TIME: “US and Australia Might Be Close to a Deal on Refugee Swap”

The United States and Australia are arranging a deal to “swap” refugees from each country’s extraterritorial refugee centers. Australia has approximately 1,800 asylum seekers in camps on the islands of Nauru and Papua New Guinea, many of whom have fled conflict or extreme economic poverty from countries including Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, Sri Lanka, and Afghanistan. Critics have labeled these camps Australia’s “Guantanamo Bay,” and alleged that refugees have been mistreated in the camps. Australia announced at President Barack Obama’s global migration summit that it would exchange their own migrants for those in US-backed detention camps in Costa Rica.

The resettlement process will be administered with the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR, and US authorities will conduct their own assessment and review of refugees along with security checks. The need to resettle these refugees has become a priority for the Australian government because of Papua New Guinea’s order to close the Australian-run detention center and ruling stating that the refugees were held there illegally. Australia has a strict policy to never settle asylum seekers who arrive by sea, in order to deter human smugglers bringing over refugees to Australia by boat, typically from Indonesian ports. The refugee exchange with the US will be a way around this law, and will allow the government to deal with the refugees at these detention centers and potentially close them.   

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull says that the responsibility to “stop the boats” has fallen to his government, and that this refugee swap wouldn’t be repeated or extended to asylum seekers not already in camps, although the Australian government has previously arranged with other foreign governments to accept asylum seekers. “Our priority is the resettlement of women, children and families. This will be an orderly process [and] it will not be rushed,” Turnbull says in the Wall Street Journal. 

UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants Francois Crepeau, who says that refugees at the detention centers on Nauru have experienced cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment or punishment, welcomes the refugee exchange with the US.  “We don’t know how it’s going to develop, but I certainly hope that it develops in a way that offers refugees and asylum seekers solutions, and if it succeeds at emptying Manus and Nauru, I think this will be a great achievement,” Crepeau tells reporters in Canberra, Australia.

The refugee agreement could potentially be opposed by President-elect Donald Trump, who during his campaign called for tighter immigration controls and spoke of banning Muslims from immigrating to the US. Mark Krikorian, executive director of the anti-immigration Center for Immigration Studies, predicts a "firestorm" of opposition from anti-immigration activists regarding the refugee exchange. "It's so difficult to justify," he tells Fairfax Media. "I don't expect any Republicans will defend it. I can't see a lot of Democrats defending it either. My sense is that when the word gets out on this, it'll be dead on arrival." Other governmental figures are more optimistic the deal will go through. Senior Australian government minister Christopher Pyne believes the deal can be finalized during Obama’s term. "There certainly is time—two and a half months is plenty of time—and if that's the case, it will be a great achievement for the Turnbull government," Pyne tells Nine Network television.

Regarding the pending deal, Amnesty International says in a statement that it is concerned about the lack of information provided by the Australian government around the timeline of the deal as the exact numbers of people who will be given the opportunity to settle in the US.

The Nation: “The Deportation Machine Obama Built for President Trump”

While Obama’s executive actions announced in November 2014 were seen as a step forward for many immigrants (even though these actions have stalled in a variety of lawsuits) and his administration has crafted an image as being “smart” on deportation policy and advocating for comprehensive immigration reform, nevertheless Obama will leave his successor the “most sophisticated and well-funded human-expulsion machine in the history of the country.”

When President Obama took office in 2009 he inherited a burgeoning deportation apparatus from President Bush who had created the Office of Homeland Security in 2001 (which subsequently become the Department of Homeland Security) with the “War on Terror” in mind. Tom Ridge, then Director of the Office of Homeland Security, expanded his department to include an immigration enforcement plan that aimed for a “100% removal rate” of undocumented immigrants in the US, a vision encapsulated in a document titled “ENDGAME Office of Detention and Removal Strategic Plan.” With Obama in office, the Nation reports, this went on:

Instead of reversing that architecture and disavowing that plan, President Obama turbocharged it. To pay for the ballooning enforcement-first approach, the budget for immigration enforcement grew 300 percent from the resources given at the time of its founding under Bush to $18 billion annually, more than all other federal law-enforcement agencies’ budget combined.

Before the end of his first term in office, the Obama administration had taken a small program developed in George W. Bush’s last days that aimed to turn local police into “force multipliers” and expanded it by about 3,600 percent.

Two years after being elected, President Obama had doubled the number of people being prosecuted for unauthorized entry into the US by expanding Bush’s border-court system, Operation Streamline, which tries up to 70 people per day. What started out as an experiment in three jurisdictions in 2008 expanded to every single border sector except California by 2010, eventually sending 209,000 individuals, over a period of four years, to serve federal prison sentences for the sole reason of crossing the border without documentation. To implement the strategies of ENDGAME, DHS has become the largest law-enforcement agency in the country, with more than 48,000 personnel dedicated to immigration enforcement alone (up from 26,000 agents in 2002).

Although the Obama administration has promoted prosecutorial discretion to target immigrants who commit crimes and also provided resources for the temporary relief program and deferred action, it does not alter the massive deportation net the president has constructed.  

By April 2014, immigration authorities scanned a total of 32 million sets of fingerprints, a number three times the undocumented population and equivalent to 10 percent of the entire US population. In fiscal year 2012, the height of its deportation quota pursuit, ICE processed 9 million prints, matching 436,000 submitted by local law enforcement, and issued detainers (a practice largely abandoned now due to constitutional concerns) for over a quarter-million of those it identified.

Not all agree that Obama is a hardliner on immigration. “There’s no question that there’s been a record number of formal removals, no question that enforcement has not tailed off,” Marc Rosenblum, a deputy director at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute, tells The Daily Beast. “But [Obama] is exercising a lot of discretion in the interior, a lot of people are coming across ICE’s radar and not being put through removal.”

In the end, what happens to this deportation machine is up to the next president. With the possibility of presumptive Repubilcan nomineee Donald Trump—who has repeatedly made far-reaching claims about deporting all undocumented immigrants—being elected as the next president, with this well-functioning deportation apparatus, the Nation believes he may have the necessary tools to beat Obama’s reputation as the “deporter-in-chief.”

USCIS Proposes Rule to Improve Employment-Based Nonimmigrant and Immigrant Visa Programs

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and US Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) are now seeking public comments on a proposed rule to “modernize and improve certain aspects of employment-based nonimmigrant and immigrant visa programs.” Coming out of President Obama’s 2014 executive actions, these changes could potentially affect a large number of skilled immigrant workers as well as many applying for an employment authorization document (EAD). Specifically, the new rule also proposes to “better enable US employers to hire and retain certain foreign workers who are beneficiaries of approved employment-based immigrant visa petitions and are waiting to become lawful permanent residents (LPRs).”

The rule, published in the Federal Register as Retention of EB-1, EB-2 and EB-3 Immigrant Workers and Program Improvements Affecting High-Skilled Nonimmigrant Workers, proposes many key changes that could have a significant impact on the careers and lives of certain foreign nationals. Among the highlights, USCIS proposes to:   

• Discontinue the ninety-day adjudication time limit for the employment authorization document (EAD) application process and instead provide for automatic extensions of timely-filed I-765 applications assuming certain conditions are met;
• Allow a ten-day grace period now available to H-1B workers at the beginning and end of the authorized stay to other non-immigrant categories including E-1, E-2, E-3, L-1, and TN classifications;
• Establish a “one-time” grace period (no working allowed) for up to sixty days for certain highly-skilled nonimmigrant workers under E-1, E-2, E-3, H-1B, H-1B1, L-1, or TN status whenever their employment ends to pursue new employment;   
• Allow US employers to employ and retain foreign workers who are beneficiaries of approved employment-based immigrant visa petitions (i.e., I-140 petitions) by allowing these workers to accept promotions, make position changes with current employers, switch employers, and pursue other employment opportunities;
• Improve job portability for certain beneficiaries of approved I-140 petitions by limiting the grounds for automatic revocation of petition approval; 
• Explain when applicants may retain their priority date to use when applying for adjustment of status (AOS) to lawful permanent residence, including when USCIS has revoked the I-140 approval because of the employer's business termination or I-140 withdrawal; 
• Allow certain highly-skilled individuals in the United States in E-3, H-1B, H-1B1, L-1, or O-1 status to apply for one year of unrestricted employment authorization if they are the beneficiaries of an approved I-140 petition, are unable to adjust status due to visa unavailability, and can provide evidence that compelling circumstances exists which justify issuing an employment authorization document.

These proposed changes wouldn’t take effect until after the comments period ends February 29, 2016, and until after the final rule is published. Individuals should follow the instructions in the notice to submit comments.

NY Times: “The Deported: Uprooted from his life and family in the United States, a Honduran deportee returns to the country that he tried so hard to escape”

Although deportations this past year are at their lowest levels since President Obama took office in 2009, nevertheless he still has the reputation as the “Deporter-in-Chief” and is still criticized for his harsh deportation policies that over his administration have torn many immigrant families apart. Luke Mogelson in the New York Times profiles some recent deportees from Honduras, a country dominated by gang violence and extreme poverty.

Kelvin Villanueva

Mogelson tells the story of Kelvin Villanueva, a Honduran who lived in the US for fifteen years. One night in Kansas City, Villanueva was pulled over by a policeman because of a broken taillight, arrested, and transferred to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). After spending the next four months in prisons and detention centers, he was flown back to Honduras, a country he fled because the notorious and violent street gang, the 18th Street Gang, recruited him and threatened him if he did not join. In Kansas City he left behind his partner Suelen Bueno and their four children. While with ICE he attempted to apply for asylum, but was determined ineligible.           

Mogelson does an excellent job at describing Villanueva’s experience of being undocumented in the US and deported. He explains the constant fear of deportation that the undocumented live under, harsh detention at ICE, and being returned in manacles to his home country he tried desperately to escape. Then there’s the immigration attorney who willingly takes thousands of dollars (which they’ve borrowed from a money lender) in case fees and who appears more interested in the Kansas City Royals playoff game than in helping Villanueva evaluate any feasible options for returning to the US. Not to mention Villanueva’s boss who still allegedly owes him thousands of dollars from work and later comes to his house and steals his power tools, the most expensive items he owns.

Villanueva is just one of many deportees in similar situations. Mogelson writes:  

Over the last five years, the United States has deported more than half a million Hondurans, Guatemalans and Salvadorans, many of whom, like Villanueva, have had to leave their children behind. Although Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, says it exercises discretion to target lawbreakers for removal, a majority of Central American deportees have no criminal record. Among those who do, about half are guilty of either a traffic violation or an immigration-related crime — entering the country illegally, for instance.

In Honduras, Villanueva stays with his aunt in a one-room plywood structure that stands in an open field with his brother, himself deported after a DUI conviction, who has left behind his US-citizen wife, son, and daughter. His brother has missed his six-year-old’s birthday, while Villanueva’s youngest daughter refuses to sleep at night, determined to be awake when he returns. His youngest son is uncharacteristically introverted and lethargic, sleeping most of the day. Villanueva’s only thought is to return to his family, even though if caught again entering the US without legal documentation he could face felony charges and a lengthy prison sentence. ‘‘I just need to raise them,’’ Villanueva says of his children. 

Bayron and Belky Cardona

In Honduras, Mogelson meets Bayron and Belky Cardona, a couple who had managed to cross the Rio Grande. Scared of the Border Patrol in Texas, they tried to reenter Mexico but were caught. Cardona and Belky are college graduates in their twenties who had opened a computer-repair shop in Honduras in a building owned by Belky’s father. Mogelson explains why they tried to escape to the US:

Their neighborhood was entirely under the control of the MS-13; members of the gang soon confronted Cardona, demanding an impuesto de guerra, or war tax. Impuestos de guerra are a common source of revenue for gangs throughout Honduras, and in Cardona and Belky’s area, every business paid. The amount the gang wanted far exceeded what Cardona could afford. When he failed to produce the money, the MS-13 threatened to kill him. Cardona and Belky went to the United States Embassy, applied for visas and were denied. Then they alerted the police — ‘‘our big error,’’ Cardona told me.

Now back in Honduras after being deported, Bayron has changed his appearance, grown a beard and replaced his contacts with glasses. While Belky’s father had paid half the amount that MS-13 wanted, neither of them think they could safely remain in Honduras. They are unsure what to do. Belky is humiliated by their treatment in the US. She describes being in a room in McAllen, Texas after her capture where officers are studying monitors showing video feeds from a section of the border. “They laugh at us,’’ she tells Mogelson. ‘‘One officer was celebrating all the people they’d caught. They watch the people crossing — and they laugh at us.’’

India's New Prime Minister Visits the US (After Visa Denial)

India's recently-elected Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, visited the US arriving last week. It was a whirlwind tour featuring appearances at the United Nations, Madison Square Garden, the White House, and an impromptu stop at the Global Citizen Festival in Central Park. He even co-authored (with President Obama) an op-ed for The Washington Post, where they proposed "to find mutually rewarding ways to expand our collaboration in trade, investment and technology that harmonize with India’s ambitious development agenda, while sustaining the United States as the global engine of growth." And perhaps the ultimate sign of welcome, Jon Stewart covered the visit in his own unique style.

But he wasn’t always welcome in the US with such open arms. In 2005, when Mr. Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat, he was denied a visa to the US under regulations that denied visas to those who were believed to have committed “particularly severe violations of religious freedom.” (The denial of this diplomatic visa also resulted in his visitor visa being revoked, effectively resulting in a visa ban.) The accusations arose out of claims that Mr. Modi stood by or even encouraged religious riots in which over 1000 people, mostly Muslim, were killed. Mr. Modi denied all wrong doing and was eventually cleared of all charges.

When Mr. Modi was elected as Prime Minister of India, however, he was invited to the US and granted a diplomatic visa.  The Obama administration was keen to overlook the visa ban as a decision of the previous administration. During his visit to the US, Mr. Modi even made reference to his past visa difficulties, “saying he understood when fellow Indians complained of problems obtaining a visa.” Given his understanding of the visa process, we hope that he talked to President Obama about how to get more H-1B visas, which are typically used in large percentages by Indian nationals. At any rate, Mr. Modi said: "'My visit has been very successful.'"

NY Times: "Obama Hints He May Be Open to Immigration Deal With G.O.P."

New year, new deals. President Obama indicated in an CNN interview broadcast this morning that he "might accept an immigration deal that does not include a special pathway to citizenship for those in the country illegally." As reported in The New York Times:

'The question is, is there more that we can do in this legislation that gets both Democratic and Republican support,' he said, 'but solves these broader problems, including strengthening borders and making sure that we have a legal immigration system that works better than it currently does.'

Obama's interview comes off the release of a one-page memo titled "Standards for Immigration Reform" (via Politico here) that outlines the Republican House leadership plans. The memo recommends a path to legal status for undocumented immigrants, but not a special path to citizenship. A New York Times op-ed claims this "would effectively create a new stratum of society, a permanent second class of Americans." The Washington Post rounds up (mostly) favorable reactions by immigration reform groups to the memo.