Changing of the Guard

ICE Director John Morton Resigns

Monday morning, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director John Morton announced his resignation. In four years at the helm, Morton has overseen record-high deportation levels.

He has also been at the center of the Obama administration’s signature enforcement strategy: prioritizing the deportation of undocumented immigrants with criminal records. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano praised Morton’s leadership in a statement Monday, emphasizing that on his watch a far greater share of deportees have criminal records (55% last year, up from 38% in 2009).

Immigrant rights advocates, however, have long accused the Obama administration of “juking the stats” to present a distorted picture of who is actually being deported. Administration officials, including the president himself, often invoke national security and public safety as their primary objectives in immigration enforcement. They imply a link between deporting criminals and keeping the United States safe. It would be reasonable to assume that when President Obama or Secretary Napolitano say “criminal” in this context, they mean dangerous or violent criminals. During a presidential debate last October, President Obama asserted that enforcement should be focused on “gangbangers,” rather than hard-working community members. According to ICE’s own records, Morton’s legacy includes no such focus. Reporting on Morton’s exit for ABC/Univision, Ted Hesson noted that in 2011, 69% of those deported had either a misdemeanor conviction or no criminal record at all.

Morton also issued a prominent June 2011 memo directing ICE attorneys to use their discretion to close deportation proceedings against non-criminal immigrants who pose no threat to national security or public safety. Though the Obama administration trumpets prosecutorial discretion as evidence of its compassionate, common sense approach to immigration enforcement, its implementation has proved to be an abject failure, here in Western North Carolina and across the country.

Last summer, an internal Department of Homeland Security (DHS) review revealed that prosecutorial discretion had been used in only 1.5% of cases. The initiative has been undermined by ICE quotas calling for record-setting deportation levels each year. Internal e-mails obtained last year by the North Carolina ACLU showed that national ICE officials had surreptitiously advised regional offices on how to game the system to keep deportation numbers high. High deportation targets have also led to unprecedented damage to immigrant families, as ICE deported over 200,000 parents of U.S. citizen children between June 2010 and September 2012.

Prosecutorial discretion has also proved to be a false promise in local cases. Buncombe County resident Audencio Aguilar Diaz, a victim of over $10,000 in wage theft whose 3-year-old daughter is a U.S. citizen, has no criminal record and has received broad public support. Still, ICE attorneys in Charlotte have repeatedly refused to close his case. Diaz’s former co-worker, Flor Funes, was initially denied prosecutorial discretion as well, until an 11^th-hour press conference outside Senator Kay Hagan’s downtown Asheville office brought widespread attention to her case.

John Morton’s tenure as ICE Director draws to a close as undocumented immigrants in Western North Carolina and across the U.S. continue to organize against the harsh, punitive enforcement regime he helped to build. The struggle continues locally, as communities contest deportations on a case-by-case basis, and nationally, as undocumented immigrants and allies fight for a just reform of U.S. immigration law.

Debating the "Reclaim NC" Act

This morning before the NC House Finance Committee, advocates from across the ideological spectrum continued the contentious debate over NC House Bill 786, which would grant limited driver's permits to some undocumented immigrants while aggressively increasing immigration enforcement.

Prominent immigrant rights groups and progressive advocacy organizations continue to approach the Reclaim NC Act from divergent perspectives. The NC Justice Center, COLA (Coalición de Organizaciones Latino-Americanas), and the ACLU denounce "Reclaim NC" as an Arizona-style bill for its enforcement provisions:

Meanwhile, the NC Dream Team and Charlotte-based Jesus Ministry support the measure, maintaining that access to driver's permits represent a vital improvement from the status quo. You can find a live-tweet summary of this morning's hearing, as well as a variety of community responses, here.

Changing the Conversation

Why Undocumented Voices Speak More Powerfully than U.S. Citizen Allies

President Obama will arrive in Asheville tomorrow to deliver the first in a series of speeches promoting his State of the Union agenda. While his address may touch on Washington's current debate over immigration reform, it will offer nothing for local residents who continue to fight his administration's aggressive deportation policies. In a meeting with immigrant rights advocates last week, the president bluntly refused to take any new steps to slow the record-breaking removal pace set by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on his watch. He indicated that deportations will continue unabated as Congress works toward reform legislation.

Even as reform efforts gather national momentum, ICE continues to target individuals like Asheville resident Flor Funes for deportation. Obama administration guidelines that define Flor’s case as “low-priority” did not slow the agency’s zeal to remove her from the country. Ultimately, ICE relented, cancelling Flor’s deportation with only a day to spare, but only after a groundswell of community outrage over family separations, precipitated at least in part by an eleventh hour press conference in front of Senator Kay Hagan’s downtown Asheville office. Flor’s case is the latest example of a broader trend: undocumented residents that speak up when told to remain silent and demand justice in the face of arbitrary criminalization have begun to succeed with increasing frequency.

Over the past few months, with migration creeping toward the center of national political debates, a few well-intentioned U.S. citizens have asked me, What can I do to help? I generally respond by suggesting that the questioner do their best to support the work already being done by undocumented communities here in Western North Carolina. I have been surprised on more than one occasion, however, to see this suggestion brushed quickly aside. Congress won’t listen to them, I am told, but they’ll listen to us because we can vote! 

I understand the logic behind this assumption, largely because I have fallen prey to it myself. Less than two years ago, my infant daughter's Social Security card arrived in the mail. In one respect, it was a beautiful sight, an invitation to pursue bigger dreams than had been available to any previous generation in her family tree. Yet at the same time, it felt horribly twisted, marking her as more worthwhile in the eyes of the law than the many brave undocumented young people I have been fortunate to meet since moving to Asheville. In describing that moment to a friend shortly thereafter, I paraphrased Spider-Man. Embarrassingly, in retrospect, it appears I believed the privileges of citizenship to be similar in kind to powers that might be gained from a radioactive spider bite.

A great many privileges do indeed accompany U.S. citizenship. However, by equating those privileges with power, I missed the point by a wide margin. This perspective, which I now observe in many fellow citizens who consider themselves allies to the immigrant rights movement, enabled me to believe I possessed a greater capacity than my undocumented neighbors to achieve positive change. Such a belief is clearly littered with ethical shortcomings, but I have also come to recognize a major strategic flaw: it simply isn't true.

More than individual voter concerns, even in large numbers, lawmakers respond to compelling stories that hold the potential to capture the public imagination.

Flor Funes embodies this phenomenon here in Western North Carolina. She cannot vote, due to her undocumented status, nor can many of the supporters cited in local media coverage of her case. Nevertheless, not only did Flor win relief from deportation, but the boldness with which she spoke out earned her a platform more powerful than a single vote: the listening ears of a region struggling to make sense of migration policy. As Congressional hearings opened last week, for instance, WLOS-13 News did not cover the opinion of local advocates, allies, or even public officials. Instead, they sought out Flor’s own words, asking her to speak with the insight that comes only through experience.

English-language media tends to cover immigration primarily through the lens of Washington policy debates. Reform legislation is unquestionably important, but a narrow focus on national politics enables many U.S. citizens to underestimate the urgency with which their undocumented neighbors continue to wage a daily local struggle. Meanwhile, each week’s headlines in Spanish-language newspapers track local efforts to stop deportations and stand up to unjust treatment from local, state, and national elected officials. Many citizens continue to ask, What can I do to help? There is no easy answer in the face of such complex challenges, but a good first step is to educate yourself on the efforts already underway as undocumented communities here in Western North Carolina stand up for themselves.

I will do my best to offer support such education. Keep an eye on this blog’s Community News page for up-to-date information on local campaigns to stop deportations, push back against racial profiling, and restore access to driver’s licenses for undocumented youth.

Additional Resources (c/o Loida Ginocchio-Silva)

• Coloradans for Immigrant Rights: "Citizenship Privilege"

• NC DREAM Team: "Documented and Afraid"

• DREAMers Adrift: "The Ally Code of Conduct"