Michelle Quist Mumford: Hurricane Harvey's devastation illustrates weaknesses in U.S. immigration laws

The devastation caused by Hurricane Harvey in Texas is total. Category 4 winds destroyed homes, buildings and basically the entire town of Rockport, Texas. Houston is presently under water. The flooding has filled homes with water, broken bridges and torn up roads and highways. It will likely be weeks before we have accurate data on the damage to life and property Harvey caused.

It is almost impossible to prepare for a natural disaster like Harvey. What good is a year’s worth of food storage if your house is under water? There is one thing we can do to prepare, though: fix our immigration system. In the face of such a disaster, no person on earth should have to hesitate, for fear of deportation, when looking for safety or emergency aid.

According to the Pew Research Center, there are hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants in Houston and other parts of Texas affected by the storm. To compound worries about deportation, local, state and federal officials gave conflicting messages.

Before a federal judge stepped in Wednesday, a new Texas law that would have outlawed sanctuary cities would have gone into effect Friday. The law, which has been only temporarily blocked, threatens local police with jail time if they do not help with deportation enforcement.

The Texas Tribune reported that the U. S. Customs and Border Control did not halt its roadside checkpoints along the evacuation route, even while the storm raged on.

In a joint statement from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Control, officials said on Tuesday that “[r]outine non-criminal immigration enforcement operations will not be conducted at evacuation sites, or assistance centers such as shelters or food banks.” But that same statement threatened that “[t]he laws will not be suspended and we will be vigilant against any effort by criminals to exploit disruptions caused by the storm.”

Houston’s mayor Sylvester Turner tried to combat immigrants’ fear by assuring them that city officials would not be enforcing immigration laws as people sought refuge from the storm. Turner said, “I don’t care who you are, I don’t care what your status is. I do not want you to run the risk of losing your life or a family member because you’re concerned about [the new sanctuary city law] or anything else.”

It still wasn’t enough. NPR reported on an undocumented immigrant named Arnulfo, who spoke of the fear many immigrants experienced. He said he was “afraid - afraid of going to the store for supplies, afraid of calling for rescue if the water inche[d] up his porch, afraid of getting arrested and deported back to San Luis Potosi, Mexico.”

The New York Times reported that an agent with a Border Patrol unit who had arrived in Houston to help had to appear on the Univision news “to reassure people in Spanish that the agents were here to save the lives of people endangered by the storm, not to check their documents.”

Undocumented immigrants’ fear of status-checks at aid stations was not irrational. Coupled with Texas’ new law on sanctuary cities, Texas is also part of an effort by ten states to force President Trump into reversing the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. In fact, Texas is leading this effort. 

The DACA program defers deportation of persons who were brought to the United States as children under the age of 16, who meet other requirements. DACA defers removal for two years, subject to renewal, and grants the recipient work authorization. President Obama initiated the DACA program after the repeated failure of Congress to pass the Development, Relief, and Education for Minors – or DREAM – Act. The DREAM Act grants residency status to minors who were brought to this country as children by their presumably more-culpable parents.

Twenty states have expressed support for continuing the DACA program. Additionally, the DREAM Act has bipartisan support.

We wouldn’t be debating the merits of increasing and/or abusing executive power through the DACA program if Congress would do its job and pass immigration reform. Providing residency for DREAMers has broad public support. Let’s pass it, or similar legislation like Rep. Chris Stewart’s BRIDGE Act, then work on broader reform that ensures no person in America will ever be scared to ask for help during a natural disaster.

Our nation was built by immigrants, and is sustained by immigrants today. To praise our charitable response to Houston without recognizing that our immigration system added to the devastation is irresponsible and immoral.

Michelle Quist Mumford is an editorial writer for the Salt Lake Tribune who is almost desperate enough to vote Democrat if the current Congress doesn’t pass immigration reform. Almost.