Immigration Still Under Attack

 Richard S. Dunn - August 27, 2021

There are some who naively believed that with the Biden Administration, the attacks on immigrants and immigration had ended; after all, during his campaign, Biden promised a more humane and understanding approach to immigration issues. The most recent attacks are on August 24th, 2021 the Supreme Court ruled that the ‘Remain in Mexico” program should be reinstated; the Biden Administration continues to use Title 42 another Trump Administration Policy, which can expel asylum seekers without due process and on August 16th, 2021 a Federal judge in Texas ruled DACA unlawful meaning; no new Applications will be processed.

The most telling attack comes from a report published by the Intercept that there exists a Federal software in use that , can lead to the revocation of citizenship of those who are naturalized citizens of the United States. The software known as ATLAS takes information from immigrants’ application documents and ferrets it through various Federal databases. The argument is that the software looks for ‘red flags’ in the Application suggesting that the applicant is dangerous or dishonest and by detecting fraud, the person poses a threat to the United States. According to the Intercept “whatever the motivation, ATLAS’ intended outcome is ultimately deportation, judging from the documents, which originate within DHS (Department of Homeland Security) and were obtained by the Open Society Justice Initiative and Muslim Advocates through Freedom of Information Act lawsuits.”

The software is hosted by Amazon’s servers and runs undetected, scanning millions of citizenship Application files; the software ATLAS was developed within the U.S. Customs and Immigration Service (UCIS) Fraud Detection and National Security Data System. The Intercept continues: “ATLAS helps DHS investigate immigrants’ personal relationships and backgrounds, examining biometric information like fingerprints and, in certain circumstances, considering an immigrant’s race, ethnicity, and national origin. It draws information from a variety of unknown sources, plus two that have been criticized as being poorly managed: the FBI’s terrorist Screening Database, also known as the terrorist watchlist, and the National Crime Information Center…The system is 2019 alone conducted 16.5 million screenings and flagged more than 120,000 cases of potential fraud or threats to national security and public safety,” self-serving terms used to benefit the government and justify arbitrary deportation or de-naturalization.

This whole process is suspect and fraught with the potential for Agency employees to make arbitrary and racist determinations, regarding a naturalized individual based on their ignorance and personal bias. To compound the issue, the Department of Homeland Security refuses to disclose to the public how specifically ATLAS works or, what criteria it uses to determine when an immigrant should be ‘red flagged’ to consider de-naturalization. Since February the Biden Administration was supposedly conducting a review of the de-naturalization Policies, with a May deadline for concluding and possibly publishing the findings; obviously the review has fallen into obscurity.

The Intercept has reported that the U.S. government’s use of de-naturalization was once very rare; however, in the early to mid-1900’s the Federal government pursued denaturalization for political, racist and sexist reasons, even going after US-born citizens. “for nearly five decades afterward, the government brought de-naturalization cases only sparingly, usually against accused war criminals and Nazis – up until the Trump presidency.”

Experts on de-naturalization has cautioned that putting an immigrant’s file through algorithmic processes can lead to automatic punitive actions, not because of any wrongdoing, but the government’s own incompetence. Old and antiquated records can entrap and punish innocent people. Sameera Hafiz, Policy Director of the Immigrant Legal Resource Center has said “our expectation is that the Biden Administration will establish a clear process to immediately restore citizenship to all individuals stripped of their citizenship during the Trump years and commit to dropping the pending de-naturalization cases initiated by Trump.”

 Send emails to Richard Dunn at: contact@makingitplain.net