The Trump Administration’s Proposed “Mixed Status” Housing Rule Is Another Form of Family Separation

The world has watched in horror as migrant families have been forcibly separated, placed into camps, and subjected to the cruel conditions of detention, as part of the Trump administration’s sustained assault on immigrant rights. The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) proposed “mixed status” rule is yet another form of family separation, with clear negative implications for survivors of domestic violence. That’s why today the ACLU, ACLU of California and other state affiliates filed public comments condemning the proposed rule, joining the ranks of the National Housing Law Project,, National Low Income Housing Coalition, and countless other advocates.

On May 10, 2019, HUD proposed a rule that will effectively evict tens of thousands of immigrant families, and jeopardize housing subsidies for millions of U.S. citizens. HUD’s new rule will ban “mixed-status” families — comprised of household members who are both eligible and ineligible for federal housing assistance — from living in public housing and Section 8 programs, even though assistance is already prorated, or decreased, to exclude ineligible members. Based on HUD’s own analysis, the new rule will threaten housing for 25,000 mixed-status families — including over 55,000 children who are U.S. citizens or green card holders. The proposed rule will also impose burdensome documentation requirements on over 9 million residents who receive housing subsidies, which will disproportionately impact low-income residents, >people of color, >Black individuals, >people with disabilities, and elderly Americans. 

Importantly, being “ineligible” for federal housing assistance does not always mean that a resident is undocumented. For example, domestic violence survivors who have U-Visas — which provide victims of abuse and other crimes with temporary immigration status — are not eligible for such assistance and will face eviction if HUD’s proposed rule is finalized. This new rule will be particularly devastating for survivors like Margarita, who are the sole providers for “eligible” children. After fleeing abuse in Mexico and the U.S. and battling homelessness for nearly a decade, Margarita was overjoyed when she and her children were finally able to move into a public housing apartment last year. Now Margarita fears that HUD’s proposed rule will force her family into homelessness yet again. As recognized by Congress in its enactment of the Violence Against Women Act, access to stable housing is critical to the wellbeing of domestic violence survivors and their families. HUD’s new rule would erect greater obstacles to such access, destabilizing families as they attempt to escape violence. 

If finalized, HUD’s new rule will force affected families to make an agonizing choice: either break up to allow eligible members to keep their benefits — a decision that the agency itself characterizes as “ruthless” — or forgo assistance to allow the family to stay together. Recognizing the impossibility of this choice, HUD’s own analysis predicts that the very “fear of the family being separated would lead to prompt evacuation by most mixed households.” 

No matter the decisions of “mixed-status” families, the consequences are grave. Forcing family members to live separately inflicts significant harm, promotes distrust of government actors, and discourages those in need from seeking assistance. For the majority of families that choose instead to forgo benefits, the housing instability prompted by the proposed rule will be costlyand may even result in temporary homelessness. Involuntary displacement frequently leads to employment loss, loss of material possessions, and lasting health issues, including substance abuse. Moreover, evicted families, often headed by women of color, will struggle to find stable housing as they are rooted out by landlord screening policies that force these individuals to seek substandard housing elsewhere or risk homelessness. 

Moreover, HUD’s proposed rule is administratively unwise. By HUD’s own analysis, the implementation of the new rule will cost between $193 to $227 million every year. This increased cost is associated with providing non-prorated housing subsidies to fully eligible families that take the place of mixed-status families. HUD also predicts that the proposed rule will diminish both quantity andquality of public housing. At a time when the Trump administration is threatening to slash the HUD budget, the move to inflate housing assistance resources is nonsensical, and suggests ulterior motives. 

Perhaps the most damning feature of HUD’s proposed rule is that it simply isn’t justified. HUD claims that the new rule is necessary to prevent undocumented residents from receiving federal aid and assistance, in accordance with Section 214 of the Housing and Community Development Act of 1980. But the law already prevents ineligible immigrants from receiving HUD funds. Indeed, Section 214 explicitly authorizes a family’s housing subsidy to be prorated to account for ineligible household members. The true motivation behind this rule was clarified by HUD Secretary Ben Carson on May 21, who noted that this proposal would allow Congress “to engage in comprehensive immigration reform.” The proposed rule has never been about conforming with Section 214 — this is about engendering fear into immigrant communities. 

As the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant agenda encroaches on the home, we cannot sit idly as our government attempts to make the most intimate arena of life as inhospitable to immigrants as the rest of our country. Today, we speak out against family separation in the home, just as we have in the case of family separation on the border. We urge HUD to immediately withdraw the proposed rule and advance housing policies that strengthen—not undermine—the ability of families to access stable, affordable housing.

Source: American Civil Liberties Union 

https://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a4321-Mixed-Status-other-Form-of-Family-Separation.html

ACNUR Expresa Preocupación Por Restringir El Acceso Al Asilo En Estados Unidos

La Agencia de la ONU para los Refugiados, ACNUR, expresa su profunda preocupación ante la nueva normativa que restringe el acceso al asilo para la mayoría de las personas que cruzan la frontera terrestre sur de los Estados Unidos. Esta medida pondrá en riesgo a personas vulnerables que necesitan protección internacional y que huyen de sus países por la violencia o la persecución.

“Comprendemos que el sistema de asilo de Estados Unidos se encuentra bajo una importante presión y estamos preparados para desempeñar un papel constructivo en caso necesario y ayudar a aliviar esta presión”, dijo el Alto Comisionado de la ONU para los Refugiados, Filippo Grandi. 

“Sin embargo, estamos profundamente preocupados por esta medida, que pondrá a familias vulnerables en situación de riesgo y minará los esfuerzos que están realizando los países en toda la región para la puesta en marcha de respuestas colectivas y coherentes que tanto se necesitan. Se trata de una medida muy dura y no es el mejor camino a seguir”, añadió Grandi. 

ACNUR considera que esta normativa restringe significativamente el derecho a solicitar asilo, obstaculiza el derecho a la protección ante la devolución y eleva sustancialmente la carga de la prueba sobre los solicitantes de asilo más allá de los estándares legales internacionales, recorta drásticamente los derechos básicos y libertades para quienes los reúnen y no está en línea con las obligaciones internacionales. 

De acuerdo con el texto de la normativa estadounidense, se considerará que las personas que entren en Estados Unidos a través de la frontera terrestre sur del país no reúnen los requisitos para obtener asilo si hubieran pasado previamente por otro país el que no hubieran pedido asilo antes de trasladarse a la frontera de EE.UU. Esta medida no tendrá en cuenta si dichas personas tuvieron acceso a protección internacional efectiva en los países de tránsito. 

En los últimos años, un número creciente de personas ha estado saliendo de distintas zonas de Centroamérica por motivos que van desde carencias económicas extremas hasta la persecución. Muchas de ellas están huyendo de una terrible violencia por parte de pandillas brutales y están en necesidad de protección internacional. 

ACNUR hizo un llamamiento el mes pasado a los gobiernos de los países del continente americano para que se reunieran de manera urgente para desarrollar y poner en marcha de inmediato una respuesta regional coordinada ante el creciente número de personas que están saliendo de Centroamérica. 

Fuente: ACNUR, la Agencia de la ONU para los Refugiados 

https://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a4320-ACNUR-expresa-preocupacion-por-restricciones-de-asilo.html

Ecuador Y Australia Implementan Visado De Trabajo Y Vacaciones Work&Holiday

La Cancillería pone en conocimiento de la ciudadanía un instructivo para la aplicación del programa de otorgamiento de visas denominado “Work&Holiday”, en cumplimiento del Memorando de Entendimiento Ecuador-Australia, suscrito por los respectivos gobiernos en 2017 y que está dirigido a jóvenes de los dos países.

Para el caso ecuatoriano, el documento recoge los requisitos exigidos por el Gobierno australiano, uno de ellos, obtener una carta de apoyo del Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores y Movilidad Humana. Para lo cual los postulantes deberán cumplir con una serie de pasos como: contar con una solicitud firmada por el postulante, dirigida a la Dirección de Visados y Naturalizaciones, solicitando el otorgamiento de la “Nota Verbal” necesaria, al tiempo que deberán incluir los nombres completos de la persona interesada, número de cédula de identidad, edad e institución educativa en la que cursa o cursó sus estudios universitarios. 

Además, la declaración juramentada que garantiza que los documentos que se acompañan a la solicitud son fidedignos; contar con una dirección de correo electrónico válida, al que le será remitida la carta de apoyo; por otra parte no haber sido beneficiario con anterioridad de una visa de “vacaciones y trabajo” emitida por Australia; una copia legible del certificado de antecedentes penales ecuatoriano, entre otros. 

Una vez que se haya verificado el cumplimiento de los requisitos, la Dirección de Visados y Naturalizaciones de la Cancillería ecuatoriana enviará por correo electrónico, tanto al solicitante como a la Embajada de Australia en Chile, la carta de apoyo a la visa “Work&Holiday”. Los documentos deberán ser escaneados y remitidos en formato PDF a la dirección de correo electrónico: vvyt@cancilleria.gob.ec. 

Según el Memorando de Entendimiento, la visa se otorga únicamente en la Embajada de Australia en Santiago de Chile y existe un cupo límite de hasta 100 visas anuales. En cuanto a los ciudadanos australianos que deseen ser parte del programa para visitar Ecuador, así mismo, se expidió un acuerdo ministerial, que se encuentra vigente desde el 1 de julio y que establece los correspondientes requisitos. 


Requisitos Exigidos A Postulantes Ecuatorianos Por El Gobierno Australiano

El postulante ecuatoriano que desee aplicar a las visas Vacaciones y Trabajo (Work&Holiday) deberá cumplir los siguientes requisitos ante la Embajada de Australia en Santiago de Chile: 

• Tener entre 18 y 30 años de edad, al momento de postular.
• Tener pasaporte ecuatoriano válido y vigente. Proporcionar copia del pasaporte (la página con los datos biográficos).
• Completar un formulario de postulación y pagar un arancel de postulación.
• Tener un nivel de inglés funcional.
• Tener solvencia económica suficiente para mantenerse en Australia y comprar pasajes aéreos de ida y vuelta.
• Tener una carta de apoyo del Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores y Movilidad Humana (Ecuador).
• Cumplir con requisitos de estudios.
• Cumplir con requisitos de salud.
• No estar acompañado de menores dependientes.

La visa se otorga únicamente en la Embajada de Australia en Santiago de Chile y existe un cupo límite de hasta 100 visas anuales. El objetivo de la visa es realizar actividades turísticas y de vacaciones, siendo el trabajo una actividad secundaria. La visa tendrá una vigencia de UN AÑO y no se admite volver a aplicar a esta misma visa en el futuro. 


I.- INGLÉS FUNCIONAL. 

Deberá adjuntar a su solicitud evidencia de inglés funcional a través de una de las siguientes opciones: 

1. Exámenes de inglés (realizados no más de 12 meses antes de presentar la solicitud): 

• IELTS (General Training Module), resultado mínimo de 4,5.
• TOEFL (IBT), resultado mínimo de 32 puntos.
• Pearson Test of English Academic (PTE Academic), resultado mínimo de 30 puntos
• Cambridge English Advanced (CAE), resultado mínimo de 147 puntos.

2. Estudios realizados en inglés

• Haber cursado todos los años de enseñanza primaria y al menos 3 años de enseñanza secundaria en un establecimiento de educación en que TODAS las asignaturas fueron dictadas en inglés;
• Haber cursado al menos 5 años de enseñanza secundaria en un establecimiento de educación en que TODAS las asignaturas fueron dictadas en inglés+

Importante: El requisito de inglés funcional se debe cumplir al momento de postular. Esto significa que si la solicitud no incluye evidencia de inglés al momento de ser subida online, será rechazada. 


II.- SOLVENCIA ECONÓMICA. 

El requisito es: 

• El equivalente de $ 5,000 dólares australianos (USD$ 3.487,00) para gastos de manutención y estadía;
• El equivalente de $ 1,800 dólares australianos para gastos de pasajes o tener pasajes aéreos (ida y vuelta).

Deberá adjuntar a su solicitud la evidencia económica a través de una de las siguientes opciones: 

• Extracto bancario/estado de cuenta actualizado;
• Una carta de un banco (firmada y timbrada) indicando nombre del titular de la cuenta, tipo de cuenta y el saldo disponible;
• Extracto bancario/estado de cuenta de una tarjeta de crédito.

Si los fondos no son propios, debe incluir una carta de la persona que respalda económicamente (patrocinador), indicando que brindará al solicitante el apoyo financiero durante la estadía en Australia y cuál es el vínculo con el postulante, ejemplo: padres o hermanos. Deberá incluir además, una copia simple de la cedula de identidad del patrocinador. 

Importante: El requisito de solvencia económica se debe cumplir al momento de postular. Esto significa que si la solicitud no incluye evidencia de fondos al momento de ser subida online, será rechazada. 


III.- CARTA DE APOYO. 

Deberá adjuntar a su solicitud la carta de apoyo otorgada por el Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores y Movilidad Humana. 

Importante: La carta de apoyo es un requisito que se debe cumplir al momento de postular. Esto significa, que si la solicitud no incluye este documento al momento de ser subida online, será rechazada. 


IV.- CERTIFICADOS DE ESTUDIOS. 

Deberá adjuntar a su solicitud evidencia de: 

• Haber obtenido un título universitario,
• Haber completado exitosamente dos años de estudios universitarios y haber sido promovido al tercer año,
• Tener un título profesional inscrito en la Secretaria Nacional de Educación Ciencia y Tecnología (SENESCYT), de una carrera de al menos 2 años de duración.

Importante: El certificado de estudios es un requisito que se debe cumplir al momento de postular. Esto significa, que si la solicitud no incluye este documento al momento de ser subida online, será rechazada. 


V.- EXÁMENES MÉDICOS. 

Cada postulante deberá realizar un examen de salud y una radiografía de tórax. 

Los exámenes médicos deberán ser realizados con profesionales médicos y en clínicas autorizadas por el Gobierno de Australia. Para datos de contacto de los médicos autorizados, visite la página https://immi.homeaffairs.gov.au/. 

El postulante podrá realizar sus exámenes médicos antes de presentar su solicitud, completando previamente una declaración de salud online, llamada "My Health declaration". 

My Health declaration es un formulario de salud online, el cual una vez ha sido completado por el postulante, le permitirá obtener las instrucciones medicas necesarias para acudir al médico y le otorgará un código de salud llamado "HAP ID". Este código es de vital importancia y será requerido por el médico, para enviar al departamento de asuntos internos (inmigración) los resultados del postulante electrónicamente. 

Para más información y los pasos a seguir para cumplir con el requisito de salud, ingrese a la página https://immi.homeaffairs.gov.au/.


Requisitos Para La Obtención De La Carta De Apoyo (Nota Verbal) Otorgada Por El Ministerio De Relaciones Exteriores Y Movilidad Humana A Favor De Postulantes Ecuatorianos. 

Los siguientes documentos deberán ser escaneados y enviados en formato PDF a la siguiente dirección de correo electrónico: vvyt@cancilleria.gob.ec: 

• Solicitud escrita en computadora y firmada por el/la postulante dirigida a la Dirección de Visados y Naturalizaciones, solicitando el otorgamiento de la Nota Verbal necesaria para aplicar a la visa “Work & Holiday” Ecuador –Australia. La solicitud deberá tener los nombres completos, número de cédula de identidad, edad e institución educativa en la que cursa o cursó sus estudios universitarios.
• Declaración juramentada que garantiza que los documentos que se acompañan a la solicitud son fidedignos.
• Copia legible a color de la cédula de identidad en la que se demuestre que el solicitante acredita una edad entre dieciocho (18) años de edad y treinta (30) años.
• Copia legible a color del pasaporte válido y con una vigencia mínima de 6 meses (la página con los datos biográficos y fotografía del solicitante).
• Dirección de correo electrónico válido al cual se remitirá al solicitante la carta de apoyo.
• No haber sido beneficiario de una visa “Vacaciones y Trabajo” de Australia con anterioridad.
• Copia legible del Certificado de Antecedentes Penales ecuatoriano.
• Copia del certificado emitido por la institución educativa de educación superior acreditada en el Ecuador, de haber completado exitosamente los estudios de tercer nivel o haber completado al menos dos (2) años de estudios universitarios.
• Copia del documento que acredite que el solicitante reúne el requisito de inglés funcional, requerido por el Gobierno de Australia, de conformidad con lo señalado en el acápite A) de este Instructivo.
• Copia del documento que acredite que el solicitante reúne el requisito de solvencia económica, requerido por el Gobierno de Australia, de conformidad con lo señalado en el acápite A) de este Instructivo.

La Dirección de Visados y Naturalizaciones enviará por correo electrónico, tanto al solicitante como a la Embajada de Australia en Chile, la Carta de Apoyo (Nota Verbal) dirigida a dicha Embajada, indicando su apoyo a la solicitud de la visa “Work&Holiday”, una vez que se haya verificado el cumplimiento de los requisitos mencionados en el acápite B. 

En caso de que el solicitante no adjunte en su mensaje electrónico todos los documentos requeridos, la Dirección de Visados y Naturalizaciones le informará, por la misma vía, que no ha cumplido con lo solicitado por lo que su solicitud será negada. 

Únicamente el mensaje electrónico remitido por parte del solicitante, anexando todos los documentos requeridos, será considerado para la emisión de la Carta de Apoyo (Nota Verbal). 

No se admitirán mensajes electrónicos posteriores a un mensaje con documentos incompletos. Por lo tanto, los postulantes deben asegurarse de enviar, de manera completa, sus respectivos expedientes. 

Con la Nota Verbal emitida por la Dirección de Visados y Naturalizaciones, el solicitante podrá continuar con el proceso de solicitud de visa detallado en la página web de la Embajada de Australia en Santiago de Chile: https://chile.embassy.gov.au/ 

La emisión de la Nota Verbal NO garantiza la aprobación de la visa “Work&Holiday”, cuyo otorgamiento es facultad exclusiva del Gobierno australiano. 


Requisitos Exigidos A Postulantes Australianos Por El Gobierno Ecuatoriano 

1. El postulante australiano que desee aplicar a las visas Vacaciones y Trabajo (Work&Holiday) deberá cumplir con los siguientes requisitos: 

• Tener entre dieciocho (18) años de edad y treinta (30) años al momento de presentar la solicitud de visa.
• Pasaporte válido y vigente con una vigencia mínima de 6 meses.
• No estar acompañado por menores dependientes.
• Justificar los medios lícitos de vida suficientes para su permanencia en el Ecuador (aproximadamente USD. 400,00 por mes de permanencia) más los fondos necesarios para el viaje de ida y retorno a su país de origen.
• No haber sido beneficiario de una visa “Vacaciones y Trabajo” con anterioridad.
• Contar con un seguro de salud que cubra sus gastos médicos en el Ecuador.
• Certificado de antecedentes penales de su país de origen, original, debidamente apostillado y traducido al español.
• Contar con la carta de apoyo del Gobierno australiano que incluya una declaración relativa al tiempo de estadía y las actividades a realizar por parte del solicitante en el territorio ecuatoriano bajo los términos del Memorando de Entendimiento.
• Presentar un certificado debidamente apostillado de haber completado exitosamente estudios de tercer nivel o haber completado al menos dos (2) años de estudios universitarios, otorgado por una institución educativa reconocida por el Gobierno australiano.
• Certificado de manejo funcional del idioma español (SIELE) otorgado, entre otros, por el Instituto Cervantes. https://sidney.cervantes.es/es/default.shtm

2.- Iniciar el trámite en la página web de la Cancillería del Ecuador www.cancilleria.gob.ec ir al link consulado virtual. 

3.- Ingresar los datos personales y el tipo de visa que solicita. 

4.- Seleccionar la Agencia Consular de Ecuador en Australia (solamente dicha Oficina está autorizada a emitir la visa Work&Holiday para ingresar al Ecuador). 

5.- Acudir el día de la cita. 

6.- Presentar los documentos y realizar el pago del formulario de solicitud de la visa correspondiente USD. 50,00. 

NOTA: Ecuador emite desde el 28 de enero de 2019 visas con formato electrónico (no requiere estampar la visa), por lo que en caso de ser aprobada la visa será enviada al correo electrónico proporcionado por el solicitante, conjuntamente con un código de verificación, cuya imagen digitalizada deberá ser presentada en el punto de control fronterizo correspondiente, una vez que arribe al país. 

La visa se otorga únicamente en el Consulado del Ecuador en Australia y tiene un cupo límite de hasta 100 visas anuales. El objetivo de la visa es realizar actividades turísticas y de vacaciones, siendo el trabajo una actividad secundaria. 

La visa tendrá una vigencia de UN AÑO y no se admite volver a aplicar a esta misma visa en el futuro

 

Fuente: Ministerio De Relaciones Exteriores y Movilidad Humana de Ecuador  

https://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a4319-ecuador-y-australia-implementan-visado-de-trabajo-y-vacaciones.html

A Border Patrol Agent Reveals What It’s Really Like to Guard Migrant Children

by Ginger Thompson www.propublica.org

 

With the agency under fire for holding children in deplorable conditions and over racist and misogynistic Facebook posts, one agent speaks about what it’s like to do his job. “Somewhere down the line people just accepted what’s going on as normal.”

The Border Patrol agent, a veteran with 13 years on the job, had been assigned to the agency’s detention center in McAllen, Texas, for close to a month when the team of court-appointed lawyers and doctors showed up one day at the end of June. 

Taking in the squalor, the stench of unwashed bodies, and the poor health and vacant eyes of the hundreds of children held there, the group members appeared stunned. 

Then, their outrage rolled through the facility like a thunderstorm. One lawyer emerged from a conference room clutching her cellphone to her ear, her voice trembling with urgency and frustration. “There’s a crisis down here,” the agent recalled her shouting. 

At that moment, the agent, a father of a 2-year-old, realized that something in him had shifted during his weeks in the McAllen center. “I don’t know why she’s shouting,” he remembered thinking. “No one on the other end of the line cares. If they did, this wouldn’t be happening.” 

As he turned away to return to his duties, the agent recalled feeling sorry for the lawyer. “I wanted to tell her the rest of us have given up.” 

It’s rare to hear from Border Patrol agents, especially since the Trump administration has put them at the front lines of its sweeping immigration crackdown. Public access to them is typically controlled and choreographed. When approached off duty, agents say they risk their jobs if they speak about their work without permission. As a result, much about the country’s largest federal law enforcement agency — with some 20,000 agents policing the borders and ports — remains shrouded in secrecy, even from congressional oversight, making it nearly impossible to hold it accountable. 

Disturbing glimpses of some agents have recently begun to fill the void, including some that were published recently after ProPublica obtained screenshots from a secret Facebook group for current and former Border Patrol agents that showed several agents and at least one supervisor had posted crude, racist and misogynistic comments about immigrants and Democratic members of Congress. The posts raised questions about whether the deplorable detention conditions on the border were out of the control of Customs and Border Protection, as the agency had asserted, or a reflection of its culture. 

Other reports followed, including one from CNN that described agents attempting to humiliate a Honduran immigrant by trying to force him to be photographed holding a sign that read in Spanish, “I like men.” The Intercept published more degrading posts from the secret Facebook group, and it reported that it appeared that Border Patrol Chief Carla Provost had once been a member. Provost has not commented. 

But there was some nuance. An account of life inside a Border Patrol detention facility outside El Paso, Texas, by The New York Times and The El Paso Times, revealed that two agents there had expressed concerns about the conditions to their supervisors. 

The agent who spent June in McAllen doesn’t see his reality in any of those depictions. He’s in his late 30s and is a husband and father who served overseas in the military before joining the Border Patrol. He asked not to be identified because he worried that his candor could cost him his job and thrust him and his family into the middle of the angry public debate over the Trump administration’s border policies. 

His comments come at a particularly fraught moment, as politicians on the left compare the Border Patrol’s detention facilities to “concentration camps” and senior Trump administration officials, including most recently Vice President Mike Pence, dismiss descriptions of the inhumane conditions as “unsubstantiated.” 

When asked about Pence’s comments, the agent said the damning descriptions of the facilities are “more substantiated than not.” And, while he didn’t embrace the term concentration camp, he didn’t dispute it either. He searched out loud for a term that might be more accurate. Gulag felt too strong. Jail didn’t feel strong enough. 

He came around to this: “It’s kind of like torture in the army. It starts out with just sleep deprivation, then the next guys come in and sleep deprivation is normal, so they ramp it up. Then the next guys ramp it up some more, and then the next guys, until you have full blown torture going on. That becomes the new normal.” 

Referring back to the grim conditions inside the Border Patrol holding centers, he said: “Somewhere down the line people just accepted what’s going on as normal. That includes the people responsible for fixing the problems.” 

He spoke at length in several interviews, making clear that the views and motivations he articulated were his alone. He said he’s not on Facebook, much less a member of any secret Border Patrol social media groups. He also said he did not witness any egregious behavior by his colleagues during his time in McAllen. But he said the agents who were permanently posted there had the shortest fuses, and he’d heard them launch into condescending harangues at the young migrants, blaming them for crossing the border illegally and denying their requests for extra food, water or information about when they’d be released. 

Most of his colleagues, he said, fall into one of two camps. There are the “law-and-order types” who see the immigrants in their custody, as, first and foremost, criminals. Then, he said, there are those who are “just tired of all the chaos” of a broken immigration system and “see no end in sight.” 

“The only possible end to this that I see is if there’s some change after the next election,” he said, referring to what might finally end the stalemate in Washington over how to reform the system. “Either this president will win again, and Congress will be forced to work with him. Or a new president will get elected and do things a different way.” 

In addition to the interviews, the agent shared a journal entry about his time in McAllen, which he wrote in a tentative attempt to sort through what he described as the “roughest” experience of his career; a month that he said revealed a disturbing capacity for detachment. 

“What happened to me in Texas is that I realized I had walled off my emotions so I could do my job without getting hurt,” he said. “I’d see kids crying because they want to see their dads, and I couldn’t console them because I had 500 to 600 other kids to watch over and make sure they’re not getting in trouble. All I could do was make sure they’re physically OK. I couldn’t let them see their fathers because that was against the rules. “I might not like the rules,” he added. “I might think that what we’re doing wasn’t the correct way to hold children. But what was I going to do? Walk away? What difference would that make to anyone’s life but mine?” 

When asked whether he simply stopped caring, he said: “Exactly, to a point that’s kind of dangerous. But once you do, you feel better.” 

Part of that feeling, the agent said, comes from experience. He’s served Republican and Democratic administrations, each one with its own border crisis and wildly unpopular responses. Other people might find it hard to view his agency outside the context of their political leanings, but he said that he didn’t join because he feels strongly one way or the other. He has a criminal justice degree and was looking for a federal law enforcement job that would provide him financial security, without requiring him to go overseas. 

What keeps him in now, even as his job has morphed into one he and his wife are uncomfortable talking about in public, is that he earns about $100,000 a year, including overtime and holiday pay. He has a top-of-the-line health insurance plan that, among other things, covered nearly the entire cost of his child’s birth. In a little more than a decade, when he turns 51, he’ll be eligible to retire with a full pension that probably won’t cover the cost of a house on the beach, he said, but will give him the freedom to “do just about anything else I want, and not have to worry.” 

The agent, tall and fit with dirty blond hair, said he thinks of his time left in the Border Patrol like the home stretch of a marathon. He does his work with blinders on to everything but his family and the finish line. “I’m already starting to attend retirement seminars,” he said. “All I’m trying to do is get through the next decade.” 

That was his mindset, he said, when he landed in McAllen. It was his first time on the border since he was a rookie. He’d spent most of his career posted in the eastern part of the United States, investigating smuggling organizations rather than intercepting undocumented immigrants. But as huge numbers of Central American migrants came to the Rio Grande Valley, he and hundreds of agents across the country were summoned to help. 

In his journal entry, the agent described what he saw when he arrived at the Border Patrol detention center as a “scene from a zombie apocalypse movie.” 

His colleagues, he said, wore surgical masks and rubber gloves because there was “sickness and filth everywhere.” And he said the facility “looked like a walled-off compound where the government had the last safe zone and was taking in refugees fleeing the deadly zombie virus.” 

The scene that struck the agent the hardest that first day was the sight of dozens of children being held in cages — an image publicized this year to widespread condemnation. The children seemed about the same age as his 2-year-old son, but that’s where the similarities ended. “My kid would have been running laps around that entire building, nonstop,” the agent said. “But the boys my kid’s age, they were just there. They weren’t running or playing, even though they had been pent up all day.” 

The agent said he suspected that the kids were lethargic because they hadn’t been given enough to eat. He said he wondered, “Why are things like this?” He said he didn’t look for answers because he didn’t expect he’d find any. “I decided not to dwell on it, and just do my job.” 

He went on that way for weeks, seeing things without dwelling on them. His interactions with individual immigrants, he said, are a blur. He vaguely recalled a government staffer combing lice out of a little girl’s hair; 7- and 8-year-olds pacing in circles and sobbing inconsolably because they’d been separated from their parents; a teenage mother who’d swaddled her baby in a filthy sweatshirt that she’d borrowed from another detainee because she’d been forced to throw away the clothes she brought. 

Only a few of those encounters are mentioned in the agent’s written account of his experiences in McAllen. Most of it reads like a chronicle of a mundane work trip. He got Memorial Day off. He bought groceries and stopped drinking soda. A colleague who was staying at the Residence Inn shared enough free gym passes to last the entire trip, and his waist size went from 33 inches to 32. He started listening to music again: “Not a specific style, language or rhythm rather music that expressed passion.” And he tried meditation. 

The visit by the team of lawyers to the facility near the end of June seemed to shake up the agent. The team, led by a California attorney named Hope Frye, had arrived to interview children being detained in McAllen. The agent’s duties placed him close enough to them to observe their work. 

Frye said that typically during such visits, the agents tend to blend into the background; silent and straight-faced, in their badges and drab green uniforms. They didn’t engage much with her because they were instructed not to. She said years of hearing immigrant children tell her how badly they’d been treated in detention had long made her worry about the agents’ humanity. “I’ll look at them and wonder sometimes, ‘What kind of a parent are you when you spend your entire day filled with hate and victimizing other people? ” But to get her work done, Frye said, she tries to keep such thoughts to herself. At some point in McAllen, however, she let a comment slip to the agent about a young child who had been separated from his family. The agent, she said, blurted out that he knew of another woman who was separated from her family and raising a 2-year-old on her own. 

Frye, 68, said she asked the agent if he was referring to his own family. Her question started a series of exchanges that didn’t diminish her suspicions about the Border Patrol, Frye said, but did change her thinking a bit about the agent. 

“If what happened was a film, you’d see an older woman with many years of experience, her eyes lined from seeing these poor children, and a young man, with a young family, seeing this nightmare for the first time,” Frye said, recalling her encounter with the agent. “What I thought to myself was, ‘How sad is it that this young man who probably wants to be of service to his country is stuck doing this. ” 

Referring to the agent’s initial outburst, she said, “I think he was trying to tell me, ‘Hey, I’m human too. ” 

Katherine Hagan, a Spanish interpreter who worked alongside Frye, also interacted briefly with the agent, and, although he didn’t say it in so many words, she felt he was struggling to reckon with his role at the facility, as if, she said, “he had become so accustomed to seeing children behind wire cages that he had assimilated it as normal and necessary.” 

At one moment, she said, she recalled him scrambling to find clothes for the baby girl wrapped in the sweatshirt. The baby was so dirty that Frye wiped away rings of black dirt from around her neck. But at another point the agent lectured Hagan about indulging the immigrant children, warning her not to let “the aliens” use the officers’ bathrooms. 

“I’m trying to find the right words to describe his demeanor,” Hagan, a graduate of the Harvard Divinity School, said of the agent. “I could tell he felt embarrassed and potentially kind of exposed. I don’t know whether he was having some kind of epiphany. But it was clear he knew that I saw him — really saw him — in the middle of this horrible situation.” 

When asked about the interactions, the agent said he was trying to communicate to the lawyers that the detainees were not the only ones at the facility who felt trapped. Walking away, at least in his mind, was not an option. Trying to change things on “a macro level,” the agent said, was for fools. 

“The most I felt I could do was make sure toilet paper was stocked. Or if someone wanted an extra juice, I’d give them an extra juice. Or maybe do something to make someone’s day a little nicer; maybe smile and treat them with respect. That’s all I felt I had the power to do,” the agent said. “The ones that try to save the world, they’re the ones who either get burned out or put on a leash.” 

The agent compared himself to the cynical donkey in George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” who survives by never sticking his neck out. 

“I’ve decided that I’m not interested in advancement,” he said. “I’d rather be a full-time father than a full-time Border Patrol agent.” 

But now that he’s home, he feels the experience has somehow followed him. 

“I go to the playground with my kid, and I say to myself, ‘Why am I not enjoying this? ” 

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up for ProPublica’s Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox as soon as they are published.

 

Source: www.propublica.org 

https://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a4318-Border-Patrol-Agent-Reveals-the-Guard-of-the-Migrant-Children.html

Las Mejores Universidades De Estados Unidos

 

Las universidades de Estados unidos constituyen las 10 mejores escuelas del mundo con la mayor cantidad de patentes de nuevas tecnologías en 2018, según un estudio reciente.

Las nuevas tecnologías incluyen, desde el Colegio Universitario de Harvard, con una forma de combatir la falsificación de moneda al Instituto Tecnológico de Massachusetts, con una cápsula electrónica que los pacientes tragan para permitir a los médicos hacer un rastreo electrónico de los signos vitales clave. 

La última lista de clasificaciones internacionales de patentes proviene de la Academia Nacional de Inventores de Estados Unidos y de la Asociación de Propietarios de Propiedad Intelectual. Se basa en datos recopilados de la Oficina de Patentes y Marcas de Estados Unidos. 

La lista se centra en las patentes de “utilidad”, que cubren la creación de un producto, proceso o máquina nuevo o mejorado, y son el tipo de patente más común que concede Estados Unidos. Ejemplos de Patentes en Estados Unidos en el 2018:

• Fundación de Ex-alumnos de Wisconsin para la investigación: 
  Técnica para combatir virus en las platas.
• Universidad Estatal de Arizona: 
  Tecnología de microchip para diagnosticar y prevenir el cáncer en los perros.
• Universidad de Michigan: 
  Sistema de advertencia en tiempo real para los peatones distraídos con los teléfonos inteligentes.
• Sistema de a Universidad de California: 
  Sistema computarizado para la mejora de la visión de personas de edad avanzada.
• Universidad Johns Hopkins
  Dispositivo inalámbrico para evitar accidentes en lugares donde se llevan a cabo obras.

Arthur Daemmrich, director del Centro Lemelson para el Estudio de la Invención y la Innovación del Instituto Smithsoniano, señala que de las 6.833 patentes de utilidad concedidas a las 100 mejores universidades en 2018, más de un tercio de estas fueron a las 10 mejores universidades. 

Las patentes son sólo una medida de la innovación de un país, dice Daemmrich. “Lo que las cifras no pueden decirnos es la importancia que tendrán estas patentes para la introducción de nuevos productos en el futuro, ya sean medicamentos, productos electrónicos, sistemas de ingeniería u otros”. 

• Sistema de la Universidad de California
• Instituto Tecnológico de Massachusetts
• Universidad de Stanford
• Universidad Rey Fahd de Petróleo y Minerales
• Universidad de Texas
• Instituto Tecnológico de California
• Fundación de exalumnos de Wisconsin para la Investigación
• Colegio Universitario Harvard
• Universidad Johns Hopkins
• Universidad Estatal de Arizona y Universidad de Michigan (empatadas)

La autora de este artículo es la redactora independiente Linda Wang.

 

Fuente: www.share.america.gov  

https://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a4317-principales-universidades-de-estados-unidos.html