NY Times: “The Deported: Uprooted from his life and family in the United States, a Honduran deportee returns to the country that he tried so hard to escape”

Although deportations this past year are at their lowest levels since President Obama took office in 2009, nevertheless he still has the reputation as the “Deporter-in-Chief” and is still criticized for his harsh deportation policies that over his administration have torn many immigrant families apart. Luke Mogelson in the New York Times profiles some recent deportees from Honduras, a country dominated by gang violence and extreme poverty.

Kelvin Villanueva

Mogelson tells the story of Kelvin Villanueva, a Honduran who lived in the US for fifteen years. One night in Kansas City, Villanueva was pulled over by a policeman because of a broken taillight, arrested, and transferred to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). After spending the next four months in prisons and detention centers, he was flown back to Honduras, a country he fled because the notorious and violent street gang, the 18th Street Gang, recruited him and threatened him if he did not join. In Kansas City he left behind his partner Suelen Bueno and their four children. While with ICE he attempted to apply for asylum, but was determined ineligible.           

Mogelson does an excellent job at describing Villanueva’s experience of being undocumented in the US and deported. He explains the constant fear of deportation that the undocumented live under, harsh detention at ICE, and being returned in manacles to his home country he tried desperately to escape. Then there’s the immigration attorney who willingly takes thousands of dollars (which they’ve borrowed from a money lender) in case fees and who appears more interested in the Kansas City Royals playoff game than in helping Villanueva evaluate any feasible options for returning to the US. Not to mention Villanueva’s boss who still allegedly owes him thousands of dollars from work and later comes to his house and steals his power tools, the most expensive items he owns.

Villanueva is just one of many deportees in similar situations. Mogelson writes:  

Over the last five years, the United States has deported more than half a million Hondurans, Guatemalans and Salvadorans, many of whom, like Villanueva, have had to leave their children behind. Although Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, says it exercises discretion to target lawbreakers for removal, a majority of Central American deportees have no criminal record. Among those who do, about half are guilty of either a traffic violation or an immigration-related crime — entering the country illegally, for instance.

In Honduras, Villanueva stays with his aunt in a one-room plywood structure that stands in an open field with his brother, himself deported after a DUI conviction, who has left behind his US-citizen wife, son, and daughter. His brother has missed his six-year-old’s birthday, while Villanueva’s youngest daughter refuses to sleep at night, determined to be awake when he returns. His youngest son is uncharacteristically introverted and lethargic, sleeping most of the day. Villanueva’s only thought is to return to his family, even though if caught again entering the US without legal documentation he could face felony charges and a lengthy prison sentence. ‘‘I just need to raise them,’’ Villanueva says of his children. 

Bayron and Belky Cardona

In Honduras, Mogelson meets Bayron and Belky Cardona, a couple who had managed to cross the Rio Grande. Scared of the Border Patrol in Texas, they tried to reenter Mexico but were caught. Cardona and Belky are college graduates in their twenties who had opened a computer-repair shop in Honduras in a building owned by Belky’s father. Mogelson explains why they tried to escape to the US:

Their neighborhood was entirely under the control of the MS-13; members of the gang soon confronted Cardona, demanding an impuesto de guerra, or war tax. Impuestos de guerra are a common source of revenue for gangs throughout Honduras, and in Cardona and Belky’s area, every business paid. The amount the gang wanted far exceeded what Cardona could afford. When he failed to produce the money, the MS-13 threatened to kill him. Cardona and Belky went to the United States Embassy, applied for visas and were denied. Then they alerted the police — ‘‘our big error,’’ Cardona told me.

Now back in Honduras after being deported, Bayron has changed his appearance, grown a beard and replaced his contacts with glasses. While Belky’s father had paid half the amount that MS-13 wanted, neither of them think they could safely remain in Honduras. They are unsure what to do. Belky is humiliated by their treatment in the US. She describes being in a room in McAllen, Texas after her capture where officers are studying monitors showing video feeds from a section of the border. “They laugh at us,’’ she tells Mogelson. ‘‘One officer was celebrating all the people they’d caught. They watch the people crossing — and they laugh at us.’’

Happy Chanukah!

Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn, New York.

Last night I visited the World's Largest Menorah at Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn, just north of Prospect Park. At thirty-two feet tall (the maximum allowed by Jewish law), this Menorah, sponsored by the Chabad in Brooklyn, has been a yearly tradition in Grand Army Plaza since 1985. With assistance from a Con Edison cherry-picker, Rabbi Shimon Hecht is joined by community leaders, philanthropists, and special guests in the lighting ceremony. Every night the celebration is accompanied with live music and hot latkes for all, and special gifts are distributed to every child.

VOX: “For years, TV has treated immigrants as punchlines. These shows are fighting back.”

The American television and film industry has an unfortunate long history of stereotypical and offensive portrayals of immigrants. These include Apu, the Indian convenience store clerk voiced by Greek-American Hank Azaria in The Simpsons, Ashton Kutcher’s absurdly racist portrayal in brown face of an Indian man looking for love in a pop chips commercial, Andy Kaufman’s generically-foreign character Latka on Taxi, and Wilmer Valderrama’s “lisping, perpetually horny immigrant whose origins were painted with such broad strokes that his very name was a play on an acronym for ‘Foreign Exchange Student.’”

Vox writer Caroline Framke, herself the daughter of an Iranian immigrant, looks at three current shows—CW’s Jane the Virgin, Netflix’s Master of None, and ABC’s Fresh Off the Boat—that refuse to play to these stereotypes and instead offer “empathetic, heartfelt, and genuinely funny portrayals of immigrants that make the clichés feel both outdated and unnecessary.”

Master of None

Aziz Ansari and fellow show creator Alan Yang have done an excellent job at portraying the experiences of minorities (Asian-Americans, in particular) trying to work in the film and television industry (more on that from Ansari in this excellent New York Times piece), but the show also details the widely varying experiences between first- and second-generation immigrants.

The second episode ("Parents") examines the childhood experiences of Dev’s father Ramesh (played charmingly by Ansari’s real father, Shoukath Ansari) in India and the racism and isolation he later experienced in the US. This episode also features Dev's friend Brian (Kelvin Yu) and his father, Peter (Clem Cheung), and a flashback to his own childhood in Taiwan, his immigration to the US, the racism that he also experienced (seriously, enough with the racism, America), and the experience of watching his son assimilate. As Framke writes, this episode “goes on to feature some truly lovely, funny moments, particularly between Dev and Brian's parents as they bond over their immigration experiences. And after learning more about their parents' pasts, Dev and Brian are impressed by their sacrifices but still can't quite understand them.”

Jane the Virgin

This show, which both celebrates and pokes fun at telenovelas, is especially focused on the differing "immigrant" experiences through three generations. The titular character, Jane Villanueva (Gina Rodriguez), gets pregnant after being accidentally artificially inseminated, but notwithstanding that far-fetched premise, the show has a lot to say regarding the multigenerational Villanueva family. There’s Jane, who the show creator, Jennie Snyder Urman, describes as “a very American girl,” her mother Xiomara (Andrea Navedo), who bridges the gap between her very American daughter and her own mother, Alba (Ivonne Coll), who is an undocumented immigrant.

The show’s second season focuses on Alba and her quest for a Green Card as well as the difficult decisions and hardships she's faced as an undocumented immigrant. This issue is especially poignant since cast member Diane Guerrero, who plays Jane's childhood friend Lina, watched her parents get deported when she was fourteen years old. "It's just an incredibly gut-wrenching story, which she told me early on when we first cast her," Urman said in Vox. "It's such an emotional, scary position to be in. We didn't want to just take that and make it something soapy and campy."

Fresh off the Boat

While this sitcom faced some controversy early on when Eddie Huang, a chef who wrote the memoir upon which the show is based, didn’t like the family-friendly direction it was going, the show nevertheless takes a complex look at how Louis and Jessica Huang, first-generation immigrants from Taiwan, raise their three sons in Orlando, and, to be perfectly honest, deal with all the crazy and (at times) racist white people.

While Louis enthusiastically embraces American culture and owns a steakhouse called Cattleman's Ranch, Jessica struggles with belonging and watching her children assimilate to the American lifestyle and culture. The stories range from the oldest trying to fit in at school (he wants to eat lunchables) and having to deal with racist classmates to how the Huangs' Chinese traditions clash with the American ones.

While these shows are just a start, as Framke says, they “illustrate that immigrants are more than their accents, their different lunches, or their traditions you might not understand. They're just people — and their struggles, mishaps, truths, and triumphs are exactly the kinds of stories television should be salivating to tell.”

Gateway to the West

Gateway Arch overlooking Mississippi River in St. Louis.

Matt and I visited St. Louis this week for a client meeting, but we found time to admire the view of the iconic 630-foot tall Gateway Arch, the tallest man-made monument in the United States and highest point in downtown St. Louis. On a previous visit I had taken the unique “tram” up to the observation deck, so we headed to Ted Drewe’s instead for their famous frozen custard. (It did not matter that it was below freezing outside!) The frozen custard would have been the Friday photo but I ate it too fast!

After Paris Attacks Changes to the Visa Waiver Program (ESTA) to Enhance Security

In response to the Paris terror attacks, the White House yesterday announced changes to the Visa Waiver Program, used by approximately 20 million visitors per year for citizens of thirty-eight program partner countries around the world. The changes to the Visa Waiver Program (VWP), also known as the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA), are designed to counter the “ongoing threat posed by foreign terrorist fighters” who might use the program, and are meant to “aggressively” strengthen the program and bolster relationships with the VWP’s partners. These changes come after new countries were added to the VWP program and other security enhancements were made earlier this year.

What Are the New Changes?

The Obama administration is instructing government agencies to move forward with the following security enhancements:

• The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will immediately modify its applications to obtain information from VWP travelers regarding any past travel to “countries constituting a terrorist safe haven” and work in conjunction with the Director of National Intelligence to identify and review these countries to make traveler risk assessments;
• DHS along with other agencies will accelerate its review process for VWP partner countries and provide a report to the President within sixty days regarding possible pilot programs to assess the collection and use of biometrics (fingerprints and/or photographs) to increase security and also identify any countries that are deficient in key areas of cooperation;
• The FBI director will evaluate the terrorism information sharing and any deficiencies between the US and VWP countries in consultation with other agencies and provide the president a report within sixty days;
• DHS will offer assistance to VWP countries to better facilitate terrorism information sharing, including for screening refugees or asylum seekers;
• US government agencies will promote the Global Entry program among VWP partners to further expand this trusted traveler program;
• DHS will work with Congress to seek permission to increase Advance Passenger Information System (APIS) fines from $5,000 to $50,000 for air carriers that fail to verify a traveler’s passport data; and
• US government agencies will deploy Foreign Fighter Surge Teams to work with countries to counter terrorist travel and provide assistance as needed to enhance border security and legislation.

Working with Congress to Enhance the VWP

In addition to these security changes, the White House will work with Congress to provide statutory authority for many key security enhancements to the VWP, including:

• Improve ability to identify individuals who have traveled to conflict zones to train or fight with terrorist organizations and coordinate information between VWP partners and INTERPOL;
• Use international agencies such as INTERPOL to track lost and stolen travel documents to prevent their usage as well as general information sharing to use in border screening activities for VWP partner countries;
• Accelerate requirement for 100% of VWP travelers to use e-passports with security chips and also see how biometrics could be effectively added to the VWP process; and
• Expand the preclearance program so Customs and Border Protection officers can inspect passengers and their baggage at foreign airports prior to departing for the United States.

Even More Changes to the VWP

In addition to the Obama administration’s VWP changes, Senators Dianne Feinstein and Jeff Flake plan to introduce legislation that would prohibit anyone who has traveled to Syria or Iraq in the last five years from traveling to the United States using the VWP and instead require them to obtain a traditional visa stamp.

Not everyone is welcoming changes to the Visa Waiver Program. California Travel Association President Barbara Newton and leaders of several California tourism boards are concerned that changes to the VWP could affect the billion-dollar tourism industry. “We certainly support security and safety of our citizens and everyone around the world,” Newton said to the LA Times. “But we don’t want to see the government do something that would disrupt business and travel.”