GOP’S IMMIGRATION DESCENT WAS ON FULL DISPLAY IN WISCONSIN
As anticipated, the first GOP debate was a mess of extremism, including on immigration. Ahead of the debate, America’s Voice released numerous resources to drive our narrative about candidates’ extreme positions, how their radicalization on the issue hasn’t been an electoral winner, and urge responsible media coverage of the event. A must-read editorial in the Washington Post echoed many of the points we have been making. “Nativist rhetoric that sounded so extreme when Mr. Trump came down the golden escalator eight years ago has moved into the GOP mainstream,” it read. “That doesn’t make it any less unsavory.” Notably, the debate became the largest platform yet for normalizing deadly white nationalist conspiracy theories, with drug company executive Vivek Ramaswamy the first of the night to amplify “invasion” rhetoric. “Last night all we heard was disinformation, extremism, and wanton cruelty, but nothing about real policies to address immigration challenges,” said AV Executive Director Vanessa Cárdenas. “None of their plans or policies would move us closer to real solutions for 21st-century migration or deliver the long overdue legislative fix for our broken immigration system needs but that Republicans continue to block.” Read more here.
TRUMP THE VENTRILOQUIST
In her weekly column, America’s Voice En Español Director Maribel Hastings writes that despite the fact that former President Donald Trump didn’t participate in the debate, he was the one who set the tone on the immigration among all the candidates. Trump controls the extreme message of the GOP “like a ventriloquist with his puppets,” she wrote. “Those other Republican primary candidates have their own anti-immigrant proposals and obviously, they are not condemning Trump nor his plans because at bottom they share them, or because they fear angering the most recalcitrant segment of the Republican base, which continues to favor Trump although he is facing ninety-one criminal charges emanating from four cases against him, two federal and two at the state level.” The column was published in several Spanish-language outlets, including La Opinión and El Tiempo Latino. Read the column in English here and in Spanish here.
‘LEGAL’ IMMIGRATION IS ‘ILLEGAL’ IMMIGRATION TO OPPONENTS OF IMMIGRATION
The latest target of red states trying to wrest control of immigration away from the federal government is coming in the form of a trial in Texas, which started this week. Twenty-one states are suing to end the use of parole authority President Biden has been using to authorize immigration from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, four key countries that have accounted for a large percentage of migrants seeking asylum at the border. A group of impacted individuals have also joined the government in defending the program in court, including one intervenor who participated in a Spanish-language press call organized by AV and the Center for Immigration Law and Policy (CILP) at the UCLA School of Law. The CHNV parole program has reunited families and given people a safer, more orderly option to travel to the U.S. to seek asylum, which is precisely why it is a target of a lawsuit from opponents of immigration. “The modern anti-immigrant movement is opposed to immigration in every form, opposed to legal status for immigrants, and opposed to measures that promote orderliness, safety and security,” Vanessa Cárdenas observed. “The opponents of immigration prefer to perpetuate and politicize chaos.” Read more here.
A HOPEFUL SIGN OF THINGS TO COME? U.S. REDESIGNATES TPS FOR UKRAINE AND SUDAN
Last week, President Biden announced not just an extension of TPS for Ukraine and Sudan, but a redesignation, meaning that more recently arrived immigrants could apply for protection from deportation and work authorization. Advocates have been calling on the president to use every lever at his disposal under current law to protect as many immigrants as possible. The statutory authority given the President to designate and redesignate TPS is a perfect example. TPS not only benefits immigrant families and communities directly, it allows immigrants to work, thereby uncapping their potential to contribute to the U.S. economy and even send more money back to families through remittances, thereby stabilizing countries in turmoil. As Cárdenas noted, “[i]t would be unconscionable to deport someone back to Sudan or Ukraine at this time and against our interests as a country, so this is the right decision to make.” Additionally, this “can also be a model for how to proceed in protecting long-term immigrants who are deeply rooted in American communities.” Read more here.
DEBUNKING THE FENTANYL LIES
While the fentanyl issue is a serious and urgent issue facing our nation, it has nothing to do with immigration, contrary to claims from anti-immigrant lawmakers. The facts are clear: the overwhelming majority of all fentanyl seized at the southern border is trafficked by U.S. citizens at legal ports of entry, not by migrants seeking to turn themselves in to Border Patrol in order to ask for asylum. But despite the clear facts from law enforcement agencies and experts, opponents of immigration reform continue to spread this pernicious lie about a correlation between immigrants and fentanyl. Click below to share our tweet making it clear once and for all that fentanyl is not an immigration issue.
YOU DON’T WANT TO MISS THIS
National scholarship fund TheDream.US announced that a cohort of more than 1,800 Dreamers are set to begin the upcoming school year, a record number for the organization. More than 80% of these Dreamers will be the very first in their families to attend college, TheDream.US said. Despite the fact that this is the only country that many Dreamers can remember, their immigration status makes them ineligible to receive federal tuition aid, limiting their higher education options. This is where TheDream.US has stepped in. To date, the national scholarship fund has awarded over 10,000 scholarships, and seen more than 3,800 Dreamers obtain their diplomas. Click here for more information about this life-changing fund.
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