Arizona Daily Sun from Flagstaff, Arizona • A5

ArizonA DAily Sun Wednesday, June 27, 2018 A5 1 ANNE FLAHERTY Associated Press resident Donald Trump claimed this week on Twit-ter that immigration problems could be solved by stopping migrants at the border and de- nying their access to a judge after entering the country illegally. But nowhere near that simple or legal. a look at how immi- gration talk squares with reality: So the holdup? The process of determining a claim to stay inside the United States can takes months or years to render a deci- sion, in part because of the large number of cases and a shortage of immigration judges. The Justice Department immigration courts division has about 335 judges cur- rently on staff nationwide, with a budget for 150 additional judges. But not nearly enough to manage the backlog of some 700,000 immigration cases and counting.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who oversees immigration courts, has sought major changes to unclog the court, in- cluding hiring more judges and prosecu- tors, imposing quotas on judges to try to get them to work through cases quickly, and trying to condense what is typically a monthslong prosecution process into a single day. But critics say there are serious draw- backs to his approach. They say quotas interfere with a ability to re- main impartial, and that jamming cases through an already overwhelmed system violates a due process. The National Association of Immigra- tion Judges, which has taken particular exception to the quotas for immigration judges, says politics in general has cre- ated an implosion of the system and wants to pull immigration judges out from under the Justice De- purview. IMMIGRATION Trump Migrants, a president and a Customs and Border Patrol agent patrols the international border in april in nogales, ariz.

MATT YORK, ASSOCIATED PRESS Those who enter country illegally have a complicated legal process ahead Can people be turned away at the border? Not necessarily. After people enter the U.S., they fall under its jurisdiction and laws. If they are from Mexico, they can be sent back over the border. But Mexico be forced to accept people who come from other countries, and many of the migrants illegally crossing the southern U.S. border are traveling from countries in Central America such as Honduras and El Salvador where ex- treme poverty and a spike in violence triggered a wave of migration north.

So the fi rst question after a person winds up in U.S. custody for illegally crossing the border is whether they can even be returned to their home country or if they have a legitimate claim to be inside the United States. Does the Constitution apply? The Fifth Amendment of the Con- stitution provides process of meaning that a person has certain rights when it comes to being prosecuted for a crime. And the 14th Amendment says no state can to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the The courts have generally interpreted that to mean that once a person has crossed the U.S. border, that person has the right to present his or her case, in- cluding any claim of political asylum.

Conservative commentators often criticize these rulings, or ignore them. But access to the U.S. court system by non-citizens was in part why President George W. Bush opted to detain terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, an area leased to the U.S. military by Cuba.

How does work? Due process can look diff erent for each case. Rules for refugees, for exam- ple, diff er from those seeking political asylum. A criminal record can play a role too, as can the location of entry, such as a designated port of arrival ver- sus other parts of the border. Under current rules, a person detained within 100 miles of the border and who has been in the country for less than 14 days can be deported immediately, without being processed through im- migration courts. But the person can also claim asylum, triggering a series of screenings by the federal government to determine if they are eligible.

To qual- ify, they must demonstrate that they fear persecution as a result of their race, religion, polit- ical opinion or other factors. What about the border wall? true that desire for a border wall could lessen some of the legal compli- cations of immigration. If no one can physically enter the United States, the pressure on U.S. immigration courts would ease somewhat. But that account for people who enter the country legally and overstay their visa.

Other drawbacks include the cost and logistics of what it would take to build an imposing structure spanning 2,000 miles across the south- ern border. Mexican offi cials have atly rejected paying for the wall, as Trump suggested during his campaign would happen. And Congress has balked at giving him the $25 billion he wants and provided only $1.6 billion, much of which will be used to replace existing structures. NEWS ANITA SNOW Associated Press PHOENIX As word spread that the Trump administration was separating migrant families, urgent calls went out across the internet: Interpreters were needed at the U.S.-Mexico border to help immigrants understand their legal cases. But this call was not for Span- ish speakers.

These interpreters needed to speak the lesser-known indigenous languages of Guate- mala and Mexico, including Mayan languages and Zapotec. Messages fi lled social media. An online fundraiser generated more than $12,000. Translators quickly began impromptu legal training. Interpreter Brigade is springing into action Es- ther Navarro-Hall, of Monterey, California, wrote on her Facebook page.

Guatemalans have been the larg- est group of immigrants appre- hended at the Mexico border this year, with almost 29,300 families arrested from Oct. 1 to May 31, ac- cording to the U.S. Border Patrol. Many of them are not uent in Spanish and instead speak Mayan languages known as and Mam. As families were separated and children were put into government shelters, indigenous language speakers had few options to com- municate.

Navarro-Hall is organizing interpreters to help attorneys communicate with non-Span- ish-speaking indigenous children and their detained parents to en- sure their legal and medical needs are met and that they understand immigration proceedings. has the human right to understand any legal process against them in their own lan- said Odilia Romero, a tri- lingual interpreter who is working with Navarro-Hall. She speaks English, Spanish and her native Zapotec spoken in Oaxaca, Mexico. Romero recruited her friend Bricia Lopez, of the popular Guelaguetza restaurant in Los An- geles, to launch a gofundme.com campaign that raised the money to send Mayan interpreters to Arizona and Texas. The original plan was to send six speakers of Mayan languages, but that number grew to 20, Romero said.

She said she expects them to be on the ground on the border in the next few days or weeks. Although indigenous languages are far less common than Spanish, they are still used by hundreds of thousands of people. The most widely used of Mayan languages, is spoken by more 1.2 million people, accord- ing to that last offi cial government estimate from 2002. Navarro-Hall started her Inter- preter Brigade to organize Span- ish speakers to help victims of the deadly earthquake last September in Mexico City. To work with sep- arated families, teamed up with a Fresno-based group of in- digenous interpreters that Romero leads, the Indigenous Front of Bi- national Organizations.

Los Angeles immigration attor- ney Robert Foss provides the legal component of training sessions Romero and Navarro-Hall are or- ganizing. He said he worries about children who may be disciplined or not get needed medical care be- cause they cannot communicate in Spanish. An accurate rendering of an in- digenous words can be critical in asylum cases, said Foss, who said he speaks rudimentary and has handled asylum cases for Central Americans since the 1990s. you cannot articulate well enough what happened to you, the court will probably fi nd that you did not establish a motive, or a nexus, for your Foss said. Having an interpreter is essential due process, for a full and fair Judy Jenner, spokeswoman for the American Translators Associa- tion said important that inter- preters be professionally trained, not just uent speakers of or other languages.

because you have two hands mean you can play the she said. She also noted that interpretation is for the spo- ken word and translation for the written. Jenner and Romero both said relay interpretation, using a third person to provide the Spanish-En- glish rendering either in person or over the phone can be useful in emergencies, but should be a last resort. really like playing the tele- phone game. If in the middle, hoping that the ish interpreter is providing a good Jenner said.

pretty Mesoamerican language spe- cialists are not the only interpret- ers sought amid the wave of family separations. Family separations bring call for rare language interpreters DAMIAN DOVARGANES Odilia Romero, right, a trilingual interpreter in english, spanish and her native Zapotec, a language from the Mexican state of Oaxaca, sits with her friend, Bricia Lopez, Tuesday at her Oaxacan restaurant, La Guelaguetza, in Los angeles. DAVID BAUDER Associated Press NEW YORK The children at the center of the national debate over President Donald immigration policy have been heard about but rarely seen. News organizations say they are pushing back every day against Trump administration restrictions on access to facil- ities where children separated from their parents are being held. Government handouts satisfy few, and there have been disputes raised in some of the few inde- pendent instances where a sense emerges of what is happening at the border.

New video emerged late Mon- day on Rachel MSNBC program allegedly showing young children at a government facility in New York City. Maddow said it was taken and smuggled out by an employee who has since quit and wishes to remain anonymous. not enough for the gov- ernment to provide curated im- said Noah Oppenheim, NBC News president. pub- lic expects and demands and has the right to see a verifi ed picture of what is going on inside these detention centers and how this policy is being carried out in their After reporters were allowed to tour one Texas facility without cameras, the administration ob- jected to descriptions of fenced-in enclosures as cages. A still photo- graph of a crying Honduran tod- dler whose mother was stopped crossing into the United States became a symbol to many of the since-reversed separation policy, in large part because other images were limited.

The government re- vealed Friday that the girl and her mother were being held together. Calls for access collide with a longstanding tradition of not al- lowing photographs of children in government care that the feds have applied to the immigrant children. The federal Health and Human Services department cites a 2015 policy that predates presidency in prohib- iting cameras, interviews with children or tours without two notice. Their age leaves the children vulnerable to abuse, HHS said. If the government wants to negotiate, there are ways to set ground rules to protect the in- terests of both sides.

For in- stance, journalists are often embedded with military forces with the promise they re- veal strategy or troop movements that could put people at risk. CBS News is willing to negotiate, al- though standards editor Al Ortiz said Monday that CBS ran a story that showed some immigrant children being transported out- side of campgrounds with some faces visible. have a face- less Ortiz said. From the standpoint, the rule lowers the heat, communications experts say. Audio obtained by ProPublica of crying children at a federal facility was uential before Trump changed his policy even though there were no visuals.

general, your goal is to de- mystify things, because every imagination could run wild if you allow it said Joel John- son, who worked in the Clinton White House and Capitol Hill and is now managing director of the Glover Park Group, which includes crisis counseling. fundamental question is whether behind the curtain is worse than people imagine. If the case, you let people behind the Government communications offi cials want to control the mes- sage, and a camera in the face of toddlers is not a way to control the said Erin Pelton, who worked at the White House and the United Nations and is now managing director of the Washington fi rm Mercury. While they understood why the administration was taking this stance, Johnson and Pelton said it was doomed to fail, since inevitably more images will fi nd their way out. Media access restrictions on child detention centers.