US ‘Immigration Restrictionism’ Endangers Societies on Both Sides of Mexico Border

The US Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that the Trump administration can deny asylum to any migrant who passed through another country and did not apply for asylum there while en route to the US. The president touts it as a win, but those outside his circle fear what may happen to the US and, more importantly, those seeking asylum.

“BIG United States Supreme Court WIN for the Border on Asylum!” said US President Donald Trump on Twitter following the September 11 ruling that was opposed by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

“Once again the Executive Branch has issued a rule that seeks to upend longstanding practices regarding refugees who seek shelter from persecution,” Sotomayor wrote in her dissenting opinion. “Although this Nation has long kept its doors open to refugees – and although the stakes for asylum seekers could not be higher – the Government implemented its rule without first providing the public notice and inviting the public input generally required by law.”

Acting Director of the Citizenship and Immigration Services office Ken Cuccinelli noted that his department will work to implement the practice “ASAP” following the “YUGE” win.

This move by the Trump administration comes despite the fact that the number of those turned away at the southern border has sharply declined in recent months after the Mexican government deployed 15,000 troops from the country’s National Guard and Army to the US-Mexico border. While there were approximately 130,000 individuals turned away at the border in May, less than half that number of people – 64,000 – were denied in August.

Furthermore, Mexico has not been too keen on the idea of being the country to take in so many Central Americans fleeing their respective countries for various reasons.

Sara Dady, an immigration attorney at Dady Law Group, joined Radio Sputnik’s By Any Means Necessary Thursday to reflect on America’s history of what she calls “immigration restrictionism” and expound on why she believes the Trump administration’s policies are harming individuals domestically and internationally.

“What’s so upsetting about this is that it is contrary to existing US law and policy – decades-long policy,” Dady tolds hosts Eugene Puryear and Sean Blackmon. “But we have an administration now that is committed to restricting not just undocumented immigration, but legal immigration to this country, and they will do so at the expense of our humanitarian responsibilities.”

“The other thing that is so disturbing about this rule is that it assumes that Mexico is a safe country for people that are not from Mexico. Mexico is not a safe country for a lot of Mexicans,” she asserted.

Dady went on to explain that the fact that the US is receiving and granting asylum requests from Mexican citizens means that the already-unsafe conditions people are attempting to flee may be exacerbated by an influx of vulnerable asylum seekers who are forced to stay in Mexico.

“Unfortunately, this means more people are going to suffer, and it also diminishes, I think, the US’ standing in the world. Don’t we want to be that country where people can come and say, ‘You know what? I’m going to be given a fair hearing on my [asylum] claim; I’m going to be treated fairly under the law; I’m going to be given a fair chance.’ I think that’s the America we want to be,” stressed the immigration attorney, adding that “every American should be concerned about the denial of due process.”

Dady went on to discuss how there have always been periods of “immigration restrictionism” in the US, such as US President Chester Arthur’s 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, which suspended immigration of Chinese laborers for 10 years. The suspension would later be renewed under the 1892 Geary Act and continued preventing Chinese immigration until the Magnuson Act, or Chinese Exclusion Repeal Act of 1943.

In the following years, “all sorts of new deportation grounds and bans [were passed] to keep people who didn’t look like Congress thought Americans should look like … out,” she said after referencing how southern Europeans were considered criminals and Irish were labeled drunks.

The last time the US saw today’s level of “immigration restrictionism,” according to Dady, “was in the 1920s, when we also saw the rise of the [Ku Klux Klan] … Xenophobia and racism go hand-in-hand.”

The immigration lawyer stated that she believes the Trump administration is “cutting off our nose to spite our face,” based on the fact that the US has “more people retiring than we have working” and “undocumented immigrants currently pay $13 billion a year” in taxes. Rather than realizing this, the current government is deporting those necessary workers.

While there has been a lot of fear-mongering and confusion about policy created by the US president regarding the US-Mexico border, Dady says it’s important to “keep in mind [that] Customs and Border Protection [CBP] processes over a million people per day at US ports of entry.”

The CBP “has over 60,000 employees. If they can process over a million people per day, handling 100,000 people at our border is absolutely manageable,” she explained. “Any argument that we’re overwhelmed at the border would be due to a direct failure of leadership and management.”