Tag: news bias

Asylum seekers from Mexico are afraid to wait in Mexico while their cases are being examined in the US. A new policy enforces immigrants to wait in their home country before entering the US. The policy was introduced to families from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. Children traveling alone are exempt from this policy. Claims say that the US administration is doing this to discourage immigrants from coming here and to reduce immigration court backlog of more than 800,000 cases.

The article was mainly about how the Department of Homeland Security is fighting this new policy by advocating for the needs of asylum seekers. Lawyers are doing all that they can to fight to allow refugees to stay here until their cases are resolved. Refugees say that they fear to return to their homelands because of the danger related to race, religion, political beliefs, nationality, or membership in a particular social group.

Asylum seekers are being forced to wait in unsafe environments and have a difficult time getting legal advice while waiting in Mexico. In a report, Tijuana, a Mexican city directly across the border from San Diego, there were more than 2,500 homicides last year.

This policy is harmful to refugees who are in danger in their home country. Forcing them to go back while they wait for approval to enter the US can take a long time. The one thing that I wish this article went more into detail about is why refugees were afraid to go back to their countries. Some believe that this policy change was a unilateral move by the trump administration.

Source:

March 2019. Asylum seekers say they fear return to Mexico under new US policy. Aljazeera. Retrieved from aljazeera.com/…/asylum-seekers-fear-return-mexico-policy-190320152131826.

An article from The Washington Times written by Stephen Dinan was published on April 3, 2019. The article is titled “Trump doubles down on border closure threat”. The site automatically comes out from its site banner as a publisher from the right side. This article talks about how Trump earlier in the week planned to close the border but has now gone back on his word. The article says trump originally had his projections set on Mexico with the situation of overflowing asylum seekers in America, and now has his attention on Congress.

According to the article Trump wants Congress to create a new law that allows virtual assurances to families seeking asylum to be admitted into the U.S. and give them court dates years in the future so that they can disappear in the shadows. The article also notes that few will win asylum but most will not be ousted.

Knowing that this article is published for the right, I feel it was written in a way to rile people up. The author leads on that Trump is allowing a new way for immigrants to stay in the states. The article even mentions that 98% of the asylum families from 2017 are still in the states. The article had the comments in a debate between Trump not standing firm, the problems immigrants will supposedly cause for schools, prisons, jobs, and more, and what past presidents have done as far as denying asylum.

This article lacks credible sources and a non-bias tone.

Dinan, Stephen. “Trump Doubles down on Border Closure Threat.” AllSides, The Washington Times, 3 Apr. 2019, www.allsides.com/news/2019-04-03-0839/trump-doubles-down-border-closure-threat.

The New York Times posted an article on January 7, 2019 called Helping Immigrants Find Their Path to Citizenshipdiscusses the stories of immigrants who received the assistance they needed in the U.S. in order to create a successful future as U.S. citizens. The first person featured in the article is Juan Cifuentes who shares his journey from Colombia to the U.S. He and his family came to join his grandmother in New York. Cifuentes says, “Being an immigrant, you encounter things you never expect and feel things you don’t know about. It’s all part of the process.” Although they faced those challenges, he also says that they focused on the future and opportunities. The article then discusses the process the family went through to gain citizenship. The family used available resources such as a nonprofit agency the Jacob A. Riis Neighborhood Settlement. This agency helped the family prepare by providing English classes, after school programs and senior services. They are supported by the F.P.W.A. They also provided free legal counsel. This free legal system also helped another person in the article. Alberto Perez Smith failed his first time applying for citizenship but received it later with help from the legal counsel. This article highlights the helpful and accepting agencies and neighborhoods within New York City that allow immigrants to become successful. The immigrants in this article remain hopeful and loyal to the United States because of the help they received from agencies instead of suffering from the government process. There is bias present throughout this article and can be recognized from the three sources used. Two immigrants and a lawyer who works to help immigrants. It also only focuses on the positives of successful immigration and citizenship processes.

Tumin, Remy. “Helping Immigrants Find Their Path to Citizenship.” The New York Times [New York], 7 Jan. 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/01/07/neediest-cases/helping-immigrants-find-their-path-to-citizenship.html.

My article was posted from the Baltimore Sun in March and was a very heartbreaking article to read because I know many of these cases. However, the article mentions a new policy that sends asylum seekers waiting for responses from San Diego to Tijuana, Mexico after six weeks. The U.S. border patrol agents are targeting “people who speak Spanish and come from Latin America…” (Spagat). I find this bizarre and unfair to spanish speaking people because they are targeting them and not someone who speaks any other language. This is unfair to them because Tijuana is nowhere safer than the U.S. Juan Carlos Perla left El Salvador for the main reason many Salvadorians leave, gang related threats. Mr. Perla was threatened by the 18^thstreet gang who are dangerous but as dangerous as others however, being beaten up for missing a payment is very scary then being threatened to be killed if you miss the next payment is even scarier. In the Tijuana holding areas, the men say it’s “inhumane” since it’s cramped, bright lights and cold. There are no available legal services unless they can find someone who can practice law in Mexico. The heartbreaking line was the last one with Mr. Perla saying, “My case is a lost cause.” Many immigrant and refugees feel this way because they know the system will not help them and they have so much to lose. You will not meet an immigrant who doesn’t feel safe every day because you know never know what will happen which is disappointing to know how these situations are handled. This was a negative experience for these people going through the system.

References

Spagat, Elliot. “Asylum Seeker Abandons US Plans in Face of New Policy.” Baltimoresun.com, Baltimore Sun, 22 Mar. 2019,

www.baltimoresun.com/news/nation-world/sns-bc-lt–us-mexico-asylum-20190315-story.html.