News

Trump administration’s latest asylum rule allowed to stand in Texas, New Mexico

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“Trump administration’s latest asylum rule allowed to stand in Texas, New Mexico” was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues. Asylum-seeking migrants who cross into Texas or New Mexico can be barred from receiving asylum protection if they passed through another country before arriving at the U.S. border, a federal court ruled Friday. The ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is a partial victory for the Trump administration, which announced a policy last month that would disqualify most asylum seekers from receiving protection in the United States if they crossed through another country and didn’t first apply for asylum there. A federal district judge in San Francisco initially halted the measure, aimed at blocking asylum claims from Central Americans, but Friday’s decision by the 9th Circuit let the policy stand in Texas and New Mexico while halting it in Arizona and California, which are in the 9th Circuit’s jurisdiction. The ruling could change the fate for thousands of people waiting to apply for asylum in Mexican border cities like Ciudad Juárez, Nuevo Laredo and Matamoros.

Immigration

State, ABQ suing federal government over changes on policy for asylum seekers

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The office of the governor announced Monday the state filed suit against the Trump administration over changes to the federal government’s “safe release” policy that provided aid for asylum seekers. The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico, says the federal government’s abandonment of the policy is unlawful and has “profoundly impacted” the state of New Mexico and the city of Albuquerque, which is also a plaintiff on the suit. The state wants the Trump administration to reverse its decision on the policy and to reimburse the costs associated with the change. “The Trump administration has consistently and flagrantly failed in its response to the ongoing humanitarian crisis at our southern border as well as in addressing legitimate border security concerns,” Lujan Grisham said in a statement. “The president has shown time and again he is interested only in demonizing the vulnerable people who arrive at our border, stoking unfounded fears about national security while taking no action to substantively and proactively protect immigrants and our southern border communities from human- and drug-trafficking.”

In October of last year, the Trump administration abruptly ended the Safe Release program, which had been in place for a decade.

News

The grassroots groups helping asylum-seekers on the border

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One morning this spring in the parking lot of a mall south of Tucson, Arizona, four people gathered around a gray minivan as the sun spilled into the still-cold desert air. Bags loaded with toys and stuffed animals filled the trunk of the van — donated by the Green Valley-Sahuarita Samaritans, one of dozens of humanitarian aid groups working to help migrants in the Arizona Borderlands. The donations were destined for an aid station for migrants in Nogales, a city that straddles the U.S.-Mexico border just 40 minutes south of here. This story originally appeared at High Country News and is reprinted with permission. Shura Wallin, a petite woman in her 70s with an animated face and boundless energy, has led weekly volunteer trips to the aid station, or comedor, for more than 20 years.

American Civil Liberties Union

Migrants get a second chance at asylum. But it’s still “an uphill battle.”

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Ruby Powers didn’t rush to celebrate when her client, a Honduran mother who has been separated from her 15-year-old son and detained for four months, passed her second “credible fear” interview to restart the asylum process. Although the president and the American Civil Liberties Union have come to an agreement giving migrant families separated at the border this summer a second chance to make their case for staying in the country, immigration lawyers say the Trump administration is still working overtime to upend the nation’s asylum process. And while a few hundred people may get a second chance at asylum, there are likely tens of thousands of asylum-seekers who will be subject to a tightened asylum process. “It’s infinitely harder on all levels,” Powers said. “With the chipping away of the asylum law, it’s an uphill battle to try to get an approval.”
The primary source of their unease?

Alejandro Macias

“A black hole of due process” in New Mexico

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In December 2016, a 24-year-old small business owner, who asked to be identified as “Boris,” joined a protest in his native Cameroon. The country’s English-speaking minority of nearly 5 million people had begun coalescing into a movement for equal rights, “to tell the government our griefs, to make them understand that we have pain in our hearts,” Boris, who was recently granted asylum after five months inside Cibola County’s immigrant detention center, tells New Mexico In Depth. Teachers and lawyers led the first wave of dissent that October. The educators fought for their students to learn in English. The attorneys argued their clients should stand before judges who spoke their own language.