On July 25th, a federal judge issued a decision blocking a rule implemented by the Biden administration earlier this year which allows immigration officials to deny asylum to immigrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border without first applying for an appointment via the CBP One app or seeking asylum in a country they passed through on their way to the southern U.S. border. The judge also issued a stay which delays the ruling from taking effect for two weeks so that the Biden administration can appeal the decision. This means that the rule restricting asylum access remains in force for at least the next two weeks. The Justice Department submitted a request to the judge asking that he increase the length of the stay while they appeal his decision.
What is the asylum-related rule at the center of these current court proceedings?
This rule, referred to by many as an “asylum ban,” is strikingly similar to two previous attempts under the Trump administration to institute rules severely limiting access to asylum. While the rule is not a total asylum ban, the process of even applying for this humanitarian protection has become significantly less accessible. This rule, titled “Circumvention of Lawful Pathways,” established a “rebuttable presumption of asylum ineligibility” for anyone who passes through another country to reach the U.S.-Mexico border without first seeking protection there. Exceptions can be made for some “extremely compelling circumstances” and children traveling alone are also exempt. But in essence, the majority of immigrants arriving at the southern border who wish to seek asylum will be denied that opportunity under this rule.
Immigrants’ rights groups sued to block the rule and argued that it violated U.S. asylum laws that protect the right to asylum, regardless of how a person enters the country. They argued that under the Biden administration’s rule, immigrants were forced to seek protection in countries that may not have the same robust asylum system and human rights protections as the U.S. and that the new process leaves them unprotected, in a dangerous state of limbo. Additionally, they argued that the CBP One app that the U.S. government wants immigrants to use to apply for appointments to seek asylum at a port of entry has caused unacceptable problems from the outset as it frequently crashes, does not have enough available appointments compared to the level of demand, and is only available in limited languages.
In implementing the rule, the Biden administration emphasized complex dynamics at play with the U.S. immigration system and said that the rule was a key part of its strategy to strike a balance between strict border enforcement and making alternate options available for immigrants to enter the country via humanitarian parole and other pathways and to pursue valid asylum claims via the new system.
What’s going to happen with asylum processing at the southern border now?
The judge’s ruling found that the Biden administration’s asylum restrictions under the “Circumvention of Lawful Pathways” rule violate the United States’ legal obligations to allow those fleeing violence or in fear of persecution to request humanitarian protection on American soil. His ruling means that the judge determined the rule to be unlawful and will stop it from being utilized. However, the judge suspended his ruling for two weeks to allow the Justice Department to file an appeal, which the administration made immediately clear that it would do. They are also seeking a longer suspension of the ruling while they work on the appeal. This means that the restrictions on asylum under this rule will continue until at least August 8, 2023.
The Biden administration has indicated that it will continue to defend the rule restricting asylum. Whether or not the judge’s decision to block the rule goes into effect, the CPB One app, various new parole processes, and other previously existing pathways to enter the United States will still be available. However, the restrictions caused by the rule often results in the denial of a meaningful opportunity for immigrants to seek asylum and can also lead families, children, and adults left to wait outside of the United States where many immigrants face dangerous conditions and horrific violence, which is why advocates have been speaking out against it.
Immigrants’ rights advocates will continue to argue for the rule to be blocked and for the administration instead to focus on ways to support the work that communities and organizations across the country are doing to welcome the arrival of people seeking asylum and safety. This includes calling on the Biden administration to allow people to access the regular asylum process, expand safe migration pathways, build infrastructure at U.S. ports of entry, and coordinate with and provide funding to nonprofits, community-based organizations, and state and local governments that are welcoming immigrants into their communities.
Where can I find more resources to help understand and talk about this ruling?
Giving bikes to low income residents of the greater Nashua Area every Monday from 3-6pm at 17B Airport Road in Nashua, please use the rear entrance.
Clients will need a signed voucher from a local social agency and an appointment to get a bike.
Gate City Bike Co-op is continuing to look for a distribution space downtown and are hoping to find an angel/hero/champion that has an unused space that they would let them use. An ideal space would be 1000 square feet but they could make it work with less. The space does not have to be pretty, just accessible and free or cheap. Please let them know if you have any leads or ideas.
If there are similar organizations out there please let Welcoming NH know so we can share them with members! WelcomingNH@Miracoalition.org
The New Hampshire Department of Education is partnering with New Hampshire camps and school-age summer programs across the state to offer students the unique opportunity to move beyond COVID-19 and be a kid again. Students of all ages, backgrounds and abilities benefit from exposure to short-term summer enrichment programs, including in the areas of challenge, friend-making, positivity, and emotional safety. These are all things that New Hampshire camps and school-age programs do best.
Our goal for New Hampshire students is that they return to learning in the fall with rekindled curiosity, rejuvenated energy, excitement and anticipation.
Space is limited!
Up to $750 in camp fees* covered.
Fees for programs occurring between June 1 and August 31 of the program year, including programming, before and after care services, snacks and meals, transportation, registration, and clothing/attire purchased as part of registration
Camp fee eligibility
The contractor ClassWallet will provide a digital wallet that will facilitate families’ payment of camp fees.
For application assistance, please contact FACTS Management Customer Service at 844-245-0168.
SUMMER 2023
Camps and summer programs must be licensed through the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services in order to participate. Please verify that your program is eligible prior to registering on Class Wallet.
As I write this—July 4th, 2023—our nation is celebrating the 247th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. English settlers had first arrived along the Atlantic seaboard in 1607, and were soon joined by Dutch, Swedish, French, and more English settlers. The Spanish had already colonized Florida and what is today New Mexico. William Penn attracted Welsh and a large number of German settlers. Early on, others began arriving from Africa in chains.
Even the people who were here when the Europeans arrived came from somewhere else, though a lot earlier. We are indeed, as has so often been said, a nation of immigrants. But though as school children, many of us learned that the United States is a “melting pot,” that melting pot has, from the very beginning, been fraught with conflict and violence and hatred.
The Spanish wiped out the French settlement in what is now St. Augustine. The Powhatan Wars in Virginia began almost as soon as the English arrived, and wars against Native Americans went on almost continuously for another 280 years. The Swedes were absorbed by the English, and the Dutch were conquered in a war with the English.
In the 19th century, Irish immigrants began to arrive in large numbers, resulting in creation of the American Party, called the “Know Nothings,” whose entire platform consisted mostly of keeping Irish immigrants out and disenfranchising those who were already here. Into the 20th century, one could regularly see signs that said: “Help Wanted. No Irish Need Apply.”
Later in the 19th century, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, and it was not finally repealed until 1943. In 1924, Japanese immigrants were banned entirely, and immigration from southern and eastern Europe was heavily restricted.
In my lifetime, I’ve seen thousands of Haitian migrants on rickety boats turned back out to sea by the U.S. Coast Guard on the orders of George H. W. Bush, a policy continued by Bill Clinton. And now, of course, we have “that big beautiful wall” to keep out Central Americans fleeing the chaos and mayhem left in the wake of the Reagan Wars forty years ago.
Back when I was teaching U.S. history, I always did a unit on post-Civil War industrialization and immigration. Every year, I would give my students—high school juniors—these two poems written less than ten years apart in the late 19th century:
“The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus, 1883
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
“Unguarded Gates” by Thomas Bailey Aldrich, 1892 *
Wide open and unguarded stand our gates,
And through them presses a wild motley throng —
Men from the Volga and the Tartar steppes,
Featureless figures of the Hoang-Ho,
Malayan, Scythian, Teuton, Kelt, and Slav,
Flying the Old World’s poverty and scorn ;
These bringing with them unknown gods and rites,
Those, tiger passions, here to stretch their claws.
In street and alley what strange tongues are these,
Accents of menace alien to our air,
Voices that once the Tower of Babel knew !
O Liberty, white Goddess ! is it well
To leave the gates unguarded ? On thy breast
Fold Sorrow’s children, soothe the hurts of fate,
Lift the down-trodden, but with hand of steel
Stay those who to thy sacred portals come
To waste the gifts of freedom. Have a care
Lest from thy brow the clustered stars be torn
And trampled in the dust. For so of old
The thronging Goth and Vandal trampled Rome,
And where the temples of the Cæsars stood
The lean wolf unmolested made her lair.
I would then ask my students to explain what is going on in these two poems written well over a century ago and almost simultaneously, and how the debate on immigration has changed—or not changed—since the late 19th century.
Most of the kids get it: the debate really hasn’t changed at all. Instead of Asians and eastern Europeans, we now have Mexicans and Guatemalans. But a significant number of Americans—though immigrants all—don’t really want the tired, poor, huddled masses of the world. Some Americans militantly and violently don’t want them.
For too many Americans, Liberty remains a “white Goddess.”
–=≈=–
W. D. Ehrhart is a retired Master Teacher of History & English, and author of a Vietnam War memoir trilogy published by McFarland & Co.
–=≈=–
* This is the second stanza of Aldrich’s poem. The first stanza is a paean to the United States, a new Eden fruitful and abundant, where “the humblest man stand(s) level with the highest in the law.”CategoriesThe Northcountry ChronicleTagsVolume 267 | No. 22
Following up on our June Digital Equity Planning for NH listening session. The National Collaborative for Digital Equity (NCDE) and UNH Cooperative Extension have been officially awarded the six-month contract to develop NH’s four-year plan and funding request for digital equity. They can now start forming inclusive groups in each of NH’s 9 regional planning commission regions (per this map/website).
The role of the regional coalitions is to identify the digital divide priorities they most want NH’s plan to address with that region’s share of about half of NH’s $5 million/year for four years, starting in 2024.
Each regional coalition will also name 2 reps to an 18-person statewide advisory board that will determine how to spend the other half of the $5 million/year, so that priority setting, planning and resource allocation happen transparently and responsively.
REGIONS Central Region Lakes Region Nashua Region North Country Region Rockingham Region Southern Region Southwest Region Strafford Region Upper Valley/Lake Sunapee Region
The NCDE will be reaching out to recruit folks in their respective stakeholder groups. The hope is to fill every regional coalition by the end of July and to convene them via a Zoom call for their regional coalition in August. This in turn will position the coalition members individually and together to be at the table to determine how funds get spent, by whom, over the next several years, and how the funded efforts should be held accountable for impacts that matter to the stakeholders. This may be an imperfect approach however, the NCDE is open to improvements on this plan.
If you are interested in being on your regional coalition team, or know of someone who should be on a team, please email us at WelcomingNH@Miracoalition.org and we will pass your information on to the NCDE. Please include the town you live in and contact info.
To the Editor: Fourth of July, a day to celebrate independence and freedom in America. Also a good day to honor the work of the Colonial patriots of 1776, who migrated from Europe, and the work of generations of other immigrants who followed in their footsteps. Working hard generation after generation, they helped make our country the economically strong country we live in today.
Today our American economy still needs immigrant workers to provide an adequate workforce. Many of our NH retail stores, healthcare services & hospitality businesses are currently unable to find adequate staff to serve the public need. According to the US Chamber of Commerce website, NH is listed on their Worker Shortage Index as one of the most severe in our country.
And all this is happening while asylum seekers at our borders are seeking safety for their families and jobs to support those families. Instead they are being prevented from doing so. So they wait and wait at our borders when they could be working, supporting their families, and paying income taxes. That makes no sense!
I am writing to ask our US Congress members to update our very outdated Immigration laws immediately. Bills such as Lifting Immigrant Families Through Benefits Access Restoration Act (LIFT the BAR Act) and the Asylum Seeker Worker Authorization Act of 2023 will not only benefit DACA recipients and Green Card Holders but will boost our local economies and businesses.
Time for all Congresspersons to put constituents before party affiliation or elite donors!
HR 1325, The Asylum Seeker Work Authorization Act, reduces the waiting period for asylum-seekers to obtain work permits in the U.S. to 30 days from 6 months. Asylum seekers now often wait from 8 to 15 months to get a work permit, leading to more economic crises for them and heavier burdens on U.S. taxpayers and municipalities.
The bill has bipartisan support and is currently in the House Judiciary Committee. Clickhereto see if your House Representative has sponsored the bill, and ask them to co-sponsor it if they haven’t. If your House Rep. is on the Judiciary Committee, ask them to advocate bringing it up for a vote.
Check out the Spring 2023 Newsletter from Welcoming NH.
Immigrants face every issue affecting every other group in NH, the Elderly, the Young, Education, Voting Rights, Healthcare, including mental healthcare, employment and more.
As well as our Website and Newsletter Welcoming NH also facilitates a bimonthly table for those who work with and support immigrants in NH. If you aren’t on our email list for our newsletter or you’d like to attend our bi-monthly Table please email welcomingnh@miracoalition.org.
