| | |
|
JacquelineRiosFirstPaper 4 - 13 Aug 2012 - Main.EbenMoglen
|
| |
| META TOPICPARENT | name="FirstPaper" |
|---|
| | | The U-visa system is in danger of being gutted by the recently passed House version of the Violence Against Women Act (HB 4970). Instead of increasing the number of U-visas, as in the Senate version, the House version would throw up roadblocks to make survivors like Marianna even less likely to report their abusers. | |
<
< | One of the most severe changes would remove the capability for U-visa holders to transition to lawful permanent residency. Currently, U-visas are valid for 4 years, but they can be transitioned into permanent-residency after the 4-year period for humanitarian reasons or to ensure family unity. The provisions of HB 4970 strike this option entirely for U-visa holders. This change is rationalized as a means to limit immigration into the US. But U-visas are limited to only 10,000 granted a year. That number would not change under HB 4970. Women like Marianna would only gain a temporary reprieve from immigration anxieties with few options of staying with their citizen children. Instead of increasing social good by prosecuting abusers and allowing mothers to stay with and care for their children, HB 4970 only increases the incentives for undocumented women to stay with their abusers or stay off the immigration radar by not reporting. | >
> | One of the most severe changes would remove the capability for U-visa holders to transition to lawful permanent of increasing social good by prosecuting abusers and allowing mothers to stay with and care for their children, HB 4970 only increases the incentives for undocumented women to stay with their abusers or stay off the immigration radar by not reporting. | | | Even more troublesome are the changes to the U-visa application process itself. HB 4970 adds an in-person interview and investigation to the process. Prosecutors must still independently certify cooperation. But the petitioning alien is subjected to a trial of her own. Under HB 4970, she would have to report to the local immigration office for an in-person interview, where an officer is allowed to gather evidence unrelated to the domestic violence petition. Any evidence of past petitions for legal immigration status is allowed. The accused partner is also invited to present evidence about the petitioning victim. In cases like Marianna's, where the abuser is a green card holder, threats of deportation become much more real. The motivations behind these new provisions seem obvious, given that an immigration judge presides over all U-visa petitions anyway. By requiring victims to expose their lives to immigration officers, with no guarantee that the information discovered will not be used to deport them, HB 4970 tacitly encourages immigrant women to stay silent and suffer through abuse.
It should not be surprising that the current House is against more immigration. What is surprising is the context. Immigration policy involves a balancing of interests. But in this instance, the changes to the U-visa system show much more weight is being given to the appearance of a hardline on immigration than any idea of public good. No one wants to encourage immigration fraud. But if the U-visa system becomes so onerous, immigrant women will become even more vulnerable to abuse. Fears of deportation and inequalities in legal status already fuel many instances of domestic violence. HB 4970 turns the purpose of the Violence Against Women Act on its head and serves more abusers than it does victims. | |
>
> |
This draft is a definite improvement over the last draft, because it
doesn't depend on assigning emotional states to people you disagree
with on policy. The introduction retains its realism, which is very
desirable. There are two remaining problems that should be
considered.
First, the policy part of your essay lacks the realism you attain
with Marianna's story. The House of Representatives is merely the
bat-shit crazy antechamber to legislative activity in the US at
present. In this, as in so many other areas, the question is solely
what the White House will sign and what the Senate will pass. The
House vote is simply an easy way for members of the majority to send
messages home without actually doing something. Like voting 33 times
to repeal the ACA, it's just sound and fury signifying nothing.
Writing about it as though reasoned policy analysis had anything to
do with it is unrealistic in the extreme.
The parties elected to go into these elections at loggerheads on all
immigration and also on all "feminist" issues. It suits the
Democratic campaign to run against the Republicans' "war on women"
and "anti-Hispanic, anti-immigrant" bigotry. It suits the
Republicans to hold high the banner of White, Christian America.
Nobody gives a crap about VAWA reauthorization except "the groups,"
so if it dies in the crossfire that doesn't matter very much. If the
Democrats do well in November, they can press it through next
Congress, and if the Republicans win, it's dead forever anyway.
So whatever your essay is about in the end, it isn't that. Is it why
U-visas are important? If so, why are they? Should undocumented
immigrants who are the victims of crime be given working papers and
an expedited chance at permanent residency as compensation? Should
undocumented witnesses who help make certain forms of prosecution be
given these benefits as rewards? Is it something about the condition
of the domestic violence victim that makes this treatment specially
appropriate? The general injustice of immigration controls, on the
other hand, doesn't seem more implicated by Marianna's story if
U-visas don't exist than so many other forms of immigration-control
injustice we witness and hear about all the time. If there should be
10,000 slots for people like her, shouldn't there be tens of
thousands of slots for equitable rectification of all those other
injustices too? Maybe the real issue isn't the domestic violence at
all, but the bizarre arbitrariness and disgracefulness of our
immigration system.
Which brings us to the second problem: the relationship between the
narrative of Marianna and the analysis that follows. Leaving aside,
for the moment, the irrelevance of the particular nonsense created by
the House of Representatives, what is the relationship between your
personal experience of this client and any policy analysis? Are we
being reminded to include her in the calculations? Or to think only
of people like her? Or to be angry at anyone who does not think her
interests primary? Or to appreciate that this is where you are
coming from, the experience that drives your thinking?
| | | (777 words)
-- JacquelineRios - 20 May 2012 |
|
|
|
|
This site is powered by the TWiki collaboration platform.
All material on this collaboration platform is the property of the contributing authors.
All material marked as authored by Eben Moglen is available under the license terms CC-BY-SA version 4.
|
|
| | |