Sunday Read: Gov't shutdown adds to the woes of asylum seekers and would-be immigrants

THREE WEEKS into the partial government shutdown, the battle over the $5 billion border wall is gumming up an already cumbersome immigration system.
Immigration courts are whittled to a skeleton staff, forcing court dates to be postponed and raising the ire of the judges already burdened by nearly 800,00 pending cases.
"You’re shutting down the immigration court over the issue of immigration," said Judge Ashley Tabaddor, president of the National Association of Immigration Judges, the judges union. 

"People who are in deportation proceedings but who are not in immigration detention are having their hearings cancelled and rescheduled," said Martha Ruch, Staff Attorney, Immigration Project at Asian Americans Advancing Justice - Los Angeles. "This is the status quo until the shutdown is lifted."

"However, people who are in ICE detention will still have their court hearings and the detained immigration courts are still operating."

"ICE enforcement and removal operations are also still moving forward," she said, "but for non-detained respondents their cases are being postponed and until they can get rulings in their cases, they will effectively not face deportation. As long as the non-detained hearings remain cancelled, those cases will not receive removal orders from an immigration judge."

For those who have strong asylum claims or green card applications and want to get their lives on solid footing in the United States, the delays can add to their frustration after waiting for years in some cases as they wait for a new court date to reunite with love ones.

However, those with the weaker asylum claims actually benefit from the delays, because they are able to remain in the U.S. in the meantime and hold out hope of qualifying for legal status by some other means down the road. 

In the 2017 fiscal year, immigration courts decided more than 52,000 asylum cases. About 1 in 5 were approved, according to statistics from the courts.

Before the shutdown, immigration courts were already overwhelmed. One asylum seeker, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of persecution in her home country, said the wait has been unbearable since her 2014 court date was twice delayed. It is now set for February.

The shutdown could delay cases months or years, say immigration experts. The courts already have more than 800,000 pending cases, according tot he Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University,

Los Angeles County only has 40 judges in immigration court, and immigration cases have been delayed by at least 50 percent at the local and national level in the last two years prior to the shutdown, according to Syracuse University.

"With the immigration courts, clients who have just arrived in the United States because of political asylum that have ankle monitors and are under supervision order will not be able to hear their cases soon in court," said Gustavo Mora, an immigration lawyer..

For the non-detained court in downtown Los Angeles, the court is closed and the front desk and filing window is closed also, People who need to file applications with the court can only do so by mail.

To check on the status of non-detained hearings, respondents should call the court where they have an immigration hearing and they will receive information about whether the court is still closed, advises Ruch.

“It is just dripping with irony,” said Sarah Pierce, policy analyst at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute. “This administration has put a lot of emphasis on speeding up court cases, and the shutdown obviously is just going to cause massive delay.” 

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Is the scapegoating of immigrants based on real fear or is it a deliberate strategy?

Asian Americans joined recent protests against Donald Trump's immigration policies.

ONCE AND FOR ALL, let's get this straight: undocumented immigrants do not raise the crime rate!

Despite the fear-mongering rhetoric and departmental decrees and executive orders coming from Donald Trump and his toadie Attorney General Jeff Sessions, numerous studies have shown that those cities that have establish good and trusting relationships with the immigrant communities, undocumented or not, crime statistics have been reduced.

In uncertain times spurred either by an unsteady economy or social unease, people look for a scapegoat. Hitler picked on the Jews, Pol Pot chose the educated elite, Shiite Muslims are blamed Sunni Muslims. From Day One of Donald Trump's presidential campaign, his bogeyman are immigrants. and the vast amount of crime they allegedly commit. More specifically, nonwhite immigrants. No one talks about the undocumented immigrants from Canada or Europe.

We Belong Together, an initiative of the National Domestic Workers Alliance and the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum, released a report on the impact of the president’s immigration executive orders on women and families. The report’s authors, Amanda Baran and Sameera Hafiz, write:

Prior to the election of Donald Trump, immigrant communities faced heightened levels of immigration enforcement and deportation, including the resurgence of home raids and the detention of mothers and children fleeing gender-based violence. In his first 100 days in office, Trump has dramatically shifted this baseline, criminalizing even the everyday actions of immigrant women and families.

An American Immigration Council study done in 2015 found that not only are immigrants less likely to commit serious crimes or be incarcerated than native-born residents, but high rates of immigration correlate with even lower rates of violent and property crimes.

"For more than a century, innumerable studies have confirmed two simple yet powerful truths about the relationship between immigration and crime: immigrants are less likely to commit serious crimes or be behind bars than the native-born, and high rates of immigration are associated with lower rates of violent crime and property crime," said the AIC study. 

"This holds true for both legal immigrants and the unauthorized, regardless of their country of origin or level of education. In other words, the overwhelming majority of immigrants are not 'criminals' by any commonly accepted definition of the term. For this reason, harsh immigration policies are not effective in fighting crime."

The Trump administration's threat to withhold funds from so-called "sanctuary cities," has thus far, been tempered by the courts that have issued stay orders based on the apparent unconstitutionality of the federal decrees and policies. Sessions has vowed to appeal the judicial decision made in San Francisco.

Sessions threat came via sent a letter to 16 sanctuary jurisdictions including the state of California. A press release accompanying the letters falsely claims that “many of these jurisdictions are also crumbling under the weight of illegal immigration and violent crime.”

Crime stats, however, show that immigrants are less likely to be criminals than native-born citizens. In fact, numerous studies conclude that cities that protect immigrants tend to have even less rates of crime when compared to others.

Using the language of fear, Texas' Senate Bill 4 is a legislative attempt to withhold monies from cities who do not cooperate with federal immigration enforcement officials and to allow local police to ask the status of anyone who looks suspiciously like an undocumented immigrant will also likely find itself in the courts when Gov. Abbott signs the bill, which he is very likely to do.

RELATED: Asian/American legislator makes emotional appeal vs. SB4

The police chiefs of eight major cities in Texas opposed SB4 and published a joint letter in the Dallas Morning News.

"Immigration enforcement is a federal obligation," says the letter. "While the federal government has not been able or willing to address this issue, any effort by the state of Texas to address immigration reform will be ineffective."

The letter from police chiefs said that "SB 4 is not the answer to immigration reform; rather it is political pandering that will make our communities more dangerous."

According tot he AIC study, as the immigrant population has increased over the years, rates of violent crime have decreased. Between 1990 and 2013, the number of undocumented immigrants went from 3.5 million to 11.2 million.

“During the same period, FBI data indicate that the violent crime rate declined 48 percent — which included falling rates of aggravated assault, robbery, rape, and murder,” the study states. “Likewise, the property crime rate fell 41 percent.”

"Policymakers who look at the entire foreign-born population of the United States through a law-enforcement lens are seeing things that aren’t really there," said the AIC report. "As renowned psychologist Abraham H. Maslow wrote many years ago, 'it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.'

"The blunt weapon that is the U.S. immigration-enforcement apparatus is being wielded against a widening swath of the immigrant community, regardless of their ties to this country, regardless of whether or not they are actually criminals. It is long past time for U.S. immigration policies to accurately reflect the diversity and complexity of immigration to this country, based not on a reflexive politics of fear and myth, but on sound analysis and empirical evidence," the AIC concludes. 

But Trump and the power brokers he represents have shown a resistance to facts, preferring to use lies and half-truths in order to stoke the racial animus and fears of an uninformed populace so that they can stay on top of the social pecking  order, keep their own position of power. And if they can fatten their wallets along the way, so much the better.

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Trump's scary, scary speech on immigration

Donald Trump gave a fiery speech on immigration in Arizona Wednesday.

SO MUCH for all that talk about Donald Trump softening his stance on immigration and reaching out to minority voters.

GOP Presidential candidate Trump gave a frightening nativist tirade in Arizona that should put away any doubt that he has any empathy towards immigrants, whether they are here legally or undocumented.

Down in the polls against Sec. Hillary Clinton, Trump must think he has nothing to lose so instead of trying to reach out to Latinos and other immigrant communities as he tried in recent days, he instead, doubled down on the hate-filled rhetoric in one of the most vicious, ugly speeches by a presidential candidate that I can recall. 

KKK leader David Duke voiced his opinion of the speech via Twitter. No comment needed.

For immigrants from Asia, now the largest source of immigrants to the U.S., it was disappointing to hear that he would do away with DACA, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, and DAPA, Deferred Action for Parents of Americans, which would affect thousands of undocumented Asian immigrants. "Everybody must go," said Trump.

RELATED: Trump says he would limit immigration from the Philippines

What was perhaps most startling was Trump's call to return immigration to its "historical norms," which could mean abolishing the 1965 immigration reforms that did away with the preferences giving  European immigrants an edge over the rest of the world.

Trump belied another pillar of his candidacy, which calls for a reduction of government, when he said he would add 5,000 Border Patrol agents, triple the number of agents for ICE, create a deportation task force and reiterated his call for building that damn wall on our southern border.

UPDATE (Sept. 1, 2016): Several of Trump's Latino supporters withdraw their endorsements

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#IAmNotAnAnimal: Filipino/American anger mounts at Trump's ban on Filipino immigrants

Donald Trump's Maine rally was interrupted by anti-hate demonstrators.

I THINK Donald Trump just lost the key swing state of Nevada when he proposed to expand his ban on immigrants to include the Philippines.

At a Trump rally in Portland, Maine, last week, the GOP candidate for President of the U.S. expanded his initial proposal to ban all Muslim immigration when he said he would stop immigration from countries where terrorists are active, including the Philippines.

Granted: Abu Sayyef with ties to al Queda is active in the Philippines, but a ban on Filipino immigration -- which already has a 23-year wait list and where 90 percent of its population is Christian -- would be akin to banning Oregonians from traveling beyond the state's own borders because it is a haven for armed anti-government white supremacist terrorists.

“An illegal permanent resident from the Philippines were convicted for plotting to join Al Qaeda and the Taliban in order to kill as many Americans as possible,” Trump said.

He is most likely referring to the case of Ralph Kenneth DeLeon, who was found guilty in early 2015 by a US district judge from California of two counts of conspiring to provide material support to terrorists and one count of conspiring to kill American troops and conspiring to receive military training from al-Qaida. He is now serving 25 years imprisonment.

“We’re dealing with animals," Trump declared.

“We must immediately suspend immigration from any nation that has been compromised by terrorism until such time as proven vetting mechanisms have been put in place,” Trump said. “We don’t want them in our country.”

On Meet the Press over the weekend, host Chuck Todd asked Trump if his proposed immigraiton ban would include countries like France and Belgium which have suffered terrorist attacks in recent years, Trump declined to answer.

RELATED: Trump would limit immigration from the Philippines

Why did I mention Nevada? Filipinos make up more than half of the Asian/American population, or 120,000. Although many aren’t registered voters, an aggressive voter registration drive is underway in the AAPI communities that would increase the number of voters substantially.

"We are the biggest Asian community population here in Nevada," said Cynthia Diriquito, Executive Director of The National Federation of Filipino-American Associations-Nevada.

"We are trying to mobilize the force of the Filipinos here in the United States to become registered voters, and for our voices to be heard," Diriquito said.

In a swing state like Nevada, every vote counts and the Filipino vote - spurred by anti-Filipino, anti-immigrant rhetoric - could tilt the election towards the Democrats.

Meanwhile, as word of Trump's proposal spreads, anger mounts in the Filipino/American community. 

Jason Tengco

"Donald Trump's latest proposal to renew his call to ban Muslims from entering the U.S., as well as ban immigration from countries like the Philippines, shows once again that he is temperamentally unfit and unqualified to be president," said Jason Tengco, Hillary for America's National Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Outreach Director.

"As a proud Filipino/American, I am deeply concerned that families like mine who immigrated from the Philippines would have been the target of Trump's reckless and baseless policy proposals. They, and many other immigrants, have made valuable contributions to society, and make our nation stronger."

"As the son of Filipino immigrants, and on behalf of my elders, my manongs and manangs, I am appalled by the outrageous comments of this racist bully," said Rolando Lavarro, president of the Jersey City Council of New Jersey in PolitikerNJ.

"He disregards the countless contributions that Filipino Americans have made to the United States of America, particularly Filipino World War II veterans who fought and died bravely to preserve our freedom and American way of life. He ignores the families and loved ones of those veterans who are applying for citizenship via the current parole program. Once again, Trump puts an exclamation point on his ignorance as he disregards over a century of relations between the U.S. and the Philippines, a country that has been and continues to be one of our nation’s closest allies in that region," said the community leader.

"These latest comments are an insult to the nearly 18,000 Filipino Americans residing in Jersey City, 127,000 in New Jersey and over 3.4 million across the country."

Sen. Nerissa Underwood

On the other side of the world, a Guam legislator asked the island's GOP to unendorsed Trump. 

“Donald Trump's latest disturbing statement and rant suggests that as president he would ban immigration from countries like the Philippines,” Guam Sen. Nerissa Underwood said in a press release Friday. “This is reckless and does not embody our values as a country or island. The Philippines helps America fight terrorism and Filipinos contribute to our island's growth and success.”

“I call on Guam's Republican delegates and Gov. Calvo to repudiate Mr. Trump’s divisive and disrespectful rhetoric and un-endorse his candidacy for president,” she added.

Reginald Parulan expressed his dismay  by putting up a video on Youtube for Filipinos to share with their friends and family. Here are some screenshots from his video:

The message is clear ... ya'think?

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Trump says he would limit immigration from the Philippines

Thousands of Filipino/Americans celebrate Philippine Independence Day in San Francisco.

UNBELIEVABLE! Donald Trump said he would limit immigration from the Philippines.

The Philippines - a former U.S. colony, the U.S.-created "model of democracy" in Asia, whose people fought alongside Americans in WWII, one of the U.S.'s most loyal allies, the Philippines where the lure to America is so great that would-be immigrants have to wait more than 23 years before they can move to this country.

Yes, he did.

At a rally in Portland, Maine last Thursday (Aug. 4) said the United States should be wary of immigrants from a whole host of countries -- including the Philippines -- even if they come into this country legally. 

"We're letting people come in from terrorist nations that shouldn't be allowed because you can't vet them," Trump said. "There's no way of vetting them. You have no idea who they are. This could be the great Trojan horse of all time."

RELATED: #IAmNotAnAnimal takes hold of Filipino/American community

As an example, Trump cited, “An immigrant from Afghanistan who later applied for and received US citizenship (and) an illegal permanent resident from the Philippines were convicted for plotting to join Al-Quaida and the Taliban in order to kill as many Americans as possible.”

It was one of several examples he gave of immigrants coming into the country, border problems and extremists entering the US as refugees.

"We're dealing with animals," he seethed.

Without mentioning the word “Muslim,” Trump said: “We must immediately suspend immigration from any nation that has been compromised by terrorism until such time as proven vetting mechanisms have been put in place,” Trump said. “We don’t want them in our country.”

“Donald Trump’s latest rant suggesting we ban immigration from countries like the Philippines that are helping us fight terrorism is another example of his reckless rhetoric that’s based on fear and division and further proves he is unfit to lead our country,” said Hawaii's U.S. Senator Brian Schatz.

“For generations, Filipinos have made the United States their home,” Schatz said. “It is their vibrant culture, hard work, and strong values that have enriched our communities and made this country great, not the ignorant, racist bigotry of Donald Trump.”

“Filipinos on our island and across the country serve in uniform, in our hospitals, in our schools and across every private and public sector," said Sen. Nerissa Underwood of Guam. "Filipinos are also beloved members of our families and communities.

"As a proud daughter from Iloilo in the Philippines, I am a grateful adopted daughter of Guam and horrified by Mr. Trump’s statement and the leaders who have chosen to support him. I have worked my entire life to give back to our island that we all call home. Hate, fear and division are not qualities we need in the U.S. President and should give Americans across the country concern on whether a Trump administration is fit to lead our country.”

If Trump is elected President and his immigration policy was implemented, those Filipinos  at the back of the line waiting to immigrate to the U.S. might as well forget it.

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Anti-immigrant rhetoric may motivate Asian/Americans to cast ballots

Reprinted from AsAm News

REPUBLICAN DELEGATES chanted "Build That Wall" whenever the topic of immigration came up at the Republican National Convention last week. Little did they realize that
Asian/Americans are the fastest growing racial group in the United States, primarily because of immigration and "The Wall" Donald Trump is trumpeting to be built along the U.S.-Mexican border, will do very little to stem the immigration from Asia.  

To date, neither political party has successfully won over the Asian American voting bloc. Known as the “sleeping giants” in this year’s presidential election, Asian Americans may just have the potential to turn several states from red to blue, including Virginia, Florida, Nevada, Ohio, and Georgia, areas where the educated workforce and immigrant populations are growing.

A coalition of Asian American / Pacific Islander organizations, including Asian Americans Advancing Justice (AAAJ), is cultivating civic engagement and facilitating voter outreach in target areas in 25 states, reports the Washington Post. Volunteers of these nonpartisan organizations aim to increase the number of registered Asian American voters.

While many of the coalition’s volunteers have a history of political engagement, Donald Trump has provided an additional incentive for these volunteers to get out the Asian American vote. Known for his anti-immigration sentiments, Trump has struck a nerve with the Asian American community.

John Choi, a 28-year old Korean/American who grew up in Gwinnett County, Georgia, feels that he has a personal stake in this election. “I come from a family of immigrants…When I hear language and speeches and talks about policies that are anti-immigrant, it really does make me want to vote more…it makes me want to tell all my friends and family to also vote, to counter all the anti-immigration rhetoric.”

Encouraging Asian/American political participation comes with unique challenges. Christine Chen, the executive director of APIAVote explains, “Culturally, they’re coming from countries where politics are crooked, or you just don’t want to have an opinion…We’re making inroads, but there’s still a lot more work to be done … We want to shift the culture, so that way it’s normal and it’s expected you participate.”

Volunteers who can speak the native languages of these voters are uniquely able to meaningfully lower the barriers to political participation, elucidating important details like registration deadlines and articulating the importance of the vote on issues like healthcare, education, and immigration.

Sometimes, it’s as simple as making the ask. Thanh Ngo, a middle-aged Vietnamese man who had been living in the states for the past 20 years, was asked to register to vote for the very first time – and successfully persuaded – by Vietnamese American volunteer Minh Gia Nguyen.

“It’s your benefit as a citizen,” she explains. “Do it for your family, for your children’s future.”

(Views From the Edge contributed to this article.)

Asians are still the fastest growing group in the U.S.

PEW graphic

THE GROUP 18 Million Rising , a group of activists trying to increase the influence and presence of Asian/Americans, might have to change its name. There are now 20.3 million Asians living in the United States, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's 2014 data that was released last week. 18 Million Rising was formed in 2012 and the data of that year reflected the 2010 Census results.

Additionally, Asians remain the fastest-growing racial group in the United States, according to latest information from the Census Bureau.

“The next half century marks key points in continuing trends — the U.S. will become a plurality nation, where the non-Hispanic white population remains the largest single group, but no group is in the majority,” said Acting Director Thomas L. Mesenbourg.

RELATED: AAPI community no longer "statistically insignificant."

Furthermore, the population is projected to grow much more slowly over the next several decades, compared with the last set of projections released in 2008 and 2009. That is because the projected levels of births and net international migration are lower in the projections released last week, reflecting more recent trends in fertility and international migration, especially immigration from Asia.

Sam Garrow, a Census Department demographer, said Asians have been the fastest-growing race group since about 2000, and the main driving force is international migration. In 2013, China replaced Mexico as the top sending country for immigrants to the U.S., officials said.

RELATED: Impact and influence of AAPIs is growing

The nation's Asian population grew at 3.4 percent between July 2014 and 2015, with migration responsible for the majority of the growth, government officials said Thursday. There are now 21 million Asians in the United States. California has the largest population of Asian Americans at 6.3 million, a bit over 15 percent of the state's population. 

Hawaii, where the population is 56 percent Asian, is the nation's only majority Asian state.

The term “Asian American” is too general to describe ethnicity in Hawaii, said Jonathan Okamura, an ethnic studies professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

“Diversity is recognized,” he said. “We tend to use categories like Filipino, Japanese and Chinese to describe people who immigrated from Asia,

“Talking about Asians as the fastest-growing group is meaningless,” he said.

Instead, people should take specific looks at the Filipino or Japanese population on Hawaii to get a feel for the Asian American population in the state, Okamura said.

Since 2010, Filipinos are the second-largest ethnic group in Hawaii, he said. In 2010, people who identified as Filipino increased 24 percent from the 2000 census. The ranking knocked the Japanese population down to the third-largest ethnic group in Hawaii.

California has the largest number of most racial and ethnic groups, with more Hispanics, whites, Asians and American Indians than any other state. New York state has more blacks than any other state, and Hawaii has the largest numeric population of Native Hawaiians than any other state. 

RELATED: America's problem, learning to live with itself

The second fastest-growing racial group was those who claim two or more races, government officials said. The number of people who claimed two or more races grew 3.1 percent to 6.6 million. This group was also the youngest group of all racial or ethnic groups with a median age of 20 years old.

RELATED: Multi-racial people becoming the new normal

The fast Asian growth rate appears to be occurring beyond the traditional destination states such as Hawaii, California, Illinois and New York. Asians are dispersing themselves in throughout the country including states as disparate as Wisconsin and South Carolina.

TGIF FEATURE: A Good Friday message

LAST PALM SUNDAY, I took this picture at St. Mary's Cathedral in San Francisco. It's a good message to ponder today, Good Friday. I thought it was relevant to the issue about immigration and refugees that is part of the heated rhetoric coming from the presidential candidates and their supporters. 

Perhaps the people who call themselves Christians who are in favor of closing our borders, deporting millions of undocumented immigrants, rejecting Syrian refugees, and returning the Central American children fleeing the violence in their home countries can understand this message. 

This plaque is on the right wall (as you enter the main entrance) next to the sculpture of the Holy Family fleeing to Egypt.