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The political debate over what U.S. policy should be on undocumented immigrants has been heated for decades. The temperature went down for a short period as there was some bipartisan discussion on comprehensive immigration reform, which may have included a path to citizenship.

But the Trump administration has focused on harsher actions on the undocumented, and thousands of DACA recipients remain in limbo despite a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling.

Changing Hands Bookstore

Michelle Malonzo with the book "The Undocumented Americans" by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio.

As part of our Page Turners series on important books to read, The Show spoke with Michelle Malonzo of Changing Hands Bookstore about one she is passionate about. Its called "The Undocumented Americans" by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio.

The conversation began by talking about whether the authors own experience of having support and benefactors in her immigration process made her want to tell the stories of others who havent been as fortunate.

Go here to see the original:
Page Turner: 'The Undocumented Americans' - KJZZ

The fates of thousands of immigrants and refugees hinge on the presidential election, as President Donald Trump looks to continue his rollback of programs that admit or legally protect foreigners in America.

Joe Biden, in contrast, pledges to dramatically increase refugee resettlement and unwind Trump's efforts to end policies for immigrants to live and work lawfully in the U.S. under Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and to end a program called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). The Democratic nominee says he would end Trump's policies "to drastically restrict access to asylum in the U.S." and overturn the president's travel ban affecting Somalia and other Muslim-majority countries.

Khalid Omar lamented that his brother cannot immigrate from Kenya because he has a Somali passport.

"These are the kinds of issues that are very important to our community this year," said Omar, a senior organizer with Muslim Coalition of Faith in Minnesota. "We can change the outcomes if we all go out and claim our voices."

He spoke moments after he helped hang a sign that said, "We Make Minnesota Better off Together" by the Cedar Cultural Center, where faith and community leaders held an event this month to encourage voting.

In his appeals to Minnesotans, Trump has focused most prominently on refugees. The president said during a September rally in Bemidji that Biden planned "to flood your state with an influx of refugees from Somalia, from other places all over the planet. Your state will be overrun and destroyed."

Weeks later, Trump announced that he was limiting refugee arrivals over the next year to 15,000, the fewest in the program's 40-year history. He has steadily dropped the number since taking office, following a yearly average of 95,000 established by presidents of both parties.

Trump's campaign also began running an ad in Minnesota and elsewhere bashing Biden's plans amid a pandemic for "increasing refugees by 700% from the most unstable, vulnerable, dangerous parts of the world." Biden has pledged to raise the refugee admissions ceiling to 125,000 15,000 more than President Barack Obama had authorized before leaving office.

The president's approach has some support in Minnesota, where Beltrami County commissioners voted in January against allowing refugee resettlement. And in recent years, amid tensions between whites and Somali newcomers in St. Cloud, several political candidates called for a pause on refugee resettlement.

"My position consistently has been that the refugee resettlement program is broken and until it is fixed, we should not be bringing hundreds of thousands of refugees which the country is not prepared to assimilate," said John Palmer, who lost his bid for the St. Cloud City Council in 2018 with 43% of the vote.

Trump's election, he said, "gave us a breathing space." For nearly 20 years, he added, "no one of any political persuasion is taking time to put that program in order so that the refugees that need to be resettled in the U.S. will come to a setting in which we can do what we need to for them."

Advocates say the entire refugee program depends on the election.

"The contrast couldn't be starker and the stakes couldn't be higher," said Krish O'Mara Vignarajah, CEO of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, a refugee resettlement agency. "Four more years of a Trump administration would presumably be the death knell for the refugee program."

With Biden's plan to raise the ceiling, Vignarajah said, "we're talking about hundreds of thousands of lives the U.S. could be saving."

If Biden prevails in the election, resettlement agencies would need time to restore their capacities after several years of cutbacks and closures under Trump.

The bulk of the Somali diaspora settled in Minnesota in the 1990s and early 2000s, and Trump has repeatedly singled out people from Somalia in his criticism of refugees. During Trump's first three years in office, Minnesota took in just 541 Somali refugees. That compares to 3,499 during the previous three years under Obama. The state's largest refugee groups now are Congolese and Karen migrants from Myanmar.

"Every election year, there is a playbook used by some politicians," said Imam Hassan Jama, executive director of the Islamic Association of North America, during a recent gathering of faith leaders in Cedar-Riverside. "The playbook is to use Muslims, Somalis refugees and immigrants, as scapegoats in order to divide people by what they look like or where they came from instead of offering solutions that could help all of our families."

Daisy Kabaka, a member of the Minnesota Immigration Rights Action Committee (MIRAC), pointed out that the Trump administration has made it harder for new arrivals to win asylum cases and wants to charge them fees for applying, though many claiming persecution in their homelands arrived here with nothing. Kabaka noted that the administration also requires participants in the DACA program, which grants temporary protections for unauthorized immigrants who arrived as children, to renew their status for a year instead of two, while it reviews a Supreme Court ruling that found flaws in how the administration tried to end the program.

Kabaka questions whether immigrants will fare better under Biden, however. Kabaka said Obama enacted DACA in 2012 only after immigrants took initiative, including through hunger strikes, and that he was considered the "deporter in chief" because he sent more people back to their homelands than either the Trump or George W. Bush administrations.

"Just because there's a Democratic president in office, that doesn't necessarily make immigrants feel any better," Kabaka said.

After the Supreme Court ruling in June, Trump said he would try again to end DACA, and the administration has stopped accepting new applications. Biden said he'll make the program permanent on "day one" if elected.

Carolina Ortiz is a DACA recipient working to get out the vote this year, though she cannot vote herself. She's communications director of COPAL (Communities Organizing Latinx Power and Action), a Latino grassroots organization.

"I feel like I'm sleeping and breathing and everything, 'Vote, vote, vote,' but I feel like it is because I can't vote that I need to encourage people who can vote to be my voice and the voice of people like myself that have DACA," said Ortiz, a Mexican immigrant.

After months of phone banking in the Latino community, she said the organization has secured over 15,000 pledges to vote.

Those with Temporary Protected Status face uncertainty after the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently sided with the Trump administration decision to rescind rules allowing citizens of some countries facing natural disasters or armed conflict to live and work here legally. If that holds, TPS holders from El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua and Sudan would lose their legal status next year. TPS designations have been renewed under Republican and Democratic administrations alike for many years, but the Trump administration argues that the program was always temporary.

The Biden campaign has said he will protect TPS holders and offer them a path to citizenship through immigration reform measures.

Continue reading here:
Presidential election weighs heavily on Minnesota immigrants, 'dreamers' and refugees - Minneapolis Star Tribune

One administration built the cages. Another administration filled them. Who is actually to blame?

That question occupied President Donald Trump and former vice president Joe Biden for a good portion of the time allotted to a discussion of immigration during Thursday's debate, the last of the 2020 campaign season. Trump blamed the Obama administration for "building cages to keep children in" and (technically correctly) argued that he had been falsely maligned for inventing inhumane immigration enforcement practices that he inherited from his predecessor. Biden, meanwhile, blamed Trump for ramping up the cruelty by separating families who crossed the border without authorizationa policy that has somewhat predictably resulted in the federal immigration bureaucracy losing track of the families of more than 500 migrant children.

Here's the thing: They're both right.

The Trump administration's family separation policy is a nightmare. More than 2,800 children have been taken away from their families since the Trump administration's new "zero tolerance" policy was implemented, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. Trump officials believed the policy would deter more families from trying to cross the border unlawfully.And that new policy was implemented by the order of Trump's first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, over the complaints and warnings of top immigration lawyers in the Justice Department. It is entirely fair to lay this whole mess at Trump's feet.

But those excesses were made possible because the Obama administration oversaw a huge escalation in federal immigration enforcement and deportations. Trump talks a tougher game on immigration, but Obama still holds the inglorious record for the most deportations in a single year. And, yes, Trump is correct that the detention facilities his administration has filled to the brim were built during the Obama administration, which also caged immigrant kidsalbeit under less common circumstancesthan the Trump administration has done.

The Trump administration's approach to immigration enforcement has been aggressive and deliberately punitive in a way that Obama's was not. Beyond the appalling family separation policy, Trump's sought to restrict both legal and illegal immigration in ways that no president in recent history has. He's shifted one of America's two major parties in a nationalist, xenophobic directionor perhaps he owes his success to the fact that it had already shifted that direction, but that's no betterand elevated people like Stephen Miller to places where they can set policy. That's all horrifically bad.

But he was only able to do most of that because previous presidential administrationsnot just Obama and Biden, but plenty of others before itbuilt a powerful leviathan dedicated to preventing the free movement of people.

During Thursday night's debate, Biden promised that he'd send Congress a major immigration reform that would include a "pathway to citizenship" for undocumented immigrants within 100 days of taking office. But it's fair to ask, as Trump did several times, why that wasn't done already.

"He had eight years and he did nothing except build cages to keep children in," Trump said.

If Biden gets another shot at one of the top spots in the executive branch, maybe he'll take a lesson from all this. Before you start building cages, you should ask yourself how your political opponents might use them.

See the original post:
Trump and Biden Are Right: Both Parties Are To Blame for America's Inhumane, Broken Immigration System - Reason

Democratic U.S. Rep. Brad Schneider of Deerfield and Republican challenger Valerie Ramirez Mukherjee of Northbrook discussed immigration policies, racial issues and other topics Sunday in an online forum for 10th Congressional District voters.

Dubbed the North Shore Jewish Community Candidate Forum, the discussion was put together by Deerfield-based Congregation B'nai Jehoshua Beth Elohim.

In his opening remarks, Schneider touted his work for Jewish groups, talked of his experience on issues relating to Israel and pledged support -- as he's done in the past -- for a two-state solution to the strife between Israel and the Palestinian people.

Schneider, who is seeking a fourth term, also voiced support for more gun control laws, the need for financial relief for Americans during the COVID-19 crisis and the right of women to have abortions.

Ramirez Mukherjee, a first-time candidate, opened by noting she's a relatively new Illinoisan, having moved here only three years ago. She complained that no significant legislation has originated from Illinois -- even though several proposals put forth by Illinois lawmakers have become law -- and said she hopes she "can do my part to help."

When asked about racial injustice and anti-Semitism in the U.S., Schneider accused President Donald Trump of seeking to divide the country. Schneider said the U.S. must address the inequities experienced by certain communities, and he promoted his support of the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which aims to increase accountability for law enforcement misconduct and eliminate discriminatory policing practices.

The proposal passed the House in June and awaits action in the Senate.

In contrast, Ramirez Mukherjee expressed frustration with how Congress reacts to problems rather than being proactive. She urged Congress to be "more entrepreneurial" but didn't put forth any legislative proposals regarding discrimination.

Moving on, Schneider said the U.S. "desperately" needs comprehensive immigration reform, and he voiced support for a proposal that would defer deportation for some immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children and let them work. It passed the House last year but wasn't debated in the Senate.

"We have to be the light to other nations," Schneider said. "We need to get this done."

Whereas Schneider supports creating a path to citizenship for immigrants living here illegally, Ramirez Mukherjee doesn't -- and she maintained that position Sunday.

Ramirez Mukherjee said Americans should open their arms to immigrants, "but we have to do it legally."

When asked about climate change, Ramirez Mukherjee said she favors incentivizing green behavior, such as the now-expired federal tax credits for buying electric cars.

Schneider said he led the effort to condemn Trump's decision to pull out of the Paris Agreement on climate change and said the U.S. should rejoin that plan.

Through wildfires, hurricanes, tornadoes and crop damage, climate change is affecting every American in one way or another, "and we need to address it now," Schneider said.

A recording of the debate can be viewed at facebook.com/BJBECommunity/live/.

The candidates for the neighboring 9th Congressional District seat -- Democratic U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky of Evanston and Republican challenger Sargis Sangari of Skokie -- debated first and are included in the video.

The two districts include different parts of the North and Northwest suburbs.

Continued here:
Schneider, Ramirez Mukherjee debate immigration policies, racial issues and more in forum - Chicago Daily Herald

EVERETT Calibrating a proper national response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is a central concern of Snohomish Countys three Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives.

For their opponents, infrastructure, immigration, health care and the political direction of the country are issues, as well, leading up to the Nov. 3 election.

Congresswomen Suzan DelBene and Pramila Jayapalface rematches with their 2018 Republican foes, Jeffrey Beeler and Craig Keller, respectively. Rep. Rick Larsen is up against a first-time candidate in Republican Timothy Hazelo.

Each incumbent has spent more than a million dollars during this campaign, while none of their opponents has raised $100,000.

Though the challengers lack money needed to conduct aggressive campaigns, all brim with confidence in their chances come Election Day.

Here is a snapshot of the contests.

1st Congressional District

DelBene and Beeler are dueling to represent a district which stretches from suburbs in northeast King County to the Canadian border. It takes in parts of Snohomish County, including Darrington, Granite Falls, Lake Stevens, Mill Creek, Monroe, Snohomish and Sultan.

DelBene, 58, of Medina, is seeking a fifth term. She won two years ago with 59.3% of the vote.

The former Microsoft executive serves on the House Ways and Means Committee, giving her a voice in the majority partys drafting of economic policy and response to the coronavirus emergency.

With the nations first COVID case in Snohomish County, DelBene said, she worked to ensure that the first federal COVID relief package contained funding for Washingtons public health system.

The first priority in the next Congress, she said, is addressing the health care response to and economic recovery from the pandemic.

House Democrats have passed two versions of a second relief package. In addition, DelBene said, shes authored bills to expand tax credits for child care and building of affordable housing that are part of those efforts but can be acted on alone, as well.

Congress, she said, also must make sure there are resources to manufacture vaccines and criteria to get it to where it is needed the most. Getting vaccinated must be affordable and, for those who cant pay, the federal government must cover the costs, she said.

She said she will continue pushing for federal dollars to improve safety on U.S. 2; identifying and addressing gaps in broadband in rural areas; and enactment of stronger federal data-privacy protections.

We are behind in protecting customers in the digital age, said DelBene, a sponsor of a bill setting up a national standard for protecting consumer information.

Beeler, 51, serves on the Sultan City Council and owns a window-cleaning business. He views the 2018 campaign as a stepping stone to this year, a chance to introduce himself and his platform to voters. And the foundation of that platform is unchanged.

I literally could repeat everything I said two years ago and continue the campaign, he said. Congress doesnt get the peoples work done.

Immigration, for example. Beeler wants better border security but disagreed with President Donald Trumps policy of separating children from their parents.

Beeler, too, called for greater federal investment in making U.S. 2 safer. He has been part of the regions Highway 2 Safety Coalition, which has lobbied state and federal lawmakers for aid for years.

And the federal budget is out of balance and is growing worse under the weight of COVID relief. While Beeler recognizes the need for federal relief in the ongoing public health emergency, such spending is not sustainable, and Congress should be talking about how to address the imbalance, he said.

As in 2018, he trails the incumbent in fundraising. As of Sept. 30, DelBene reported raising $1.95 million to Beelers $52,394.

2nd Congressional District

Larsen and Hazelo are vying to lead a district which covers all of Island and San Juan counties, plus western Snohomish, Skagit and Whatcom counties. It includes Everett, Marysville, Lynnwood, Mountlake Terrace, Mukilteo, Arlington, Stanwood and Tulalip.

Larsen, 55, of Everett, is seeking an 11th term to extend his status as the districts longest-serving congressman.

The Arlington native serves on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and is chairman of the aviation subcommittee. This term, he helped pass a five-year, $500 billion infrastructure package that awaits action in the Senate. Also, he helped push through a bipartisan bill reforming the Federal Aviation Administrations process for certifying aircraft, such as the 737 Max, which has been grounded since early 2019 after two deadly crashes.

The biggest change, Larsen said, is that Congress will require the FAA to have more involvement in certifying the safety of airplanes and not delegate as much as it has to the private sector.

Larsen reiterated his disappointment with Boeings plan to move 787 production out of Everett, though he said he understood it was a COVID-19 decision. And he said he will look to bolster emerging technologies of the regions aerospace industry, such as development of drones, commercial space vehicles and electric aircraft.

We need to be part of the next big thing in aviation and continue to earn the nickname that were the aerospace capital of the world, Larsen said.

Hazelo, 52, of Oak Harbor, is a retired air crewman with the U.S. Navy and has worked in the private sector as an investment adviser.

He decided to run largely due to frustration with Congress failure to rein in federal spending, reform immigration laws and bring greater accountability to government.

Career politicians on both sides worry more about re-election than long-term policy and continue kicking the can down the road, Hazelo said in an email. We keep electing the same people with the same mindset year after year and expect different results. That is crazy. Its time for term limits!

Another reason was the House Democrats impeachment of President Donald Trump.

Hearing these Democrat lemmings calling for impeachment without a crime was a huge influence, he said.

If elected, he said, hell focus on improving the economy.

The COVID overreaction has cost us in a drastic way, he said. Add to that the already disastrous Democrat business practices that have dominated (Washington) state and our country and you can see why we are in such trouble.

Hazelo says Larsen has lost touch with constituents, since he does not live full-time in the district when the House is not in session.

Absent Rick is no longer of this District. We deserve a representative that not only lives here, but also works here, has run a business here, raised his family here, served his nation and protected democracy here and plans on continuing to do so HERE! he wrote.

With a 2,500-mile commute from the district, Larsen said, he and his wife decided 20 years ago to raise their sons on the East Coast so he would be able to see them grow up. In this term, he said, hes held 30 town halls and made more than 630 visits to businesses and organizations, and logged more than 150,000 miles in travel between this state and the nations capital. He and his wife own a condo in Everett.

I think the measure of this job is one of service to the district, he said.

As of Sept. 30, Larsen had raised $1.2 million and spent $1 million in this election cycle. Hazelo totaled $19,635 in contributions and $14,039 in expenditures.

7th Congressional District

Jayapal and Keller are again competing in this district, which covers communities in south Snohomish County and King County, including much of Seattle. It takes in Edmonds, Woodway and Shoreline.

Jayapal, 55, of Seattle, is seeking a second term after receiving 83.6% of the vote two years ago.

She is a former state senator and the first South Asian American woman elected to the U.S. House. Prior to elected office, she founded and led OneAmerica, one of Washingtons largest political advocacy groups for immigrants.

Jayapal is a senior whip of the Democratic caucus and co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, giving her a voice in crafting her partys legislation on pharmaceutical drug prices, protections for undocumented immigrants and democracy reform.

And, as a member of the House Judiciary Committee, she took part in the hearings which led to the House vote to impeach the president.

I think we did incredible work in a very difficult circumstance, she said.

If re-elected, her focus will be passing another COVID relief package to support the financial needs of unemployed and under-employed workers, and small businesses, as well as aid for providers of health care, child care and a range of human services. A major focus will be how to bring back jobs and how to get people whole again, she said.

Protecting the Affordable Care Act, achieving comprehensive immigration reform and enacting a domestic worker bill of rights are on her to-do list, as well.

Keller, 57, of Seattle, a longtime Republican precinct committee officer, also ran for this seat in 2014 and 2016.

Like those races, hes made immigration the centerpiece. Keller wants better enforcement of existing laws and backs efforts to prevent cities from becoming sanctuary cities for undocumented immigrants. He also wants to require employers to enroll in and use the federal E-verify program for hiring new workers.

My platform fully supports legal immigration including the presently unlimited H-2A agriculture work visas which requires housing and transportation expenses be covered by the employer, he wrote in an email. What I reject is the Democrat artifice of sanctuaries and mendacious non-enforcement of immigration laws to grow the Socialist/Democrat plantation.

Keller also endorses Trumps robust tariff response to Chinas trade practices, seeks to outlaw robocalls and urges residents to invest in gold and own a firearm.

Still, no one congressman can save you from this financial calamity unleashed by deceitful communists, he wrote in his online candidate statement. Our heroes in law enforcement simply cannot replace you taking maximum responsibility for your familys safety during these trying times.

As of Sept. 30, Jayapal reported $2.4 million in contributions to Kellers $2,655.

Jerry Cornfield: 360-352-8623; jcornfield@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @dospueblos.

Gallery

Suzan DelBene (left) and Jeffrey Beeler.

Rick Larsen (left) and Tim Hazelo.

Pramila Jayapal (left) and Craig Keller.

The rest is here:
COVID isn't the only issue in contests for three House seats - The Daily Herald