“The cost is so high that it could never be repaired.”
Bill Ong Hing discusses the true costs of inhumane immigration laws.
Trying to imagine the actual costs of racist immigration laws incurred by immigrant families, Bill Ong Hing concludes that a final tally is “so difficult to calculate.” Naming the ongoing trauma for individuals, families, and communities, Hing’s words reflect is steadfast commitment to the principles captured in his most recent book: Humanizing Immigration: How to Transform Our Racist and Unjust System.
In this final portion of our conversation, Hing, Professor of Law and Migration Studies at the University of San Francisco, speaks to the ongoing, incalculable costs of inhumane immigration laws.
If you missed the first two parts of our conversation, you can find them here:
and here:
Antero Garcia: In your book, you note that the only reason Trump didn't get rid of DACA was due to a technicality. He didn't file it correctly, otherwise it would've gone away.
Bill Ong Hing: Exactly. It was too close to the election to pursue it at the time.
AG: In this spirit, it seems like the right are often engaging in anti-immigrant practices that are themselves creative and boundary pushing.
BOH: Absolutely. During the Trump administration, they came up with some pretty innovative stuff that they got away with in the courts. The big one was a Muslim ban, but it was amazing how much they came up with. And to some fine detail, for example, they knew that U Visa applications were backlogged. Those are for people that have been victims of a crime in the United States. They can apply for a U visa, but they knew there was a backlog, and they knew that while the visa was pending, that the person was technically undocumented. They knew they had their addresses and so they actually started picking off some of them and deporting some of them and there was nothing that could be done. They knew that Obama had granted something called prosecutorial discretion to people. People that were not doing any harm and couldn't give them a green card, but let them stay here. It was not quite DACA, it was for adults. They started deporting those people too, because they knew that was all temporary. They knew the technical things that were going on. That's why we need legal change, because working within the system can be derailed. Now I'm being technical, but the precedent decisions that immigration judges have to follow that is can be controlled by the attorney general. The attorney general can come up with what the proper interpretation is of an immigration law.
AG: At the federal level?
BOH: At the federal level. Bill Barr and Jeff Sessions, they came up with different precedent decisions. And for the period of time that Trump was in office, immigration judges had to follow that. But then when Merrick Garland became the Attorney General under Biden, he reversed all that. That's how crazy it is.
“They had their addresses and so they actually started picking off some of them and deporting some of them and there was nothing that could be done.”
AG: I think one of the things I've learned most about immigration policy and law through this work with La Cuenta is how often our laws change with the wind. One week to the next, one state to the next, everything just changes in ways that are impossible to follow.
BOH: Yeah. And it's interesting that you allude to the states because one of my big next writing projects is on Texas. I'm going to be spending some time there, and I have some students who are there working, taking notes for me. But Texas is testing the limits because, as you probably know, one of the many parts of Operation Lone Star is that it authorizes state court judges to order deportation. That can't be legal. That can't be constitutional. Abbott knows that and he wants to get that to the Supreme Court. Even though Arizona had a bad law, SB 1070, that was struck down by the Supreme Court 10 years ago. Well, Arizona just passed a new law that duplicates a lot of what Texas is doing because they want a chance at the new Supreme Court too. That is worrisome.
AG: One question we’ve asked most of the people for La Cuenta is about trying to name some of the invisible costs of surviving as undocumented in this country. Based on your work, if you could imagine a bill for the costs that individuals labeled as undocumented might have experienced or incurred, what might you put on that bill?
BOH: You're putting this in terms that are so smart, but that's kind of what my book was driving at. What the immigration laws and enforcement policies have done unnecessarily, who have visited unnecessarily to the folks that I've personally represented and countless others that my friends have represented … we're talking billions and billions, just from the emotional hardship that Dreamers and DACA recipients are living under day-to-day knowing that quite possibly in a year the Supreme Court is going to rule DACA unconstitutional and that they're going to lose their employment authorization, and if it's Trump [that wins the election], he might try to deport them. Can you imagine living with that constant worry? That emotional distress is what judges and juries try to quantify when it comes to damages. That's la cuenta. That's the bill for them.
I write in the book about this person, Antonio, that's a pseudonym I use. And since the book came out, his daughter actually has gone public and she did a book event with me.
AG: Oh wow.
BOH: Her name is Zulma Munoz. The toll on her father being deported on the family, it's been over 12 years now. She became one of my law students, after her father was deported, she became an immigration attorney. She's practicing immigration law now. And finally, her father is going to be able to immigrate because it's been more than 10 years.
But the toll on her family... she's constantly worried about enforcement against her mother, that’s a big bill there. The aggravated felons from any country, those that have been deported... how much has that cost in aggravation to the children and to the spouses, to the parents, to the community?
Zulma Munoz on “The Five Stages of Grief for Children of Deported Parents.”
The truth is that the cost is so high that it could never be repaired. These are folks who have been traumatized. When I talk about PTSD in the book, I'm talking mostly about the PTSD that my clients have suffered, and why it's difficult for them to tell a straight story. But the truth is that the clients' families have all been traumatized, and they're constantly suffering from the stress of the experience. And so the question that you're putting in front of me is so difficult to calculate. The answer is so difficult to calculate.
Propina
We are so grateful for Professor Hing’s time and voice over the past three weeks. If you have not had a chance, please take a look at his most recent book, Humanizing Immigration.
In June, we shared a comic, Broken Stems, from the Asian Law Caucus. Today we share their update about a member of our community and specific ways to support Ursula Gomez.
We’ll see you next week.