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El Paso busses migrants to New York City

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As the number of migrants crossing from South America to the U.S. increased at the borderland, El Paso was forced to send more than 35 Venezuelan immigrants to New York City. These efforts are part of Operation Lone Star, a strategy in response to Biden’s administration’s attempt to end Title 42.…

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On Sept. 1, community members gathered in front of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to honor the life of Kesley Vial, a young Brazilian man who died in ICE custody. Vial, 23, died on August 24 due to the horrific conditions, neglect and racist abuse at the Torrance County Detention Center, which is southwest of Albuquerque in Estancia, New Mexico.

Vial was being held indefinitely after seeking asylum from Brazil, where there are many economic and political crises under the reactionary Bolsonaro administration.

Those close to Vial spoke at the vigil, which was organized by New Mexico Immigrant Law Center, Justice for Our Neighbors El Paso, and Vida. Wesley, who knew Vial while at the Torrance County Detention Center, related in a tearful statement:

"Kesley was one of the 200 prisoners [at Torrance]. His time at the prison was really rough. And all that he asked was that he return to his country of Brazil. But they refused. After failing the interview with ICE, Vial came back crying and wishing he could go back to Brazil. He was close to going back to Brazil, and he was boarding the airplane, and the ICE agents took him back [to the facility]. So then he started getting anxious and ended up taking his life."

Candles were lit in honor of Vial and those whose lives have been stolen while in detention centers. Since 2004, over 220 people have died in ICE custody. Karla, one of the organizers of the vigil, stated in a candle-lighting litany, "We will not let their deaths be in vain. We light these candles as a symbol of our commitment to continue to seek justice for immigrants in pain all over our country."

In an interview with Liberation News, Karla emphasized what the demand for justice means in immigrant communities. "Justice would be some kind of financial restitution. His family can't even get his body back to Brazil. Restitution is merciful, honest and humble. We need concrete change in our government and society."

Throughout the vigil, songs were performed that echoed the demand for justice and action.

"We are a gentle, angry people, and we are singing, singing for our lives"

The vigil ended with a chant remembering those who have died in ICE custody. The chant began with Heriberto Verdecia-Carrillo, who died in 2003, and ended with Kesley Vial.

ICE, family separation, deportation and all forms of violent border supremacy are part and parcel of the capitalist system. U.S. imperialism and U.S.-backed coups continue to destabilize the Global South, forcing people to flee atrocious poverty and extreme violence only to be met with imprisonment by ICE agents in the United States.

Working people in the "belly of the beast" must continue to build a movement and international solidarity across borders. We must fight to end deportations and shut down immigrant detention centers. Justice for Kesley Vial demands ending the unjust and brutal U.S. anti-immigrant machine. Kesley Vial, presente!

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Vigil in Albuquerque demands justice for Kesley Vial, who died in...

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On Sept. 1, community members gathered in front of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to honor the life of Kesley Vial, a young Brazilian man who died in ICE custody. Vial, 23, died on August 24 due to the horrific conditions, neglect and racist abuse at the Torrance County Detention Center, which is southwest of Albuquerque in Estancia, New Mexico.

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A Berks County detention center for immigrant families that emptied out last year has reopened, this time detaining only adult women, according to immigration attorneys working in the Reading area.

Jackie Kline, immigration attorney with the pro bono legal clinic Aldea - People's Justice Center, said they began receiving calls from women who U.S. immigration authorities had transferred into the Berks County Residential Center as of last week.

"From what we understand, the majority of the women are recent border entrants, and are a mix of Haitian, Roma and Spanish-speaking women," said Kline.

County officials declined to comment, and referred all requests to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement or ICE. Following publication, ICE confirmed that the "Berks County Facility transitioned from family detention and is now a female-only detention facility effective Jan. 3," in an emailed statement.

As of February 8, 2022, there were 35 women transferred from the Southwest border in custody at the Berks Center, per the agency. They also confirmed and elaborated on where the women traveled from, saying most are originally from Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, Peru, and Romania.

The new use of the county-run facility is the latest chapter in a years-long tussle between advocates seeking to permanently close the center, and the county and federal government, who argue the center creates jobs and is a necessary part of the country's immigration apparatus.

For more than a decade, the center had been one of three places where U.S. immigration enforcement would detain families with children.

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Berks Co. immigrant detention center reopens as women-only facility

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A Berks County detention center for immigrant families that emptied out last year has reopened, this time detaining only adult women, according to immigration attorneys working in the Reading area. Jackie Kline, immigration attorney with the pro bono legal clinic Aldea - People's Justice Center, said they began receiving calls from women who U.S.

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The head of U.S. Border Patrol said on Tuesday that agents caught 10 illegal immigrant sex offenders in just three days, in addition to a number of gang members and a murderer -- a snapshot of the crisis that the men and women in green are dealing with on a nearly-daily basis.

"The dangers are real," Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz said in a tweet on Tuesday. "Great work by our agents."

Ortiz said that in three days, agents across the border had encountered 2,690 migrants -- including 10 large groups. Among them were 10 sex offenders, four gang members and a murderer.

Agents hauled in 100 fentanyl pills and 71 lbs of methamphetamine. Meanwhile, agents made more than 90 rescues.
BORDER PATROL AGENTS ARREST DOZENS OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT CRIMINALS, GANG MEMBERS
There have been over two million migrant encounters in this fiscal year, which started in October, so far. In July, there were nearly 200,000 and that doesn't include the more than 500,000 illegal immigrants who have evaded Border Patrol this fiscal year.

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has been alerting the public to the number of sex offenders and gang members -- including members of MS-13 -- it has been stopping from reaching U.S. communities.

Last week, CBP announced that agents in the Rio Grande Valley sector had stopped 21 gang members, two sex offenders and those with prior convictions for robbery and battery.

One of those nabbed was a Mexican national with prior conviction for indecency and sexual contact with a child. Another was a Salvadoran 18th Street gang member with a prior conviction for aggravated homicide.

Agents near Sarita, Texas also stopped a Guatemalan national who had an outstanding warrant in Houston for indecency with a child.

So far this fiscal year, agents have stopped 627 gang members compared to 348 in FY 2021 and 363 in FY 2020. Meanwhile, Border Patrol has stopped 9,381 criminal migrants, compared to 10,763 last fiscal year and 2,438 in FY 2020.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced last week that it had arrested a Mexican illegal immigrant with a prior conviction for indecency with a child and multiple deportations.

Meanwhile, Fox News Digital reported last week how Ortiz had said during a July deposition that there would be increases in migrant traffic when illegal immigrants do not face consequences for their actions.

"In my experience, we have seen increases when there are no consequences," said Ortiz during the deposition.
Fox News' Kelly Laco contributed to this report.

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Border Patrol chief says agents caught 10 illegal immigrant sex offenders in 3 days: 'The dangers are real'

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The head of U.S. Border Patrol said on Tuesday that agents caught 10 illegal immigrant sex offenders in just three days, in addition to a number of gang members and a murderer -- a snapshot of the crisis that the men and women in green are dealing with on a nearly-daily basis.

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Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced that families, loved ones and community members can once again visit persons detained by the federal government on May 11, 2022. It took over a month for Southern California detention centers that detain persons for ICE, such as Adelanto, Mesa Verde, and Otay Mesa, to implement in person visitation again. They withheld the power of in person visitation for far too long, resulting in more unnecessary harm to individuals and families facing deportation - some of those being Orange County residents.

Under the best circumstances, immigrants and refugees in detention centers will have their lawyer and their loves to advocating for them on the outside. If they cannot afford legal counsel, or are housed in a detention center inaccessible to their families, they depend on local organizations to advocate for them, such as OC Friends of Detainees, a non-profit founded when there were three immigration detention centers who collaborated with ICE, in the cities of Santa Ana, Orange and Irvine.

Over two years ago, on March 13, 2020, ICE suspended in-person visitations in detention centers nationwide, due to concerns about the spread of Covid-19. Contrary to ICE's Covid-19 health concerns, according to Vera Institute of Justice 536,576 people have been detained nationally at any point between March 14, 2020, and June 18, 2022, and 46,010 people in detention centers have tested positive for COVID-19 throughout the pandemic. Despite the lack of personal protective equipment (ppe) supplies, Covid-19 boosters, adequate healthcare, detention is back on the rise (see graph below).

Credit: Vera

Felicity Figueroa, a volunteer with OC Friends of Detainees has been visiting detainees in immigration detention for over 10 years, based on her experiences she recognizes the ulterior motive for visitation restrictions, " [ICE] doesn't want to provide ppe equipment because it's an expense, this is all a profit-making business [...] - to have visitation you need guards to watch over visitation pods and you need people at reception to process IDs - if there's any excuse to stop [visitation], they will justify it with a bunch of lies - the bottom line is profit". It is clear the immigration system in America prioritizes profit over humanity, but at what cost? For immigrants in detention facilities over two years have come and gone without being able to visit their loved ones. Peggy Thompson, Chair of OC Friends of Detainees, put it best, "It makes a huge difference to be able to give someone a hug". Even though "life has returned to normal" for most of us, and federal prisons and jails reinstated visitation in October of 2020, people in immigration detention have faced extreme isolation.

"It hasn't only been visitation, people's cases got stopped. There has been little progress- that is the other big mental health issue. Courts closed, no end in sight, what type of mind game does that play on you?" comments Figueroa. There is over 1,781,395 pending immigration cases in the U.S., 12,785 cases are in Orange County. These people live their lives not knowing if they are going to be forced to leave their families, homes, and communities on any given day.

The top five nationalities that make up the 1,781,395 immigration cases nationwide awaiting an immigration judge's decision on deportation are, El Salvadorian, Guatemalan, Mexican, Honduran, and Chinese. The allowance of visitation in immigration detention centers is an essential part of individuals successfully defending against deportation orders to remain in the U.S. with their loved ones and avoid persecution in their country of origin.

Visitation not only allows for human connection, but also, for advocates of detainees to proactively help defend against deportation by filing paperwork, contacting community resources, and finding an attorney promptly. In Orange County, only 68% of the pending immigration cases have legal representation, visitation restrictions lower the odds of finding legal representation, and consequently successfully defending against deportation.

In-person visitation is powerful, and that power was taken away from thousands of people that were detained at federal immigration detention centers who were not able to visit with their loved ones or meet community members invested in their reunification with family.

Visitation Restrictions left few proactive ways for detainees to communicate with the outside world. One option was telecommunication, a video chat service that is costly and malfunctions. The other option? Written letters - a timely process that can lead to personal information being intercepted by guards. Both options are incomparable to in-person visitation.

The reinstatement of visitations at detention was a result of pressure from a national advocacy campaign led by a coalition of detained immigrants, and immigrant rights groups organized by Freedom for Immigrants.

Although implementation of visitation will improve the lives of detainees, the predicted increase in immigration due to international war and economic instability, and the repeal of Title 42 will leave many immigrants and refugees to face the many other harmful realities of the U.S. immigration system. Community Based organizations that serve immigrant and refugee populations are gearing up to support individuals and families that find themselves in ICE custody and need help navigating the immigration system in the U.S.

Chairwoman Thompson, of OC Detainees said, "Once the visitation restriction is lifted, OC Friends of detainees will try to visit again depending on volunteers and the willingness of older volunteers to risk Covid-19 and provide support to detainees." Amongst immigrants' rights activists it is understood that the U.S. immigration system is far from perfect. Sonali Shah, a longtime local activist said it best, "The US immigration system is built on a foundation of fear. How can you consider the importance of inter-personal connections if you do not consider immigrants as humans deserving of kindness and empathy? If we view immigrants as 'aliens' to be feared instead of guests who should be welcomed, we will continue with inhumane policies."

One way ICE can create less harm in Southern California is to allow immigrants and refugees to see their loved ones in person without restrictions, because who knows when and if that opportunity will be available to them later. It comes down to the Department of Justice, overseen by President Biden, to not only enforce ICE and DHS to follow the policies, but also to start prioritizing people over profit.
Teresa Morris, UC Santa Cruz alum, is the Development Coordinator at Orange County Justice Fund, a nonprofit organization founded in 2017 by a collaboration of community leaders, attorneys and law professors, to advocate for transformative changes in the U.S. immigration system and support OC immigrants and refugees' community members impacted by detention and deportation. Opinions expressed in community opinion pieces belong to the authors and not Voice of OC. Voice of OC is interested in hearing different perspectives and voices. If you want to weigh in on this issue or others please email opinions@voiceofoc.org.

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Morris: More Harm Created in the U.S. Immigration System

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Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced that families, loved ones and community members can once again visit persons detained by the federal government on May 11, 2022. It took over a month for Southern California detention centers that detain persons for ICE, such as Adelanto, Mesa Verde, and Otay Mesa, to implement in person visitation again.

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With Americans having fewer children and the nation's labor force getting older, many employers in manufacturing, aviation and other industries are having trouble finding enough workers.

The gap between the demand for labor and its supply was already forming in 2017. By 2018, the U.S. economy had increasingly more job openings than unemployed workers. That gap has widened during the COVID-19 pandemic as more people have died, retired early or simply dropped out of the job market.

By July 2022, as the pandemic's effects on the workplace were easing, the U.S. had 11.2 million job openings but only 5.7 million unemployed workers who might fill them.

I'm a scholar of immigration and economics who researches a trend that's driving labor shortages: declining numbers of immigrants allowed to legally work in the U.S. When I study these numbers, I see an important opportunity to resolve labor shortages that are wreaking economic havoc.

Work visas

An estimated 45 million people living in the United States, roughly 14% of the population, were born elsewhere. About one in six U.S. workers is an immigrant.

Some of these foreign-born workers are legally employed on a temporary basis with an array of visas that make it possible to obtain jobs that run the gamut from software designers to apple pickers.

In some cases, these employees can obtain legal permanent residency - often called "a green card." Some temporary work visas last longer than 12 months, so the number of workers with authorization is higher than the number of visas issued in that year. H-1B visas, which require a high level of education for fields like computer programming, last three years and can be renewed for another three.

The government issued a record 813,330 temporary employment-based visas in 2019. The total fell by about a third to 566,000 in 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic got underway, and the numbers were basically flat in 2021 at 566,001 - the first year of Joe Biden's presidency.

Of course it's important that the government not issue visas in such a way that foreign workers depress wages or lead to the dismissal of gainfully employed Americans.

These lower wages could occur in the short run, but most empirical studies show there are long-term benefits in terms of what native-born people earn when immigration rises.

Taking a bite out of the economy

The sharp reduction in the number of temporary visas for foreign-born workers in 2020 and 2021 harmed the U.S. economy. Based on my own calculations, the total cost was around 0.4% per year of total gross domestic product - at least $82 billion per year in 2020 and 2021.

Immigration restrictions affected far more people, however, including those who were unable to obtain a green card because of the closure of embassies and consulates. All told, these policies resulted in an estimated 2 million fewer working-age immigrants in the U.S. in 2020 and 2021.

Including those additional losses nearly triples the economic cost of U.S. immigration restrictions to about 1.1% per year of U.S. GDP.

Unless the U.S. reverses course and issues more work-related visas, I estimate that the worker shortage will double to over 4 million by 2030. My calculations also suggest this will shave about 4.3% off of GDP, on average, annually for the next eight years. Adding that all up, that would amount to about $9 trillion in lost economic output.

Labor shortages

Labor shortages are especially severe today in certain industries that rely heavily on immigrants as employees.

For example, in 2020 foreign-born workers accounted for 39% of the farming, fishing and forestry workforce, 30% of all people employed in construction and extraction, 26% of everyone working in computer science and mathematics and 22% in health care support.

As a result, these industries are facing unprecedented challenges in trying to find workers to fill open jobs.

If these labor shortages continue, I'm certain that they will keep hurting job markets, supply chains and productivity as companies have to pay their employees more and then increase prices due in part to those higher labor costs.

The labor force participation rate, which measures the number of people in the job market as a percentage of the total working-age population, has been hovering around the lowest levels seen since the 1970s as more U.S. workers drop out of the job market. After plunging to 60% in 2020, it bounced back partially. The rate stood at 62.2% in July 2022.

Feasible fix

Of course, there are other factors besides a lack of foreign-born visas issued that are responsible for the shortage of workers.

But none are easy to resolve. It's hard for the government to increase the share of adults who are working, and there's little that can be done in the short term about the country's aging workforce - the result of a long-term fertility decline.

Even if the political hurdles can be high, I believe boosting the number of immigrants allowed to legally work in the United States is an important way that the authorities can ease labor shortages.

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Legal work-related immigration has fallen by a third since 2020, contributing to US labor shortages

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With Americans having fewer children and the nation's labor force getting older, many employers in manufacturing, aviation and other industries are having trouble finding enough workers. The gap between the demand for labor and its supply was already forming in 2017. By 2018, the U.S. economy had increasingly more job openings than unemployed workers.

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We rated it an 8 because the article provides statistics that make the text more objective. The reason it didn’t rank higher was because it’s not an .edu domain, meaning it doesn’t have academic credibility.

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we rated a 6 since the article was ridden from a .com and and it was relevant. She's a contributor but reviewing her other works her main focus is politics , some of her work shows bias.

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We rated it a 3.5 because of the large bias the article had. We noticed the article used subjective language to exaggerate certain points. It also is a .org website, which takes away from the credibility since anyone can have a .org.

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We give it a rating of 9/10 for credibility. We think this is because the author goes to a university which is in the same area as where the event is taking place. She gives statistics multiple times throughout the article. She majors in Multimedia Journalism, and is interested in joining the journalism field.

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We rate it a 2 since the information is important to spread its very bias. The publication is from a political organization.

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We rated this article an 8 because of the amount of statistics and facts that were presented. The information given was also from credible sources, such as ICE and the Biden administration. One thing that does take away some credibility is the fact that is is a .org.

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We give it a rating of a 5. There's not much information about the Author, they don't list too much evidence. They are also a very biased non-profit organization.

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We give this one a 8. The name was worrisome but the article context was factual and satistic based. Also had lots of words from the locals.

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We give it a rating of 7. The Author has written multiple other articles. The organization itself isn't too biased, and they state they have fact based information.

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We rated this a 10 because the information is coming from credible sources. Although the information is biased coming from fox news, which is known to be very conservative leaning, it is all accurate verifiable information.

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We rate this a 4. This article had a bias and the author has a clear political stance.

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We give it a rating of 3. The website is filled with pop-up ads, the organization is known to be heavily biased.

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We rated this article a 10 because it is very centered around data and statistics. The author is also a scholar who is very knowledgeable in the subject.

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We give it a rating of a 10. The Author has been to a university and is a Research Scholar of Economics with a Ph.D The website itself isn't filled with ads. They also have a great use of research and data.

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We give this article a 10. It has trustworthy sources and the conversation is funded by the University.

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We give it an 8 since its community based opinion but their information is from other organizations.

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We rated this article a 9, because although it’s very biased, the information is credible and informative. The only reason it isn’t a ten is because it’s a .org, meaning it doesn’t much have academic discussion around it.

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We give it a rating of an 8. The organization itself seems trustworthy. They state they prefer to share the bold truth and facts rather than make profit off advertisements. They also include a good amount of research.