REPORTING FROM THE FIELD

By Aileen Walborsky

U.S. Immigration Policy and Citizen Driven initiatives to attend the root causes of the irregular migration from the Northern Triangle.

As an immigration attorney in Palm Beach County for over 30 years, helping mostly nationals from the Northern Triangle (Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador) I have given of my time pro bono for many years attempting for the U.S. Congress to revamp our antiquated immigration system. The current system makes it virtually impossible for many that entered via the border, which for years was open, to self-adjust their status despite that many have been living and working in the United States for over ten years, are part of mixed status families and are our essential workers.  Much of this was explored in my previous policy papers. 

I was born and raised in Mexico City. My father Hyman Walborsky of blessed memory- was a first generation American born in the Bronx, New York.   My paternal grandparents, Israel and Sara left Poland, before the Holocaust, the rest of their family that remained there did not survive it.      My father grew up very poor as a first generation American. My grandmother Sara was illiterate and only spoke Yiddish, my grandfather Israel was a tailor, working in sweat shops and my father slept in the small kitchen of their one-bedroom apartment.  Upon his return from serving our nation in Korea, my father began to work for a New York based American company that made ladies undergarments.  He was sent to open and manage factories, first in Alabama, then Cuba, then Venezuela, where he met and married my mother and eventually sent to Mexico City in 1962.  

   I think my background explains my fascination with the concept of borders, the movements of people and inter group relations.  I also think that having been born to a generation so close to the Holocaust left imprints in my soul that have never allowed me to be silent in the face of human suffering.  I remember as a little girl, watching with much sadness the tattooed numbers in the arms of many of my friend’s grandparents who had escaped the holocaust and found a new home in Mexico. That backdrop and the poverty and contrasts I saw on a daily basis living in Mexico, instilled in me a desire from very early in life to work in the field of human rights.

At the age of 17, I was fortunate to enter the United States legally, as a United States citizen born abroad and obtain an undergraduate degree at Brandeis University and a law degree at Boston College Law School.   After law school, I moved to New York City where I worked for the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society as an immigration attorney  before moving to  Palm Beach County in 1992 where I  began to work as an immigration attorney for Florida Rural Legal Services in Lake Worth, Florida.

   It is there that I began to work closely with the Guatemalan Maya population that has made Palm Beach County one of their largest homes as immigrants. About a year later, I opened my own law practice where I concentrate in immigration as well as human and civil rights law, closely intertwined  to the practice I have and the thousands of clients  I have had the privileged  to help assist.  

As an immigration attorney I have had the honor to help thousands of immigrants from many different countries and in so doing I have known their stories, their struggles and dreams.  Many of the stories are the same, the only thing that is different is the outside appearance of the human being I am helping.  The Guatemalan Maya women that do not know how to read and write, have always reminded me of my grandmother Sara and the common struggles they share.   Humanities common thread is the movements of people, both documented and undocumented- and how we treat the sojourner among us, is what defines the soul of a nation. With this paper presented to the Migration Conference 2022, I will try to distill 30 years in the battlefield, helping primarily nationals from the Northern Triangle- those that cross borders- to give context to the issue and policy suggestions.

The U.S.  must strive to be the open country that we are to immigrants- yet at the same time balance the needs of nation states to protect their borders and decide who will be part of the comity.   It is in this tension, that we must always strive to find good policy.  Moved by the suffering I saw in so many of my clients and the inability to help them with our current broken immigration system, I have spent years, time and energy organizing immigration rallies, and forming coalitions seeking to act as  bridge between both parties so that Congress can finally give our nation sensible immigration reform. I  have realized , after years of congressional inaction that politicians from both parties in the U.S.  use immigration as a wedge issue for their respective bases during election cycles and when in power do not seek compromise to revamp our broken immigration system.    Immigration is good for politics.  Consequently, I  am now focused solely  on citizen driven initiatives that I have been promoting as well throughout the years, while waiting for Congress to act.

It is time for Congress to work together and find a way to bring the undocumented immigrants out of the shadows. Bringing certain groups of those in our country out of the shadows- not necessarily with a path to citizenship-but a “regularization “  would be a good compromise as well as good public policy.   Granting a legal status to the millions of essential workers, many of them parents of United States citizens and members of mixed status families, will help our economy since these workers complement, rather than compete with American workers, and they are already an integral part of our workforce and economy. It will also help our national security know who is living in our homeland.

               Republicans are open to the “regularization “of some in the United States that are undocumented, yet border security must be addressed in tandem when offering such legalization to prevent future flows of irregular migration.   Regretfully, the actions that President Biden has taken at the border, terminating the “Remain in Mexico” program and the Migration Protocols achieved by the previous administration with Northern Triangle countries- before addressing the fate of the undocumented population  here for  many years -has further complicated this issue, since now we have  a crisis at the border, during a pandemic.

     A wise move, would have been to allow those programs to remain, while Congress attended the plight of those already here for many years, and then, work on solutions to address the asylum system and the border surges, that are largely promoted by transnational criminal organizations.

Congress now must not only address the plight of the millions already here for many years, but at the same time urgently address our asylum system and the Flores agreement,- a federal court decision- being exploited by human smugglers that know that if a person arrives with a child, it is most likely that the family unit will be released  to the homeland, since such Court agreement does not allow for the detention of children for more than 20 years. . The former administration issued the “Flores Rule” which allowed for accompanied children to be held more than 20 days in detention while the family unit  was being processed. That executive rule , has been discarded as well by the Biden administration. The Flores  agreement,  is being used as well  by these networks making billions a year in the transport of vulnerable people, to promote the mass migration of unaccompanied minors at levels never seen before.  The exponential growth of unaccompanied children arriving at the border has also been fueled by the fact that although the Biden administration has kept the use of  Title 42,  issued by the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention which allows Customs and Border Protection to expel undocumented migrants at the border  to prevent the spread of the virus,  it has carved out an exception for unaccompanied children. 

Congress must tackle how to handle the mass migration of asylum seekers, the majority whose asylum applications- if they indeed file one-   will most likely be denied since only 14% of asylum applicants obtain this protection.

It is imperative for Congress and this administration to find a regional solution to this crisis and create a refugee program designed particularly for this region, to stir this migration of  vulnerable and desperate men, women and children away from the criminal organizations promoting much of it.   The Remain in Mexico program was a start to begin to address our broken  asylum system that if not attended, will cause a permanent border surge and continue to feed on the mass migration from the Northern Triangle and nationals of other countries, to the border to request asylum,  largely fueled  by a criminal underbelly.   The program can be reinstated and improved , with the cooperation of the US , Mexico and the UNHCR and other non-governmental organizations that help asylum seekers. Those asylum seekers that do not meet the burden of proof to obtain asylum, which is very difficult to obtain, since a person has to demonstrate an  individualized  well-founded fear of persecution on account of their race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group and/or political opinion, will then be returned to their home countries where reintegration programs must be created. During the 2018 border surge, Mexico did offer work permits and asylum to those attempting to reach the United States, and this option, should be revisited, since this migration has to be attended in a regionally.  The vast majority are economic migrants, thus Congress must enact legislation , that reflects this migration . Our asylum system does not protect economic migrants and the vast majority that are being released into the homeland will most likely be the undocumented population of tomorrow since the majority of those that are released into the homeland will not be granted asylum.

In order to prevent future irregular migration Congress should create a market based, guest worker program to bring in needed workers particularly from the Northern triangle region. These temporary worker programs, similar to the “Bracero program” should be easily accessible to those that will need to access them. The US Embassies in those countries should process them via sub offices created in the distant regions  with high incidence  of irregular migration to the United States, in order to begin stirring this migration from irregular to a legal one and promote what is called “circular migration”.   These temporary worker programs will provide   economic migrants to have access to legal avenues of migration to the United States, rather than have to rely on human smugglers that exploit them with exorbitant fees, and often extort them from nonpayment by taking the lands many of them put up as collateral or threatening to kill their loved ones. The previous U.S.  administration signed a Memorandum of Agreement with Guatemala to improve the H-2A worker program and allow for more Guatemalan nationals to enter the country temporarily, to work in agriculture. A similar accord was signed with El Salvador. Those programs were not made accessible at all to those that need them and the US Embassy did nothing to promote them. Yet it was a good step forward in creating legal avenues that reflect the migration from the Northern Triangle, which is largely economic and which asylum does not protect.

             
                Any regularization program has to be balanced with a plan to promote legal migration in the future, particularly from the Northern Triangle countries since the caravans of mass asylum seekers showing up at the border since 2013 are largely nationals of these countries.   The migration of unaccompanied children from the Northern Triangle has to be addressed in a holistic fashion and with a vision to attend the root causes of this migration, since attending those causes is the only long-term solution.

I have recommended that Congress enact legislation that will admit each year a specified number of unaccompanied minors who demonstrate that they have been abandoned, abused and or neglected by their natural parents from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. In- country processing would take place in their respective US Embassies allowing them to enter the USA under humanitarian parole. This program can be created by Congress to provide protection for 5-10 years to help change the migration of teenagers, from irregular to legal and deter them from risking their lives by crossing borders alone on in the hands of smugglers. It is time to think out of the box to address this vexing issue of unaccompanied teenage migration since those teenagers are abused during the trajectory  to the US border- and even when placed with legal guardians in the United States.

The plight of unaccompanied minors crossing national borders alone is of great concern and poses great challenges to those that work in the human rights field.  Many of them are sexually exploited, raped and many murdered along the way. They face all types of victimization even when they are lucky to arrive alive to the United States 

I want to briefly speak about a case in 2002 where I was the lead attorney – all pro bono- that put together a legal strategy and team to fight for the freedom of a misunderstood and misjudged child among us.

The fight to protect the most basic civil and human rights of a Guatemalan- Maya teenager -charged as an adult for first degree murder of her premature two-pound baby- was too long and too ugly.  The criminal justice system seemed not to see or care for the abused child before it.  Politics permeated the case from the onset, yet the “good old boys” thought nobody would care.

She crossed two borders and a desert, alone, in search of her freedom to find herself charged as an adult for first degree murder after she almost died delivering alone a breached premature baby in the bathroom of the apartment she shared with her brothers, in Lake Worth.   She did not know she was pregnant and when charged did not even know how old she was.  She was no more than fourteen years old and only four months before had made the treacherous journey into the United States.  Illiterate and only speaking Q’anjobal she was from the remote village of San Miguel Acatan, nestled in the highlands near the Guatemalan-Mexican border.

It took a village of people, mostly women, who connected from near and far, by apparent chance, to weave a tapestry of care and love, to defend the rights of a Maya child who was in fact the victim of many forms of persecution: forced marriage at age 11, rapes and domestic abuse.  She was not the criminal that so many in positions of power so easily branded her as.

Given the dark underbelly of this migration, where transnational criminal organizations, working closely with smugglers are promoting the mass migration of children and unaccompanied minors-     I have dedicated much pro bono time working to  attend the  root causes of the migration of unaccompanied minors and help with the reintegration of returned migrant youth.

           Palm Beach County has one of the largest Maya Guatemala communities in the United States.   Much of this migration, largely of the indigenous Maya, began back in the 1980’s when many of them were caught in the civil war in that country. After thousands of years living in their homeland, Mayas from Guatemala had to leave their mountains and villages in search of protection. Within the irregular migration from certain Latin American countries, we have the complex migration of the indigenous of those countries, largely marginalized and vulnerable populations both in their respective homelands and upon their arrival in the United States.

In 2007 the American Jewish Committee organized an event geared toward Guatemalan nationals living in the United States as part of the important inter group work, they do. Since I was a board member then, and working closely with particularly the Maya from Guatemala I was invited to participate. In that conference I met Ms. Rebecca Bardach, an American who is passionate about immigration and refugee work and was at the time working for the Israeli nonprofit- Center for International Migration and Integration-CIMI.

CIMI is an Israeli nonprofit created to share the best practices of immigrant integration and diaspora-homeland partnerships with immigrant sending countries and their diasporas.  That same year, the Guatemalan Government bestowed on me the greatest honor, naming me Honorary Consul of Guatemala in Palm Beach County. I found the work of CIMI cutting edge and it was a model that I thought would be important to share, to illustrate the possibilities on how collectively, Guatemalans in the diaspora can play an important role in socio economic development in their country of origin. The potential for immigrants to play a major role in creating sustainable communities in their countries of origin is a new tool that is being explored in the field of international development.   With very little money but with much heart we put together a series of workshops, from 2007 to 2011 in Jupiter, Florida and Quetzaltenango Guatemala promoting transnational projects for development with their counterparts in Guatemala.

Capacity building is key, so during this same time period, I sponsored two Guatemalan Mayas from South Florida and three from Guatemala to participate in intensive two-week workshops in Israel with CIMI- geared toward immigrant diaspora leaders.

Many projects and much networking between the South Florida Maya diaspora and citizens in Guatemala emerged from these workshops. The seeds that were planted are beginning to bloom.   A chicken farm and fruit tree farm were created in very remote areas with the donations of Diaspora partners to create employment.  

From these workshops I watched a group of Maya representatives create a local nonprofit- Maya Iq Balam- whose mission is to maintain the richness of the Maya culture in the diaspora alive  with their yearly Maya Festival in Lake Worth Florida, and they raise money to help fund the education of needy children in the remote villages were many of them come from and have not forgotten .

     I also sit on the board of the Guatemalan Tomorrow Fund, a Jupiter, Florida based nonprofit that raises money for a  rural boarding school in Rio Dulce, Guatemala that  provides poverty ridden  boys and girls from grades 7-12  with a  practical vocational education and dignified employment in Guatemala.   The school also encourages them to support their families in their remote villages. This model has now been expanded to Guatemala City, where with the support of the Guatemalan Government, Rotary Clubs in Florida, Texas and Guatemala and the help of many in the South Florida, we have opened two “shelter schools- called Casa Shalom- to create a program to provide accelerated education and employment training for deported migrant youth. We are looking to expand these “shelter schools” and this educational model now focusing on the jobs of tomorrow. Broadband will in the next 4-5 years provide internet access in the most remote areas and that will open a digital market and employment opportunities for Guatemalan youth.    This is where USAID funds should be invested. We will soon be reaching to the highest levels of this administration and those involved in USAID to let them know of the new possibilities of this new digital market to obtain support to expand this school model throughout other regions in Guatemala and hone into this digital market  to prepare Guatemalan youth from these rural poor areas with an education that will allow them to remain in Guatemala , obtain dignified employment as well become job creators. This is  focused and necessary work to truly attend the  root causes of the irregular migration of teenagers from this region. I continue to  hope that Congress will learn to work together and learn to compromise yet while we wait for politicians to do their job, citizens can  do their share, to plant the seeds so in the future- children , men and women from the Northern Triangle have alternatives other than to leave the clouds that every day caress the imposing mountains where their homes and villages rest to provide for themselves and their loved ones.    As citizens we can do our share, to promote the right, not to have to migrate. 

1. https://palmbeachdemocracy.org/immigration-policy-reporting-from-the-field/
http://www.fvirpbc.com/letter_2_bipartisan_committe.shtml

2. www.fvirpbc.com

3. http://www.fvirpbc.com/letter_2_bipartisan_committe.shtm

4. https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-biden-border-mess-11615756253

5. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-border/u-s-facing-biggest-migrant-surge-in-20-years-homeland-security-idUSKBN2B81M5

6. https://www.unodc.org/documents/toc/factsheets/TOC12_fs_migrantsmuggling_EN_Plain.pdf

7. https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-democratic-partys-dangerous-immigration-experiment-11616537797

8. https://www.aila.org/infonet/flores-v-reno-settlement-agreement

9. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2019/08/23/2019-17927/apprehension-processing-care-and-custody-of-alien-minors-and-unaccompanied-alien-children

10. https://www.npr.org/2021/03/27/981730103/biden-says-nothing-has-changed-but-child-migrants-crossing-border-at-higher-pace

11. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2021/03/26/biden-continues-title-42-immigration-policy-but-now-allows-children/4798100001/

12. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2019/07/16/2019-15246/asylum-eligibility-and-procedural-modifications at 35.

13. https://palmbeachdemocracy.org/immigration-policy-reporting-from-the-field/

14. https://www.migrationpolicy.org/research/RMSG-CentAm-transnational-crime

15. https://www.npr.org/2018/10/29/661676110/mexico-offers-caravan-members-work-visas-if-they-stay-in-southern-mexico

16. https://www.migrationpolicy.org/research/what-we-know-about-circular-migration-and-enhanced-mobility

17. https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/eta/eta20190730

18. https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/economy-a-budget/279407-immigration-reform-the-portable-guest-worker-visa-solution

19. https://palmbeachdemocracy.org/immigration-policy-reporting-from-the-field/

20. https://www.marionstar.com/story/news/local/2015/09/27/slavery-hidden-plain-sight/72756102/

21. www.victimgenderpersecution.com 

22. https://cdn.fedweb.org/fed-55/2/Bios%2520for%2520HIH1.pdf

23. https://www.powershow.com/view/3b41fd-NzgzN/Guatemala_Diaspora_Development_Efforts_and_Lessons_From_the_Israel-Jewish_Diaspora_Rebecca_Bardach_JDC_s_Center_for_International_Migration_and_Integration_at_the_International_Conference_on_Diaspora_for_Development_The_World_Bank_Washington_powerpoint_ppt_presentation

24. http://consulhonorariaguatemala.com/pdf/XelaWorkshopReport_0608.pdf?fbclid=IwAR0zLohR8qpP6geEcty2V1NbQt-HFzU96L5cV3liIZ2cqaUBfRmAq9061r4

25. https://www.mayaiqbalam.com/?fbclid=IwAR1j48qH176-Zh6ozLQRyccbG4Jf8r2qKx2VG_N8H5ACFHIbb9Ai-mE0Hdwsa

26. www.thegtfund.org

27. https://www.state.gov/special-envoy-for-the-northern-triangle-zuniga-travels-to-guatemala-and-el-salvador/

www.aileenwalborsky-josephslawoffice.com s

28. https://cmsny.org/publications/kerwin-simn-vi-forum/

29. https://progressive.org/latest/oaxacans-want-right-not-migrate/

Aileen Walborsky, Esq. is a member of the Board of Directors of the Palm Beach Center for Democracy and Policy Research and an Honorary Consul of Guatemala in Palm Beach