Author: Frankie Solinsky Duryea (Page 2 of 2)

The pervading theme of this week’s readings, for me, was the effect of technological advances for migration. On one hand, we see how online systems are facilitating the resettlement of Ukrainian refugees, and promise to possibly simplify refugee processes going forward. I’m honestly hesitant to wholeheartedly welcome this advance; I think, like the CSIS article says, that we sometimes imagine tech as something exterior to ourselves. We need to be abundantly aware of the way all technology is built by and entrenched in human biases and error, without just using it as a first-resort without criticism. I’m very happy to hear how many people it’s helped, and with the proper oversight I am hopeful, but I also don’t think it’s the only solution. The HIAS article immediately made me think of CBP One, the equivalent app for Southern border migrants, which has been critiqued for a long time (plagued with glitches at the start and of course hasn’t been as streamlined as the Ukrainian equivalent). Still, it could help in the future. 

At the same time, we see how TikTok perpetuates white supremacy and anti-immigrant rhetoric. I thought the study was fantastic at dissecting ways that TikTok fails. Far-right groups will continue to come up with new dog-whistles, but if explicit anti-immigrant content can be moderated, there’s less of a chance people who aren’t already in the community will fall into it. I wonder if that kind of effective censorship is possible on the internet? I was also wondering what “pipelines” lead into far-right internet communities? People don’t just reach those videos without reason (mostly), there have to be “adjacent” spheres that lead them there. In online fandoms where viewers become commenters and creators, community and identity get tied to ideological underpinnings. It’s scary to realize that some people may see these anti-immigrant circles as their “communities,” where if they change their opinion, they’re at risk of being socially ostracized. Especially since these communities have so much potential for cross-contamination, the internet is a place where kids (kids who don’t have great real social lives) can fall into these spheres, and become so quickly indoctrinated. It scares me. 

I was also very interested in Allan Little’s article in the BBC – particularly in his use of the phrase “paradigm shift.” He critiques “the West” for its inability to see Russia’s mounting threat, and I know I’m part of that. If “we” failed to see what Russia was or is, is that a media failure too? Even as he says that Russia’s war with Ukraine is world-changing, I have to acknowledge that I’ve never thought of it that way. From the US, sometimes it’s easy to ignore. How much responsibility does the media have to transmit the actual power, the emotion behind a war? Responsibility feels like an unproductive word, but it more generally just makes me conscious that without the physical experience of being in Ukraine, I will never fully understand the conflict through reading about it. How do you get across the weight of a war, or the changes in the world, without being ideological?

One in ten unaccompanied migrant children in Arizona say they were physically abused while in the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency’s custody since January of 2023, according to a September report by the non-profit Florence Project for Refugee and Migrant Rights

Based on a fifteen-month investigation and hundreds of individual interviews, the report also found that one in four of the interviewed unaccompanied minors say they were verbally abused. Many more report a lack of hygiene products, medical supplies, warm clothes, and food.

“Kids shouldn’t be held in inhumane conditions, subjected to abuse,” said Jane Liu, director of Policy and Litigation at the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights. “There really is just very little accountability.” Her organization works with the Florence Project, part of a collective effort to bring visibility to the conditions unaccompanied immigrant children are held in.

Detention centers for unaccompanied minors have long been criticized, and the Florence Project’s report is the most recent update in a history of attempts at change, says Liu. “Every couple years we’ve been raising these issues . And nothing has been done.”

The Customs and Border Patrol agency was created in 2002 as a subsidiary of the DHS, explains Luis Coronado, history professor at the University of Arizona and member of the Binational Migration Institute. Before then, the paths of unaccompanied migrant children were determined by Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS).

“If you think things are bad now, it was horrendous back in the 80s and 90s,” said Liu about detention facilities. Litigation against the US government for its treatment of unaccompanied immigrant children started in 1985, with the Flores v. Reno case. It was dismissed in 1993 after a long legal battle.

Despite the case’s closure, public pressure persisted, and in 1997 the Clinton administration signed the landmark Flores Settlement, the nation’s first formalization of unaccompanied migrant children standards for care.

Since then, CBP has become responsible for unaccompanied migrant children after their apprehension. Updates in 2008 resulted in CBP’s promise to hold minors for no more than 72 hours (notably excluding “exigent circumstances”) at which point they should be transferred to the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR).

But the reality inside the facilities often differs harshly from CBP’s promises.

In 2019, the agency apprehended an all-time high of 76,136 unaccompanied immigrant children, prompting what CBP called a “crisis.”

Elora Mukherjee, director of the Immigrant Rights Clinic at Columbia Law School, reported that at CBP’s Clint Texas facility that year, children were being held for over a month, without access to showers or sufficient food.

Between September 2018 and May 2019, six migrant children died in government custody – the first deaths in a decade. Then in June of 2019, Trump administration lawyers appeared in court arguing that the government isn’t legally required to give unaccompanied immigrant minors toothbrushes, towels, or “sleep.”

Just a week later, the state of Texas was sued for the inhumane conditions in the facilities of Rio Grande Valley and El Paso.

The facilities promised to improve, but in 2023 Anadith Danay Reyes Alvarez, 8-years-old, died in Texas CBP custody. An independent investigation attributed the failure to “systemic weaknesses.”

Despite the fact that unaccompanied migrant children apprehensions have steadily declined since 2019, CBP was sued again in February of 2024, this time for their open air detention sites – transitory spaces which, they argued, didn’t fall under the purview of the Flores settlement.

CBP declined to comment about any previous suits or allegations against them, including the Florence Project’s most recent report.

Liu fears that there will be no improvements even after the Florence report documents on-going abuse, “kids will tell us about literal abuse that they’ve suffered. But they don’t want to raise complaints because they fear retaliation.” She said that as a result, most abuse goes unreported.

Even when unaccompanied minors do raise formal complaints, they often don’t know the names of the officers. “It’s a bit of a black box in there,” said Liu. CBP facilities are inaccessible for non-government agencies, so reports like that of the Florence Project can only be taken retroactively.

Speaking of CBP’s internal failings, Coronado said, “It’s not because they don’t want to pay attention, but because it’s very functional for them to not pay attention.” Holding individual officers accountable, he explained, threatens their system.

There are reports that CBP is internally investigating over 200 of their officers, but Liu said she wasn’t aware of any internal investigation. Regardless of any internal efforts, she didn’t think CBP had been making the necessary systematic changes.

“The bottom line is that the CBP facilities are really temporary holding facilities,” says Liu. “They’re not meant for anyone, to be honest.”

My underlying thread when reading the articles of this week was a sense of policy disorientation. The stark differences in processes for Ukrainian refugees and latin americans (particularly Venezuelans) showed the fluidity of our system. In the series Immigration Nation, there’s a moment where it’s shown that refugees who could be released from southern detention centers are kept for political reasons, a moment where the ambiguities in the legal processes are instrumentalized. Watching the video about the comparative ease with which Ukrainians came in, I was shocked. But then reading the article by Sahalie Donaldson and seeing the NYT graphic showing the influx of refugees to New York, I saw how unprepared major American cities really are for that influx. (We) were able to handle Ukrainian immigrants, what is it about their Latin American counterparts that destabilizes the refugee system? Is it that they tend to land with better-established family members? Or that their presence incites less political backlash? 

Reading the chronicle of Mayor Adams’ failures and experiments, it’s clear the city is struggling with how to adapt. Adams was faced with pressure on all sides; while human rights groups decry the conditions refugees find themselves in, native New Yorkers (like Barry Bliss) and conservative politicians push back on the camps and housing developments. A great part of that struggle is definitely due to Abbott’s busing programs, but regardless it seems like New York is unequipped to handle migrant influxes. I wonder what policies have worked as responses to mass migration in the past? I see a lot of valid complaints, but I have no idea what the answer to refugee influxes is. The issue is often presented in monetary terms – one NYT article says that Abbott has spent more than 230 million to bus 120,000 migrants to New York. Wouldn’t that money be better spent if we thought of it tangibly as (nearly) 2k dollars for each immigrant? First off, where’s that money going? And especially as New York spends many times more than that, what would be the best use for that money? The most tangibly beneficial? 

A “methods” question, because I’m still trying to read this with an eye for how to improve: how are visual elements best utilized in these articles? The interview on CBS is a great example of face-to-face time forcing empathy, and the NYT interactive visual model that shows migrant busing does a fantastic job of making the issue feel more understandable. But in general, how are photos (especially of people) used (because they are “used”) without dehumanizing their subjects? The Ferré-Sadurni and Bensimon article has great photos, and I think part of my attraction to them is from the fact that they’re not always straightforward – the second to last photo of the drying clothes is deeply powerful, despite the lack of a human subject. In looking for images that help, I hope to find telling details.

When Koki Ogawa interviews you, she looks you in the eyes. She holds a notepad but doesn’t look down at it for extended periods. She launches her questions kindly, as generous in her silence as she is with everything else.

When you ask Koki a serious question, sometimes she “giggles it away,” her Princeton roommate Navani Rachumallu says. Despite her accolades mounting to teetering heights, she’ll shrug off any question about her accomplishments. Koki – whose name means “happy princess” in Japanese – isn’t taciturn by any means, but if you ask her a question about herself, she looks up and away while speaking. Her aversion to talking about herself is borne from a deep care for others. If she’s at a table with a water pitcher, she serves everyone else before pouring her own glass. When she’s interviewing you, she nods and makes you feel heard.

Koki was born on July 17, 2003, and spent the first year of her life between Illinois and Korea. Her mom, Sarah Wittenbrink, was born in Chicago but moved to Korea after getting her Masters, falling in love there with Yukumi Ogawa, Koki’s dad. After getting Koki her American-born citizenship, the family moved back to Kyoto, finding a house near the middle school where Wittenbrink teaches English.

Wittenbrink remembers Koki as social, smart, and stubborn; despite being accepted to Doshisha, the local middle school where Wittenbrink taught, Koki independently decided in fourth grade that she wanted to go to Senri International School (SIS) – a school that was two hours away from Koki’s home on the train, and that required a written exam. They tried to dissuade the energetic ten year old, but Koki had already made up her mind.

While Koki attributes that “stubbornness,” to her dad – a master plasterer, who himself has a two-hour commute to work – it’s her mom that she says inspires her academically. A perfectionist through high school and into Princeton, she’s the first person on her father’s side of the family to attend college.

Despite her background of academic excellence – president of the World Scholar’s Club and of her school’s student council – she felt “imposter syndrome,” at Princeton. ”You’ve got people who are members of Mensa (…) I would psych myself out,” she remembers.

A junior in the anthropology department, she’s now the editor of the legal journal and director of the Asylum project. She also researches police body camera footage, and tutors with the Petey Green program, helping people who are incarcerated get their GEDs. When asked if she does anything more, she shrugs and giggles. “I probably do other things,” she says.

She doesn’t feel like an outsider anymore, but she says she still feels “behind.”

Her freshman year, Koki wrote and published an academic article on Japan’s Women-Only-Carriages (WOC) – spaces on trains designed to prevent sexual assault and harrasment, but which ignore the root causes of the issues. Recalling the sexism she faced during her four hour daily commute, and the cultural expectation of non-confrontation, she’s proud to have published in a Japanese journal; now, she wants to stand up for others.

Koki spent this last summer in New Orleans working for the Tulane Law Clinic’s Women Prison Project. There, she helped victims of intimate partner violence. In one of her cases, a woman who reported being forcefully injected drugs by her partner was still given a twenty-year sentence for having “used.” While talking about it, Koki still gets flustered.

She can admit the work was “very intense,” (autopsies were among the documents she read) but the confidentiality practices of her work block her from sharing much more than that. “You’re dealing with these very, like, emotional and traumatic moments on a daily basis,” Koki says. “You’re not allowed to have an outlet.”

Koki’s family and friends worry about the burden she takes on. Despite how little Wittenbrink knows about Koki’s work, she tears up while talking about it.

Both Rachumallu and Wittenbrink worry that Koki’s kindness and work ethic are a dangerous combination; because of how much care she imbues into all the work she does, it can sometimes be all-consuming.

Koki presents calmly, but when Red Bull becomes late-night fuel, Rachumallu notices: the room becomes messier, unfolded laundry covers LSAT prep-book pages. She thinks that sometimes, Koki cares enough for others that she doesn’t think about herself.

“I tend to define my happiness by the things that I’ve accomplished or haven’t accomplished,” Koki will admit. The day she was just accepted to the ACLU’s internship program for this upcoming summer (a job where she’ll help victims of intimate partner violence get clemency) she says she couldn’t stop thinking about a 9.6/10 she’d gotten on an assignment.

One of Koki’s earliest memories is learning about climate change in second grade. At the time, she told her parents she would solve it single-handedly. She says, “I just want to be able to be proud of what I’m doing, and to me a point of pride is being able to know that I’m helping people.”

“Like any parent, I just want my kids to be happy,” Wittenbrink says. Talking about Koki’s work over the summer, she continues: “And sometimes I look at this and I think, like, does this lead to happiness? I can’t see it.”

“But it doesn’t matter as long as she can.”


Sources:
Koki Ogawa
Sarah Wittenbrink
Navani Rachumallu
https://subsite.icu.ac.jp/cgs/images/706d19ccda7dd676b987dc6150ccd8951633c553.pdf
https://jrc.princeton.edu/people/ogawa

I loved how these articles (and video) took on similar topics – comparisons and analyses of Trump and Biden’s immigration policies – and still felt like vastly differently articles. I’m continuing to approach our weekly readings as “example of craft,” (and then waffling between that and whether I should think about policy, but whatever) so I was focused on the way they all transmitted their information. The first article, which takes on a historical perspective, was really powerful in building out patterns and providing a strong argument for why Trump’s plan won’t work. But at the same time, there were ambiguities, and that historical focus felt unexciting if that’s fair to say – not boring by any means, but I can’t imagine it captured public attention. Jonathan Blitzer’s article, meanwhile, did a great job of politically analyzing. It used lots of data, maintained clarity through well-defined points, and also had some entertainment factor. The article written by Taladrid, however, was my favorite – and I realize the goal of these readings isn’t value judgment, but I only point that out to notice my own taste in writing. I found the narrative about Bárcena, whose description could’ve been a profile, really compelling. It entertained me, and at the same time the narrative was used to tell a fantastic story about the border and about US-Mexico relations. I was particularly impressed by the pangs of data which pierced the narrative flow – references to Biden’s border-enforcement budget compared to his budget for root causes of migration, “we’re trading one and a half million dollars per minute.” In my own writing, I realize I tend towards preferring narrative, but I want to take the lesson of purposeful data from this article. Using tight, concise, and sparse data points managed to make a deeper impact than a paragraph of data would have. Just something for me to think of going forward.

The monetary/political aspect of the border really caught my attention this week. By highlighting trade-relations between Mexico and the United States, I felt like Taladrid brought up the often-unseen part of politics – an affirmation of how imaginary harsh border policies are, his article showed that mutual exchange is necessary for the survival of both countries. In this context, “closing the border,” and other enforcement techniques felt as political as López Obrador’s new airport. I felt like Blitzer’s article did an amazing job of showing the border as a political issue too; seeing Republican pushback against Biden’s border bill, when it’s something that they would support if one of their politicians raised it, shows the absurdity of the political game. More than anything, it maybe shows the benefit Trump and other Republicans get from illegal immigration – they can mobilize the topic, and therefore use it to gain more votes.

After Tuesday’s debate, it felt impossible to read these articles without thinking about Kamala’s insertion into this conversation. When immigration came up as a topic, I remember feeling the air leave the room I was in – there’s an understanding (one shown by Taladrid in Mexico’s double-bind, where they fear helping Trump get reelected) that any conversation around immigration will go Trump’s way. Kamala managed to rope-a-dope, which the media loved, but not before making certain statements about border security. The parallels between her and Biden were clear, and it felt, again, like a very political move. My final comment is that I find it super interesting how, when immigrants from other countries come to the US, those countries feel the pressure. While Mexico tries not to make their border policies based solely on American interests, I was wondering how Haitian news outlets might be reacting to Trump’s comments about Springfield.

I started with the John McPhee reading and, probably for that reason, I then read the other pieces with an eye towards their narrative. I was happy to see the structure McPhee laid out in The Picnic, where linearity is less important than good writing. Especially in the first chapters of Longo’s book, time jumps around constantly; it’s not the form that I expect historical nonfiction books to take, but in this case I found the thematic organization to be much more fun to read.

I was also interested in the craft and information-gathering behind Longo’s book. I’m wondering how he decided where to “start” his story – while the prologue brings us to the present, the book begins pretty shortly before the August 19th picnic. I’m wondering how he decided to begin it there, and not with more historical context of the iron curtain? And since the information gathered can’t be “seen,” how did he gather it and feel out which details were most important? Thinking particularly of the meeting between Gorbachev and Németh where the aides were told to stop writing what was happening, and Longo’s reference to the “shadow archive of secret decisions,” how was this archive of material accessed? I imagine that many of the events we write about in this class might have happened before we could start reporting, so we might come across similar experiences with hidden information. And in the seventeenth chapter, there’s such a wealth of detail and emotional information – since the book was written ~30 years after the event, how was that information gathered and selected?

One quote from the prologue particularly stuck with me: “There’s a saying popular in Hungary, he says. The future is certain. It’s the past that keeps changing.” In all these readings, there are continual references to the power of reporting. Goudeau references articles, speeches, government reports on the state of camps – these are affecting change in government and political opinion. Poszgay’s public radio address does the same. The readings collected this week present writing as a political act, in these cases with antifascist potential. Reading both Goudeau and Longo (where criticism of militarized borders should cause reflection on our end) we’re confronted with the present by understanding the past. Their pieces of writing have potential to cause change; returning to the quote I initially called to, they have the potential to present the past in a different way. The American border requires scrutiny, and the return of fascist parties in Hungary (and everywhere in the world) equally calls for action. I don’t know how to make my writing effective, what it is that takes words to action, but these readings personally make me feel responsible to learn how to. I’m very excited for this class.