Immigration update

MCC photo/Katherine Smith

Children play with toys at Casa Alitas, a house in Tucson, Arizona, where asylum seekers can rest and plan for a few days between being processed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and connecting with families and friends.

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Hundreds of children remain separated

Weeks after a judge ordered almost 2,700 children reunited with their parents, more than 500 remain separated—most because a parent was deported without them. It will likely be very difficult to find these parents. More than 150 parents allegedly waived their rights to be reunified but may have been coerced.

A judge halted the deportation of a mother and daughter and threatened to hold Attorney General Jeff Sessions in contempt of court after the government tried to deport them while a hearing appealing their deportation was underway. A case study in Fresno, Calif., illustrates the plight of children going to immigration court alone: for those without lawyers, 80 percent are deported; for those with lawyers, this drops to 12 percent.

MCC: Family separations are not only at the border
MCC: When a migrant’s journey passes through Casa Alitas
Mennonite Church USA: August 13 webinar recording: Learn, Pray, Join for immigration justice (15-minute clips for Sunday school classes)
Christian Leader: Delegates call for reunification of families separated at U.S./Mexico border (U.S. Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches)
The Atlantic: Family separation isn’t new: U.S. immigration policy has traumatized migrant children and parents for nearly a century

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MCC Central States is working to support the reunification of families in South Texas. Donate using the label “Central States Immigration.”

Local stories, events and resources

California: Mennonite Brethren youth pastor pardoned but may still be deported

Indiana: ICE quest for detention sites puts Trump county on tightrope (cites Mennonite resistance to new detention center) | Key red-state Democrat sides with Trump on wall funding

Ohio: Immigration and an Ohio town: What happens after an ICE raid?

Pennsylvania: Immigration community day held in Philadelphia

Tennessee: Fearing a surge in arrests, Nashville immigration rights group teaches communities how to prepare

Send us your local stories and events

Take action: End family detention and separation

Interfaith Immigration Coalition: Family separation and congressional spending on enforcement: enforcement: Toolkit, webinar recording and slide deck

Refugees: #Welcome75k toolkit: Top 5 ways to take action

Take action webpage

Peace Sunday worship resources

from Mennonite World Conference

A renewed peace church welcomes the stranger

(Peace Sunday is
Sept. 23 this year)

Stories of hope

Storm Lake, Iowa: a success story in embracing diversity
Retired judges establish fund to provide lawyers for immigrant families
‘How do we protect them?’ Dallas leaders look to help immigrants and the economy.
A group of mothers raised thousands of dollars to pay the bond of immigrant moms in detention. “For the immigrants whose trust in Americans might have been lost in the detention process, gestures of goodwill from the group can help restore it.”

Immigration resources

Invite MCC staff to speak

Updates & news

DACA: A federal judge ruled that the Trump administration does not have to accept new applications for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, but must continue to process renewals. With the possibility of a ruling against DACA in Texas, the fate of the program will likely end up with the U.S. Supreme Court.

Enforcement: The Attorney General took further action to limit the independence of immigration judges by blocking the granting of continuances, an action that could lead to unjust deportations for many applying to change their immigration status. A lawsuit in Boston alleges that immigration officials are tricking people by setting up fake interviewsfor those seeking legal status and then arresting them.

Detention: Immigrant detainees joined a national prison strike to protest “modern day slavery” in the form of forced labor with wages as low as 4 cents an hour. The American Federation of Teachers is encouraging divestment in private prison companies, citing “policies of family separation and the permanent harm it has caused children.”

Border: A video shows one 40-mile segment of border wall currently under construction in Texas. Pressure from birders and other groups stopped the wall from bisecting the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge, but new barriers may slice through 6,500 acres of refuge tracts, parks, and other nature sites in Texas. Thousands of scientists signed a report raising concerns about the environmental impacts of border walls, including habitat destruction and the harm to endangered species.

Root causes of migration: The Washington Post details the cycle of deportations that occurs when criminals and gang members are deported to their home countries, continue and build on their criminal activity, which increases violence in their home country and causes more migration to the U.S.

Xenophobia and racism: A former Idaho Supreme Court chief justice and attorney general asks: Is America flirting with ethnic cleansing? David Leopold, former president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, similarly described recent deportations in a Mauritanian refugee community in Columbus, Ohio, as “ethnic cleansing.” The community of roughly 3,000, which fled violence and persecution before coming to the U.S. beginning in the late 1990s, is now being targeted by immigration enforcement officials.

TPS: A new family separation crisis is brewing as thousands of Temporary Protected Status recipients face the possibility of separating from their U.S.-citizen children. “I’m scared to death,” said 11-year-old Christina Ponthieux, whose parents both have TPS. “This is our home.”

Refugees: After setting a record-low goal for resettling 45,000 refugees in fiscal year 2018, the Trump administration is on track to resettle only about 20,000—and may reduce next year’s goal to 25,000. #Welcome75k toolkit: Top 5 ways to take action