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In this blog post I'm going to make my case for why most undocumented migrants from South of the Border deserve to stay, particularly those who have been here for years. I will do that by presenting myths and then countering those myths with facts.
Are Undocumented Immigrants Stealing Our Jobs? In a word, no, at least not the ones most Americans want. The majority of undocumented immigrants from south of the border (Mexico and Central America) are here because they were recruited by U.S. companies in the agricultural, meatpacking/processing and construction sectors (Tyson Foods, IBP slaughterhouses, etc.) to do work that US Americans won’t do.
Trump has been declaring a border crisis since before he announced his presidential candidacy, and he’s now insisting that our national security depends on the construction of a border wall to stem the “invasion” of dangerous immigrants and the flow of dangerous drugs.
Is Trump correct? Has there been a dramatic influx of unlawful entries through our southwest border recently? Do most of the undocumented immigrants entering the country through southwest border have criminal records? Are drugs flooding into our country through the southwest border? And finally, if the answer to all of these questions are yes, will a border wall solve these problems? By Michelle Martin, PhD, MSW  What I want to address in this blog post is whether Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ assertion that the only legal way to request asylum in the United States is through a U.S. port of entry (or U.S. consulate) is accurate. I also want to explore how the government can distinguish between undocumented economic immigrants who cross the Mexico border without documentation to work, and those who cross the border seeking political asylum because they are fleeing persecution.
 President Trump has made immigration a cornerstone of his presidency, pushing the limits of both political rhetoric and legality (some would say exceeding each). While the politicization of immigration is nothing new, the extent to which an American president has gone to implement an agenda is new.
Trump has on numerous occasions made inflammatory statements about the "border problem," referencing how immigrants are "flooding" the border (thus the need for an 'impenetrable' border wall). But are immigrants flooding our southern border? If we examine historical data and trends then the answer is a definitive no. There are two dynamics occurring right now (actually, there are several, but I'm only going to address two in this post). The “Dem Laws” the Trump Administration Claims have Tied Their Hands: Separating Myth from Fact7/1/2018
By Michelle Martin, PhD, MSW  The Trump administration has referenced several “Dem laws” they claim have tied their hands in the current crisis involving the separation of Central American children from their political asylum-seeking parents. The narrative, according to Sarah Sanders, White House spokesperson, is that President Trump didn’t create the crisis, but is just the first president to “come to the table” and do something about it.
The administration was initially somewhat mysterious about what specific laws they were referencing that “only Congress could fix,” so I, along with many others, took shots in the dark in an attempt to untangle the pertinent immigration legislation at play, exploring whether any of them would warrant separating the children from their parents who are being detained while they await their asylum hearing. Since the initial zero-tolerance policy was implemented in April of this year, the administration has been more forthcoming in their legal stance, and several immigration experts have weighed in on the matter. This blog post is an attempt to make sense of the various laws and policies involved in this crisis. By Michelle Martin, PhD, MSW In Trump's June 16, 2015 speech declaring his candidacy for president, Trump used the "consensus effect" (everybody knows this) to defend his assertions about Mexican immigrants an crime: “I can never apologize for the truth. I don’t mind apologizing for things. But I can’t apologize for the truth. I said tremendous crime is coming across. Everybody knows that’s true. And it’s happening all the time. So, why, when I mention, all of a sudden I’m a racist. I’m not a racist. I don’t have a racist bone in my body.” And in an interview a few weeks after his candidacy announcement, he blamed the Mexican government for "forcing" their criminals into the United States: “What can be simpler or more accurately stated? The Mexican Government is forcing their most unwanted people into the United States. They are, in many cases, criminals, drug dealers, rapists, etc.” More recently, in a speech on June 19, 2018, Trump stated this about the Central American political-asylum seekers coming through the southern the border:
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May 2019
AuthorDr. Michelle Martin is a social worker, policy specialist and Assistant Professor at California State University, Fullerton in the Department of Social Work, where she teaches social welfare policy, and researches dynamics related to immigrants, political asylum-seekers, refugees and other displaced populations. Categories
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