Guidelines ask agents to target Spanish speakers at border

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press


Elliot Spagat, Associated Press Updated 9:43 am CST, Thursday, March 7, 2019

SAN DIEGO (AP) — Border agents have been told to explicitly target Spanish speakers and migrants from Latin America in carrying out a Trump administration program requiring asylum seekers wait in Mexico, according to memos obtained by The Associated Press that reveal some inner workings of a top government priority to address the burgeoning number of Central Americans arriving in the country.

The Trump administration launched the program in late January in what marks a potentially seismic shift on how the U.S. handles the cases of immigrants seeking asylum and fleeing persecution in their homeland.

The program initially applied only to those who turned themselves in at official border crossings. But a memo from a division chief of the Border Patrol's San Diego sector says it expanded Friday to include people who cross the border illegally.

The guidance includes instruction about various groups of immigrants who are not to be sent back to Mexico and instead go through the traditional asylum process in the U.S. immigration court system. They include pregnant women, LGBT migrants and people suffering medical issues. Authorities said previously that Mexican asylum seekers are excluded, as are children traveling alone.

Read more: https://www.chron.com/news/texas/article/Memos-reveal-details-behind-new-Trump-asylum-13668474.php

[dubyadiprecession]

1. Targeting Spanish speakers at the Mexican border?

My speakers are from China.

[Ilsa]

2. And if they speak russian, they're okay to let in? NT

[SpankMe]

3. Genius move

I knew a woman (died 20 or so years ago at 88) who was born in a small town northern New Mexico, USA and had never left the state her whole life except for one airplane flight (her first and only) to a special out of state event when she was in her 70's). She could speak only Spanish with a few broken sentences in English. Since she was born long before New Mexico became a state, there was no firm birth record and certainly no passport. She had a SSN and was drawing Social Security for the last 25 years or so of her life.

Had she gone into Mexico, who knows what debacle would have ensued if, when returning home, she'd been pinched by the Border Patrol on this "Spanish language profiling" thing. There are a lot of people with this status in the US.

At the same time, I know born-and-raised Mexican citizens who speak completely unaccented English. These folks would get in under this language radar with no problem.

Trump's government is completely incompetent, random and racist. If he gets in again in '20, it's our fault for not getting the vote out.

[real Cannabis calm]

4. recommended to publicize