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2031. Structural Violence and Migrant Deaths in Southern Arizona: Data from the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner, 1990-2013

Author:
Daniel E. Martínez, Robin C. Reineke, Raquel Rubio-Goldsmith, and Bruce O. Parks
Publication Date:
03-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal on Migration and Human Security
Institution:
Center for Migration Studies of New York
Abstract:
This article analyzes numeric trends and demographic characteristics of undocumented border crossers (UBCs) who have perished in southern Arizona between 1990 and 2013 in the area covered by the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner (PCOME) in Tucson, Arizona. Of 2,413 UBC decedents investigated during this period, 95 percent died after 1999 and 65 percent after 2005. The rate of UBC deaths in the Tucson Border Patrol Sector has been consistently high, with an average of nearly 163 deaths investigated per year between 1999 and 2013. The increase in border enforcement during the mid-to-late 1990s, which led to a shifting of unauthorized migration flows into more desolate areas, coincided with an increase in migrant remains investigated by the PCOME. Despite a decrease in the number of unauthorized crossers traversing the area as measured by the number of Border Patrol apprehensions in the Tucson Sector, the number of remains examined for every 100,000 apprehensions nearly doubled between 2009 and 2011. These findings suggest that migrants are being forced to travel for longer periods of time through remote areas in an attempt to avoid detection by US authorities, thus increasing the probability of death. The typical UBC decedent can be described as a male near the age of 30 from central or southern Mexico who perished in a remote area of southern Arizona after attempting to cross into the United States. Nevertheless, the share of non-Mexican UBCs in the region has increased notably over time. The findings show other important differences in UBC decedent characteristics across time periods, which speak to the dynamic nature of unauthorized migration as a social process. The authors contend that these deaths and demographic changes are the result of structural and political transformations over the past two decades. They argue that the tragic, yet mostly preventable, migrant deaths in southern Arizona constitute a form of structural violence.
Topic:
Migration
Political Geography:
Arizona

2032. Paths to Lawful Immigration Status: Results and Implications from the PERSON Survey

Author:
Donald Kerwin, Tom K. Wong, Jeanne M. Atkinson, and Mary Meg McCarthy
Publication Date:
03-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal on Migration and Human Security
Institution:
Center for Migration Studies of New York
Abstract:
Anecdotal evidence suggests that a significant percentage of unauthorized immigrants are potentially eligible for some sort of immigration relief, but they either do not know it or are not able to pursue lawful immigration status for other reasons. However, no published study that we are aware of has systematically analyzed this question. The purpose of this study is thus to evaluate and quantify the number of unauthorized immigrants who, during the course of seeking out legal services, have been determined to be potentially eligible for some sort of immigration benefit or relief that provides lawful immigration status. Using the recent implementation of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program as a laboratory for this work, this study attempts to answer the question of the number of unauthorized immigrants who, without knowing it, may already be potentially eligible for lawful immigration status. In surveying 67 immigrant-serving organizations that provide legal services, we find that 14.3 percent of those found to be eligible for DACA were also found to be eligible for some other form of immigration relief—put otherwise, 14.3 percent of individuals that were found to be eligible for DACA, which provides temporary relief from deportation, may now be on a path towards lawful permanent residency. We find that the most common legal remedies available to these individuals are family-based petitions (25.5 percent), U-Visas (23.9 percent), and Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (12.6 percent). These findings make clear that—with comprehensive immigration reform legislation or eligibility for administrative relief — legal screening can have significant and long-lasting implications on the lives of unauthorized immigrants and their families.
Topic:
Immigration

2033. Democratizing Data about Unauthorized Residents in the United States: Estimates and Public-Use Data, 2010 to 2013

Author:
Robert Warren
Publication Date:
03-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal on Migration and Human Security
Institution:
Center for Migration Studies of New York
Abstract:
Information about the unauthorized resident population is needed to develop and evaluate US immigration policy, determine the social and economic effects of unauthorized immigration, and assist public and private service providers in carrying out their missions. Until recently, estimates have been available only for selected data points at the national and sometimes the state level. The Center for Migration Studies (CMS) convened a meeting in September 2013 to assess the need for information about the unauthorized resident population. The meeting included leading academics, researchers, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that serve immigrants, and local, state, and federal government representatives. Based on the recommendations from that meeting, CMS initiated a project to derive estimates of the size and characteristics of the unauthorized population at the national, state, and sub-state levels, and to make the information readily available to a wide cross-section of users. A series of statistical procedures were developed to derive estimates based on microdata collected by the US Census Bureau in the 2010 American Community Survey (ACS). The estimates provide detailed demographic information for unauthorized residents in population units as small as 100,000 persons. Overall, the estimates are consistent with the limited information produced by residual estimation techniques. A primary consideration in constructing the estimates was to protect the privacy of ACS respondents.
Topic:
Immigration
Political Geography:
United States

2034. Reconfiguring the Law of Non-Refoulement: Procedural and Substantive Barriers for Those Seeking to Access Surrogate International Human Rights Protection

Author:
Mark R. von Sternberg
Publication Date:
03-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal on Migration and Human Security
Institution:
Center for Migration Studies of New York
Abstract:
Both geographic and normative constraints restrict access to surrogate international human rights protection for those seeking a haven from serious human rights abuses. Primary among territorial restrictions has been the fall-out from the US Supreme Court's decision in Sale v. Haitian Council Centers in which the court explicitly ruled that nothing in US statutory law, or in the 1951 Convention on Refugees or its 1967 Protocol, precluded the interdiction of Haitian refugees in international waters and their return to the country of origin without an effective interview on their protection clams. This ruling is in transparent contradiction to the general international law norm of non-refoulement according to modern scholarship and emerging case law. This paper concludes that Sale should be overturned by statute as should related pre-screening practices. A new standard of “jurisdiction” should be adopted which does not depend on territorial access to a signatory state but on whether the state is exercising power in fact. Similar concerns exist with respect to safe third country agreements which often offend the international customary right of the asylum seeker to choose where his or her claim will be filed. This paper argues that the right of choice should be recognized and onward travel and admission to the country of destination allowed. This result is especially called for where return of the alien by the country of first contact raises serious concerns under the law of non-refoulement. Imbalances noted in this paper include those generated by the new terrorism related grounds of inadmissibility in the United States and the summary denial of children's asylum claims flowing from gang violence. Other questions are raised in this paper concerning work authorization and detention of asylum seekers. Access to an employment authorization Journal on Migration and Human Security document for those filing colorable claims should be recognized by statute to render US practice consistent with that of most other states. Release from detention, on the other hand, for asylum seekers has now been broadly recognized by the US Department of Homeland Security where the asylum seeker's identity can be ascertained and the claim is non-frivolous in nature. This approach is largely consistent with international law, although there have been unnecessary delays in implementing it. On the substantive law, the international customary norm of non-refoulment has been expanded considerably through the development of opinio juris by scholars and the practice of states. This paper traces efforts in Europe to develop a law of temporary refuge for those fleeing civil war situations characterized by humanitarian law violations. Similarly, case law under the European Convention of Human Rights has now come to focus on the harm the claimant would suffer as the result of conditions in the country of origin without identifying an explicit agent of serious harm. Related to these developments has been the notion of complementary protection under which relief can be conferred where the alien would suffer serious harm upon return to the home state but not for a Convention reason. These approaches have now received approval in the European Union Asylum Qualification Directive so that international protection may now be conferred either because the alien would suffer serious harm on account of the intensity of human rights violations taking place in the country of origin, or those conditions, taken in conjunction with the claimant's personal situation, support a finding that the claimant would be impacted. This paper argues that this latter standard has now been made a part of the customary norm of non-refoulement and that it should be recognized by statute as a basis for non-return and coupled with status where the new standard can be met. Such a measure would help restore the nation's commitment to human rights and humanitarian concerns.
Topic:
Human Rights, Humanitarian Aid, and Terrorism
Political Geography:
United States

2035. Problems Faced by Mexican Asylum Seekers in the United States

Author:
J.Anna Cabot
Publication Date:
03-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal on Migration and Human Security
Institution:
Center for Migration Studies of New York
Abstract:
Violence in Mexico rose sharply in response to President Felipe Calderón's military campaign against drug cartels which began in late 2006. As a consequence, the number of Mexicans who have sought asylum in the United States has grown significantly. In 2013, Mexicans made up the second largest group of defensive asylum seekers (those in removal proceedings) in the United States, behind only China (EOIR 2014b). Yet between 2008 and 2013, the grant rate for Mexican asylum seekers in immigration court fell from 23 percent to nine percent (EOIR 2013, 2014b). This paper examines—from the perspective of an attorney who represented Mexican asylum seekers on the US-Mexico border in El Paso, Texas—the reasons for low asylum approval rates for Mexicans despite high levels of violence in and flight from Mexico from 2008 to 2013. It details the obstacles faced by Mexican asylum seekers along the US-Mexico border, including placement in removal proceedings, detention, evidentiary issues, narrow legal standards, and (effectively) judicial notice of country conditions in Mexico. The paper recommends that asylum seekers at the border be placed in affirmative proceedings (before immigration officials), making them eligible for bond. It also proposes increased oversight of immigration judges.
Topic:
Immigration
Political Geography:
United States, China, and Mexico

2036. The Intersection of Statelessness and Refugee Protection in US Asylum Policy

Author:
Maryellen Fullerton
Publication Date:
02-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal on Migration and Human Security
Institution:
Center for Migration Studies of New York
Abstract:
More than ten million people are stateless today. In a world of nation states, they live on the margins without membership in any state, and, as a consequence, have few enforceable legal rights. Stateless individuals face gaps in protection and in many cases experience persecution that falls within the refugee paradigm. However, US asylum policy does not adequately address the myriad legal problems that confront the stateless, who have been largely invisible in the jurisprudence and academic literature. Two federal appellate court opinions shed new light on the intersection of statelessness and refugee law in the United States. In 2010, Haile v. Holder examined the asylum claim of a young man rendered stateless when the Ethiopian government issued a decree denationalizing ethnic Eritreans. In a 2011 case, Stserba v. Holder, the court reviewed an asylum claim by a woman who became stateless when the Soviet Union collapsed, and the successor state of Estonia enacted citizenship legislation that included a language requirement. This article analyzes the opinions which suggest that state action depriving residents of citizenship on ethnic and other protected grounds warrants a presumption of persecution. This article also identifies additional circumstances in which stateless individuals may have a well-founded fear of persecution that qualifies them for asylum in the United States. In addition, this article notes that although far too many stateless individuals face persecution, not all of them do. Stateless persons who do not fear persecution, however, are also vulnerable. The absence of state protection condemns them to a precarious existence and their inability to obtain passports or other travel documents often prevents their return to states where they formerly resided. The refusal of most states to admit non-citizens frequently keeps stateless persons in limbo. Stateless individuals stranded in the United States live under a supervisory patchwork that serves neither their interests nor those of the United States. Rather than relying on incremental case law developments and inapposite regulatory schemes, the US State Department and the Department of Homeland Security should convene a task force to report on the size and composition of the stateless population in the United States and the need to develop legislative, regulatory, and other policy guidance concerning statelessness claims.
Topic:
Law
Political Geography:
United States

2037. There and Back Again: On the Diffusion of Immigration Detention

Author:
Michael T. Flynn
Publication Date:
02-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal on Migration and Human Security
Institution:
Center for Migration Studies of New York
Abstract:
From Mexico to the Bahamas, Mauritania to Lebanon, Turkey to Saudi Arabia, South Africa to Indonesia, Malaysia to Thailand, immigration-related detention has become an established policy apparatus that counts on dedicated facilities and burgeoning institutional bureaucracies. Until relatively recently, however, detention appears to have been largely an ad hoc tool, employed mainly by wealthy states in exigent circumstances. This paper uses concepts from diffusion theory to detail the history of key policy events in several important immigration destination countries that led to the spreading of detention practices during the last 30 years and assesses some of the motives that appear to have encouraged this phenomenon. The paper also endeavors to place the United States at the center of this story because its policy decisions appear to have played an important role in encouraging the process of policy innovation, imitation, and imposition that has helped give rise to today's global immigration detention phenomenon. Nevertheless, many US offshore practices have not received nearly the same attention as those of other important destination countries. More broadly, in telling this story, this paper seeks to flesh out some of the larger policy implications of the externalization of immigration control regimes. Just as offshore interdiction and detention schemes raise important questions about custody, accountability, and sovereignty, they should also spur questions over where responsibility for the wellbeing of migrants begins and ends.
Topic:
Sovereignty
Political Geography:
United States, Indonesia, Turkey, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Mexico, and Mauritania

2038. "Enemy Territory": Immigration Enforcement in the US-Mexico Borderlands

Author:
Walter A. Ewing
Publication Date:
02-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal on Migration and Human Security
Institution:
Center for Migration Studies of New York
Abstract:
For the last two decades, the guiding strategy of immigration enforcement along the US-Mexico border has been “prevention through deterrence,” or stopping unauthorized immigrants from entering the country rather than apprehending those who have already crossed the border. “Prevention through deterrence” has entailed a massive concentration of enforcement personnel and resources along the border and at ports of entry. It has also led to the detention and removal of increasing numbers of unauthorized immigrants and far greater use of “expedited removal.” As gauged by the doubling in size of the unauthorized immigrant population over the same period, “prevention through deterrence” has not been a successful enforcement strategy. Moreover, it has funneled more migrants to their death in the deserts and mountains of the southwest as they (and smugglers) resort to increasingly dangerous routes to evade border enforcement. In addition, there has been public concern over ethnic profiling and the use of extraordinary authority by Border Patrol agents to conduct arbitrary searches within 100 miles of the border. Despite these problems, the federal government continues to spend billions of dollars each year on the “prevention through deterrence” strategy. A first step in overcoming the deficiencies of this border enforcement strategy is to strengthen accountability within the Border Patrol, so that allegations of excessive force and abuse are investigated and adjudicated promptly and appropriately. The culture of the Border Patrol must be transformed to foster respect for rights. More broadly, the mission of the Border Patrol should be to capture dangerous individuals and to disrupt the operations of the transnational criminal organizations that traffic people, drugs, guns, and money. In addition, providing more pathways to legal entry through immigration reform would enhance border security by attenuating the flow of unauthorized immigrants within which dangerous criminals or terrorists can hide. Finally, the US government should pursue economic policies to promote development in Mexico and Central American countries in order to address the underlying causes of migration.
Topic:
Immigration
Political Geography:
United States and Mexico

2039. Reconceiving Citizenship: Noncitizen Voting in New York City Municipal Elections as a Case Study in Immigrant Integration and Local Governance

Author:
Lauren Gilbert
Publication Date:
02-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal on Migration and Human Security
Institution:
Center for Migration Studies of New York
Abstract:
This paper uses New York City's consideration of an amendment to its charter that would extend voting rights to noncitizens in municipal elections as a case study in immigrant integration and local governance. It argues that New York City's biggest challenge in moving this issue forward is dealing successfully with two related questions: 1) why the New York City Council should be able to decide who “the People” are without approval from the state government in Albany and 2) whether it should attempt to enact the measure without a referendum. The analysis first examines the role of local government in regulating the lives of immigrants, contrasting enforcement-oriented strategies with those that are more integration-oriented. It then spotlights federal law obstacles to noncitizen suffrage, concluding that while neither federal criminal nor immigration law prevents state or local governments from extending the franchise to noncitizens in state or local matters, federal law imposes impediments that may deter some noncitizens from registering or that could carry serious immigration consequences for those who vote in violation of federal law. The article then focuses on state law obstacles, including New York's constitution, its state election law and its home rule provisions. It contrasts other recent experiences with noncitizen suffrage around the country, looking at both municipal and school board elections. Finally, it provides some thoughts on best practices in moving forward the issue of noncitizen suffrage in New York City and other locales. New York law is ambiguous enough that good arguments can be made for why neither Albany's approval nor a city-wide referendum is required. However, given New York City's historic relationship with Albany and the state legislature's power to preempt local law on election matters, if the city council attempts to expand the franchise to noncitizen voters without a referendum or comparable measure, it could trigger preemptive action in Albany or lengthy, divisive, and costly battles in the courts.
Topic:
Immigration
Political Geography:
New York

2040. International Migration, US Immigration Law and Civil Society: From the Pre-Colonial Era to the 113th Congress (Edited by Leonir Mario Chiarello and Donald Kerwin, Scalabrini International Migration Network, 2014)

Author:
Breana George
Publication Date:
02-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal on Migration and Human Security
Institution:
Center for Migration Studies of New York
Abstract:
With the passage of immigration reform legislation stalled in the House of Representatives, President Obama announced on June 30, 2014 that he was prepared to exercise executive authority on immigration if Congress had not acted by the end of the August recess. In early September, however the administration indicated that it would not move forward with issuing an immigration directive until after the November midterm elections due to polarization over the issue (Shear 2014). The administration argued that prolonging the time frame to act would allow the President to unveil a bolder and more sustainable policy to provide administrative relief to unauthorized immigrants (ibid.)
Topic:
Immigration and Reform
Political Geography:
United States