This commentary is by Jill Martin Diaz, executive director of the Vermont Asylum Assistance Project, and by Phebe Lowry, Simon Family Public Research Fellow at VAAP and the University of Vermont.
Vermont Asylum Assistance Project expresses thanks to VTDigger’s Corey McDonald for his story, “Advocates say Vermont woman was wrongfully deported to Honduras.” As members of Greisy Mejia’s legal team, and from VAAP’s perspective as Vermont’s statewide asylum legal services coordinator, we want to amplify Greisy’s story as a call to action for anyone concerned about the local impact of national immigration policy.
Earlier this year, VAAP warned that increased focus on U.S./Canada border enforcement dog-whistling was putting Vermont community members at greater risk of deportation, community members like trafficking survivors Greisy and her 9- and 1-year-old children. What we called “border brain” discourse places focus on the topical issue of border apprehensions itself, rather than on the government’s longstanding, insidious pattern and practice of unlawfully denying immigrants’ rights to raise legal claims and defenses from within the interior.
The Immigration Nationality Act section 208 makes clear there is no wrong way to seek asylum. A person need only be present and afraid to invoke their right to be heard on their claim. In Greisy’s case, she is also a survivor of severe forms of trafficking in the U.S., in addition to having suffered persecution in her home country. This victimization gives her a second humanitarian pathway through which to regularize her status and achieve safety from removal.
However, multiple legal pathways to permanent status did not ensure full and fair access to justice for Greisy. Instead, the government denied Greisy her right to be heard on her fear of returning to Honduras as well as her opportunity to seek justice for her trafficking and, hopefully, save others from similar victimization.
The Department of Homeland Security’s mission is to “safeguard the American people, our homeland, and our values” and DHS lists “integrity” as one of its core values, so why was it so focused on unlawfully removing Greisy and her children instead of investigating and bringing her traffickers to justice?
Greisy’s unjust deportation transpired within a federal immigration agency system that was designed to be highly discretionary — subject to the whims of the president and their cabinet — and extraordinarily insulated from any scrutiny or review — including review by the other branches of government and the people they represent.
The Supreme Court has held that immigration detention, banishment and permanent family separation are not “punishments” like those levied in the criminal legal system, such that courts must defer to the immigration policies and practices of elected politicians, no matter how discriminatory, xenophobic or vitriolic they are in nature. Recall that the Trump administration’s final iteration of the “Muslim ban” was ultimately found legal and permitted to stand.
As a community, if we are to weather the local impacts of national immigration policy, we need to band together to help ensure transparency and accountability for our locally operating immigration legal system. It is a system shrouded in secrecy that levies the most drastic punishments against the most diverse members of our community, on whom the future prosperity of Vermont relies.
The best defense to deportation is access to immigration legal counsel, which makes individuals exponentially more likely to assert and win claims for relief. But we know too well that unlawful chaos, like what transpired in Greisy’s case, is a deliberate tactic on the part of the government to exhaust service providers, distract from immigration benefits seeking work in the interior and discourage under-documented immigrants with viable legal claims to present themselves to the regulated economy.
Indeed, on the afternoon of Greisy’s arrest in St. Albans, immigration agency leaders, who are often but not necessarily always our opposing party, were out of office convening a Burlington-based stakeholder liaison meeting with Vermont’s immigration legal services attorneys who were none the wiser. VAAP approached this convening in good faith, aligned with the stated purpose of fostering more respectful cooperation “across the aisle” for more fair, efficient and just results.
In the 24 hours that transpired, we were unable to communicate effectively with the government to ensure Greisy’s rights were respected. Now we are in the difficult position of compromising our remaining hope for respectful cooperation by bringing to light the injustices of last week.
The government’s unlawful deportation of Greisy cannot go unnoticed and unchallenged. The government knowingly returned this family to certain danger and denied their right to be heard on their humanitarian legal claims for protection. This was not an isolated incident but an example of a rising tide of nefarious and sometimes illegal enforcement activity in our border state, where immigration officials are given virtually free range to police our communities.
Greisy and her children are keeping in touch from an undisclosed location in Central America, where they are hiding from their persecutors. Meanwhile, Migrant Justice, Vermont Law and Graduate School’s Center for Justice Reform Clinic and VAAP will continue to litigate Greisy’s unexhausted legal claims and fight for the family’s safe return to the United States. Visit www.vaapvt.org to follow Greisy’s story and learn more about asylum seeking in Vermont.
