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CMS Migration Update is a weekly digest of news and other information related to national and international migration.  It is designed to educate faith leaders regarding vulnerable immigrant populations, developments in the immigration field, pastoral resources and the religious touchstones of diverse faith traditions on migrants and newcomers. It should not be relied upon to provide advice or counsel in immigration cases. The publication is provided by the Center for Migration Studies of New York (CMS), an educational institute/think-tank devoted to the study of international migration, to the promotion of understanding between immigrants and receiving communities, and to public policies that safeguard the dignity and rights of migrants, refugees and newcomers. CMS is a member of the Scalabrini International Migration Network, an international network of shelters, welcoming centers, and other ministries for migrants.
Thomas J. Shea
Editor
Rachel Reyes
Director of Communications
April 12, 2016

Migrant Crisis: Greece Starts Deportations to Turkey

BBC (April 4, 2016)
 
Turkey started receiving deported migrants from Greece this past week as part of an agreement between Turkey and the European Union (EU) to ease the migrant surge into Europe. The agreement requires Turkey to accept from Greece migrants who entered illegally and who did not apply for asylum or whose asylum applications were denied. In return, EU member states will accept one Syrian refugee from Turkey for every one sent back in what is referred to as a “one-for-one plan.” According to the article, most of the 202 migrants returned to Turkey are Pakistanis. In addition, Turkey reportedly sent 32 Syrian refugees to Germany. Some protest the agreement claiming that migrants in Greece are not informed of the procedures to apply for asylum, and that migrants should not be sent back to Turkey because it is unsafe.
 
To read more, visit http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35956836.

Flight of a Million Christians

The Catholic Herald (April 7, 2016)
 
A delegation from a Catholic agency, Aid to the Church in Need, visited Lebanon and Syria to investigate the Christian exodus from Syria. The international charity supports persecuted and suffering Christians around the world. The delegation determined that the Christian exodus from Syria is happening at a higher rate than thought, estimating that approximately 1 million of Syria’s 1.75 million Christians have fled. The charity asserts that, since the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011, Christian populations in Aleppo have declined by 85 percent and 95 percent in Homs. According to this article, Christians fear returning in part due to the lack of jobs, the slow rate of re-building, and the loss of trust in their Muslim neighbors.
 
To read more, visit http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2016/04/07/flight-of-a-million-christians/.

How Refugee Resettlement Became a Revival Strategy for This Struggling Town

PBS News Hour (April 7, 2016)
 
After decades of economic decline, the town of Utica, New York is experiencing an economic upturn due in part to its strategy to welcome refugees. One out of every four residents is a refugee, prompting people to label Utica as “the town that loves refugees.” Furthermore, despite anti-Muslim rhetoric by some presidential candidates, Utica has thousands of Muslim refugees and is willing to receive more. The refugees in Utica have developed a reputation for being hard workers, helping the town to maintain some of its smaller industries. As consumers, refugees have helped spur the local economy.
 
To read more, visit http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/how-refugee-resettlement-became-a-revival-strategy-for-this-struggling-town/.

Pope to Make Lightning Trip to Greek Migrant Island of Lesbos

Reuters (April 7, 2016)
 
Pope Francis will visit the Greek island of Lesbos on April 16th as a sign of support for refugees and to draw attention to the front lines of the global refugee crisis. During the past year, hundreds of thousands of refugees have arrived on Lesbos in an effort to reach the EU. Pope Francis, along with Ieronymos II, the head of the Greek Orthodox Church, and Bartholomew, the Istanbul-based spiritual head of the world's Orthodox Christians, will meet with refugees. The trip is an opportunity to show that the leaders of Christian churches can come together to address great humanitarian emergencies.
 
To read more, visit http://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-migrants-greece-pope-idUSKCN0X4165.

Pope Presses for Greater Cooperation to End Human Trafficking

Zenit (April 8, 2016)
 
In a message sent to the attendees of an anti-human trafficking conference held on April 7th at the United Nations in New York, Pope Francis encouraged member states as well as governmental, civic, and religious groups “to strengthen the bonds of cooperation and communication which are essential to ending the suffering of the many men, women and children who today are enslaved and sold as if they were a mere commodity.” The Holy Father said that improved cooperation and communication will help combat modern slavery and human trafficking at every level of society.
 
To read more, visit https://zenit.org/articles/pope-presses-for-greater-cooperation-to-end-human-trafficking/.

How to Pack for the “Other Refugee Crisis”: My Diary from Dilley

Medium (April 6, 2016) 

Claire Thomas is a public interest attorney with the Safe Passage Project in New York City. She recently traveled to Dilley, Texas to volunteer for a week with the CARA Pro Bono Project to provide counsel and legal services to Central American refugee mothers and children at an immigration detention center. In this posting, Ms. Thomas reflects on her experiences in the detention center.
 
To read more, visit https://medium.com/@clairerthomas/how-to-pack-for-the-other-refugee-crisis-a6c4775a7661#.yw848nmv5.

Life Inside the Camps of Erbil, Iraq

The National Catholic Reporter (April 8, 2016)
 
A reporter joined New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan, who is chair of the Catholic Near East Welfare Association (CNEWA), on a trip to Iraqi Kurdistan to visit camps housing internally displaced Iraqi Christians. In 2014, the Islamic State attacked the city of Mosul and several nearby towns leading to a mass exodus of residents. The town of Erbil received some 250,000 internally displaced Iraqis, many of whom are Christian. The Chaldean Catholic Church in collaboration with the Kurdistan Regional Government helped build two camps for the internally displaced in a northern suburb of Erbil. CNEWA helped establish a medical clinic for the camps. The homes in the camps consist of converted shipping containers with little space. A daily challenge for camp residents is finding drinkable water. The camps were originally intended as temporary shelters.
 
To read more, visit http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/life-inside-camps-erbil-iraq.

The Cost of Caring

The New Yorker (April 11, 2016)
 
This article features the story of Emma, who in 2000 was forced to move from the Philippines to New York to work as a nanny in order to earn enough money to support her husband and 9 children at home. What was originally supposed to be six-months of work extended into sixteen years of caring for the family members of strangers. According to this article, Emma represents hundreds of thousands of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), three quarters of whom are women, who work abroad to help support their families. A tenth of the population of the Philippines reportedly are OFWs who support almost half of all Filipino households. Because Emma was separated from her children, she as with many other Filipino domestic laborers, poured herself into caring for the children or parents of her employers. María Ibarra, a professor of Chicana and Chicano Studies at San Diego State University, refers to workers like Emma as “‘emotional proletarians’” because they “‘produce authentic emotion in exchange for a wage.’”
 
To read more, visit http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/04/11/the-sacrifices-of-an-immigrant-caregiver. 

The Captain’s Story: A Bond of Brotherhood Forged in War

National Geographic (February 19, 2016)
 
This video tells the story of “The Captain,” an Iraqi soldier who saved American soldier Chase Millsap when the checkpoint they were both guarding was attacked by a sniper. When Mr. Millsap was informed that The Captain and his family were being threatened by the Islamic State, he arranged to send them to southern Turkey to obtain refugee status so that they might be resettled in the United States. The Captain is still awaiting an appointment with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) for refugee status determination, and is therefore not yet eligible for resettlement in the United States. Furthermore, The Captain is not eligible for a special immigrant visa because he was an Iraqi officer and was not paid by the US government. This video documents Mr. Millsap’s attempts to help The Captain.
 
To read more, visit http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/02/160219-iraq-war-refugee/.

Americans and Canadians Might Need Visas for Europe

CNN Money (April 8, 2016)
 
The EU is considering suspending a visa waiver program for Canadian and US citizens because citizens of some EU countries are required to obtain visas to travel to Canada and the United States. Thirty-eight countries participate in the US “visa waiver” program, which permits nationals of those countries to travel visa free to the United States for up to 90 days for business or pleasure. In order to achieve full visa waiver reciprocity, the EU may impose a policy forcing Americans and Canadians to apply for visas before visiting the EU. However, in order to implement this change, a majority of EU member states and the European Parliament must approve the policy.
 
To read more, visit http://money.cnn.com/2016/04/08/news/europe-visa-americans-canadians/.

WASHINGTON UPDATE


Human Rights Watch issued a scathing report criticizing the Mexican government for not protecting children fleeing violence from the northern triangle of Central America. The report, entitled “Closed Doors: Mexico’s Failure to Protect Central American Refugee and Migrant Children,” details that only 56 children received asylum protection under Mexican laws in 2015 while 32,000 children were intercepted by Mexican authorities and sent back to Central America. The Mexican government denies the claim, but has not issued different numbers to dispute it. To read more, visit https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/03/31/mexico-asylum-elusive-migrant-children.
 
The US House of Representatives filed an amicus brief in the Supreme Court in the case of United States v. Texas, the case challenging the expanded Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA) programs. The court justices ruled that counsel for the US House of Representatives will have 15 minutes to argue their case before the Court, along with the parties to the case, the US government, and the 26 states opposing expanded DACA and DAPA. Oral arguments are scheduled for Monday, April 18. To read the amicus brief, visit http://www.scotusblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/AmicusBrief.pdf.
 
The US Senate and the US House of Representatives return from their spring recess this week. The House will consider HR 4482, the Southwest Border Security Threat Assessment Act, a bipartisan bill which requires the Secretary of Homeland Security to produce a threat analysis of the southwest border The bill would also require the US Border Patrol to design a new strategic plan based on the analysis. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced that the US Senate will begin considering FY 2017 appropriations bills the week of April 17, despite the failure to pass a budget resolution.
 
US Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) reached the annual ceiling of 65,000 H-1B visas on April 7th, less than a week from when it started accepting applications on April 1st. Two-hundred fifty thousand (250,000) applications were submitted during the six-day period. The visas allow US businesses to sponsor foreign workers in the areas of science, math, and technology.  US businesses have called for an increase in the cap to meet the soaring demand.

NEW FROM CMS


PODCAST | Senator Charles E. Schumer

(April 12, 2016)
 
In this special episode, Kevin Appleby, CMS’s Senior Director of International Migration Policy, speaks with Senator Schumer about the prospects for immigration reform in the next Congress and how immigration reform supporters might prepare for another immigration debate. Senator Schumer also gives his views on the presidential election season and how immigration might impact the election’s outcome and beyond.
 
To read more, visit http://cmsny.org/cmsonair-sen-charles-schumer.

If you are a migrant or pastoral worker and wish to submit an article or reflection to the CMS Migration Update, please email Tom Shea at tshea@cmsny.org
Copyright © 2016 Center for Migration Studies, New York, All rights reserved.


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