Cruelty Quotas
Arresting the spouses of Americans at Green Card appointments.
The following from the NYT demonstrates the inhumane cruelty inspired by Stephen Miller’s quotas and demonstrates the xenophobic ideology of this administration: Green Card Interviews End in Handcuffs for Spouses of U.S. Citizens.
The married couples filed into a federal building in San Diego last week for green card interviews that they believed would secure their future together in the United States. Half of each pair was American. Stephen Paul came with his British wife and their 4-month-old baby. Audrey Hestmark arrived with her German husband, days before their first wedding anniversary. Jason Cordero accompanied his Mexican wife.
It was supposed to be a celebratory milestone, the final step in the process to obtain U.S. permanent residency. Instead, as each interview with an immigration officer wrapped up, federal agents swooped in, handcuffed the foreign spouse and took him or her away.
I use the word “evil” sparingly, but I can’t think of a better description of this. Here we have people trying to build lives together, and trying to engage the immigration system in the vaunted “right way” only to have their lives profoundly and frighteningly disrupted.
“It’s insane to have them rip our family apart,” Mr. Paul said. “Whoever is directing this has completely lost touch with their mission to the country.”
In recent weeks, immigration lawyers in several cities have seen a surge in arrests of foreign spouses of Americans during interviews at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services offices.
In San Diego alone, immigration lawyers in the region estimate that several dozen foreign-born spouses have been detained since Nov. 12, when the new tactic first surfaced, according to Andrew Nietor, an immigration lawyer.
[…]
In every case, agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement told the applicants that they had overstayed tourist or business visas. An arrest warrant, reviewed by The New York Times, states that “there is probable cause to believe” that the named spouse is “removable from the United States.“
Apprehensions at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services offices may occur if individuals are identified as having outstanding warrants; being subject to court-issued removal orders; or having committed fraud, crimes or other violations of immigration law while in the United States,” said Matthew J. Tragesser, an agency spokesman, noting that the arrests were typically carried out by ICE.
But the couples and their lawyers said they had followed the required steps: They had submitted extensive paperwork and paid fees. The foreign spouses had been fingerprinted and passed medical exams. None had criminal records. None had entered the country illegally. They had already been granted employment authorization.
It appears that what we have here is a situation in which is it both legal to detain these people for deportation and it is legal for them to be in the country to pursue their green card and since the law does not explicitly fix that contradiction (see the portion of the quote I have emphasized below) bad faith actors from Miller on down can exploit the situation to terrorize spouses of American citizens who have every right to be prusing permanent residency.
“In 25 years of practice, I have never seen anything like this,” Johanna Keamy, the Pauls’ lawyer, said, echoing the view of other lawyers.
“The proper procedure was exactly what they did,” she said. “What’s next? Revoking green cards from millions who followed these same steps?”
Green-card applicants’ temporary visas often lapse while their “adjustment-of-status” proceeds over several months or longer.
An immigration statute passed by Congress in 1986 allows a spouse who entered the country lawfully to be eligible for a green card through marriage even if the person’s visa has expired.
“Congress was unambiguous — these people are eligible for green cards,” said Doug Rand, who was a senior official at Citizenship and Immigration Services during the Biden administration.
While federal law does not prohibit spouses with expired visas from being detained and placed in deportation proceedings, in the past they have rarely been detained while applying for green cards.
No one is made safer by these kinds of actions. It is about terrorizing foreigners and trying to serve a xenophobic ideology.
Audrey Hestmark, 38, and her husband, Thomas Bilger, 40, reported to the government office in San Diego on Nov. 20, hopeful he would have his green card for their first wedding anniversary two days later.
[…]
At the interview, they brought requisite evidence that their marriage was legitimate — photos of a vacation to Hawaii with his parents; leases, bank statements and utility bills in both names; and other records.
The officer asked routine questions. But the last one, according to Ms. Hestmark, was whether her husband had ever overstayed his visa. He responded truthfully and cited their lawyer’s assurance that this was a nonissue.
“Suddenly, we were ambushed by three masked men in bulletproof vests with guns who told Tom they had a warrant for his arrest, that he is here unlawfully,” Ms. Hestmark recalled.
The agents handcuffed her husband, gave her a card with a QR code for the ICE website and took him away. She did not hear from him again until the next morning. He has been bounced between a basement in downtown San Diego and an immigration detention center, where he remains.
“I’m a U.S. citizen,” Ms. Hestmark said. “Tom is the love of my life, who happens to be born in Germany. We feel like we were tricked.”
They were tricked and worse, terrorized and abused by law enforcement, pure and simple.
All of this is just harassment that causes undue stress and financial burdens.
Some U.S. citizens have hired lawyers to seek the release of spouses, through actions such as posting bond. Once released, the foreign spouses must try to pursue green cards through immigration court, where judges are grappling with yearslong backlogs.
Mr. Nietor, the immigration lawyer, said that the government’s strategy appeared to be to induce the couples “to give up and abandon their cases and accept the foreign spouse’s deportation.”
It is hard enough in life to find someone to share it with, and there are already enough stresses and challenges that stand in the way of contentment and happiness. For the US government to step in when a couple thinks they are about to hit a happy milestone, only to have trying to follow the rules result in a spouse being imprisoned, is simply an inhumane act that runs counter to the notion of securing the blessings of liberty and allowing for the pursuit of happiness.
Parents are being separated from their children so that ICE can show how tough they are to foreigners.
Immiserating innocent people to feed anti-foreign hatred so as to keep America as pure as possible is, again, evil. And it is a reason that it is correct, despite his bleating protestations, to call people like Miller and others who propagate these kinds of policies, fascists.
While I am not exactly a Bill Maher fan (especially in recent years), he was onto something years ago when he did a segment in which he described the GOP’s philosophy as “What would a dick do?”
Don’t give these fascist motherfuckers any ideas.
And thank goodness my wife naturalized when she did. I can’t think of anything she did while still holding a green card that would have resulted in her being swept up at the immigration office and sent back to Germany, but with these pieces of shit looking for any flimsy excuse to boot people, you never know what could have happened.
Ice is suddenly evil
https://outsidethebeltway.com/ending_the_widow_penalty/
That post to this blog was written by me in 2007 about an immigration policy going back to 1970 or so.
https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna32891829
And the pregnant wife of a dead Marine not being allowed immigrant status because her marriage was done by proxy and the couple hadn’t consumated the marriage.
I wrote tons about the Hotaru Ferschke saga but not at OTB.
What’s different now?
ICE’s actions are being reported by the previously apathetic media.
Everyone would be better off if Trump and Miller just embraced the small penis humiliation kink and performed lascivious acts on nude beaches to the laughter of unfamiliar women.
They could even start OnlyFans accounts. Their usernames could be OrangeBbyToadstool and CuckedByElon.
@Bill Jempty: It is possible for bad things to have happened in the past and for bad things to be happening now. Indeed, it is possible that they are worse (which seems manifestly the case, IMO).
As such, I am not sure what your exact point is supposed to be, save that you like to note when you noted some past thing as a way of minimizing the present for reasons that are unclear. Another example would be what seems to be a minimization of the blowing up of boats in the Caribbean because maybe some similar things may have happened at some point in the past.
Another example that comes to mind: your objection to the usage of the term “concentration camps.” I find it odd that you keep wanting to minimize some pretty awful things that this administration is doing, especially since I think you are in opposition to their goals (but perhaps I am mistaken on that count, and you are pro-administration and that explains the minimization).
FWIW, I agree that the widow penalty is wrong. There is a lot about our immigration process I don’t like. I would note that one woman’s case is a different thing from the dozens of examples in the piece above, not to mention all the other things ICE has been doing, many of which are replications of the past, and many are truly new escalations.
But rather clearly, a lot has changed under this administration. The OP, in fact, details how some things have changed.
To be a bit pedantic, but you link a mainstream media source in your comment (it is a pet peeve of mine when people say the press isn’t covering a story but then cite a mainstream source about the story).
@Steven L. Taylor: How predictably defensive you react to any comment of mine that doesn’t nod in approval of what you wrote but is in any form contrary to what you write. Your less than 100% confidence is showing more than your ‘Whatever I write is always right’ standard position. Your even thinking or putting into words I’m in any way a Trump supporter is a case of somebody being wrong and lashing out because you don’t like something said by somebody else. Just like your one time snark about my reading habits. You have to make it personal.
You remind me of an American history teacher I had in HS. Not because you act towards me like Mr Muir did but the reverse. Something tells me if I said you wrote something on the chalk board, you would tell me to sit down or be quiet. Mr. Muir didn’t when I had him as a teacher in the 11th grade. Maybe I’ll share that story some day.
As for my choice of mainstream media for the Ferschke saga, as I said I wrote a great deal about that story. Note that article was written over a year after Hotaru was first denied a visa. An outrage was being inflicted by INS for a year but the biggest of the mainstream media didn’t care. Anything done to an immigrant today right or wrong is jumped on and isn’t just getting coverage in Stars and Stripes and Tennessee media (Where her late husband and his family are from) like Hotaru Ferschke was.
I’m sitting in the MDR trying to type my thoughts on my cell phone as I wait for dinner to be served. That’s the best I can do for now. My thoughts may be jumbled, they may be right or wrong but at least I can admit to my mistakes present and past.
@Bill Jempty:
MDR?
Majestic Dragon Restaurant?
Merciful Drowning River?
Multiple Dimensional Realities?
Magnetic Duck Repair?
Morbid Dromedary Recycler?
Multiple Donkey Reservoir?
Mermaid Disco Rampage?
Anyway, I get your frustration that you’ve been complaining about similar things happening for years, but it’s happening more now, and even to white people.
Madagascar Donut Reserve?
@Bill Jempty:
I’m glad you shared Hotaru Ferschke’s story. I remembered it only vaguely.
That said, you undermined whatever point you are making when you included a link to an apparently not “previously apathetic media” organization like NBC News that was contemporaneously reporting her plight. And you didn’t include a link noting that Hotaru gained legal status through an act of Congress during Obama’s second term. It took too long to resolve the legal situation in her favor, but someone must have been paying attention. (I found the story of her legal status on ABC News by the way.)
Do you suppose it might matter that the media, bloggers, and the general public call out ICE’s evil in our time? Not that we should expect Trump or Miller would curb their cruelty, but so someone will pay attention.
@Bill Jempty:
Oh, I dunno . . .
Scale? Masked goon squads? Widespread, daily violations of due process? Ziptied children? Citizens caught in the daily dragnet? Unmarked ICE agents driving recklessly, causing accidents, then using excessive force on the driver whose car they totaled? Indefinite detention in dangerous facilities plus abuse of detainees? Deportation to third-party countries previously deemed by the President as shitholes?
De-naturalization? Which in some cases, btw, leaves a person stateless? Deporting people who were brought here by their parents as babies or toddlers, and thus, are being deported to a country to which they have no experiential connection?
An indigenous citizen being deported to Mexico? Ya know an individual belonging to the one category of ethnic group that would have a legitimate claim to the status of ‘heritage American’ if we really wanted to create that status.
But sure, let’s talk about a 16 year old story about one family fucked over by ICE as if one instance of LEO fuckery should get more coverage than the daily occurrences happening NOW.
Steven condemned it.
FTR, I condemn it as well.
Congratulations! Feel better?
Should I light a goddamn candle?
And the list of ongoing violations of rights I provided ain’t even comprehensive. And we are supposed to pat you on the ass because an issue you cared about didn’t get enough attention?
And jumbled thoughts? About media criticism? With the amount of media and blogposts you consume, you should be able to bang out 800 words of media criticism during a power nap.
And in this instance, you’ve been tossing and turning about it for 16 years.
I’m sorry that Steven, one of the people who graciously hosts your stories about DW kissing your boo-boo after you stubbed your toe on a rubber doorstop made in China, reminds you of a teacher that . . . Oh, wait, we don’t even know what the teacher wrote or didn’t write on the blackboard or whatever the fuck. Because…you…didn’t…tell…us!
That one guy at least had the decency to avoid making a point in three lines.
What I do know is the attitude you get from Steven, who shares a lifetime of expertise with you for free, is all in your head.
You did accomplish one thing, though. From now on, when I see your name, I will hope the text underneath is a semi-autobiographical shit beetle tale rather than whatever the hell this was.
P.S. you were right about Biden’s mental state. Great job, Billy! Consider your ass patted for the day.
@Bill Jempty: Here’s the deal. The presence of a comment section is an open invitation for readers to engage with the author of a post and with other readers. Likewise, the fact that authors can see the comments and have access to the comment box as well suggests that the author can then respond to readers. That’s the inherent contract and setup.
I wrote a post.
You left a comment.
I responded to that comment, including some statements about how I find your approach odd. How is this not fair?
How about explaining to me why I am wrong? That would be potentially useful.
All of that contradicts, BTW, the notion that “Something tells me if I said you wrote something on the chalk board, you would tell me to sit down or be quiet.”
How is giving you a platform and engaging with you a request for you to shut up and sit down?
BTW, you have a strange passive-aggressive way of commenting that requires some decyphering and makes it, as I noted above, hard to really see what your point is. For example, you make some vague statements about ICE and then go off on a tangent about a nearly 20-year-old case. It seemed like your point was that the criticism of ICE in the OP was unwarranted because of some past action, but you really weren’t especially clear about it.
I disagree with your assessment of ICE and don’t think the example you cited backs up your position. I am open to further evidence and argumentation.
Here’s what I said:
To me, that hardly sounds like lashing out.
Am I wrong that you are minimizing ICE actions under Trump? Because it really seems like you are.
Am I wrong that you minimized the attacks on boats in the Caribbean? Because it sure seemed like you were at the time.
Others can judge, and I am open to correction and/or calibration.
You come across to me as minimizing some pretty awful stuff, about which I think you are morally and empirically incorrect. Again, I am more than happy to be corrected if I am misunderstanding.
I will descend into some semi-snark here and note that I do know that you love to hold onto a grudge. Or is that making it personal?
@Bill Jempty:
To come back to this, I would concur with @Kurtz‘s list and note that #424 of the Bulwark Take’s podcast from today (11/30) could help fill in some blanks.
There is also the fact that ICE Budget Now Bigger Than Most of the World’s Militaries.
Things have, in fact, changed.
Steve, please lock him. His lack of good faith is clear.
@Barry_D: take a chill pill, Barry. Disagreement doesn’t mean execution.