This Caravan nonsense is really about swaying midterms,

But the trump Cultist and extreme right dont see the numbers or care to know the history, trump plays these dummys Know wonder he says he loves the un educated and the racist!

Caravan hysteria is unwarranted — many more have come before
BY RUTH ELLEN WASEM, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR — 10/26/18 10:30 AM EDT 298 THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY CONTRIBUTORS ARE THEIR OWN AND NOT THE VIEW OF THE HILL
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Caravan hysteria is unwarranted — many more have come before
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The hysteria over the caravan of Central American asylum-seekers traveling north towards the United States is spiraling out of proportion. A calm review of the facts and the historical context of migration from this hemisphere make clear that the United States has the laws and policies in place to respond humanely — in keeping with our values and our laws.

There are varied estimates of the number of people in the caravan, ranging from the Mexican government’s estimate of 3,630 migrants to the United Nations spokesperson’s estimate of 7,000 migrants. According to the Washington Post, Mexican officials report that they have processed 1,700 asylum cases. Whether the caravan will grow in numbers or dissipate remains to be seen.


What we do know is that the United States has handled much larger influxes of asylum-seekers. And we did so without sacrificing our laws and our values.

Cuba long has been a source of asylum-seekers, as Haiti has been. In 1980, for example, a mass migration of asylum-seekers, known as the Mariel boatlift, brought approximately 125,000 Cubans and 25,000 Haitians to South Florida over a six-month period. In 1992, the U.S. Coast Guard interdicted 37,618 Haitians who had set sail to the United States and took many of them to Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. While the treatment of the Haitians was not our finest hour as a nation, we did pre-screen those at Guantanamo for credible fear and return others to Haiti with the option of in-country refugee processing. The estimates of migrants in the caravan are comparable to the number of Cubans (7,163) the U.S. Coast Guard and Border Patrol picked up in fiscal year 1997.

The civil wars in Central America during the 1980s prompted asylum-seekers that numbered in the hundreds of thousands. Data on asylum cases filed with the then-Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) show that about 126,000 Nicaraguans, 126,300 Salvadorans and 41,942 Guatemalans applied for asylum in the United States from fiscal year 1981 through 1990.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Mitch in November 1998, then-Attorney General Janet Reno designated temporary protected status (TPS) for unauthorized Hondurans and Nicaraguans in the United States. In 2001, the George W. Bush administration decided to grant TPS to Salvadorans following two earthquakes that rocked El Salvador. The number of Central Americans who received these various temporary protections approached 270,000.

For those who are fearful that bad actors are hiding amid the asylum-seekers in the caravan, rest assured that U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) puts all such migrants through rigorous border security screening systems. CBP collects biometric data, performs background checks, and runs them through a host of criminal and national security databases.

Lest we forget, border apprehensions of all irregular migrants (including asylum-seekers) are now at historic lows. From a peak of 1.6 million in fiscal year 2000, the U.S. Border Patrol apprehended just under 304,000 last fiscal year. Research conducted by Stephanie Leutert at the University of Texas found that in fiscal year 2017 less than 0.1 percent of those apprehended — 228 migrants — were members of the MS-13 gang.

We do not need to send military troops to the border; rather, we need to adequately staff the asylum offices and immigration courts at the border. Funding for asylum officers and immigration judges has not been commensurate with the substantial increases in border security funding, despite the obvious interconnections among these functions. We also need to reinstitute in-country refugee processing in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, and extend it to include adults as well as minors. Cutting assistance to Mexico and Central America — which President Trump suggests would punish the source countries into stopping the migration — most likely would exacerbate the underlying problems and increase the number of people fleeing north.

It’s time to calm down and remember that we are a nation of laws and a people of values. We can handle this.

Ruth Ellen Wasem is a clinical professor of policy at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, the University of Texas in Austin. For more than 25 years, she was a domestic policy specialist at the U.S. Library of Congress’ Congressional Research Service. She has testified before Congress about asylum policy, legal immigration trends, human rights and the push-pull forces on unauthorized migration.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/03/2018 04:20AM by riverhousebill.

“Because THIS is a Revolution!” A slam poem by Jorge

I didn’t have to run across the border to know that as much as I love her.
America does not love me back.
And as much as I want to succeed, she won’t let me.

My mother brought me here when she was 27
My sister was 3, and I was 8.

She figured an American education for her children would fit well with her job
cleaning offices afterhours and my father’s machismo.

She is now 43.
It’s been 16 years.

Learning English through Goosebumps books in 3rd grade in Tejas,
I sat with other classmates whose skin was darker but accents were just as thick.

You could smell the residue of the rancho still on their worn shoes.
And the excitement of being somewhere where wearing Nikes wasn’t a big deal.

Pokemon trading cards.
And McDonald’s taught me lessons on capitalism and globalization.

Yet, a broken, no – shattered, immigration system holds me back.
As I try to piece my identity together I struggle to find the pieces.
Jagged and rough,
I can’t glue something together when parts are in Mexico and I can’t find the piece
reading, “American” being held by those who don’t care to acknowledge their
privilege!

I learned.

I learned that my accent would soon be gone. Replaced by Chicago.
And that being undocumented means you cannot attend college no matter how hard
you work.

It means if you graduate, a bachelor’s degree is a piece of a paper. Skills blown to the
wind.

Mom. This is for you.
I blamed you because I didn’t know who else to blame.
I’m sorry.

It’s not your fault I feel ashamed that I cannot attain a license in to drive you to the
grocery store.

My mother moved to the U.S. because she figured an American diploma would fit
well with her dry-cleaning job and a sense of loneliness.

Yet, “illegals” or alien are names pressed upon us.

Last time I checked, “illegal” is not a noun describing a person.
And last time I checked,
My tax dollars are just as valuable as yours.

I can’t exempt myself from not paying taxes whenever I buy something.

I had to learn where acentos van just like you did.
Spanglish is my culture.
Chilaquiles and apple pie is my meal.

Go back? What do you mean go back?
My ancestors have worked hard at building this country.
And NAFTA is not just a document, it is a reality.

High school kids should not be weeping because college dreams are crushed.
When 65,000 DREAMs are denied a year, there is something wrong.

One of my journal entries begins with, “I cried last night. And I try to be strong for
my family but I couldn’t.”

Breakdowns break me down.

My friend who’s been here since he was one deserves his DREAM.
Mi amiga que quiere estudiar se lo merece.
I know you feel like giving up, but I won’t let you.
Our feeling of wanting to travel becomes a push.
Pumping our fist.
Because we live in America.

Because THIS is a revolution!

When 65,000 DREAMs are denied a year, there is something wrong.

Because being undocumented feels like your young forever.
And there is no list for me to sign my name at the bottom. So that I can grow up.

I speak English just as well as you do and I understand that you’re afraid of change.

But I am not leaving