For immigrants, Trump is making America crueler again (1)

US President Donald Trump’s policies damage the international response to the growing global refugee crisis. In sharp contradiction to the spirit of the 1980 Refugee Act, which states that “it is the policy of the United States to encourage all nations to provide assistance and resettlement opportunities to refugees to the fullest extent possible,” American influence under Trump has moved in exactly the opposite direction.

Stay with us for part one of a two-part article on this subject by Arnold R. Isaacs, a journalist based in Maryland who has written widely on refugee and immigration issues, under the heading: "For immigrants, Trump is making America crueler again." The article was taken from the Truthout.org.

On September 26^th, 2019, President Donald Trump’s White House announced that, in 2020, refugee admissions to the United States will be limited to 18,000, drastically lower than any yearly ceiling over the past 40 years. Along with that announcement, the White House released a separate executive order intended to upend many years of precedent by giving state and local authorities the power to deny refugees resettlement in their jurisdictions.

Nine days later, Trump issued another directive ordering that new immigrant visas be restricted to those who can afford unsubsidized health insurance coverage or are affluent enough to pay for their own health-care costs. Meanwhile, his administration was heading into the final days of a planned timetable to implement new restrictions that would make it harder for needy immigrants to get a green card and work legally to support themselves and their families. That plan has been thwarted, at least temporarily, by orders from judges in three different federal courts.

Those separate but related actions are the latest pages in another dark chapter in the Trump administration’s anti-immigration binge. Together, they steer the U.S. government onto an even more heartless course, setting policies that will not just harm people directly covered by the new provisions but will cause significant collateral damage.

The local option to prevent resettlement will stir up anti-immigrant groups and inflame the national immigration debate, making that issue and the country’s racial divides even more toxic than they already are. In addition to keeping many more desperate people out of this country, the refugee cutback will harm organizations that help refugees already in the US and destroy Washington’s ability to persuade other countries to deal with the worldwide tidal wave of refugees displaced by wars and other catastrophes.

The new green card rules, if they overcome court challenges and go into effect, will greatly expand the grounds for finding that an applicant might become a “public charge.” That will deny legal employment to many of the most vulnerable immigrants and lead others to forgo badly needed benefits to which they are legally entitled — a trend already evident before those rules even take effect.

Similarly, the new requirement that immigrants be capable of paying for health insurance will not just penalize foreign nationals applying for visas, but in many cases keep family members already in the U.S., including children and spouses, from reuniting with loved ones seeking to join them.

These policies have one more thing in common: none of them has anything to do with “illegal” immigration.

Refugees hoping for resettlement in the United States are not only seeking to enter the country legally but doing so through the most rigorous and time-consuming of all procedures for getting a visa. Those already in the US who could be excluded from a state or locality under the new regulations are lawfully in the country, not part of an “invasion” (as Trump calls it) of undocumented immigrants who have crossed the border illegally. Immigrants applying for green cards or visa applicants subject to the health insurance requirement are within the law by definition.

The “local option” giving state and local governments the right to block the resettlement of newly admitted refugees in their territory has been the least noticed of these new initiatives so far. It has, however, the potential for far-reaching, troubling, even dangerous effects. If the plan survives the expected court challenges and resettlement organizations have to get written approval from state and local authorities before placing new arrivals in specific locations, that could mobilize anti-immigrant activists across the country to put pressure on local officials, intensifying the politicization of refugee issues and galvanizing ugly forces in this society.

The heads of two of the nine national organizations that administer the resettlement program for the State Department’s Office of Refugee Resettlement have been blunt in their criticism of the local "option policy." The Reverend John McCullough, CEO and President of Church World Service, declared in a statement: "It “shocks the conscience,” adding, “This proposal would embolden racist officials to deprive refugees of their rights under U.S. law. This proposal is a slippery slope that takes our country backward. The ugly history of institutionalized segregation comes to mind.”

In a similar vein, Mark Hetfield, President of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), described the order as “in effect, a state-by-state, city-by-city refugee ban, and it’s un-American and wrong. Is this the kind of America we want to live in? Where local towns can put up signs that say ‘No Refugees Allowed’ and the federal government will back that?”

Details are still vague on how the "local option" program would work. Trump’s order calls for the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security to develop the lineaments of such a process within 90 days, so details may be forthcoming. On the essential points, though, its wording makes the order’s intent unequivocally clear.

A key passage states that resettlement agencies will have to get written permission from state and local authorities before placing any refugees in their jurisdiction; the burden, that is, will be on the agencies to get approval, not on local or state leaders to initiate an objection. In a curious provision, the document adds that the secretary of state “shall publicly release any written consents of States and localities to resettlement of refugees.” A decision to exclude refugees, however, can remain undisclosed.

Only President Trump and his advisers know whether the primary motive for such requirements was to make resettling refugees more politically fraught and potentially a more visible issue in the coming election season. But that is sure to be the result.

Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, President and CEO of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services (LIRS), is troubled by the prospect.  She pointed out in an interview: "The decisions of local authorities will only be publicized if they accept refugees, not if they refuse them, a twist that may tend to “stoke xenophobia,” and make it harder for communities to welcome refugees.

Matthew Soerens, who directs World Relief’s efforts to mobilize evangelical churches on refugee and immigration issues, voiced a similar concern. Soerens said in an interview: "Mandating a public announcement when a jurisdiction decides to accept refugees will draw the attention of “people who maybe don’t want their state or local government receiving them.”  He added: "Even if 70% of the people in a community support resettlement and only 30% object, “they can make an ugly political issue,” possibly increasing the difficulty of bringing refugees into a community even when the authorities are in favor of resettling them. He said: “We don’t want refugees to come into a situation where there’s been a big political circus about their arrival,” adding, "Most residents may be welcoming, but “it only takes a few to make them feel uncomfortable and unsafe.”

Church World Service, HIAS, LIRS, and World Relief are four of nine national resettlement agencies. Six of them are faith-based. All nine have strongly criticized the new refugee ceiling as cruel, contrary to religious teachings of love and compassion, and against American values.

The unanimous criticism from those resettlement agencies reflects how deeply Trump’s latest decision will cut into future refugee relief efforts. The new ceiling of 18,000 represents less than one-fifth of the 95,000 yearly cap US presidents have set, on average, since the present refugee law was enacted in 1980. Actual admissions, normally somewhat lower than the maximum allowed, are now guaranteed to fall far below the average annual rate over an even longer period dating back to the 1940s.

That was the first part of the Arnold R. Isaacs’s article, titled: “For immigrants, Trump is making America crueler again”.

ME/SS