Collective Defense of Immigrant Rights is Key, Says Advocate

‘It’s not enough to know what your rights are, but you have to know how to defend those rights and how to do so in a collective way.’

The People’s Tribune’s on Jan. 6 interviewed Pedro Rios of San Diego, the director of the AFSC’s US/Mexico Border Program, about the kinds of immigration policies and practices he envisions may come from the incoming Trump administration and how communities and organizations might respond. This is a lightly edited transcript of the interview.

Bob Lee: Both Democratic and Republican administrations for a number of years have been trying to toughen the regulation of immigration into the U.S. and have a much more punitive immigration policy. Trump is probably the most extreme example of that. Why do you think that’s been happening? Do you think there is a broader agenda behind all that?

Pedro Rios: Historically what we’ve seen are policies that tend to scapegoat migrants generally. Especially when you consider that migrants don’t have the right to vote, and aren’t necessarily represented as part of a larger political force, it’s easier to scapegoat those that are disenfranchised, and immigration and the border have become the go-to set of policy issues where that could be maximized and capitalized on. That’s why we tend to see that. Historically though, as I was mentioning, I think it’s important to always contextualize our current situation with what we’ve seen in the past, and going back to a much more contemporary timeline of how border policies have led to the militarization of border communities, especially during the mid nineties with the implementation of Border Patrol’s deterrent strategies. And we can probably point to that as being at the foundation of even current attempts to close down asylum and eviscerate any type of process for people to be able to show up at a port of entry and make an asylum claim. And so I think it’s a combination of both what has been legacy policy-making on border and immigration from both political parties, but also a lot more mean-spirited and downright white supremacist ideology about who should belong and who merits belonging to the United States.

BL: What do you anticipate the Trump administration might actually do, of the various things they’ve been talking about, such as mass deportations? And if there are mass deportations, what would be the impact of that?

PR: It’s interesting, because if we compare his (Trump’s) first campaign back in 2016, and in terms of his first presidential tenure, and where he used the idea of the border wall to represent his campaign on border and immigration issues, and then we saw policies that tended to create obstacles for the asylum process. And there were a lot of challenges in the courts by civil society and civil rights organizations and some governments, state and otherwise, that attempted to present a posture that countered Trump’s policies then. I would suspect that he will be moving in the same direction, but to some degree much more sophisticated, because I do believe that he and his team have learned from the mistakes that they made, and they have had a number of years to develop ideas about how to strategize for implementing their more egregious proposals that they’ve been talking about.

So, I would take some of the things that he’s been saying at face value — the idea of trying to coerce local governments and local jurisdictions into being part of the larger force for rounding people up, by threatening to cut federal funding to those governments that are refusing to cooperate in the roundups, is something that will likely happen. He has mentioned the declaration of a national emergency, and that could free up some federal funds to be used for this purpose. And that’s something that he’s done in the past. When he was building border wall, he declared a national emergency, and that allowed him to access funds from other federal departments, such as FEMA, for the purpose of building border wall. Now, the cost that it would amount to, in terms of the large roundup that he is proposing, is beyond the current ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] budget. And ICE would be in charge primarily with these types of roundups. And so my suspicions are that declaring a national emergency would allow him to access more funding for that specific purpose.

On the other hand though, I think it’s very possible that while he’s talking about rounding people up, there seems to be some level of agreement, at least from what I hear in popular media, that those that will be targeted are people that have some type of criminal background. My caution with that is that, those that are incoming with the Trump administration, even those in the Democratic party, have this really jaded understanding of what that actually means. And so in the popular media and commercial media there tends to be an agreement that it’s okay to go after people that are labeled as criminals.

Immigration law now for many years, going back to the nineties, has criminalized migration to the extent that someone who was removed from the country and then attempts to return to try to be back with their family could be criminalized by being charged with illegal reentry. Should that person be charged with a crime or considered a criminal, under this wide and broad definition that the incoming Trump administration is thinking about? It’s likely that they would, and even within the Democratic Party, they believe this to be the case because they’ve been championing these terrible policies for several decades.

On the other hand, I think it’s also important to consider, in analyzing the racist ideology that comes with some elected officials, including the incoming Trump administration folks, they do have this belief that everyone that had crossed the border is considered to have committed a crime. And we know that that’s not the case. And so, the potential and the degree of the number of people that will be and could be impacted by these plans that are moving forward could be quite vast. And so it’s likely that we will see many families that will be separated, and the destruction of those family networks could be not only traumatizing, but could have generational impacts as well.

There are other changes to law, changes to policy that we are anticipating. I think there will be a return to the Trump era anti-asylum measures that will prevent people from their right to seek asylum. There is a prospect of doing away with the CBP One application, and even though many of us have criticized this Biden-era application, it is one way that people make an appointment and are able to enter the U.S. through the ports by having an appointment. By doing away with it — and some people are waiting 8, 9, 10 months for their appointments — it could mean that suddenly their appointments are done away with, and their only recourse will be to cross into the U.S. through a dangerous route, which could place their lives at greater risk. Other measures include the prospects of building more border wall, criminalizing organizations and individuals that assist migrants who are undocumented, and being extremely mean-spirited with how it places the question around immigration as part of a national discourse that tends to criminalize every aspect of why a person would want to migrate to the United States.

BL: What is the general situation with immigrants, migrants, and refugees now in the, the U.S., what kind of things are they facing? What’s the mood of people, both among advocates for immigrants and the immigrants themselves and people in the community?

PR: There are the people that have been in the United States for quite some time, so they’re not new arrivals. And then there are people that are just barely arriving to the U.S., and I am interacting with these two groups of people separately through my work. So people that are recently arrived, those that are crossing the border and I’m interacting with them at the border as I’m providing food and water — yesterday there was a group of 16 people, this was last night, from Nepal, India, Turkey, and Iran. The reasons why they migrate are complex, but ultimately they have to do with people that are fleeing from their countries because of violence by state and non-state actors.

But there is a lot of concern from what I have heard from new arrivals about what prospects they might have about being able to remain in the United States as they initiate asylum claims. Many of them have a much more of a difficult time understanding the complexities of immigration law and how difficult it is nowadays to file for an asylum claim that will end in a successful outcome for them. Especially people that are arriving from certain countries where their expulsion is almost certain. The people arriving, they’re fearful, they’re frightened. They don’t know what the process is.

They’re confronted by Border Patrol agents that are cussing up a storm at them as they’re shoving them into a van or into a bus, sometimes handcuffed. It’s a fearful scenario that they encounter, and the accountability measures for these agencies will be difficult to uphold. And so if we think that now under a Democratic administration it’s difficult to hold Border Patrol agents and CBP agents accountable, I believe that with a Trump administration it will almost be impossible to do so. And the amount of egregious behavior by the agents will be much more regular and concerning. Regarding people that I’m interacting with who have been in the country on a much longer basis, I am doing know your rights presentations, as AFSC is generally, not only here in San Diego, but throughout the country.

Yesterday I conducted a know your rights presentation for a group of about 25 people at a local church. And there’s a lot of fear and uncertainty. And I think this population group tends to understand more what it means to hear about deportation threats because they have lived it. They have seen people in the community who are their neighbors or family and friends that have lived through it. Some of them might have experienced it themselves. So there’s a much deeper understanding about what that means for them and, and what possible disruption that could have to their lives. So at this point, there has been a lot of interest by community members to, one, understand what the political conversations are, the rhetoric, the discourse and policies are. And, and at this point it’s like, well, this is what we have heard. There’s nothing for certain yet.

But that’s helpful because it allows a space for them to share their thoughts and their concerns. But secondly, there’s also the aspect of, well, these are your rights. And within the conversation about what their rights are, there’s a lot of interest about how to protect and how to defend those rights. And that leads itself then to the possibility of community-based organization, of building community together, of building networks within their community members and neighborhoods who are able to protect each other as best as they can, while knowing that they’re probably going to be living through some of the politically hardest moments of their lives.

BL: Do you have a sense of how are people, whether it’s in the community or organizations, planning to resist, and what do you think they should do in the way of resisting these policies?

PR: I think the first step that we are seeing is this appetite for understanding what people’s rights are. That’s the very first step. And then secondly, what we offer from there is this: we suggest that it’s not enough to know what your rights are, but you have to know how to defend those rights and how to do so in a collective way. And that leads to a conversation about what is collective organization? How do you work together and organize together as a community for the defense of basic human rights protections, and civil rights protections. And so that’s one way where some people that could be more vulnerable to deportation or detention are having these conversations together. Thirdly, I would say there are some members in the community that have much more experience and sophistication, and who have dealt with moments in time where immigration raids and ICE presence and Border Patrol presence in the communities was much more of a regular and common experience.

And in this sense, while what we are hearing from the incoming Trump administration is extremely fearful, you know, people have experienced raids before. Under President Obama, under Operation Secure Communities, there were so many people that were detained and deported. So it’s not something that has not been lived through before. And those individuals tend to have, as I mentioned, a much more sophisticated understanding of how to fight back. And one of the ways that they do so is by organizing community patrols — driving around neighborhoods and trying to identify when there might be ICE in the community, and notifying other community members so that they are on watch of what to look out for, in terms of what an ICE raid or ICE operation might look like. It’s a much more assertive, affirmative way of presenting people with information about when ICE activity is taking place and how that could be harmful to their families.

And a fourth way is by working together collectively with other organizations and sharing resources so that we’re able to know where our strengths are and offer those strengths and skills to each other’s organizations so that we can best support each other in moving forward in this process. And then making a call-out to philanthropy. You know, philanthropy has a responsibility to ensure that they’re funding this work moving forward, and that they’re listening to the organizations that are on the ground, that they’re paying attention to what the needs are that community members are bringing forward so that they could fund them responsibly and try to push back strategically as much as possible to what could be disastrous policies under this incoming administration.

BL: What would constitute a humane immigration policy? What do you think should be done?

PR: Well, I think to begin, we have to center human rights in any policy proposals. For too many years it’s been responding with militarism, it’s been responding with ways that criminalize human beings. It’s been a response that places profit over people. And I think that all of that runs counter to policies that place humanitarian needs first, and that begin with the basic premise that human rights should be protected and defended in policy proposals having to do with migration.

BL: Are there other things you wanted to touch on that I haven’t covered?

PR: There are overarching themes in all the different types of policy proposals that might come forward. One that is probably a major one is the issue of what democracy looks like, and the transformation of power from what should be people power to power that is ruled by an oligarchy. And what that looks like in a much more naked way, a much more real way without the semblance of any type of cover around it, is, I think, a real threat to the future of this country, whether it be through policies around migration or whether it be through policies affecting climate change, or even foreign policies generally. The prospect of the United States transforming into a fascist state is probably closer than what we have ever experienced. And then in our work around migration and working towards uplifting the human rights of people that are in vulnerable situations, such as those that are migrating, we have to consider what these larger changes to the country mean, where the nativist sentiment will be driving policy proposals as they’re being put forward by the incoming Trump administration. And I think that could have long-lasting negative consequences to the United States generally. Given our critiques of what the U.S. has been, I think we’re in a much more dangerous predicament with the course of this country’s future.