WASHINGTON — Marisela came to Minnesota from Nicaragua eight years ago, fleeing the violence in her native country and applying for asylum from the United States, which was granted.
So, Marisela is now a legal resident of the United States and lives in Cold Spring with her husband and five children. MinnPost agreed to use the pseudonym Marisela for the woman, whose husband and three of her five children are undocumented.
“At first, coming here from my country was difficult. I did not know the language or customs. But after a while, I realized people were quite welcoming,” she said.
She is especially thankful for the legal aid immigration attorney who helped her with her asylum claim.
Like many immigrants seeking to change their status, her family is concerned about proposed changes in immigration law aimed at curbing arrivals to the U.S.-Mexico border.
“It was difficult for me to get asylum, so I can only imagine how much harder it will be for my husband and children,” Marisela said.
Taking a harder line
Minnesota’s immigrants and their advocates are on edge as Congress and the White House consider changes to immigration law that would make it harder for the foreign-born to seek asylum or emergency help for family members overseas.
While the Senate has not finalized an immigration deal — that could happen as soon as this week — some of the provisions under discussion include the automatic rejection of migrants and asylum seekers from crossing the southern border if the daily average of illegal border crossings surpasses 5,000.
Also under discussion are new penalties for those who attempt to illegally cross the border multiple times, banning them from entering the United States after two attempts. And the compromise is expected to place new restrictions on the president’s authority to grant humanitarian parole, an authority that opens the door to allow family members of legal residents to come to the United States for humanitarian reasons, such as the need for medical care or to reunite with a child who has lost a parent.
The bill is also expected to provide billions of dollars in new funding for border security.
Congressional Republicans have insisted that there be a crackdown on undocumented immigrants to win enough support for another round of aid to Ukraine and help for Israel and refugees from Gaza.
So there are bipartisan negotiations in the Senate over new immigration rules, endorsed by President Joe Biden over the weekend. The president said he would “shut down” the border if the flow of migration did not abate, using new authority that’s expected to be granted to the president in the new immigration bill.
Immigrant groups and their advocates are disappointed that the Biden administration would take a hard line on immigration, especially since many believe the tough talk is based solely on political, not policy, reasons.
“This has created a question of whether the administration is willing to continue the American value of welcoming refugees,” said Alison Griffith, supervising attorney with the Mid Minnesota Legal Aid Immigration Law Project.
Griffith said under current law it is quite difficult to obtain asylum and it’s crucial the United States offers protection to those seeking refuge.
Meanwhile, Kiki Gilman, an immigration attorney who practices with her husband in Apple Valley, said “our immigration system is broken and has been broken for a long time.” However, like many advocates, Gilman said changes in immigration law under consideration in Congress won’t fix that broken system.
“There are so many people seeking asylum because they need protection, but if part of the negotiations is pausing asylum cases, then we risk abandoning people who do need asylum protection from entering the United States,” she said.
Yasin Alsaid, an immigration attorney in Sauk Rapids, said he has a client who has been waiting for a decision on his asylum case for three years. In the meantime, his client has gotten a job, married and had children.
“He could wake up one day and all of that could be gone,” Alsaid said.
Immigrants become a top concern
Former President Donald Trump, who said immigrants were “poisoning the blood of the country,” allied Republican office holders and even some Democrats have been persuading Americans that a recent surge in undocumented arrivals is a danger to the economy and national security.
For instance, Rep. Brad Finstad, R-1st District, said a rise in fentanyl seizures in Minnesota was a direct result of migrants crossing the Rio Grande.
“Every state is a border state because of @POTUS’s open-border policies that allow fentanyl to flood into our communities,” Finstad posted on X. “It’s time to secure the border and protect American families.”
And Rep. Tom Emmer, R-6th District, has joined his GOP colleagues in blaming what they call a “border crisis” on Biden and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, whom House Republicans are seeking to impeach.
“He must be held accountable,” Emmer said of Mayorkas.
There has been an increase in undocumented migration.
According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, over the past two years, the number of illegal crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border surpassed two million.
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Yet studies have overwhelmingly found no evidence that U.S. immigrants, including those who are undocumented, commit more crimes than native-born Americans.
Nevertheless, anti-immigration rhetoric may be having an effect.
In a Harvard/Harris poll released last week, immigration topped the list as the most important issue facing the nation, overtaking inflation and crime.
More than one in three — 35% — of those polled identified immigration as the important issue. That was a seven-point jump over a similar poll conducted a month earlier.
There was a partisan split, however. Half of Republicans — 50% — said immigration is among the most important issues facing the country, as did 36% of independents. But only 18% of registered Democrats said immigration was a top concern.
‘Rushed, back door negotiations’
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, about 8.8% of Minnesota’s residents are foreign-born, and 4.9% of the state’s U.S.-born residents live with at least one immigrant parent.
The number of immigrants in Minnesota is growing. In 2000, immigrants accounted for 5.3% of the state’s population.
The largest group of migrants to Minnesota came from Mexico, followed by Somalia, India and Laos.
Many of those immigrants have “mixed-status” families, like Marisela. That means they have family members with differing immigration status.
Marisela is a legal resident and her two youngest children are U.S. citizens because they were born in the United States. But her husband, who came to Minnesota years before Marisela was able to join him, is undocumented, as are her three oldest children.
While Marisela’s undocumented family members seek asylum, the family struggles to stay afloat financially. Her husband is currently working at a food processing plant, but has jumped from job to job.
“He has to take whatever there is because he doesn’t have papers,” Marisela said.
She also said increasingly hostile rhetoric targeting immigrants and moves toward limiting the number of those entering the country are making newcomers like her “fearful that we will never be able to have a better life.”
Lindsey Greising, a staff attorney with the Minneapolis-based Advocates for Human Rights, said the “rushed, back-door negotiations” in the U.S. Senate to limit immigration is a flawed process that “is going to have an impact on many people’s lives.”
“There is a need for us to update our immigration policy, which hasn’t been updated in 30 years,” Greising said. “But (immigration) now is just a great political tool for a lot of people. It’s being used by a lot of politicians as a great campaign tool.”
There’s a chance Congress will be unable to address the issue that has become top of mind for many Americans.
Even if the U.S. Senate is able to finalize an immigration deal, any bipartisan proposal will face an uphill climb in the U.S. House, where Speaker Mike Johnson and other conservative lawmakers have pushed for even stricter changes.
“What’s been suggested in this bill is not enough to secure the border,” Johnson said at a Tuesday press conference.
Trump has also denounced the Senate negotiations and promised to do everything he could to derail a new immigration bill, telling congressional Republicans he wants to campaign on the “chaos” at the border.
“It’s not going to happen, and I’ll fight it all the way,” Trump said at a campaign event in Nevada last weekend.
