The impact of COVID-19 on migrants around the world.

There are many paramount issues that dictate today’s elections: abortion, healthcare, the environment, education, criminal justice -- the list goes on. Recently, immigration has escalated to one of these major issues. As the immigrant population continues to grow, presidents have begun incorporating immigration legislation as part of their campaigns.

The existence of the “climate refugee” is an increasing reality as refugees are displaced by the environmental conditions and disasters created by the climate crisis. In 2017 alone, 60 percent of the 30.6 million people who were displaced were all displaced by climate disasters. 

Domestic violence against women and femicide are both horrific humanitarian violations that are entwined with migration. There is also an explicit correlation between rejection of asylum seekers and the rejection of women’s safety, in which “the countries most affected by high asylum application denial rates in 2020 are all in Latin America, including Honduras (87.3 percent), Guatemala (85.8 percent), Mexico (85 percent), and El Salvador (81.9 percent).

The “Criminal Immigrant” is a common argument; it allows the debater to contest immigration reform, while dissociating himself from the immorality of any such position by targeting the fictional immigrant he has created, instead of confronting the problematic reality of his own rationale. However, such a connection between immigration and crime exists nowhere but the alternate reality many Americans have constructed in their head.

As we celebrate Juneteeth today, we must remember the intersectional connection between race and immigration in America. And we must be committed to tangibly fixing it. This begins with reforms to ICE and Border Security and granting TPS to undocumented immigrants from war-torn countries.

To release a statement that says “just don’t come” to refugees who have no choice but to migrate is ignorant. Further, to release that statement when the U.S. is the root cause of mass migration from certain countries is an insult to all refugees.

Under Title 42, the US southern border has been closed to all single adults and families. However, the vulnerable children and minors have been relocated from border control facilities to emergency, unlicensed facilities. The Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas was one of the megasites that opened to compensate for the flood of unaccompanied minors and operated under a lease obtained through a federal stimulus sent to Dallas.