effort. We will do this together with our partners outside Europe. We will work together because smuggling is not a European problem — it is a global one.”3 Largely because of its clandestine nature, there is insufficient data available to gauge the global extent of migrant smuggling. Still, existing research offers some hints: according to one recent estimate, some 2.5 million migrants across the world used smugglers in 2016, generating an economic return of at least $5.5 billion dollars.4 ‘Since the migration crisis in 2015 the migrant smuggling business has established itself as a large, lucrative and sophisticated criminal market.’5 This paper, like others before it, argues that the main motivation behind the new offensive against migrant smugglers is not only the much-vaunted concern for the safety and protection of migrants and refugees6 (Avramopoulos prefaced his declaration with the words ‘one more life lost [at sea] is one too many’) but also the fact that migrant smugglers are the main vector and means for irregular migration. Rightly or wrongly, irregular migration is portrayed, even if disingenuously, by governments and many electorates as undesirable from a socio-political, security and economic perspective, and as a potential cause of future social unrest and political disruption.   

Geneva: Mixed Migration Centre, 2019. 78p.

Over the last 30 years, thousands of dead Latino migrant bodies have been found along the United States-Mexico boundary. These casualties are directly related to the Border Patrol’s “prevention through deterrence” (PTD) policing strategy, which funnels crossing migrants into remote and deadly deserts, mountains, and waterways. In response, local residents have created various formal and informal organizations to help provide life-saving aid to vulnerable crossing migrants. However, President Trump and Border Patrol agents have sought to criminalize and stop the work of humanitarian aid volunteers at the border. The data presented in this brief reveal that the American public overwhelmingly (87%) opposes—including the vast majority of Republicans (71%)—the criminalization of humanitarian aid workers at the border. 

Los Angeles: UCLA Latino Policy & Politics Initiative, 2020. 6p.

The Trump administration implemented a total of 363 policy changes to interior enforcement with the overarching goal of subjecting all undocumented immigrants to enforcement actions. President Biden assumed office following significant commitments to implement changes to immigration enforcement, to limit enforcement activities, and to reduce the hardship experienced by noncitizens and their families.

This report analyzes some of the most consequential changes to immigration enforcement implemented by the Trump administration, the changes that President Biden committed to making during his campaign and transition, and the progress that his administration has achieved in its first 100 days. The report concludes with recommendations for additional changes that the administration should prioritize in working to create a fairer and more humane system of immigration enforcement.

Washington, DC: American immigration Council, 2021. 33p.

By Clara Long

A US Border Patrol agent kneed a woman in the lower pelvis, leaving bruises and pain days later, according to her statement to a government official screening her asylum claim. A CBP officer hit another asylum applicant so hard he was knocked unconscious and suffered brain swelling. An officer wearing a green uniform, consistent with those of the Border Patrol, tried to coerce a different asylum applicant into giving him oral sex in exchange for being released from custody. In another incident, a Border Patrol agent or Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officer forced a girl to undress and then inappropriately touched her. Another asylum applicant was bitten in the testicle by a Border Patrol service dog, denied medical treatment for about one month and ultimately had to have his testicle surgically removed. CBP officials appeared to withhold food from a different man in a freezing cold holding facility until he agreed to sign a paper in a language he did not understand. These are just some of the over 160 allegations of abuse catalogued in internal US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) reports received by Human Rights Watch under the Freedom of Information Act. The records, though heavily redacted, demonstrate that asylum officers within US Citizenship and Immigration Services, another component of DHS, have repeatedly provided internal reports on allegations of assault, sexual abuse, harsh detention conditions, denial of medical care, discriminatory and dehumanizing treatment and due process violations at the border. The US should take urgent and sustained action to stop

• More.....

  such abuses by transforming migrant border reception and DHS accountability practices, including ensuring redress for migrants and asylum seekers who have been harmed.

New York: Human Rights Watch, 2021. 83p.