PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The U.S. immigration system has a lot of serious problems. While immigration was a constant focus during the Trump administration and the rhetoric particularly toxic during those four years, many of the problems predate that administration. And for the most part, they still exist today.
In the nation's history, immigration has never not been political, says Sarah Paoletti, law professor and director of the Transnational Legal Clinic at the University of Pennsylvania — but it has never been as hyperpolitical as it is now. She says the politics of immigration do a disservice to immigrants seeking protection on American soil, and to America itself.
Listen to the entire episode of KYW Newsradio In Depth here:
In 1993, after the attempted bombing of the World Trade Center, there was a move to restrict access to the asylum system. A one-year deadline was imposed for people arriving in the United States to apply for asylum, creating barriers for traumatized refugees with few ties to the community, little access to legal services, and no knowledge of the system.
"And then we decided that we wouldn't allow individuals seeking asylum to apply for work authorization until they had waited 180 days," she said. "And they're stuck here without the ability to work lawfully and sort of forcing them into an illegal economy, because they have to support themselves and their families."
Then in 1996, under the Clinton administration, with Republican control of Congress, two bills were passed — the Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act — which "radically changed the landscape for immigration enforcement."
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"Through that, we saw a dramatic expansion of crimes that could be considered for deeming somebody to be removable. So a legal permanent resident with two or more misdemeanors is suddenly somebody who — no matter how long they've been in this country, no matter their ties to the country, no matter U.S. citizen, children, or all the accolades that they have in their favor — are subject to removal," Paoletti said.
"But when you look to the specifics of the law, a repeat offender as a turnstile jumper in the subway is somebody who's going to fall into that. Minor drug offenses, marijuana possession offenses, is going to put somebody into that category.
With the mandatory detention of immigrants, she says, the private prison industry boomed.
"So now we have a real profit motive, and a very powerful lobby, at play in the expansion of detention and the overall criminalization of immigration."
Family detention policies were accelerated under the Obama administration in 2014, long before Trump took office, Paoletti said.
"I think they saw family detention as a form of deterrence. It didn't work, but that really laid the groundwork for what later became the really horrific images of family separation that we saw under the Trump administration."
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And, Paoletti said, nothing has changed since Joe Biden took office.
"Unfortunately, we have seen very little move to restore a humanitarian approach to our treatment of asylum seekers and other people arriving at the southern border."
She says the government is still using Title 42 expulsions, which allow for expelling people from the border for public health reasons, even though public health experts have called it unnecessary. And she says, while some detention centers have closed, new ones are opening, leading to more family separation and restricted access to legal services.
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There are huge backlogs in immigration courts, in the asylum office, and throughout the immigration system for people who are waiting in line.
"And they are still waiting an extraordinarily long time in those lines," she said.
"What was different under Trump was that we saw explicit use of race and xenophobia in the language used to justify the actions, and a cruelty in the rhetoric and a cruelty in the execution of the policies that went beyond what we had seen and a seemingly weekly barrage of executive memos and presidential proclamations aimed at making the system harder, crueler … starting with the Muslim ban."
Paoletti spoke with KYW Newsradio's Matt Leon about some key areas where she believes reformers should focus, if the United States is to restore some humanity to its immigration policies. Listen to the full podcast episode for more.