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San Francisco Chronicle
17-05-2025
- San Francisco Chronicle
What Californians need to know about traveling outside the U.S. with a green card or visa
Travelers returning to the U.S. from abroad are facing heightened scrutiny at airports amid a nationwide immigration crackdown, stirring confusion among visa holders and lawful permanent residents as they navigate summer travel plans. U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents are pulling aside noncitizens for extra questioning with greater frequency, according to immigration attorneys, and green card holders have reportedly been arrested at airports upon returning from international trips. Chris Beckerson, a San Francisco immigration lawyer who counsels foreign workers and students, said his firm has been fielding more travel-related questions, including from companies seeking to develop policies surrounding employee travel. 'I think anxiety has been running pretty high among lots of my clients,' Beckerson said. Legal experts urged caution for visa and green card holders as they weigh new risks associated with international travel under the Trump administration. While lawyers are particularly concerned for people with criminal records, they recommend widespread precautions for any noncitizen leaving American soil, such as scheduling a consultation with an immigration attorney and safeguarding their digital security ahead of a trip. The Chronicle compiled guidance for travelers below, though attorneys urged people to seek individual legal counsel to assess their personal risk before departing the country. What are the risks when traveling outside the U.S. with a green card? Lawful permanent residents are free to travel outside the country, according to U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services, although even those with appropriate documents are not guaranteed admission back into the country. On its website, the agency cautioned green card holders that travel outside the U.S. 'may have severe immigration-related consequences.' For now, many immigration lawyers are urging green card holders with criminal infractions to avoid leaving the country. Recent arrests at U.S. airports appeared to target lawful permanent residents with prior criminal infractions, including people with years-old cases that have been resolved, said Jacqueline Brown, the director of an immigration clinic at the University of San Francisco School of Law. Last month, authorities arrested Cliona Ward, a 54-year-old green card holder from Ireland, when she returned to San Francisco International Airport from a trip to her home country. Ward, a longtime Santa Cruz resident who had an expunged criminal conviction from her youth, was released last week but remains traumatized by the two-week detention, her sister wrote on a GoFundMe page. In March, authorities arrested a green card holder from Germany at the Boston airport, detaining him for two months in federal custody. At the Seattle airport in February, agents arrested a woman from the Philippines with lawful permanent residency, according to NBC News. Hilton Beckham, assistant commissioner of public affairs at CBP, said the Trump administration was enforcing immigration laws, 'something the previous administration failed to do.' 'Green card holders who have not broken any U.S. laws, committed application fraud, or failed to apply for a reentry permit after a long period of travel have nothing to fear about entering and exiting the country,' Beckham said in a statement. In light of the recent arrests, Brown said green card holders with a prior criminal conviction or even an arrest should 'be cautious against traveling,' and they should consult with an immigration attorney about their specific circumstances before heading overseas. 'A lot of times, the answer would just be no,' Brown said. 'I wouldn't travel if you've had any arrest without getting some more information.' Brown said she knows green card holders who are steering clear of international travel to avoid the potential hassle or trauma connected with prolonged questioning at the airport. 'Everybody has their own circumstances, and I would say it's just how much of a risk you're willing to take,' she said. Can I travel internationally on a student or worker visa? For people with valid visas, including students and certain categories of workers, Brown said she would advise them to avoid international travel 'unless it's really necessary,' since the immigration policy landscape can rapidly change with no notice. Last month, for example, the Trump administration abruptly revoked visas and terminated legal status for hundreds of international students, many of whom had a brush with law enforcement on their record. The government then reversed the decision just as quickly, restoring status after weeks of chaos at universities and mounting legal pressure. Beckerson, who counsels people with H-1B and F-1 visas, said his firm is advising clients with a criminal conviction in their past to avoid international travel. For clients with no prior brushes with law enforcement or negative immigration encounters, however, Beckerson said he is 'not concerned with them traveling right now.' 'People seem to be coming through fine for now,' he said. But 'it's only been four months of this administration, so we're bracing for more.' UC Berkeley issued a travel advisory in April noting that international travel 'may be high risk for all clients due to strict vetting and enforcement,' urging students to be cautious when considering leaving the country for personal or professional reasons 'as U.S. immigration policy remains unpredictable and subject to rapid change.' What should I expect at the airport? Travelers with green cards and visas can anticipate CBP officers spending more time asking questions about their travel, their right to enter the U.S. and their background, as well as a higher likelihood of being placed in another room at the airport for a secondary inspection, which can take hours, Brown said. People should also prepare for the possibility that officers may look through their phones and laptops, including reviewing personal social media accounts, she said. Brown said green card holders will likely face additional scrutiny and questions if they remain outside the country for six months or longer, which can indicate an intent to abandon their permanent residency status. Customs agents may use tactics to pressure people to sign a form relinquishing their lawful status during airport interrogations, but they cannot legally take away a green card, Brown said. Only an immigration judge can initiate deportation proceedings. Additionally, noncitizens returning from trips to countries in the Middle East should also expect more questions and potential problems at customs, Brown said. Travelers should stay calm, respectful and honest during interactions with border agents, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a privacy nonprofit. People should never provide false information to CBP officers, the organization said, because doing so is a crime. Immigration officers have broad discretion when deciding whether to wave a person through customs or pull them aside for additional inspection, adding a 'wild card' factor to the equation, Beckerson said. One of his clients was recently held for questioning for 'quite a lengthy period,' he said. 'It was a really upsetting experience for the person,' he said. 'Whether or not that officer is having a good day sometimes seems to make the difference between a bad experience and a good experience.' Does it matter what airport I travel through? Although the laws are consistent across the country, Brown said it was typically safer for noncitizens to travel through SFO or other California airports rather than states that tend to be more politically conservative. Similarly, UC Berkeley told international students it recommends they travel through SFO when entering the country, although the university did not provide an explanation for the suggestion. More than 10,000 people have been processed by CBP officers at SFO this year through April, slightly more than numbers over the same time last year, according to CBP data. How can I protect my digital privacy when traveling internationally? It is legal for CBP officers to search digital devices that belong to both citizens and noncitizens, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. That's because people have fewer rights and less privacy at U.S. border crossings compared to inside the country, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Border agents can search phones, laptops and other electronic devices without a search warrant or suspicion that the person has committed a crime. Brown recommended that people disable Face ID on their phone before an international trip. CBP agents can use Face ID to open a phone even when a traveler refuses to provide their password, she said. But failing to provide a password could have consequences, especially for noncitizens. Visa holders could be turned away at the border if they refuse to cooperate with a phone search, according to the ACLU. While the government cannot deny entry to citizens who refuse to unlock their phone, agents can detain them for hours and seize their device, sometimes for weeks or months, the ACLU said. For citizens and noncitizens alike, the ACLU recommends that people travel with as little data and as few devices as possible, such as carrying a travel-only smartphone with no private or sensitive information. The Berkeley International Office recommended that students review social media accounts ahead of travel for content that 'may appear to show you engaged in activities that violate U.S. laws, your visa status, or academic integrity.' This month, the Department of Homeland Security announced it would immediately start considering 'antisemitic activity on social media' as grounds for denying immigration benefits, noting that the policy applies to foreign students and people applying for green cards.
Yahoo
07-03-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
A Secret Weapon to Fight Mass Deportation
In 2002, Doctor Paul Harmatz, a researcher at UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital, invited Maria Isabel Bueso, a 7-year-old girl from Guatemala, to come to the United States to partake in clinical trials for a new medication. Bueso, who lives with Maroteaux-Lamy Syndrome, a rare genetic disease, was not expected to live beyond her teens. Bueso's participation in several treatment programs supported by Dr. Harmatz's research not only helped her live but resulted in Food and Drug Administration approval of several drugs used to treat her condition. Since arriving in the U.S., Bueso has become a noted advocate for people with rare diseases and a proponent for medical research. Yet in August 2019, she faced deportation when the Trump administration eliminated a deferred action program that allowed immigrants to avoid deportation while undergoing lifesaving medical treatment. Although U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services, or USCIS, reversed the decision in the wake of strong backlash, Bueso and her parents' future in the U.S. remained uncertain for several years. However, in February 2021, Representative Mark DeSaulnier offered Bueso a chance to save her and her family from deportation by authoring a private bill. After spending a year going through committee hearings, Bueso and her parents received permanent residence when President Biden signed H.R. 785. Maria Bueso was one of several immigrants who benefited from the use of private bills as a means of bypassing existing immigration laws to earn permanent residency in the United States. Although the procedures for private bills have changed over the past decade, they can provide relief for immigrants facing exceptional circumstances. Today, under the Trump administration, the proposed mass deportation of millions of immigrants has upended the lives of many in the U.S. For 5.1 million American children who live with an undocumented relative, the emotional suffering caused by raids, detention, and family separation will be immeasurable. It has been almost 40 years since Congress provided any legislative reform for the current immigration system. Yet instead of crafting legislation to reform the existing system, Republicans have found it easier to single out immigrants as the target of policing schemes. Yet one tool of the American legal system—one where Congress can take action—regarding specific immigrant cases is private bills, which grant exemptions from existing immigration laws. A private bill is defined by Congress as a bill that provides benefits to specified individuals (including corporate bodies). Private bills, which are handled by the House and Senate Judiciary Committee, are specifically used when individuals request relief for certain policies when administrative or legal remedies are exhausted. Historically, they have been used in a range of cases, such as granting medals to soldiers whose heroic deeds went previously unnoticed. According to the website of the U.S. Congress, half of all legislation enacted by Congress since 1789 has been private bills. Historically, the majority of private bills passed are those pertaining to immigration cases where immigrants facing unusual circumstances, such as fleeing civil wars or, in Bueso's case, requesting medical treatment in the U.S., receive consideration from lawmakers to bypass existing restrictions. Often, cases are transmitted to members of the House or Senate Judiciary Committee for consideration. In the years before the passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which eliminated immigration bans, members of Congress submitted private bills on behalf of immigrants who were denied the ability to naturalize by discriminatory immigration laws. For example, Representative Sidney Yates of Illinois authored several private bills for Japanese nationals whose spouses worked with the U.S. Army of Occupation after World War II but who were barred from immigrating under the provisions of the Immigration Act of 1924. During the Cold War, Congress passed dozens of private bills, along with public legislation, for refugees escaping Communist countries who faced deportation. Famous refugee cases include Chinese dissident Wei Jingsheng, who received residency thanks to a private bill introduced by then–Michigan Senator Spencer Abraham and signed by President Bill Clinton in 2000. Although many private bills are enacted for individuals seeking asylum from violence, they have also been used as a loophole for elites hoping to bypass immigration laws. One example was Jack Kent Cooke, a Canadian American businessman who at one point owned the Washington Commanders, the Los Angeles Lakers, and the Toronto Maple Leafs. Cooke, who failed to secure a business deal for a private television station in Canada, lobbied Representative Francis Walter in 1960 to submit a private bill to bypass the five-year wait period for naturalization. The Los Angeles Times asserted that private bills more often served as a pipeline for elites seeking citizenship, such as Michael Wilding, the son of actor Elizabeth Taylor, who secured citizenship from one despite having a conviction for growing marijuana. Perhaps the most famous depiction of private bills is at the beginning of Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather. During his daughter's wedding, Don Vito Corleone, meeting with his baker, arranges to have a congressman on his payroll submit a private bill for an Italian refugee, Enzo, who is dating his daughter. In more recent years, private bills have been used explicitly for refugees rather than the wealthy. That doesn't mean the use of private bills is getting more common. A 2024 study on private bills by the National Immigration Project revealed that the number of private bills has declined drastically. In 1970s, Congress enacted over 700 private bills. Since 1997, Congress has only enacted 51 private bills out of thousands of proposals, of which only 37 pertained to immigration. In the past five years, Congress reports only three private bills authored for immigrants like Bueso. Another case was that of Arpita Kurdekar, who successfully petitioned Representative Ann Kuster to submit a private bill on behalf of her and her family. Kurdekar, an Indian immigrant, was working for the New Hampshire Department of Transportation when a tree fell on her, leaving her paralyzed with a spinal cord injury. Why are so few private bills successful? Part of this is inactivity in Congress. Although members of both parties submit private bills for immigration relief, the limited action taken by Congress in the Trump era means fewer bills are passed. Part of this is also due to changing policies regarding private bills and deportations. In 2017, ICE director Thomas Homan advised then–Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley that ICE viewed private bills as a threat to the agency's deportation policies and would only grant a stay of removal if Congress provided written consent—even if a private bill was in deliberation. The Congressional Research Service reported that ICE reverted to previous policies during the Biden administration. Additionally, the existence of a private bill for an immigrant does not guarantee ICE would refrain from detaining the beneficiary. Hillel Smith of the Congressional Research Service advised that Congress should update its existing protocols regarding private bills to ensure that 'aliens seeking to benefit from such legislation receive prompt consideration by the agency of their requests to remain in the United States during that process.' So, do private bills still hold up at a time when the Trump administration continues to overhaul immigration policies through executive orders? In some cases, the answer is yes. During the first Trump administration, Democratic members of Congress submitted private bills to counter the increase of ICE deportations and raise awareness of specific cases. In March 2018, Representative Bill Brady of Pennsylvania submitted several private bills for an undocumented family in the Philadelphia area. Carmela Apolonio Hernandez and her four children fled Guerrero, Mexico, after traffickers killed several of her family members, and applied for asylum at San Diego. When immigration officials denied her claim, she moved her family to Philadelphia, where they were welcomed by the Church of the Advocate in North Philadelphia. Upon hearing Hernandez's story, Brady submitted a private bill—and discovered that it was a vehicle that allowed his conscience to speak loudly in the face of injustice. As Brady told Philadelphia NPR affiliate WHYY: 'If I found out that they got deported, and a month or two from now I found out some harm came to them, and I didn't do anything, that's not a good feeling.' Brady acknowledged in his remarks on the Hernandez case that while private bills have little chance of passing Congress, they nonetheless sent a message to immigration officials about specific cases. Although immigration policies are constantly changing, the National Immigration Project still encourages immigrants and their legal counsel to petition their congressional representatives for private bills. While this option can often take years, it can allow immigrants to gain residency when other alternatives to citizenship have failed. (The current criteria for private bills can be found on the House Judiciary Committee's website.) Private bills offer immigrant advocates and members of Congress a tool to respond to Trump's destructive immigration policies. The current deportation scheme harkens back to the infamous Mexican Repatriations of the 1930s—when local law enforcement and the Border Patrol unjustly deported thousands of Mexican Americans, including their American-born children, to Mexico amid the economic strife of the Great Depression. But Trump's plan does a double injustice by ushering in a new era of xenophobic immigration policies. Already we are witnessing the creation of an overmilitarized Border Patrol to police immigrants and a network of prisons that would cost taxpayers billions of dollars. Such a deportation scheme, if completed, would cause unprecedented economic consequences. In places like California's Central Valley, where a quarter of the nation's foodstuff originates, farmers forewarned of rising prices due to labor shortages caused by immigration raids. In Kern County, farm managers have noted that Border Patrol agents have targeted farms that employ undocumented workers, leading the ACLU and the United Farmworkers to file lawsuits against the Department of Homeland Security. The American Immigration Council reported last October that mass deportations would reduce the U.S. gross domestic product by 4.2 to 6.8 percent. The same report stated that 14 percent of American construction industry workers are undocumented. Perhaps the greatest cost to Americans will come in the form of tax increases; proposed raids to deport one million undocumented immigrants would require $88 billion in government funds—the equivalent of four times NASA's annual budget. For undocumented immigrants and their families, there are several organizations that provide legal counsel and guidance for engaging with ICE officials. Websites such as Informed Immigrant provide a step-by-step guide on how to respond to ICE raids. The Immigration Defense Project provides legal counsel and advice to immigrants on how to respond to immigrant officials. The National Immigration Law Center also offers a fact sheet on what you and your family can do if approached by immigration officials. As the ACLU reminds us, everyone, regardless of citizenship status, is guaranteed protection against racial discrimination and entitled to the rights of a fair trial by the Constitution. Immigrant advocates should lobby members of Congress to pursue the enactment of private bills with greater alacrity. While they do not resolve the mass detention of immigrants by the Trump administration, they offer recourse for immigrants facing extraordinary circumstances. They also might help the overall anti-immigrant status quo by providing the public with compelling stories that might capture the imagination and cast the opportunity of immigration in a more favorable light. Private bills will not fix the immigration system, nor will they address the suffering created by mass deportations. But they do offer immigrants hoping to remain in the U.S. one of many legal alternatives. And they give those with the courage to speak on behalf of this vulnerable population an opportunity to be heard.
Yahoo
28-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Fired federal workers can help save the country if they do one last thing: run for office
Protesters rally outside of the Theodore Roosevelt Federal Building headquarters of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management on Feb. 5, 2025, in Washington, D.C. Photo by. If you're a fired federal worker or you quit in disgust, I have an idea for you: Run for office. Both parties here in Minnesota and nationally are badly in need of a fresh crop of activists and candidates who understand governance and believe in it passionately. Federal employees are often highly skilled, knowledgeable and focused on service to their country and their communities. Despite the ceaseless anti-government rhetoric, Uncle Sam's achievements during the past century are impressive: Federal workers stabilized the banking system; beat the fascists; split the atom; built a massive network of transcontinental highways; significantly reduced elderly poverty with Social Security and Medicare; unwound apartheid (mostly) in the old Confederacy; seeded commercial air travel and made it safe; developed life-saving vaccines and other medicines; invented GPS; put a man on the moon; significantly reduced air pollution and lead poisoning; achieved increasingly sophisticated weather forecasts; helped to liberate — without firing a shot — the Eastern Bloc. The U.S. government has also done a bunch of foolish and evil things — sometimes while carrying out the above, like putting highways through urban neighborhoods — but that was usually the result of elected officials making foolish and/or evil decisions, not the civil service workers who were merely carrying out their policies. Indeed, federal civil servants take an oath and are prohibited from partisan politicking, which is why they can't heed my advice about running until they leave. 'I've worked under Republican and Democratic administrations, and they have their own agenda and priorities, and we perform the work they ask us to do,' said Ruark Hotopp, a vice president of the American Federation of Government Employees, who organizes federal workers in Minnesota, the Dakotas, Iowa and Nebraska. For two decades he has worked at U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services, which investigates immigration cases. A Minnesota data scientist who recently accepted the deferred resignation from his federal job out of frustration told the Reformer's Chris Ingraham this week that his work could have actually contributed to DOGE's alleged aims: 'We can ask questions that are valuable to whatever outcomes you want to get. Maybe I disagree with that outcome, but as a researcher or somebody who likes to answer questions I'm happy to explore them. I'm also happy to be like 'that program doesn't work, we should do something better.' But there appears to be no interest in actually asking questions or learning.' Hotopp said he lives by the credo of an old boss, who said it's fine to have political bumper sticker, 'But when you come through these doors, that's where it ends.' This ethos of apolitical, selfless service is foreign to the likes of Elon Musk and President Trump, who's alleged by American generals to have insulted the sacrifice of service members. Indeed, around 30% of the federal workforce are veterans. (Proud disclosure: This group of federal worker/veterans includes two of my siblings.) Both the military and federal workers spend a lot of time preparing the country for events that may never happen but which the federal government is singularly suited to manage: wars, famines, natural disasters, pandemics. This long view of risk management would be helpful to legislative bodies that often struggle to think beyond the next election. Former federal workers also offer a framework of servant-leadership that we need among elected officials right now, from school boards to the Legislature to Congress and the presidency. Politics tends to attract people who want attention, now exacerbated by social media. Federal workers, by contrast, typically labor away in obscurity; not only do they rarely receive the credit they deserve — they are often treated with scorn, and never more than now. If there's a silver lining to this nightmare, federal workers are finally getting some of the recognition they deserve. The majority of the civilian federal workforce are in defense, homeland security and care for veterans. Others ensure food safety, conduct cutting-edge scientific research, safely land passenger jets, investigate and dismantle drug and gun networks. Do these sound like valuable services? (Also, just fyi: Federal civilian employee compensation is just 4.5% of the federal budget. And the federal government's civilian head count is roughly 2.25 million, or the same as in 1969 when the American population was just a bit over 200 million, compared to 340 million today.) About four out of five work outside the Washington area. 'We coach your kids' Little League teams. We go to the same churches and synagogues and we're like everyone else,' Hotopp said. The 'deep state' label, Hotopp said, is reminiscent of the McCarthy era, when civil servants were smeared by Wisconsin's most famous drunk, U.S. Sen. Joe McCarthy. If they want to serve our country again and with honor in the face of creeping autocracy, I urge the people who have been fired or resigned from the federal workforce to run for office. Ultimately, we need them in Congress, where they can bring their expertise to bear on federal issues and public administration that's sorely lacking in either chamber, where the most common occupations are lawyer, rich guy and career elected official. But even here in Minnesota, candidates with experience as federal workers would bring valuable insight about the interplay between the state and federal government. And they could help their colleagues understand the challenges and opportunities of implementing and administering the Legislature's many brilliant and less brilliant ideas. Run (former) federal workers, run!
