When President Trump decided to run for political office in 2015, his campaign took a hardline stance against illegal immigration. His aggressive rhetoric has appealed to the nation’s fear that immigrants steal jobs, abuse welfare, and reshape national identity. Because of these fears, unregulated immigration has become the center of the national conversation. According to Professor of African American Studies at Harvard University, Jennifer Hochschild, the focus on undocumented immigrants has shaped Mexican immigration as the dominant immigrant narrative in the media. “Mexicans are a bigger target because there are more of them. If you are going to be worried about hordes coming over the border, Mexicans are a bigger horde.” This dominant narrative has overshadowed the stories and the struggles other immigrant groups face, particularly Black immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean.
Black immigrants tend to be better educated and are more likely to be in the country with authorization than any other group of immigrants. Yet while they constitute only 8.8 percent of the total immigrant population and 7.2 percent of the foreign-born non-citizen population in the United States, they represent 20 percent of immigrants who are facing deportation for criminal charges. While in the past Black immigrants were largely prevented from entering the country, the multitudes of Black immigrants that have managed to enter the United States in the last few decades have been targeted by discriminatory practices once they have settled here. There is no evidence to suggest that Black immigrants commit crimes at higher rates than other groups of immigrants, yet they encounter more discrimination than other groups of immigrants, and face a disproportionate amount of criminal deportation charges. For this reason, Black immigrants occupy a crucial space in the country’s immigration narrative because they shed light on the challenges that arise when ICE’s deportation strategy targets so-called criminals.
A Brief History of Black Immigration
Although Black migration to the United States began with the forced movement of peoples from Africa to the Americas during the Transatlantic slave trade from the 16th to the 19th centuries, voluntary immigration from the Caribbean and Africa have two separate histories.
While people from the Caribbean have come to the United States since the existence of the colonies, immigration did not pick up until the early 1900s. All of the islands have complex histories which have separately influenced people’s reasons for migration to the United States. All Caribbean immigrants, however, have shared the experience of American racialization, a process that ultimately left them classified as Black in this country. When Black people were allowed to naturalize, the goal was not to encourage Black immigrants from abroad. In fact, supporters of Black naturalization for slaves also encouraged movement back to Africa. Immigration officials would allow or block entrance, a practice termed “race at the gate,” based on the racial category to which one belonged by “administrative discretion.” During the 1800s, some states tried to bar Black refugees from Haiti. Immigration from the Caribbean rose after World War II, due to the repeal of Jim Crow laws and the search for economic and political stability. Racial discrimination, however, continued. For example, from 1960 to 1990, white Cubans were welcomed in Miami as Black Cubans were simultaneously arrested and deported.
Voluntary immigration from Africa, on the other hand, did not pick up until the late 1960s. Before this, Africans migrated to their colonial powers: Great Britain, France, and Portugal. As these countries ended immigration programs due to economic slowdowns in the late 70s, emigration to the United States picked up. This was made possible by the Immigration Act of 1965, which abolished the system of national-origin quotas. Africa was facing slow economic growth, escalating population growth, and high unemployment, all of which likely motivated emigration. This economic downturn was coupled with the Structural Adjustment Programs organized by the World Bank in the 90s. This further weakened these countries’ economies by leading to bankruptcies and decreasing resources for the education and health sectors, hence driving many to immigrate to the United States.
Current Paths to the United States
Today, the opportunities available to Black immigrants to come to the United States have significantly changed. This, combined with push factors in Africa and the Caribbean, have led to a significant increase in Black immigrants. Unlike immigrants hailing from top sending countries like Mexico, India and the Philippians, Black immigrants are more likely to enter the country legally. Currently, only 16 percent of all Black immigrants, in comparison to roughly half for the Mexican immigrant population, are living without legal authorization. Although a large percentage of Black immigrants come to the U.S. through familial relationships, there are three crucial routes for Black immigrants to enter the United States: the diversity visa program, Temporary Protected Status, and refugee status.
In 1990, the diversity visa program was created to encourage immigration from countries who sent less than 50,000 immigrants to the United States in the previous five years. The program was initially created as an effort to provide a streamlined legal route for Irish and Italian immigrants into the United States. However, by the mid-1990s, the program was allowing many African immigrants to enter the United States as European immigration fell due to rising economic conditions and the establishment of the European Union. Today, African immigrants receive 46 percent of these visas. Black immigrants’ higher education levels tend to be attributed to this route because in order to obtain a diversity visa, applicants must have at least a high school degree or two years work experience in a job that requires vocational training. The system favors African immigrants over Caribbean immigrants because African countries have historically sent fewer immigrants. Caribbean immigrants have always come to the United States in higher numbers because of their proximity and history of immigration before 1965.
TPS is a program that allows citizens in countries experiencing an armed conflict, environmental disaster, or another extraordinary condition to reside in the United States for a “temporary” period. The program was created as a way to provide relief to devastated countries by giving its citizens a way to work in the United States legally. It provides no routes to citizenship. Usually, if these immigrants are in the country for extended periods of time, other opportunities such as citizenship through marriage, job sponsorship, and asylum open up. The protection has to be renewed every 18 months. Currently immigrants from seven predominantly Black countries reside under TPS protection.
Those who are “unable or unwilling to return to their home country, and cannot obtain protection in that country, due to past persecution or a well-founded fear of being persecuted ‘on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion” can apply for refugee or asylum status according to U.N. protocol (which was adopted by the U.S. in 1980). Africans represented at least 32.1% of all the refugees who entered the United States in Fiscal Year 2017, while admittance of refugees from the Caribbean remained relatively low.
Although immigrants hailing from the Caribbean comprise of half of all Black immigrants, their numbers are fairly stagnant while the number of immigrants coming from Africa is significantly rising. Immigrants from Africa have increased by 153%, from 574,000 in 2000 to 1.5 million in 2014. There are many potential explanations for this. First, the populations of African countries are much larger, and because many countries are rife with political warfare, more people have access to TPS. According to Hochschild, it is also possible that the violence experienced in Africa is perceived to be “more appropriate for refugee [and asylum] status” in comparison to reports of violence from Caribbean immigrants. More controversially, recent migration theory suggests that as countries’ economies are introduced to capitalism and start developing, as may be the case in Africa, emigration from those countries increases.
Mass Criminalization
As Black immigrants steadily increase their numbers in the United States, they will have to face the reality of more run-ins with law enforcement due to racial profiling. This has dire consequences, particularly for Black immigrants who are undocumented, because ICE’s top removal priorities are identified criminals. During the Obama Era deportation campaign which released new priority listings in 2015 to the Department of Homeland Security, 2.9 million immigrants were removed from the United States, 58 percent of whom had criminal records. The administration funneled resources towards deporting those with criminal convictions to “keep our streets safe” rather than targeting children and immigrants who have been in the country for extended periods of time.
According to Professor of Public Policy at UNC Chapel-Hill, Candis Watts Smith, this is an uncontested, bipartisan policy. There is general consensus among Americans that anyone who is described as a “criminal” is undeserving to be in America. Smith has done research on this phenomenon, and confirmed that everyone, from attorneys to welfare recipients to white women agree with this sentiment. But “there are some groups that we are not sure if they are criminals. Such as opioid addicts. Are they criminals? Or do they need help? There are some groups who are on the border,” said Smith. These borderline groups include the Dreamers, who as young children broke the law by entering the country unauthorized with their parents.
Even within the descriptions for the priority groups, it is hard to grasp who exactly is a criminal. The priority one group is described to be those “engaged in or suspected of terrorism or espionage.” While on the surface this might seem to be a good criterion, it is vague. What constitutes terrorism, and how far can suspicion go? Priority two lacks even more description: immigrants convicted of three or more misdemeanor offences or individuals with a significant misdemeanor offense. This can include possession of marijuana, which is legal in some states, yet accounts for almost a quarter of all deportations. Additionally, it is unclear what “significant” means.
“Laws are written to give a lot of discretion. This is not an accident,” said Hochschild. Aggravated felons, including those who have committed a single theft event or have had a sentence suspended, are also categorized as a priority. The list for aggravated felonies is created by Congress, and if a crime is added to the list, anyone who committed it in the past is eligible for deportation.
Under current law, even those who have had a sentence suspended can be deported. Under Section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, the Department of Homeland Security can pair up with states to interview detainees about their immigration status.
ICE officers will try to talk to detained immigrants about their status, and they will process papers for the removal process if an individual is eligible for deportation before they are tried or released. Those who are placed in immigration deportation proceedings do not have a right to a free lawyer, so they are usually forced to represent themselves. It is important to note that being in the United States without papers is not a crime but a civil offense. The act of “unlawful entry” is a misdemeanor, but once immigrants reside in the United States, they can only be tried for a civil infraction with grounds for removal. For this reason, only those who are convicted of a crime are given the right to a lawyer.
Often as a result of this denial of due process, many immigrants, including legal permanent residents and those with temporary status, are deported for crimes that many would not consider severe crimes. For example, residents can be deported for counterfeit, perjury, tax fraud, and one-year prison sentences for minor crimes. Once they are released from jail, guilty or not, they can be deported, and “we know that Black folks… are more likely to have certain encounters with the police in the first place. So, if we then add on the component of deportation then we ought to expect Black people to have a higher chance of being deported because they have a higher chance of interacting with the police,” said Smith.
The law’s harmful effects become even more apparent when class is taken into account. According to Hochschild, immigrants of all races who live in poverty are more likely to have run ins with the police than their counterparts who are not living in poverty. So, for Black immigrants who are living in poverty, this fact further increases the likelihood of their detention and deportation.
While it seems like ICE is primarily deporting dangerous criminals, in reality the United States is disproportionately deporting Black immigrants who have not committed serious crimes. The nation’s current immigration policies deny these people access to legal representation and perpetuate legal discrimination.These laws not only harm Black immigrants, but also go against the ideals of liberal democracy on which the United States was founded. America’s policy regarding the deportation of criminals is in need of dire change. The current system does not consider the effect that this policy has when applied to people of marginalized racial groups, and until it does countless innocent people will be robbed of their chance at a better life in America.
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