US President Donald Trump has failed to add another inch to the nation’s border wall with Mexico, but his administration this year has quietly erected a steep, invisible wall that limits migration to the US, lawyers and refugee groups say.
Some of these roadblocks received much attention, like the three versions of a travel ban on people from Muslim-majority nations and the cancelation of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals — a program started by the administration of former US president Barack Obama that protected undocumented young people raised in the US.
However, the Trump administration also appears to have orchestrated a more subtle attack on immigration that touches the most vulnerable populations, like refugees, as well as powerful business people who work in the US.
Illustration: Mountain People
“I think that they’re basically hoping that five years from now we see a significant decrease in the number of people who even want to come,” immigration lawyer Sandra Feist said. “I think if we keep this up, that’s what we’ll see.”
Feist, who has worked in immigration law for 16 years and is a part of the American Immigration Lawyers Association media and advocacy committee, said a slew of small administrative changes have drastically slowed the visa process.
This includes things such as increased scrutiny of the H-1B visa for people in specialty occupations and a new requirement that people seeking employer-sponsored green cards be interviewed.
For all visas, immigration lawyers have also seen an increase in challenges, or requests for evidence, from US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), which oversees immigration.
When Trump was elected, Feist anticipated that Congress would move to change immigration law, but she said she did not expect interference with the administrative process.
“I don’t think I expected them to attack my high-skilled immigration process so aggressively,” Feist said. “I also was not prepared for the ways in which they used the administrative processes so skillfully to create very real hurdles and barriers in ways that didn’t require any changes in the law.”
A concern for immigration lawyers is the direction of the USCIS under its new ombudsman, Julie Kirchner, who for 10 years was director of Federation for American Immigration Reform, a group that has advocated extreme restrictions on immigration.
The Congressional Hispanic Caucus in May called for her removal.
“We do not believe that a person who has spent over a decade attacking immigrant communities will now work effectively and thoughtfully to advance the rights of immigrants and fulfill the important duties that are required of this role,” the caucus said.
The US Department of Homeland Security, which oversees USCIS, said it does not comment on congressional correspondence to secretaries.
The changes at USCIS have hit the key pillars of immigration in the US: employer and family-based, where citizens or a green card holder sponsor a family member’s green card application.
Trump has said he wants to replace family-based immigration, which he calls chain migration, with a merit-based system. He has also called for Congress to terminate the diversity lottery program, which awards 50,000 visas to people vetted by the same process as other visas.
“The lottery system and chain migration — we are going to end them fast. Congress must get involved immediately, and they are involved immediately, and I can tell you we have tremendous support, they will be ended,” Trump said two weeks ago.
In the meantime, programs to help people fleeing natural disasters, violence and persecution have either been canceled or slowed by bureaucratic hurdles under Trump.
In July, advocates filed a lawsuit that accused the department and Customs and Border Protection of putting asylum seekers at the US-Mexico border in grave danger by threatening, misleading or rejecting them. The agencies do not comment publicly on litigation.
Trump appointees have also dramatically shifted how the federal government speaks about asylum, going as far as to suggest in public communications the unproven claim that asylum is a routinely abused legal loophole.
“We also have dirty immigration lawyers who are encouraging their otherwise unlawfully present clients to make false claims of asylum providing them with the magic words needed to trigger the credible fear process,” US Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in October.
USCIS said it does not have data that shows widespread abuse of the asylum system.
The US Department of Justice, which Session heads, directed the Guardian to five news releases and one news story about immigration fraud. None of these cases demonstrated abuse of the asylum system, although a Bosnian was found to have lied about his involvement in the nation’s civil war to obtain refugee status.
Three of the fraud schemes were orchestrated fully, or in part, by Americans.
This year, the administration has also gone after a program that grants temporary status to people affected by events like natural disasters or conflict: temporary protected status (TPS).
TPS was last month terminated for more than 50,000 Haitians and 5,300 Nicaraguans who must leave by 2019 or face deportation. The largest group of TPS recipients, Salvadorans who fled their home nation after it was struck by earthquakes in 2001, are waiting to hear whether their protection will be extended before it expires next month.
The White House made refugees one if its primary targets a week after Trump took office, when he issued an executive order blocking refugees from entry in the first travel ban. In September, the White House restricted refugee admissions next year to 45,000 people — the lowest ceiling since the president began capping refugee admissions in 1980.
Unlike the smaller administrative changes to immigration processing being made in federal agencies, the travel ban was easily challenged in courts and deemed unconstitutional.
However, the Supreme Court allowed the third version of the travel ban to be enforced this month, while it faces multiple legal challenges. This version does not block refugees, but does bar most citizens of Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Chad, Venezuela and North Korea from entering the US.
International Rescue Committee (IRC) vice president of US programs Hans van de Weerd said US efforts to restrict refugee admissions signals to other nations that it is alright to kick out refugees.
“It makes the global challenge of offering protection to refugees so much bigger,” Van de Weerd said.
The Trump administration has also suspended refugee programs, such as the Central American Minors program, which allowed parents lawfully in the US to bring their minor children to the country — the IRC estimated that the program protected nearly 2,700 people last year.
Administrative hurdles like expanded security checks and paperwork requirements have put a further burden on an already slow system in which cases can take up to 200 days to clear.
“The country’s reputation as a beacon of safety and the values of this nation are really about offering protection to those who are in danger,” Van de Weerd said. “The US is losing that reputation.”
Despite the piling of bricks in the virtual wall, Van de Weerd said the IRC remained hopeful, because the administration’s efforts have inspired support for groups that help immigrants and refugees.
“We’ve seen a massive interest from the private sector in resettlement and an increase in private donors,” Van der Weerd said. “We see businesses standing up and saying we want to employ people. We’ve had a hard time managing the huge inflows of volunteers.”
He was not sure if the energy would turn the tide, but it gave him hope as the IRC prepares to push for more resettlements and improve the attitude toward refugees next year.
“This whole situation has forced people to make clear where they stand,” he said.
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