HispanicVista Columnists

By Arnoldo Garcia

National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights

Legalization, More Avenues for Legal Immigration, Needed to Ensure Immigrant Safety and Fairness

When it comes to immigration and border control in the U.S., failure and misery love company – and ignore history at a deadly cost to migrants.

After eleven years of border militarization, with the intended purpose of stopping unauthorized crossings, and with more than 4,000 migrant deaths to its credit, the disastrous “prevention through deterrence” border control and immigration enforcement strategy implemented in 1994 has received another shot in its bloodied budget arm.

On October 18 President George W. Bush signed into law the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Appropriations Bill of some $30.8 billion, continuing to bankroll a failed border strategy that has wreaked misery and suffering on untold numbers of migrants.

In response, Isabel G. García, chairwoman of the Tucson, AZ-based Coalición de Derechos Humanos, declared “The Bush Administration’s almost exclusive reliance on immigration law enforcement and national security measures to address the issues of unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. is a debacle. Coupled with national security and free trade, Bush’s new generation of border security and interior enforcement is an unprecedented assault on the rights of all immigrants and border communities.”

The latest boost to immigration enforcement comes in the wake of the highest recorded number of migrant border deaths in a decade. At least 460 migrant dead were recovered during fiscal year October 1, 2004-September 30, 2005. NNIRR believes that Bush’s new appropriations for the DHS will only intensify the human rights violations perpetrated against migrants and border communities.

Linking Immigration Enforcement and Services to National Security is a Recipe for Disaster

To build support for his recently announced guest worker or bracero proposal, President Bush authorized the 2006 DHS budget bill that included $7.5 billion for further militarization of the U.S.-Mexico border, to hire an additional 1,000 Border Patrol agents, create more jails for immigrants, and increase interior immigration police to intensify deportations.

Vowing to deport every "illegal entrant," Bush’s new budget institutionalizes the DHS’s repatriation program to deport migrants detained at the border into the interior of Mexico as punishment, which is illegal under international law. Non-Mexican migrants especially at the border, along with all other undocumented immigrants detained in the interior, will be jailed, denied bail without their day in court and subjected to expedited deportation.

This new budget appropriation further cements immigration enforcement and services to the politics of national security and the “war on terrorism,” diminishing the prospects of ending migrant deaths at the border, and stopping unlawful deportations of immigrants.

Ms. García pointed out, “Pouring more money into a failed immigration enforcement strategy means more migrant deaths and destabilizes our communities.”

In 2002, the non-partisan Public Policy Institute of California found that this strategy failed to stop unauthorized migration and succeeded only in increasing migrant deaths – the direct result of a deliberate enforcement strategy that forces migrants to cross through Arizona’s most deadly desert and mountainous region. As Border Patrol Chief Robert Bonner declared last year, migrants are going to be deported or die crossing – and they are in unprecedented record numbers.

Ms. García affirmed, “The crisis at the border could be ended just by issuing sufficient visas for legal immigration, thus providing people safe entry into the country. More Border Patrol, more deportations and wall building will not solve anything. President Bush’s enforcement spending does nothing new; it’s only a recipe for an even bigger human rights disaster.”

Catherine Tactaquin, Executive Director of the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (NNIRR), added by stressing, “A generous and comprehensive legalization program that protects the civil and labor rights of all immigrants and provides options for permanent residency and citizenship, can help solve this dilemma. But it will not be enough if we are to address long-term changes.

“U.S. trade and economic development policies – which affect or even shape the root causes forcing people to leave their home countries -- must address human rights and sustainable development if we are to ameliorate the negative impacts,” she continued. “Trade and migration are intimately linked. Trade policy must include measures to improve the socio-economic conditions so that people have options other than involuntary migration. Our policies must invest in development that reduces population displacement, promotes sustainable communities and human security. Otherwise, more migrants will continue fleeing their homes, dying at the border or endure unlawful detentions and deportations,” Ms. Tactaquin concluded.

The National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Right proposes the following recommendations to help shape a new form of immigration enforcement that protects labor rights, civil rights and ensures the integrity of immigrant communities:

· Demilitarize the U.S.-Mexico border and cease all enforcement policies, practices, measures, laws, and strategies that criminalize migrants forcing them into dangerous crossing areas;

· Implement policies addressing the displacement impacts of trade and economic development to create options for sustainability and human security;

· Develop multi-lateral migration policies and practices that uphold the human rights of migrants, accountable to independent, civilian community-based monitoring and oversight;

· Implement routine programs of legalization that expand access to visas and provide access to permanent residency including future flows. Systematic legalization programs – recognizing human, labor, environmental, and civil rights – will ensure that migrants have options to unite with their families and avoid mortal danger.

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Arnoldo Garcia, National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, Red Nacional Pro Derechos Inmigrantes y Refugiados, 310 8th Street Suite 303, Oakland, CA 94607 http://www.nnirr.org/