Separating families at Rio Grande
With the recent news of Texas placing buoys separating families at the Rio Grande border lawmakers, humanitarians, and residents across the country are angered over the prejudiced practices and lack of concern for human life. Florida lawmakers are also adding fuel to the fire after the recent passing of their laws that target undocumented immigrants, this has led to worker shortages in many needed blue-collar jobs, which are essential to Florida’s economy. Experts from different fields hosted a webinar to discuss how these actions affect the future of documented and undocumented immigrants.
“On my way to the Texas border, you start seeing controversial things like the heavy presence of the military, razor wires on the fences, unnecessary amount of shipping containers, and floating barriers,” said Manuel Escamez, an award-winning (US) digital journalist and social researcher, said as he described what he saw during his travels to the border. “Smugglers have also noticed the increase in defense against immigrants and have started to take advantage of it by feeding false information to people trying to cross or taking advantage of the opportunity to charge people to smuggle them in the country, which has led to a skyrocketing rate of human trafficking.”
Gianna Borroto, a senior litigation attorney with the American Immigration Council highlights how the border portal has stopped immigrants from seeking asylum in the USA since Title 42 ended. “The US government has forced immigrants to use an app called “CBP One,” to seek asylum at the points of entry at the Texas border, but the app is glitchy and unreliable at best, making it harder for people to follow the correct protocols.” CBP One is an app created by a border portal to assist people crossing the border, but all it has done is complicate things. Homeland Security recently launched an investigation into the app because they feared it was hacked by a Mexican drug cartel.
The American Immigration Council filed a class action lawsuit against the Biden Administration, challenging their policy of turning away asylum seekers at entry points who do not have a CBP One appointment. “We refer to this as the CBP One turnback policy in the lawsuit. We also have two human rights organizations and ten asylum seekers as plaintiffs for the case,” Borroto said as she explained the lawsuit.
“The CBP One turn back policy violates the government’s policies of keeping the ports open to those who do not have an appointment and violates national laws that prevent returning refugees to their country where they face prosecution. Everybody should get a chance to seek a better life for themselves and their family without jumping through hurdles and experiencing setbacks.”
“The situation at the border has been played many times over American history, and immigration of non-White people has always been a problem for the racist in America,” said Professor Cal Jillson of the University of Maryland in discussing who is and who is not allowed in the country and who will face an uphill battle seeking asylum here.” Republicans have the political advantage as their message about immigration is simple: ‘We oppose illegal immigration’ and we’re worried about legal immigration and need to slow it down because we are worried about your safety that’s why we created the border.”
Jillson further explained that Texas is a Republican state, and the leaders maintain their message and power because there is nobody to oppose them. “Next year’s election will be important for Texas residents and the Democratic party if they plan on making any changes to the border rule.”
