One June 9,2024, I summarized the conflicting estimates of the level of recent foreign born persons. The figures differed widely among Federal estimates. The difficulties arise from the surge of aslyum applicants and temporary visas issued for humanitarian purposes. And, the total figures do not distinquish well between permanent (Gree card) entrants and other entrants.

In the past few days, the Census, which as had the lower bound of estimates, increased its count for FY 2023 from 1.1 million to 2.3 million. its 2024 estimate of 2.8 million holds.

Here is what the Census said on December 20: “Net international migration, which refers to any change of residence across U.S. borders (the 50 states and the District of Columbia), was the critical demographic component of change driving growth in the resident population. With a net increase of 2.8 million people, it accounted for 84% of the nation’s 3.3 million increase in population between 2023 and 2024. This reflects a continued trend of rising international migration, with a net increase of 1.7 million in 2022 and 2.3 million in 2023.”

In the 2010s, the Census recorded a net immigration total hovering around one million. The 2022, 2023 and 2024 totals come to an average annual figure of 2.3 milion, or 1.3 million higher than past trend.

Poem by Rumi, in Gold, trans by Haleh Liza Gafori, New York Review Books, 2022 page 55

 

Spring is here—

fragrant, musky spring is here.

The Beloved is here,

the Soul of souls is here,

the One who welcomes everyone is here.

 

Wine is here, the wine of dawn is here,

wine that floods the soul with joy is here.

The cupbearer fills everyone’s cup.

 

Clarity is here—

stones in the river pulse with sunlight.

 

The cure is here, the cure for every ill is here.

The friend who soothes the ache is here.

 

The healer is here.

The healer who’s felt every shade of feeling is here.

 

Dance is here, the whirling dance is here.

The eternal bond and glorious breeze are here.

Poppies, basil, and the tulips’ stunning eyes are here.

 

One is here.

One who makes someone of no one is here.

 

The bright moon that clears the haze is here.

The heart stirring all hearts to laughter is here.

 

The Beloved is here, the Soul of souls is here—

and never left.

It’s our eyes that come and go.

 

Be silent now. Let silence speak.

Surrender the syllables you count on your fingers.

The river of countless messages is here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We’re going to see the incoming administration weasel out of its rhetoric and focus on deporting persons with a criminal record. Administrations since Obama have been doing this. We are going to hear more about cancelling DACA, parole and TPS.

Senator Rand Paul, incoming chair of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, said that it would be a “terrible image” to use the Army to arrest unauthorized persons.

Denver mayor Mike Johnson said he would resist any mass deportation effort using military personnel.

Boston mayor Michelle Wu said that she will resist mass deportation efforts.

An analogy: in the early days of the Kennedy administration in 1961, the White House launched a program to construction bomb shelters. Not too long after, a Christian minister opined that it was not inconsistent with Christian doctrine for a family to shoot people trying to get into their home shelter. The administration quickly abandoned the project.

 

 

 

 

The incoming administration has begun to equivocate on what it means by mass deportation. through 2024, Trump and allies have used the word “illegal” in three ways” (1) those who are here without permission and without documentation, of which there are about 11 – 12 million,  (2) also those here with permission, but the permission is alleged to be illegal — such as DACA and many humanitarian parole, and (3) only persons who committed a crime.

Let’s see how the Biden administration targetted deportations:

The Sept 1, 2021 memorandum from Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security set forth guidelines for deportation of non-citizens. The memorandum is a useful benchmark of Biden’s immigration law enforcement policy to compare with the incoming Trump administration.  Mayorkas placed great emphasis on the exercise of prosecutorial discretion. ​ Key points include:

Prosecutorial Discretion: Federal officials have broad discretion in deciding who to arrest, detain, and remove.​ The enforcement priorities are: National Security: Noncitizens involved in terrorism or espionage. ​Public Safety: Noncitizens with serious criminal conduct, assessed on a case-by-case basis considering aggravating and mitigating factors. ​Border Security: Noncitizens apprehended at the border or after unlawful entry post-November 1, 2020. ​

The memorandum sets these procedural guidelines: Civil Rights and Liberties: Enforcement actions must not be discriminatory and should protect civil rights and liberties. ​Retaliation Protection: Immigration enforcement should not be used to retaliate against noncitizens asserting legal rights in labor or housing disputes. ​ Quality and Integrity: Training, data collection, and review processes will ensure consistent and fair enforcement actions. ​Implementation: The guidance will take effect on November 29, 2021, replacing previous interim guidance. ​

The document emphasizes targeted enforcement to use resources effectively and justly, focusing on threats while considering the contributions of noncitizens to communities.

Thanks to Fred Bauer at Unherd.

Deportations are subject to appeals to and review by immigration courts. The court system is jammed with overload.  Special court systems in the U.S. are vulnerable to dysfunction by surges in cases,

Trump will likely cancel DACA, Parole and TPS. Much easier to do. Republican senators will use this to force an immigration bill in importance with those in the 1960s and 1980s.

A good comparision with the mass deportation idea is JFK’s plan to install bomb shelters across the country in 1961. The plan blew up and he dropped it quickly.

 

When we think of deportations, we generally think of persons in the U.S. who have entered and have lived here, in some cases for years. These cases tend to run through immigration court.

This is not a profile of actual deportations but of people in immigration court for the goal of deportation.  They do not include immediate expulsions at or near the border, but rather cases which work their way into the court system.

About 9.2 million cases are before immigration courts brought by the government to deport an individual. Some 3 million of these cases started in FY 2023 and FY 2024, meaning that most go back years.

Entry without inspection (i.e. jumped the border). 59% These cases apparently include cases for which there is no other cause, and for which “without inspection” can be easily ascertained.  These cases also presumably include persons whose ayslum application has been denied and they sought an appeal in the immigration court.

Other immigration charge 34%. It is unclear what these cases are about. They likely include visa overstays and working without authorization.   Thus, 93% of cases in immigration court for deportation do not include criminal or national security issues.

Aggravated felony 2%

Other criminal charge 4%

Terrorism 0% out of 9.2 million total cases, 132 related to terrorism.

National security charge 0%

 

 

 

 

Donald Trump said on November 10 that Tom Homan will be the administration’s “Border Czar.” While nominally about the Mexican border, Homan’s position will address both border and interior deportation.  Trump says that Homan will coordinate mass deportations. This will apparently be a White House position and not formally placed within the Department of Homeland Security. The chances of coordination battles with the formal heads of DHS and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are very high.

Homan appears to believe that the government can deport U.S. citizens who are children of unauthorized persons.

As Acting Director of ICE during the first phase of the first Trump administration, Homan was deeply involved in border security and immigration enforcement. Under Homan’s leadership, ICE dramatically stepped up enforcement actions, including operations in places traditionally avoided by ICE, such as schools and courthouses. Homan played a key role in designing and implementing controversial immigration policies, including the child separation policy. You can see a timeline for the child separation policy here.

Prior to his role at the temporary head of ICE, Homan had a 33-year career in law enforcement, including positions as a former NYPD officer and US Border Patrol agent.

I have posted on TPS a number of times, a mechanism for temporary authorization which the Biden administration used extensively.  Here are excerpts from a nice overview by Aaron Reichlin-Melnick is a Senior Fellow at the American Immigration Council. TPS beneficiaries may be the most vulnerable large population of persons with temporary legal authorization to reside in the U.S. Virtually all the below is taken verbatim his posting on Immigration Daily.

As of today, persons from 16 countries are covered by TPS, up from 1 in 1990. There are 13 TPS designations set to expire in 2025 without further action by the DHS secretary, and four will expire in 2026.

TPS is a legal protection created in the Immigration Act of 1990 as a response to the then-ongoing civil war in El Salvador. After reports emerged of extensive human rights abuses inside El Salvador and the torture and execution of people deported from the United States, Congressman Joe Moakley of Massachusetts first introduced legislation in 1983 to establish a legal authority to halt deportations to countries undergoing serious humanitarian crises. These efforts eventually led to the creation of TPS in 1990, and El Salvador became the first country designated under the authority.

Under TPS, the DHS Secretary is authorized to temporarily protect from deportation any individual who comes from a country which is facing an ongoing armed conflict, environmental disaster, or any “extraordinary and temporary conditions.” DHS can designate a country for 6, 12, or 18 months of TPS at a time, but not longer. If DHS grants TPS to a specific country, individuals from that country who are here in the U.S. as of the date of the designation may apply for TPS. People can apply for TPS if they are undocumented, or if they have another form of immigration status.

If approved for TPS, individuals are eligible to work legally in the country for as long as their grant of TPS lasts. They are also protected from deportation during that period, unless they commit an offense which violates the terms of TPS.

As of May 31, 2024, the most recent date for which data is available, 16 different countries were designated for TPS. For most of those countries, few people hold the status. Combined, fewer than 35,000 people from Afghanistan, Burma, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Nepal, Nicaragua, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen held TPS status as of that date. Five countries made up the largest TPS population, with roughly 50,000 TPS beneficiaries from Ukraine, 54,000 from Honduras, 180,000 from El Salvador, 200,000 from Haiti, and 344,000 from Venezuela as of that date. These number are likely higher today following redesignations of TPS for Haiti, Yemen, and Somalia in July 2024, which combined is expected to lead to as many as 320,000 new TPS beneficiaries.

[PFR this means that in total about 1.2 million persons are or shortly will be covered by TPS. At the start of the Biden administration, my guess is that only about 200,000 persons were covered.]

Before the 6, 12, or 18 month-period of TPS expires, the DHS secretary generally has to make a decision; whether to extend the previous designation or let it expire. The secretary can also “redesignate” TPS, which would allow people who entered the country after the first designation date to become eligible to apply for TPS.

Since 1990, 12 TPS designations have been allowed to expire in total, for the countries of Angola, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Burundi, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kosovo, Kuwait, Lebanon, Liberia, Montserrat, Rwanda, and Sierra Leone.

In 2025, the new administration will have only a few months in which to decide the fate of thousands of TPS-holders. TPS for El Salvador expires in March 2025, while TPS for Sudan, Ukraine, and Venezuela expire in April 2025. An additional six countries will lose TPS between May 2025 and July 2025 if not renewed or redesignated.

TPS provides no independent mechanism for beneficiaries to obtain permanent legal status. That means some individuals may remain here on TPS for years without ever finding a way to acquire lawful permanent resident status.

Given the extensive contributions of people with TPS to the United States and the economy, many people have called for a path to permanent legal status for those who have had TPS for a lengthy period, including over 180,000 Salvadoran TPS beneficiaries who have had the status for over 20 years. Without Congress acting, these individuals will be forced to live their lives in an 18-month limbo at a time, having paid thousands of dollars in application fees over the years and passed numerous backgrounds checks.