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Developments

Migration was a principal topic at the September 10 presidential campaign debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump.

Without offering much specifics, Harris portrayed herself as a former border-state prosecutor whose “tough on border security” credentials included past efforts against cross-border organized crime.

Harris reiterated support for a bill, which failed in the U.S. Senate in February even though Democratic and Republican senators had negotiated a compromise, that “would have put 1,500 more border agents on the border” and “would have allowed us to stem the flow of fentanyl.” That bill also included restrictions on access to asylum similar to those that the Biden administration imposed in June; Harris did not mention asylum though it was part of the debate moderator’s question.

Donald Trump’s frequent, vitriolic, and often false comments about the border and migrants (whom he said “have destroyed the fabric of our country”) provided the debate with some of its most colorful and remarked-upon moments. The Los Angeles Times’ Andrea Castillo cited several occasions when the former president steered his remarks back to his antipathy toward migration, even when another topic was at hand. (Harris derailed Trump, though, during the migration discussion, leading him to use up much allotted response time responding to a comment about his public rallies.)

Trump leaned all the way into false claims, amplified earlier on right-wing social media, that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio were “eating the dogs…eating the cats” of the town’s residents. Trump also raised allegations that migrants are contributing to rising violent crime in the United States. Debate moderators fact-checked both claims: nobody is eating pets in Springfield, and U.S. crime rates are actually falling.

• Riley Hoffman, “Read: Harris-Trump presidential debate transcript” (ABC News, September 10, 2024).
• Andrea Castillo, “Why Trump Kept Going Back to Immigration Again and Again” (The Los Angeles Times, September 11, 2024).
• Avery Lotz, “Biden Admin Condemns “Dangerous” Conspiracy About Haitian Immigrants” (Axios, September 10, 2024).
• Kevin Rector, “Trump Says Crime Is Soaring, and Immigrants Are to Blame. The Data Tell Another Story” (The Los Angeles Times, September 10, 2024).
• Salome Ramirez Vargas, “Harris y Trump se Embisten en Primer Debate, Con Inmigracion Como Protagonista” (VOA, Tal Cual (Venezuela), September 11, 2024).

NPR’s Jasmine Garsd found that racist anti-immigrant movements have a long history of accusing migrants of consuming house pets.

• Jasmine Garsd, “The Stereotype of Immigrants Eating Dogs and Cats Is Storied — and Vitriolic as Ever” (National Public Radio, September 11, 2024).

At the Intercept, Natasha Lennard lamented that Harris’s remarks didn’t include even standard liberal rhetoric about immigrants’ many positive contributions to the United States.

• Natasha Lennard, “Kamala Harris Accepted Trump’s Racist Lie That Immigration Is Bad” (The Intercept, September 11, 2024).

The Washington Post published an overview of what Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have said on the record about deporting undocumented people, pathways to U.S. citizenship, separating migrant families, and policy toward refugees and asylum seekers.

• Abbie Cheeseman, Anthony J. Rivera, Justine Mcdaniel, Maria Sacchetti, “Harris vs. Trump on Immigration: Where They Stand on the Issue” (The Washington Post, September 10, 2024).

Texas state Attorney-General Ken Paxton (R), who has been on a legal offensive against charities that assist migrants released from CBP custody along the border, filed a new petition seeking to overrule an earlier judge’s refusal to order a sworn deposition of Sister Norma Pimentel, the director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley.

• Dina Arevalo, “Texas Ag Continues Effort to Depose, Shut Down Catholic Charities” (The Brownsville Herald, September 10, 2024).

At the Border Chronicle, Melissa del Bosque compared Attorney-General Paxton’s harassment of NGOs to those of authoritarian leaders elsewhere in the world who have sought to close down independent organizations, like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán or Guatemalan prosecutor Rafael Curruchiche.

• Melissa del Bosque, “The Authoritarian Playbook” (The Border Chronicle, September 10, 2024).

Analyses and Feature Stories

Human Rights Watch published a third report since November on the Darién Gap, this one focused on how migration policies in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, and Peru have complicated regularization and integration of Haitian and Venezuelan migrants, driving many to depart for the United States via the treacherous jungle route.

• “Americas: Limited Protection for People Fleeing Venezuela, Haiti” (Human Rights Watch, September 11, 2024).

A study published in the journal Injury Epidemiology found that adults migrating toward the United States “are extorted on average $804 per research participant throughout the journey.” The most common extortion perpetrators that 85 respondents cited were police officers (80.6%), immigration officials (37.3%), organized crime (25.4%), and military personnel (20.9%). Extortion happened most often in Mexico (77.6%) and Guatemala (67.2%), two countries that seek to block, detain, and deport migrants as a matter of policy.

• Kelsea Pieters, “Researchers Identify Another Common and Harmful Experience Among Latinx Immigrants Traveling to the Us: Extortion” (University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, September 10, 2024).

The Mexican government’s implementation of measures to facilitate migrants’ journey to the U.S. border for CBP One appointments “has been slow and chaotic,” reported the independent Cuban news outlet El Toque. “many migrants remain stranded in [Mexico’s southern border-zone city of] Tapachula without access to transportation or the necessary permits.”

• Yenys Laura Prieto, “Cbp One y Movilidad Segura en Mexico: Lo Que Nadie Te Ha Contado” (El Toque (Cuba), September 10, 2024).

On the Right

• Anna Giaritelli, “Harris Backed Slashing Ice and Funding Gender-Transition Surgeries for Illegal Immigrants” (The Washington Examiner, September 10, 2024).