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Yael Schacher Profile picture
Yael Schacher
@YaelSchacher
Immigration historian PhD, Director for the Americas and Europe @RefugeesIntl Tweets my views. yaelschacher@.bsky.social
Jun 7 • 12 tweets • 2 min read
This is literally the language that was used in the 1920s and what kept refugees out of this country during the 1930s. Immigration inspectors at Ellis Island in the 1920s said that every person who tried to enter after immigration quotas that were set at low levels for countries then considered shithole and today considered great were lawbreakers and unwanted and summarily rejected.
Oct 18, 2022 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
I'm so sad. What's happened is that the people who oppose immigration have managed to convince everyone that parole should be used more for the public good of border control than humanitarian admissions. That's what's happened. Also takes for granted that asylum seekers and immigrants are a tremendous burden, an issue that is at the heart of all arguments against immigration reform. And is up before SCOTUS shortly
Oct 16, 2022 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
I hope-- PLEASE-- someone is writing a dissertation or a book about US-Mexico negotiations and arrangements regarding the handling of migrants/asylum seekers from third countries, stretching back into the 1980s. The lack of transparency around this topic is, just, astounding. Maybe @AnaRMinian is doing this? Or has a student working on it? If scholars are working on this, please be in touch.
May 28, 2021 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
Crocodile tears: Lawmakers at European Parliament lamenting that the dreams of migration to Europe don’t come true when it’s within their power to change this. I do have to say: the representative from Malta was so not having any legal fictions. “Arrivals are physically within our territory. We have no such area on the land which are designated as not part of our territory.” Refreshing.
May 27, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Aha. Why a woman whose MPP court date was truly continued in 1/20 was detained 10 days at San Ysidro.
“Mexico’s consul general in San Diego learned about fake court dates in late 2019, leading Mexican immigration to closely examine documents of asylum-seekers being returned.” The way that US and Mexican policies have led to unbelievable suffering and cruelty for migrants— and continues to with the “acceptance” of Title 42 expulsions— is really something.
Apr 9, 2021 • 18 tweets • 3 min read
Restrictionists have frequently said, we’re not letting you in for your own good! I wrote a whole paper about how immigration enforcement bureaucrats in the 1920s made themselves out into humanitarians this way. “letting in migrants is cruel” is really exactly what they said. Rather than question whether the humanitarian standards should be broadened, they dug in and blamed immigrants for asking too much, family members in the US for leaving others behind (separating themselves) etc.
Apr 8, 2021 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
This is amazing.

It would also be great if we spoke this way about how wrong it was for the US to deny asylum to folks from El Salvador and Guatemala in the 1980s.

Because some of the people--State department officials--partly responsible for that were only recently in office. A few years ago, I gave an academic paper about Ana Estela Guervara Flores, who was one of people in the Orantes-Hernandez litigation but also an important case in her own right that was denied cert by SCOTUS in 1986. justice.gov/sites/default/…
Apr 7, 2021 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Anybody who has met him knows how brave and humble, humane and resourceful, Pastor Lorenzo Ortiz is.
To understand both the challenges and the possibilities at the U.S.-Mexico border: Watch the last in our Voices from the Border video series:
Apr 3, 2021 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
I've got to say: there is a long standing problem with stash house raids. As I wrote two years ago, assuming the migrants held there are people who deserve protection rather than deportation is not customary. "CBP and ICE press releases about raids on stash houses where migrants were held against their will do not suggest that migrants were advised of their ability to apply for visas as victims of trafficking. Migrants were arrested and “processed for immigration violations.”
Apr 1, 2021 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Since 2010s, number of people requesting asylum while attempting to enter U.S. has gone up, and raised stakes for screening process we use at border. I discuss this a bit here; more from me in writing shortly. WE NEED NEW PROCESS, and MORE PROTECTION.
wola.org/analysis/peopl… I talk about asylum officers a lot here. I neglected to mention (because I got sidetracked) what a noble fight many asylum officers put up to some of the Trump administration's anti-asylum policies. There is a lot we can work with to make the asylum office great!
Mar 14, 2021 • 19 tweets • 3 min read
You know what I hate? The insistence that US asylum system was born after WWII. THE US DIDN’T SIGN UN REFUGEE CONVENTION IN 1952. US had an ad hoc refugee program till 1980. It would be generous to say asylum was born AT THE BORDER w/ 1980 Refugee Act. It’s been a struggle since. I say this as a Jew whose paternal grandparents came to the US as displaced persons after WWII in one of the resettlement programs Congress established for discrete populations. US border with Mexico and the Western Hemisphere in general have been treated differently.
Mar 12, 2021 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
You'd think, given this has been going on for a decade, policy makers would not be surprised. It's been pretty consistently large migration flow for many years. Something we should plan for and accept. Period. The flow started EARLIER than MPI tracks. And led to a major shift in the way that the UNHCR approached migration in the hemisphere. This was YEARS AGO.
unhcr.org/en-us/children…
Feb 25, 2021 • 13 tweets • 3 min read
So excited to launch this campaign today!

The United States has an obligation to welcome people seeking protection at its border.

But it’s not just something we must do; it’s something we can do.

Learn more about how #WeCanWelcome
wecanwelcome.org Mirna's story is the first in a series we will be sharing about why this is so important and how we can get it right.

Read about her story and watch an interview with her here:

refugeesinternational.org/reports/2021/2…
Feb 5, 2021 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Short thread: When I started doing historical research on immigration, I was SHOCKED that only a small number of precedent BIA decisions are available to the public in volumes published since 1940. This decisions orders release of non-precedent decisions back to 1996. There is no library open to public where a scholar like me can go find BIA unpublished decisions from the 1960s, 1970s or 1980s, for example, which would really help to understand the history of the evolution of immigration law (beyond merely legislative history).
Jan 23, 2021 • 13 tweets • 2 min read
Here are 10 questions I'm loosing sleep over regarding asylum at the border: 1) What process will the Biden administration put in place to help those who are already in MPP and have been waiting in danger in Mexico for a long time? Will it use parole for those with pending cases? What of those ordered removed and deported in abstentia?
Dec 24, 2020 • 12 tweets • 2 min read
Finally finished reading The President and Immigration Law. Of course agree all immigration policy is not fulfillment of Congressional will. But disagree thatCongressional intent is always too hard to discern--especially when it comes too the Refugee Act of 1980. Fact of the matter is: Immigration policy starting in 1981 consistently ignored a very clear Congressional mandate: don't prevent people from seeking asylum.
Dec 23, 2020 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
"CBP insists that awarding contracts without first obtaining land is efficient."

Just WOW.

Great reporting.
texastribune.org/2020/12/23/tru… "The Trump administration’s legal efforts have only intensified, with nearly 40 new eminent domain lawsuits filed in the Southern District of Texas since Election Day."

!!!!
Dec 22, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Oh no.
To understand how wrong this is, please read my comment:
refugeesinternational.org/reports/2020/8… As all comments note, this rule discriminates against ASYLUM SEEKERS (vs. other migrants). Non-response to this in final rule: No, it doesn't discriminate, because it applies to all asylum seekers.
That is not an answer.
Dec 21, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
There's a lot that can be done with this "border wall" money to reform the asylum bureaucracy!
How about hiring new medical and social workers at ports and surging supplies?
How about, for USCIS, more asylum officers, new training, a research unit on country conditions? More funding for CBP oversight and accountability would also be good. Or for that an investigatory/accountability commission.
Aug 30, 2020 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
Talking the anti-trafficking talk, not walking the walk. And it's much worse for immigrant victims of trafficking, especially labor trafficking (as per State Dept. 2020 TIP report). Denial rate for T visas for victims of trafficking has risen steadily from 24 percent in 2017 to 50 percent so far this year. (Denial rate: denied/denied plus approved. Leave out pending).
uscis.gov/sites/default/…
Jun 22, 2020 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
It's now official: the administration has adopted a policy of coercing poor asylum seekers into giving up their claims or pushing them into starvation and abusive work in the underground economy.

s3.amazonaws.com/public-inspect… From the rule: "DHS acknowledges that these reforms will apply to aliens with meritorious asylum claims, and that these applicants may experience some degree of economic hardship as a result of heightened requirements for" work authorization.