DV Journal

Anyone practicing immigration law the last few weeks has been barraged by calls from panicking clients wanting to know if they will be deported, if they will lose their children, if they should send them to school.

For me as a staff attorney with HIAS Pennsylvania’s program serving survivors of Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault, these callers included one mother, a victim-witness in an active prosecution of her abuser, who wanted to know: what about me? Does it help me at all that I have been going to court, testifying, and otherwise aiding prosecutors and investigators for the last two years? Are me and my children at risk?

The current administration rode a wave of exaggeration about immigrants and crime to the White House, but the numbers do not back up their claims that immigrants are criminals. To the contrary, the facts show for anyone who cares about data more than a raw anecdote, it is abundantly clear that undocumented immigrants, regardless of their legal status, are far less likely to commit crimes – violent or otherwise – than their U.S. citizens counterparts.

We hear far less from the administration about immigrant victims. For decades, law enforcement agencies have struggled to build trust with immigrant victims of crime, who fear that coming forward, or remaining cooperative in an investigation after that initial 911 call, could expose them to deportation.

In my work as a lawyer assisting victims of domestic violence and sexual assault, I see this challenge every day. My clients have been conditioned, often for years, by their abusers to believe that the police will not help them, and that asking for help will only lead to their deportation and wrench them away from their children. Congress sought to address this problem when it created the U visa in 2000.

This visa provides a pathway to lawful immigration status for victims who cooperate in the investigation or prosecution of violent crimes committed against them. The U visa has provided law enforcement with a valuable tool, born of the recognition that when victims are willing to come forward, all of us are safer.

Yet on Friday, Jan. 31, reports emerged that ICE had rescinded its prior guidance that agents should consider victim status when making enforcement decisions. Social media amplified these rumors, and panic spread in immigrant communities.

That Monday, I was inundated with calls from panicked clients with pending applications for U visas, asking if ICE was going to deport them. A particularly pernicious online rumor said that the U visa itself had been cancelled. (That is not true, though the U visa is a target of the infamous Project 2025).

This latest ICE announcement attacking crime victims followed on the heels of the well-publicized news that ICE could begin enforcement operations in locations previously deemed off-limits, including the courts. Victim-witnesses must now contend with fears of encountering deportation agents when they appear to testify against their abusers.

All of this undermines the 20-year effort by law enforcement to build trust with vulnerable victims of crime. It remains unclear how such policies might be implemented by ICE in practice. But what has been very clear to immigrant survivors is the overarching message: you are not safe. When fears grow within the immigrant community, abusers gain leverage. ICE compromises public safety when their messages undermine victims’ confidence in the legal systems meant to protect them, as well as for all of us.

I was just at a round table where we discussed, in the most civilized manner possible, the immigration controversy.

Everyone in the conversation liked and respected each other, and listened to the opinions, sometimes quite diverse, from those at the other end of the philosophical spectrum. Some were focused on the chaos at the border. Others wanted to find a way to legalize the millions who were living here already with no status. Another person was upset about ICE raids on a Puerto Rican restaurant that essentially amounted to an attempt to deport U.S. citizens.

Another participant mentioned that the most extreme moves from the Trump administration, like the termination of birthright citizenship, would be blocked by the courts because they were unconstitutional. And finally, someone talked about the need to get rid of criminal aliens, the ones who have been preying upon innocent Americans like Laken Riley.

To be honest, we did have that conversation. And there were a number of people at the table. But every one of those comments was made by me.

I write this to show that you can walk and chew gum, be a law and order conservative and compassionate, oppose abortion and random and cruel family separations at the same time. In me you will find the wide range of opinions and priorities of the American public, and in me you will find someone who cannot be pushed into one category. I am neither “deport them all,” nor am I “accept them all.”

This is an issue of great nuance. But unfortunately, nuance does not seem to win elections.

I mentioned during that conversation that the slew of executive orders and actions were designed to create “shock and awe,” and keep the promises that President Donald Trump made during his campaign. While many pretended that “it was the economy, stupid,” I knew in my heart that the most explosive and compelling issue was immigration. After all, one of Trump’s first acts after his first inauguration was to issue the travel ban, which some incorrectly insisted on calling the “Muslim Ban.”

It was not a ban targeting Muslims, otherwise Albania, Bosnia, Turkey and a host of other countries with Muslim populations would have been included on the list. They were not. The list mirrored many countries that had been suspected of involvement in terrorism. On that basis, I was able to defend the action in some ways, even though I ended up at the airport to protest what I feared would be excesses.

This time around, though, Trump is more seasoned. He was not prepared for the backlash that many of his ill-thought out immigration policies would trigger, and some of them actually fizzled out when they were challenged in court. That is happening again. Many of his initiatives will be tied up in the courts, and that is a very good thing. The president does not get to rearrange refugee policy with a ballpoint pen, regardless of what he thinks about a unitary executive.

Nonetheless, it is very clear that Trump 2.0 has a plan, and has made sure that he picked the people he believes will execute it the best. I think Tom Homan, who served under Obama as well as Trump, is an excellent choice because he is not an ideologue interested in ethnic cleansing, like some of Trump’s advisers. Homan is the real deal. I don’t hold out much hope for Kristi Noem, who is a pretty face and wears a cowboy hat with élan, but who has never in her life had to deal with significant border and security issues as governor of South Dakota, one of the least populous states in the nation.

As a conservative, I want to see the chaos at the border erased. I want to support Trump in his efforts to get rid of criminal aliens, and in that group I include those who have one conviction as well as repeat offenders. If we have to start somewhere, start with the people who pose a threat to our security.

But, also as a conservative, I cannot support the idea that children will go to school one day and come home to an empty house because their parents have been picked up and put on a plane home. Those parents are not criminals, because violating immigration policy is not penal. It is civil. Those people clean your houses and trim your bushes and cook your meals. And yes, they are parents to U.S. citizens, because birthright citizenship is not going anywhere. As someone who is radically pro-life, I cannot deal with fellow pro-lifers who think that the baby in the womb deserves protection but a child born in this country to undocumented parents does not.  As a lawyer, I don’t like to see my constitution manipulated for political gain.

Many have said to me that I am too emotionally involved in this issue. Some have even suggested that they think I am criticizing the government because it’s cutting into my business. Nothing could be further from the truth. Chaos is good for my business. Deportation is good for my business.  The more suffering there is, they more clients need assistance.  And I am repulsed by the suggestion from my conservative friends that this is all part of my master plan.

When I sat at that round table, I said I hoped we would arrive at common sense solutions. I said that I hoped we would honor the founding principles of this country, which has always been a refuge for the dispossessed, while at the same time giving priority to the safety and prosperity of United States citizens.

For an alternative viewpoint, see “Counterpoint: Does America Need More Foreign Tech Workers? No.”

Outrage over immigration is a primary reason Donald Trump and the Republicans have returned to power. Just before the presidential election, 56 percent of Americans told Pew Research they support mass deportations of undocumented immigrants. In his first days in office, President Trump signed executive orders declaring a national emergency at our Southern border, allowing troops to be deployed there, and ending birthright citizenship as defined in the 14th Amendment.

Many of these actions won’t stick legally — or prove popular with voters. Deep down, Americans love immigrants because we see ourselves in them. According to the National Park Service, 40 percent of us trace our ancestry through Ellis Island, the East Coast immigration station that operated between 1892 and 1954. We want an orderly process where people are vetted, barred from most taxpayer-funded transfer programs, and able to work and pay taxes legally.

A Ronald Reagan-appointed federal judge immediately blocked Trump’s action on birthright citizenship, calling it “a blatantly unconstitutional order.”

The same Pew poll showing a majority in favor of mass deportations reveals even more significant numbers of Americans in favor of admitting more high-skilled workers (79 percent), letting international college grads stay (77 percent), and letting immigrants married to citizens remain (58 percent). And 64 percent of Americans think undocumented immigrants should be allowed to stay if they meet specific requirements, such as passing a background check or having a job.

Even among Trump’s biggest supporters, there’s a fierce fight over immigrants on H-1B visas, granted to 85,000 highly educated foreign workers annually. While MAGA activists want the program scrapped, Elon Musk, the head of Tesla and SpaceX running Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, has said he will “go to war” in support of the visas. Trump has declared that he likes “both sides of the argument” but favors expanding H-1Bs because “you’ve got to get the best people.”

Trump’s ambivalence reflects that of the American people. Despite being “a nation of immigrants” (the title of a bestselling 1958 book by then-Sen. John F. Kennedy), we have never been comfortable with newcomers. All of the fears about current immigration levels are either exaggerated or flat-out wrong. While the southern border was egregiously poorly managed for most of Joe Biden’s uninspiring presidency, unlawful border crossings dropped to a four-year low at the end of last year. Vice President JD Vance’s unfounded campaign claims that Haitian refugees were spreading disease and eating cats in Springfield, Ohio, were flatly contradicted by city officials, as were reports that Venezuelan gang members took over apartment complexes in Aurora, Colorado.

As Cato Institute policy analyst Alex Nowrasteh has documented, legal and illegal immigrants have lower crime rates than native-born Americans. In any case, violent crime is declining nationally and is lower than it was in 2020, the peak year of COVID-19 pandemic-related lockdowns.

Nor are immigrants “stealing” American jobs, either at the low end or the high end of the employment market. Since November 2021, the unemployment rate has been at or below 4 percent or lower. Unskilled immigrant workers pick crops, staff kitchens, do domestic jobs, and work construction, all job markets that post many more jobs than are ever filled. The average H-1B visa job in tech pays about $132,000 a year, and there is scant evidence that employers pay foreign workers less than native Americans.

When Trump defended the H-1B program at a joint press conference with tech titans like Larry Ellison of Oracle, he stressed, “People like Larry, he needs engineers … like nobody’s ever needed them.” As the low unemployment rate shows, we need more workers, not fewer.

All employers should be free to hire the best people for their job openings, too. Immigrants tend to be self-starters and ambitious, which helps explain why they are 80 percent more likely to start companies and have higher labor force participation rates than native Americans (67 percent vs. 62 percent). They flow to vibrant areas like Texas, Florida, and New York City, which need workers.

It’s understandable that, after a pandemic, a period of high inflation and economic and social anxiety, and weak leadership, Americans would be ambivalent about immigrants. But today’s newcomers deserve the opportunities that our grandparents and great-grandparents had as they came through Ellis Island — and caused just as much fear as today’s do on the surface. Their presence benefits us even more than it does them.

In his inaugural speech Monday, President Donald Trump promised to increase energy production and manufacturing–and most Pennsylvania political leaders were happy to hear it.

“I liked the speech,” said Sen. Dave McCormick (R-Pa.), who told DVJournal he was sitting just 15 feet away from the president as he delivered it.

“He was direct. His thesis was, in a nutshell, that we are in a period of decline. That decline stops today, and renewal begins,” McCormick said, adding, “It was uplifting.”

McCormick, who sits on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, also praised Trump’s pledge to unleash U.S. energy production.

“Trump said he’s going to declare an energy emergency, which will allow him executive authorities to do things very rapidly on energy which would be to reduce regulations, increase production, possibly make big investments in infrastructure. That’s a big deal,” said McCormick.

Sen. Dave McCormick at President Trump’s inauguration ceremony.

State Sen. Tracy Pennycuick (R-Montgomery) agreed.

“Pennsylvania has an extraordinarily diverse energy portfolio, including nuclear power, coal, renewable energy, and is the second largest producer of natural gas in the United States. As he did in his first administration, President Trump will unleash our ability to ship LNG, chemicals, and other energy products throughout the world growing our economy and good paying jobs,” said  Pennycuick.

Pennsylvania political professionals also gave Trump’s inaugural address high marks,

Guy Ciarrocchi, a Republican political commentator who ran for Congress in Chester County, praised the speech.

“President Trump’s closing remarks are amongst the boldest and most uplifting since Ronald Reagan in 1981. This pledge to unity and a common future reminds us of Lincoln. His call to Mars harkens us to Kennedy’s call to the moon. It was quintessential Trump, and thoroughly American.”

Fellow GOP strategist Charlie Gerow was impressed with Trump’s opening line, ‘The Golden Age of America begins right now.”

“President Trump was clear that he intends to follow through on the promises of the campaign. He was very clear about a very ambitious agenda, including the executive orders he will put in place immediately. President Trump spoke of the mandate he has. He also enjoys record-high popularity, a Congress under his allies’ control, and the wind is at his back. It really is time to Make America Great Again!”

Not surprisingly, Pennsylvania Democrats were less enthusiastic, but they weren’t negative, either.

“As governor of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania — the birthplace of that democracy — I want to congratulate President Trump on his inauguration,” said Gov. Josh Shapiro (D). “President Trump, after being duly elected by the American people, now holds the sacred duty of leading this nation forward for the next four years.

“I remain committed to those commonsense Pennsylvania priorities, and where our priorities are aligned, I stand ready to work with the Trump administration to continue our progress here in Pennsylvania,” Shapiro said.

U.S. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) made headlines of his own by showing up for the speech in the capitol rotunda wearing his usual hoodie and shorts. According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, he sent a fundraising email Monday saying that while “Trump is officially back in the White House,” he wouldn’t be “backing down from fighting for what’s right.”

But he also wrote, “I’ll work with Trump where I can to get wins for Pennsylvania,” echoing Fetterman’s previous comments that his door was open to Donald Trump, despite their political differences.

In Harrisburg, Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward (R-Westmoreland) praised Trump’s inauguration address.

“President Trump spoke to the people not above them by promising a more prosperous future by restoring American values through commonsense and integrity,” said Ward. “President Trump also declared an energy emergency which is a necessary and commonsense step required to revoke policies like the Green New Deal that have eroded our way of life by increasing the cost of everyday products.

According to Ward, “No other state has the potential to prosper like Pennsylvania if we take advantage of this opportunity to unleash our energy sector and align our state policies to advance our manufacturing competitiveness and grow our energy sector.”

Christine Flowers, a local immigration lawyer and pundit, was particularly focused on the border issue.

“I listened to President Trump’s comments on immigration, and I found myself agreeing with a good part of it, including the designation of drug cartels as members of terrorist organizations,” Flowers said. “The damage they do to our population is at least as dangerous, and arguably more widespread, than Al Qaeda and other Islamist organizations.  The odds that you will encounter a descendant of Osama Bin Laden on American shores is nil, whereas the odds that you or a family member will be devastated by the drug plague is nearly 100 percent.

“That said, his obsession with eliminating birthright citizenship is bound to fail, and it’s another sign of his scattershot approach to immigration, and his failure to address the root causes of the problem,” said Flowers. “You cannot simply ‘undo’ what has been for at least a century considered a constitutional right by a unilateral executive order.”

Joe Guzzardi, an analyst with the Institute for Sound Public Policy, said, “For years and under Democrat and Republican White Houses, American voters have yearned for common sense immigration. Clinton, Bush II, Obama and most definitely Biden have refused to support a commonsense immigration agenda that works for Americans. Trump has given citizens hope that he’ll deliver what Americans want—-a secure border and safe communities.”

Trump’s assertion that the government will recognize only two genders, male and female, was welcome news for Bucks County parent Jamie Walker.

“As a parent of two daughters, I am thrilled we have a president and administration now that actually knows what a woman is! Women’s rights are now protected. Males won’t be allowed to compete against girls in sports or use their locker rooms. I am hopeful the Trump administration can help get public schools to focus on academics and not progressive ideology.”

Trump’s overall message was that supporting U.S. jobs and manufacturing by boosting energy production is a good fit for the Pennsylvania economy, said Carl Marrara, executive director of the Pennsylvania Manufacturers’ Association.

“With a renewed focus on domestic manufacturing by the Trump administration, state economic competitiveness is more important than ever before. Whether it’s reshoring an entire plant to the United States, or expanding existing domestic operations, Pennsylvania will be competing for those business investments and needs to act to make it the smart business decision to locate here.”

When the Trump administration begins deporting illegal immigrants currently living in Pennsylvania, will Gov. Josh Shapiro step up and help, stand aside, or try to stop them?

Shapiro spokesman Manuel Bonder made it sound like the governor was ready to take on the Trump administration, telling Newsweek that Shapiro would “never back down from defending Pennsylvanians’ fundamental freedoms.”

“The Shapiro administration is preparing for all scenarios and taking steps to safeguard our commonwealth from potential federal actions that could be harmful to Pennsylvania families and communities,” Bonder added.

But when DVJournal followed up with Bonder about whether Shapiro was going to join Democrats like Denver Mayor Mike Johnston or Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey and try to hinder Trump’s deportation plans, he appeared to walk back his bold talk. Bonder pointed DVJournal to a statement Shapiro made last month while visiting a York County business in which he said he would hold off deciding how to respond until he new more about the specifics of Trump’s plans.

“Let’s wait and see,” Shapiro said.

That’s a very different response from Democrats like Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D-Ill.) who have clearly announced their plans to resist Trump’s mass deportation efforts.

“I am going to do everything that I can to protect our undocumented immigrants. They are residents of our state,” Pritzker told MSNBC. “And I also, obviously, need to make sure that whatever (federal immigration agents) are doing in our state, that it is actually within federal law or state law for them to do it.”

Shapiro is sometimes labeled a moderate within the Democratic Party, though he largely embraces the progressive policies of the Biden-Harris administration. And he’s clearly not staking out a centrist position like New York City Democrat  Mayor Eric Adams, who has said he will work with President-elect Donald Trump to deport illegal immigrants who commit crimes.

Even Shapiro’s fellow Keystone State Democrat, U.S. Sen. John Fetterman, says it’s time for their party to support border security.

“Well, one area where we kind of lost ourselves was the border,” he told Fox News after the November election. “And I’ve been on this network saying, ‘Hey, you know, it can’t be controversial for our party to have pro-immigration, but we need a secure border.'”

Polls show a solid 57 percent of Americans support mass deportation of people in the U.S. illegally. And Gallup polling shows a huge swing in voters’ attitudes about immigration during the Biden presidency. In May 2020, slightly more Americans wanted to see increased vs. decreased immigration (34 to 28 percent).

By June of this year, support for increased immigration had plunged to 16 percent, while the number supporting decreased immigration soared to 55 percent — a 45 percent swing.

Reports of crimes by illegals, including apartment buildings taken over by Venezuelan gang members in Aurora, Colo., and brutal murders, including Laken Riley and Lizbeth Medina, have galvanized public opinion.

In the Delaware Valley, a jailbreak in Chester County by undocumented Brazilian and convicted murderer Danelo Cavalcante resulted in widespread outrage last year in the two weeks he was on the loose.

Other problems caused by the influx of undocumented immigrants include overcrowded schools and hospitals, deadly drugs, and some 300,000 missing migrant children.

Pennsylvania has an estimated 170,000 undocumented immigrants. Lancaster resident Kevin Lynn, executive director of the Institute for Sound Public Policy, believes the government can and should deport illegal immigrants. He said the 2,500 or so Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) agents could remove 2.4 million illegal immigrants a year.

“We have the capacity to do it,” said Lynn. “We have the personnel to do it. We’ll be able to remove all the people who have come here [illegally] in the last four years. Now people are screaming about the expense.”

But he noted, there is already the cost to the government of “putting them up at the Roosevelt Hotel (in New York), they don’t seem to care about that.” These undocumented immigrants also receive taxpayer paid cellphones, housing and food stamps.

The U.S. House Budge Committee found in May the cost of the open southern border was $150.7 billion and counting. Various religious and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) receive block grants from the federal government to resettle the immigrants, who are being relabeled “newcomers.”

“I think removing the grants and bringing back ‘public charge’ rules, where if you come here you have to demonstrate that you can get by without being on the government dime would go a long way. That’s easy enough to do,” Lynn said.

Many illegal immigrants can be “removed expeditiously. They don’t have to go in front of an immigration judge or anything like that,” said Lynn. “If there’s a mayor or a governor impeding that, as far as I’m concerned, they’re aiding and abetting a criminal.”

“Mass deportations are possible and they’re justified. We have to do that because we won’t have a country if we don’t,” said Lynn. “I’ve just sat by in absolute horror watching it happen.”

Republicans want it. Democrats hate it. President Joe Biden has pledged to veto it. And the Delaware Valley’s congressional representatives don’t want to talk about it.

The U.S. House of Representatives will vote Thursday on a major border security bill—H.R. 2—that will very likely die a swift death in the Senate but will serve as a reminder of the country’s ongoing and escalating border crisis. The bill passed its final hurdle before a floor vote when Republicans, including Bucks County’s Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, joined the rest of his party in advancing the legislation.

“Extreme House Democrats have embraced the chaos on the southern border, allowing deadly drugs and violent criminals to flow into our country. Pennsylvania Democrats’ refusal to keep families safe is dangerous and disqualifying,” said National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman Chris Gustafson.

The Biden administration on Thursday is set to formally end the pandemic-era Title 42 policy. It allowed the swift expulsion of illegal immigrants on the grounds of public health. The Trump-era policy has been used more than 2.8 million times since the beginning of the COVID-19 emergency.

H.R. 2 is meant, in part, to address what is expected to be a massive flood of migrants entering the country in response to that program’s end.

The bill would order construction of the southern border wall to resume. It would increase enforcement personnel at the border and enact new restrictions on asylum seekers. It would clarify federal policies on family immigrant detention and restrict funding “to any nongovernmental organization that facilitates or encourages unlawful activity, including unlawful entry.”

None of the Delaware Valley Democratic representatives in Congress—Chrissy Houlahan, Mary Gay Scanlon, and Madeleine Dean—responded when asked about their thoughts on the bill and their intended votes on it. They all voted against allowing it to come to the House floor.

Fitzpatrick, on the other hand, was a co-sponsor of the Public Health and Border Security Act of 2022, a measure that would have prevented Biden “from lifting existing Title 42 immigration restrictions without a plan in place …to address the expected surge of migrants at the Southern border.”

“I’ve witnessed firsthand the threats our nation faces from a porous border and a fragmented immigration system,” Fitzpatrick said at the time, calling for “a workable plan that will ensure the humane treatment of migrants and keep our border and neighboring communities safe and secure.”

Scanlon this week directly addressed the upcoming immigration bill, writing on Twitter: “Pennsylvanian families and businesses are demanding fixes for our broken immigration system. Democrats are ready to work with Republicans on common sense, long-term solutions, but we will never agree to cruel and unworkable policies like their latest immigration scheme.”

At a House Judiciary hearing in February, meanwhile, Dean argued that Republicans “want the American people to be scared” of the reported crisis at the southern border. Like her fellow Democrats, Dean opposes deporting illegal immigrants simply for being in the U.S. illegally.

“The reality is, there is no ‘invasion,’ there are no ‘hordes of invaders,’ our borders are not being overrun by dangerous criminals,” she argued. “But we do have a broken immigration system.”

Dean acknowledged the U.S. is “suffering with an extraordinary drug problem” in the form of fentanyl, much of which comes across the border from Mexico. But she suggested the problem isn’t found among the huge streams of migrants crossing at porous border points.

“Ninety percent of fentanyl, heroin, and meth seized in this country is captured at ports of entry,” she said. “This means the drugs are being brought in through normal channels, not on the backs of families crossing at remote parts of the country.”

And on her website, Houlahan stated she “believe[s] strongly in secure borders – land, air, and sea.”

“We have the honor and duty of upholding our American values as we strive to implement immigration policy that centers on compassion, fairness, and national security,” she said. “What is happening at our southern border should alarm all of us.”

On Wednesday, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas announced in a press conference a newly finalized federal rule that would allow the U.S. to “remove individuals who do not establish a reasonable fear of persecution in the country of removal.”

Noncitizens can establish criteria “if they have used our lawful pathways,” Mayorkas said, or “sought asylum or protection in another country through which they have traveled and were denied.”

Asked by reporters Wednesday if he believes the border is in crisis, Mayorkas declined to respond. He has repeatedly claimed that “the border is secure.”

Videos of the border show tens of thousands of undocumented migrants preparing to pour across the U.S. border, where most will be allowed into the U.S. and given a date to appear for a hearing.

Todd Bensman with the Center for Immigration Studies is at the border in Matamoros, Mexico, and reported “thousands of migrants flooding into the U.S. all day Wednesday. They are not waiting for the end of Title 42. Mexican immigration officials on the ground are powerless to do anything.”

In a policy statement this week, the White House said it “strongly supports productive efforts to reform the Nation’s immigration system but opposes H.R. 2.”

“If the president were presented with H.R. 2,” the statement said, “he would veto it.”

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GOP candidates look “Born to Run” as the midterm approaches, and DVJ News Editor Linda Stein talks to Christopher Borick, professor of political science and director of the Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion (MCIPO), whether Democrats still have “Glory Days” ahead in November, or if they’re “Goin’ Down.”

(Borick also teaches a class at Muhlenberg called “Springsteen’s America,” which DVJournal thinks is a “Brilliant Disguise” for an academic who lives “On the Streets of Philadelphia.”)

They also discuss which Springsteen song is the greatest of all time which, says host Michael Graham, is obvious.

Mark Krikorian has nothing to say about Springsteen but, as the head of the Center for Immigration Studies, a great deal about the chaos at the U.S./Mexico border and how it might impact the Fetterman v Oz U.S. Senate battle.

I don’t have time to write this. Immigration lawyers like me around the country don’t have time. For those of us representing immigrant families who have arrived in the US in the last eight to 10 years seeking asylum from violence and persecution, those families still fighting their cases in immigration court. What we have is an obligation to keep families here at all costs and prevent deportation.

On April 3, 2022, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) published guidance to the attorneys representing DHS. The guidance instructs DHS attorneys to use prosecutorial discretion to dismiss thousands of cases, mostly asylum cases, in immigration court, prioritizing for dismissal immigrants who crossed the border before November 1, 2020, and who are not a threat to national security or public safety.

The Biden Administration wants to decrease the “backlog” of cases to make room in the system for people who may enter in the next few months. American Immigration Lawyers Association recently estimated that there are about 700,000 low or nonpriority cases in the current immigration court “backlog.”

Sounds good on the face of it, but the devil is in the details. Here’s the problem – the Biden administration has decided that it is better to dismiss or terminate the low priority cases and leave immigrants in the US WITHOUT work permits or Social Security numbers. In other words, they will stay here but become part of the underground economy.

People who have had work permits for 6-8 years while they wait for a decision in their asylum or other immigration court case will lose work permits. When an immigrant loses their work permit, they also lose access to a driver’s license, their ability to pay taxes, register their children for college and complete the FAFSA for student loan eligibility. They will be vulnerable to unscrupulous employers, consumer fraud and criminals who see them as defenseless without “papers.”

What makes this decision to take away work permits more unconscionable is that there is a ready-made solution that worked just fine during the Obama Administration. It is called Administrative Closure.

An immigrant whose case is administratively closed continues to have their case in the immigration court, but with no future hearing date. The case is removed from the court’s active workload. The TRAC research center of Syracuse University calculated 69,355 immigration court cases closed using Administrative Closure as a form of prosecutorial discretion between 2012 and 2017. To no one’s surprise, the program ended with the Trump Administration.

In December 2021, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas stated that he did not favor Administrative Closure. He wanted cases dismissed outright so that they would be permanently off the court’s docket. Mayorkas has no authority over the immigration courts; they are part of the Department of Justice. DHS does have to maintain and store the files for Administratively Closed cases, but it is hard to imagine this creates any significant hardship.

So, when DHS’s Principal Legal Advisor (OPLA) Chief Kerry Doyle published guidance strongly favoring dismissal instead of Administrative Closure, she is following her boss’s lead. In an engagement webinar with immigration attorneys on April 5, 2022, she commented that the problem of work permits is “not in our lane.”

Apparently, the top priority for President Biden’s DHS team is to close cases at all costs. The Biden administration seems more concerned about counting beans, decreasing the official “backlog” of 700,000 cases, than the real cost in human terms.

It would have been so easy for the Biden administration to explain to press outlets and the public that administratively closed cases do not count as part of the immigration court “backlog” since they are not active cases.

It would have been so easy to avoid telling immigrants they must hide in the shadows again and can’t renew a work permit or social security number.

Now, the Biden administration wants me to be a part of their “solution.” They want me to encourage my clients not to object when the government asks to dismiss the case [DHS retains the right to dismiss cases even against the request of the immigrant and it may come to that].

Now, I must explain the pros and cons of dismissal to my clients, or at least try to explain. Dismissal will save them from the immediate threat of deportation, but it does not grant them any status. They will lose their work permits and go into the shadows with the other approximately 11 million undocumented immigrants in the US. It will be hard for them to see this as anything other than a significant step backwards.

Welcome to America.

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The current immigration debate is more than a short-term skirmish over the future of Title 42 and how both parties position themselves tactically ahead of the midterms. It’s a battle over what kind of nation we want to be. It’s a battle over whether Democrats will fearfully and timidly aid and abet Republican extremism. It’s a battle over the future of the Democratic coalition and whether some Democrats are going to panic and end up helping Republicans slam the door on refugees and immigrants.

We know where Republicans stand on immigrants and refugees. They are waging a relentless scorched-earth war against immigrants and refugees. They want to block legislation that would put undocumented immigrants on a path to citizenship, keep out refugees, and slash levels and categories for the admission of legal immigrants. They have lurched to the far right on immigration because most have decided that feeding base GOP voters a steady diet of fear and hatred will help them spur turnout and regain power.

They are normalizing the dehumanization of immigrants and refugees by calling an uptick of those seeking refugee protection at our southern border – including Ukrainians, Cubans, Venezuelans and Nicaraguans – an “invasion.” Some even traffic in the trope that Democrats want to “replace” white Americans with immigrants and refugees of color. This is the kind of rhetoric that led to deadly violence in El Paso, Pittsburgh, and Charlottesville. It’s part of a cramped and weak worldview encouraged by the likes of Donald Trump, Stephen Miller, and Tucker Carlson who aim to turn America into a white ethnostate where the multiracial majority is dominated by a rightwing minority.

Democrats have a choice. They can stand for an America that recognizes immigrants and refugees as foundational to the American experiment, defends a welcoming tradition that is critical to the American future, and works to build an immigration system that integrates order and justice. Or they can cede the debate to Republicans, enable a radicalizing party to build walls, slam doors and incite violence, and let the vacuum they create be filled by those intent on advancing their countermajoritarian project.

Yes, there are challenging policy and political issues before us. Managing our southern border and responding to increases in border arrivals has been a challenge for every administration since 1980 – from Ronald Reagan to George Herbert Walker Bush to Bill Clinton to George W. Bush to Barack Obama to Donald Trump to Joe Biden. But a confident, strong and capable America is competent enough to manage and mitigate upticks in forced migration from within our hemisphere. With Democrats in control of both houses of Congress and the White House, we should be competent enough to fashion an immigration and refugee system that gives Ukrainians fleeing Putin’s terror an alternative to flying to Mexico and trying their luck with U.S. border guards. And a confident, strong and capable Democratic Party should be competent enough to defend proposals to enact a workable and balanced immigration system, values that define our diverse nation, and a multiracial democracy that is both under construction and under attack.

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