Muzaffar A. Chishti
Interview/ Muzaffar A. Chishti, senior fellow, Migration Policy Institute, Washington, DC
Muzaffar—known in the immigration worldas Muz—is credited for his lasting imprint on immigration policy in the United States, helping Russia draft its policy to deal with refugees , and testifying before the US Congress multiple times to address the shortfalls in the immigration policy and system, including the impact of the racially motivated Immigration Act on 1924. Kashmir-origin Muzaffar A Chishti, senior fellow at the Washington based Migration Policy Institute, is a disappointed man today as he feels that hundred years after the enactment of the 1924 Act, America stands out as a sore thumb with its punitive immigration policies and a militaristic approach that is wreaking havoc with human rights violations. He calls it a 9/11-like situation, except that on 9/11, “we actually had an invasion”. “The current narrative about illegal immigration is about a made up invasion,” he tells The Week calling upon leaders of sovereign countries to speak about the rights of their own citizens. “Even if they have violated immigration laws, they should be deported under humane and dignified condition,” he says..
Excerpts --
1. It is a watershed year with the Donald Trump administration implementing one of the most punitive immigration policies. How do you analyze it?
I tell my colleagues who follow immigration policies in this administration that the most important thing is to listen to what he (President Trump) says himself. Some of the words that come out of his own mouthare those that are really deep in his consciousness. He has convinced himself that he won this election on the plank of immigration, even though most people may believe that the driving issue was inflation and the economy. He instead creditsimmigration. He has humorously said, “How many times can you say that an apple has doubled in price?” Since he is convinced that he won this election-- and the 2016 one-- using immigration as a calling card, you have to take his views on immigration very seriously.
2. What is the difference between Trump 1 and Trump 2?
The big difference is the framethe administration is using for immigration this time-- it is invasion, and that the thecountry is under attack. It is not just the intensity of the enforcement actions alone, it's the “all of government” approach that is being adopted. That's why you have the Department of Defense, Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Treasury and even the Internal Revenue Service Officers, whose job is to collect taxes, being deputized for immigration enforcement. Not to mention the State Department or the Commerce Department for using diplomacy and tariffs as leverage .So that's the difference. This feels more like 9/11 except that during 9/11 we actually had an invasion. This is a made up invasion.
3. We have seen the Biden administration being under pressure on this issue. How was his approach different from what President Trump is doing today?
I am one of the analysts in this field who believe that for migrant flows pull factors are always more important than push factors. Some see migrant flows fundamentally driven by push factors. Important as they are, they're constantly present, though not always in the same way. For instance, poor living conditions in the places of origin, war, poverty, health or climate are multiple push factors but they may not all be true at the same time in the same place. The decision taken by unauthorizedmigrants to make it to the US border is not made by the push factors. It is determined by pull factor-- like the prospects of making it to inside the US? Once you make it, will it be hospitable enough to have an economic foothold? How long can you stay therewithout being deported? I consider these pull factors.
Biden got sandwiched between Trump 1 and Trump 2, and without his intending it, his administration also got defined by immigration. He probably lost the election on the issue of immigration. He campaigned on the promise that he is the opposite of Trump; that America is not a punitive, xenophobic country; we aredefined by the Statue of Liberty. Therefore, people who are seeking refuge or asylum should feel welcome. Migrants readthat as a welcome mat. And we saw the numbersof unauthorized migrant arrivals go up. Of course there were other factors too, like post Covideconomic slump in many countries, political turmoil in Venezuele and Haiti etc. But there was a perception created that if you can just make it to the border, the chances of you getting in are high.
Q4. Traditionally, how has the US dealt with the border challenge? Is there enough manpower guarding the borders?
To put it rather succinctly, till 2008 our border challenge was fundamentally single Mexican males trying to sneak their way into the US, looking for a job. So we built our laws, regulations, infrastructure, staffing for that era. But that era of border challenge no longer exists. It started changing in 2014 when more Central Americans started arriving at the US southern border, and increasingly as unaccompanied children or as family units. Post Covid, there was a full blown change in the profile of migrant arrivals. We started seeing more non Mexican, non CentralAmericans, and then migrants from allparts of the worldcoming to the border and raising their hands saying they are looking for asylum. None of them were sneaking in. The border resources weresimply not prepared for this changed profile. Moreover, it was not in the Biden DNA to be punitive. The result was that we witnessed a chapter of mass migration. It all unfortunately happened to coincide with the tenure of Biden administration and the Republicans dubbed it as the Biden border crisis. Literally, they called it BBC. That became the slogan. In fact, the Republicans actually do not use the word “immigration” to describe the challenge any more. For them, it was BBC.
Close to end of its term, the Biden administration realized they need to do something different to meet the challenge at the border. Measures were put in place to make it hard to apply for asylum. And that is when migration at the border went down radically. But the decreasing numbers did not help change the political narrative. So,Trump, in many ways, was handed over a gift of a more controlled border by the Biden administration. But now the Trump administration is changing the focus by targeting the interior of the country for unauthorized immigrants, many of whom have been here for decades.
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Q5. With the large influx of immigrants at the border, is the border patrol prepared to handle it? Is there a security gap or a manpower problem?
It is not a security gap. It's a manpower gap. As I said earlier, most unauthorized migrants today are not sneaking in; they are openly seeking asylum. So, what we have is an asylum crisis. The Border Patrol cannot solve that problem. You need a different kind of manpower to deal with the asylum crisis. Unauthorizedmigrantshave learned, and criminal enterprises have taught them, that if you just come and invoke your right to asylum, you will have to be granted a hearing, and it will take 3-4 years to get your first hearing and many more years to complete the process. So, they will be here for years and lawfully authorized to work. That is a pull factor. Thus, it is the broken nature of our asylum system that has hugely contributed to the rise in border arrivals. So, if we want to address this problem, we cannot treat it as a law enforcement problem, we need to reform our asylum system.
Q6.We saw the US military flight landing in Amritsar with handcuffed Indian illegal immigrants. How does it play out for the vast Indian diaspora?
We generally think of Indian diaspora as a highly educated, prosperous model minority in the U.S. But we have turned a deaf ear to a growing phenomenon of unauthorized Indian migrant population. And it is not a recent one; It's been happening for at least last 15 years where a large number of Indianmigrantsare coming unauthorized at the border, both at the northern and the southern border, looking for a better life, or some would even say ‘for a life’. So, we know that the pressure to migrate is real. What is also true is that the U.S. legal system does not allow too many pathways for people to enter legally. Our legal immigration selection system is based on a 1952 architecture, which has been tinkered with only two or three times and become even tougher, especially for low-skilled workers. That’s anachronistic. In the legal selection system, we give high priority to close family connections, andto high skilled immigrants. If you're not a high skilled immigrant or you don't have a family connection here, the options for entering the United States legally are almost non existent.
So what’s the alternative for those who wish to migrate to the US? Seeking asylum becomes the fallback option. We need to acknowledge that. To me, the military flight of deportees to India was more of a performative action than a meaningful outcome. And the fact that India was used as a test case to demonstrate the muscular deportation machine is telling. India is a friendly country to the US, especially to this administration. So, employing a military aircraft to send deportees to a friendly country is to amplify thenarrative that under Trump unauthorized migration is seen akin to an invasion. And unfortunately, I suspect, a lot of human rights violations might have taken place while doing that.
Q7. So, we agree there is a human rights concern here?
The unfortunate fact is that the handcuffs and the chains are part of the ICEguidelines, what in Indian parlance would be called the standard operating procedure of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement; and they have been in place for a long time. So, deportees to India were perhaps not singled out. But just because guidelines are followed does not mean it acceptable. All human beings are entitled to dignity, and if that was violated in this case, we all should speak out against it. Leaders of sovereign countries have a responsibility to speak about their own citizens. Even if they have violated immigration laws, they should be deported under humane and dignified condition.
Q8. Indians won't forget this a hurry. How do you see it playing out in the bilateral relationship?
The fact that the military flight to India got a lot of coverage in the media, even in the US, is because it did not fit into the traditional image of unauthorized people. The quid pro quo herewill be watchedwith interest by many, To me, other than the heady subjects of economic or security interests, will there be any other aspects of immigration policy that will be put on the table.. Indian nationals are the hardest hit in terms of backlogs of employment based immigrant visas and the processing of H1-B applications . Indian nationals are also some of the biggest users of practicaltraining visas in STEM occupations. Those issues have a rightful place in negotiation between two countries.
It is also true that a whole swath of U.S. corporate interests rely heavily on foreign-born workers. So while we see that he (Trump) is willing to say harsh things about unauthorized immigration, he does not say so about legal immigration. In fact, at his inaugural day press conference in the Oval Office , he suggested that the U.S. will probably need more legal immigrants if we put tariffs in place, because then people will want to come and invest here. So, legal immigration may not be on the chopping block the same way as it was during Trump 1. But critical demographic and labor market forces are also at paly here. We are an ageing population, with low birth rate. If you're growing old in Nebraska or Alabama today, the person who is likely to take care of you in old age is not going to be someone born here, but someone born in a foreign country. You can multiply that across the spectrum of occupations If we want to remain the superpower of the world, especially the economic superpower, we can't accomplish that without sustained immigration.