thenation--2020-04-20--Russian Officials Dawdled as the Coronavirus Took Hold

Moscow , Russia—The number of passengers on Moscow ’ s subway has dropped by 80 percent since the city told residents to stay at home late last month .
So would-be riders approaching many of the city ’ s 275 stations on Wednesday were shocked to find half-hour lines stretching out onto the street .
Rather than social distancing , the launch of the city ’ s Covid-19 permit system has resulted in crowding .
Passengers crowded together in entrances and underground passageways as pairs of police officers scanned the QR codes that are now necessary for all trips by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were getting stuck in the giant traffic jams created by police checking drivers ’ codes .
The well-known caricaturist Sergey Elkin quickly drew up a cartoon of Muscovites waiting in line to receive coronavirus particles from the hands of Mayor Sergei Sobyanin .
“ They need to spread people out , have an organizer oversee the line so there would be two meters between each person , not just stand one after another breathing down each other ’ s necks , ” accountant Yelena Fomina told me .
While there had only been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ subway stop this morning , she complained that the police came in close contact with every person as they scanned the QR codes .
After the morning rush hour was over , Sobyanin declared that the “ lines have been eliminated.
” The city transportation department later promised to develop a method to check permits through passengers ’ subway cards .
Yet the disastrous start to the permit system was characteristic of Russia ’ s uneven response to the pandemic , and indeed its increasingly authoritarian system of governance as a whole .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , yet often tragically misguided and too late .
The country may be able to avoid the spectacularly catastrophic spread seen in the United States , but some say it should be doing better since it has had the American , British , and Italian outbreaks to learn from .
Friday brought another daily record of new infections , raising the official number of cases to 32,008 , with 273 deaths .
Given problems with the availability and efficacy of the Russian coronavirus test , the actual number is almost certainly far higher @ @ @ @ @ @ @ real forecasts , a real understanding of the situation and an honest conversation with the people , ” Darya Besedina , a liberal activist who was elected to Moscow ’ s city council amid widespread protests last year , told me .
“ There needs to be a high percentage of trust between people and the authorities to get through this kind of crisis .
Communication is more important than batons and bans.
” Russia closed its land border with China back in January .
But it was slower to react to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ two-week quarantine for travelers arriving from a handful of worst-hit countries in early March and then for travelers from the United States and other countries a week later .
Moscow ’ s burgeoning network of facial recognition cameras helped find people who had left their apartments during quarantine or run away from the main hospital testing and treating coronavirus patients .
( Now many more are taking them . )
It was already too late ; the first coronavirus infections that appeared in Russia mostly traced back to people who had vacationed in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ closed its borders with Russia after being hit with a new wave of infections from its northern neighbor—60 on one Aeroflot flight to Shanghai alone .
Whereas US President Donald Trump ’ s lack of leadership has been conspicuously on display during daily press briefings , Vladimir Putin has largely hidden behind his loyal lieutenants .
Forced to address the issue in mid-March , the Russian president first assured citizens that “ everything ’ s under control.
” But by the next week , the situation had become bad enough that he had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Unwilling as always to be the bearer of bad news , he announced a week off of work in a televised speech , then left Sobyanin and Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin to do the dirty work of closing restaurants and parks .
Many nonetheless sneaked out to enjoy the first week of warm weather with a barbecue , reportedly infuriating the mayor .
On March 30 , Sobyanin declared a “ self-isolation regime , ” ordering Muscovites to leave the house only for food , medicine , work , or to take out @ @ @ @ @ @ @ majority tried to stay home as much as possible , and those who did go out started wearing masks more often .
Yandex , Russia ’ s equivalent to Google , drew on user data to create a five-point “ self-isolation index , ” with zero representing normal activity and five representing completely empty streets .
For the most part , it hovered in the low threes .
The seed had already been planted , however , and the number of infections continued to rise exponentially .
When the Bolshoi Theater decided to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ last week , 34 tested positive .
Reports of overflowing hospitals abounded .
Ambulances raced through the streets .
On Friday , Sobyanin announced the permit system , a move that activists have described as an illegal invasion of privacy that is ripe for abuse .
“ When we ’ re talking about the life and health of a huge number of people , we have no choice .
Especially when we see that not everyone is following the limits we ’ ve set , ” the mayor said .
Putin ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Moscow didn ’ t show the required discipline.
” But Besedina and others have argued that it was not residents ’ lack of discipline but rather the government ’ s lack of communication that was to blame .
Putin ’ s statements painting Covid-19 as a foreign problem that Russia had “ contained ” hardly instilled a sense of urgency , and little public education work has been done .
Meanwhile , doctors who complained about Russia ’ s unpreparedness were threatened with disciplinary actions .
A criminal case under a new @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was opened against a woman who wrote on social media that a hospital in Sestroretsk had released an infected person .
While protective shields have just begun to appear in a few stores and offices , hand sanitizer stations are still hard to find .
Medical masks have been sold out for weeks at pharmacies around the city as medical staff complain of equipment deficits .
At the same time , the lockdown has begun to take a toll on families ’ finances .
“ If you tell people all day every day @ @ @ @ @ @ @ only elderly people with coexisting illnesses die , and at the same time don ’ t give them any economic support , then people aren ’ t going to stay home , ” urban activist and former municipal deputy Maxim Katz wrote .
A recent survey found that 12 percent of Moscow workers had lost their jobs as a result of the coronavirus measures and 32 percent were temporarily not working .
Thirty-nine percent had seen their income fall significantly .
10 Ways Trump Could Use His Power for Good , Not Evil @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from the store last week , I came across a crowd outside the local unemployment office .
The city workers said they couldn ’ t let any more people in .
The crowd refused to leave , shouting that they didn ’ t have money for food .
The standoff ended only when workers agreed to take down everyone ’ s name to let them in the next day .
Moscow city hall has increased unemployment benefits , and on Wednesday it said it would allocate an additional 7 billion rubles ( $ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ But the situation will only get worse as the virus spreads , and often businesses stop paying wages without officially firing people .
On Tuesday , economists including Sergei Guriyev , the self-exiled former director of Moscow ’ s New Economic School , called on Russia to draw on its national welfare fund to issue monthly payments of 20,000 rubles ( $ 275 ) to every citizen .
Small businesses , he said , should receive the same amount for each employee to help pay wages and rent .
Fomina , the accountant @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a car salesman whose dealership is currently closed , are afraid of losing wages as the crisis continues .
Their 6-year-old son ’ s kindergarten is also shut down .
“ Some [ employers ] might force people to go on unpaid leave , they might just not say it , ” she explained .
“ In April they will pay salaries , ” she added , “ but it ’ s not clear how much .
”

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Moscow, Russia—The number of passengers on Moscow’s subway has dropped by 80 percent since the city told residents to stay at home late last month. So would-be riders approaching many of the city’s 275 stations on Wednesday were shocked to find half-hour lines stretching out onto the street.
Rather than social distancing, the launch of the city’s Covid-19 permit system has resulted in crowding. Passengers crowded together in entrances and underground passageways as pairs of police officers scanned the QR codes that are now necessary for all trips by car or transport.
Meanwhile, ambulances were getting stuck in the giant traffic jams created by police checking drivers’ codes.
The well-known caricaturist Sergey Elkin quickly drew up a cartoon of Muscovites waiting in line to receive coronavirus particles from the hands of Mayor Sergei Sobyanin.
“They need to spread people out, have an organizer oversee the line so there would be two meters between each person, not just stand one after another breathing down each other’s necks,” accountant Yelena Fomina told me. While there had only been about 10 people in line at her subway stop this morning, she complained that the police came in close contact with every person as they scanned the QR codes.
After the morning rush hour was over, Sobyanin declared that the “lines have been eliminated.” The city transportation department later promised to develop a method to check permits through passengers’ subway cards. Yet the disastrous start to the permit system was characteristic of Russia’s uneven response to the pandemic, and indeed its increasingly authoritarian system of governance as a whole. The measures it has adopted are far-reaching, yet often tragically misguided and too late.
The country may be able to avoid the spectacularly catastrophic spread seen in the United States, but some say it should be doing better since it has had the American, British, and Italian outbreaks to learn from. Friday brought another daily record of new infections, raising the official number of cases to 32,008, with 273 deaths. Given problems with the availability and efficacy of the Russian coronavirus test, the actual number is almost certainly far higher. Current Issue View our current issue
“We need real figures, real forecasts, a real understanding of the situation and an honest conversation with the people,” Darya Besedina, a liberal activist who was elected to Moscow’s city council amid widespread protests last year, told me. “There needs to be a high percentage of trust between people and the authorities to get through this kind of crisis. Communication is more important than batons and bans.” Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann
Russia closed its land border with China back in January. But it was slower to react to the growing crisis elsewhere, introducing a mandatory two-week quarantine for travelers arriving from a handful of worst-hit countries in early March and then for travelers from the United States and other countries a week later. Moscow’s burgeoning network of facial recognition cameras helped find people who had left their apartments during quarantine or run away from the main hospital testing and treating coronavirus patients. (Now many more are taking them.)
It was already too late; the first coronavirus infections that appeared in Russia mostly traced back to people who had vacationed in Europe. Paradoxically, China has now closed its borders with Russia after being hit with a new wave of infections from its northern neighbor—60 on one Aeroflot flight to Shanghai alone.
Whereas US President Donald Trump’s lack of leadership has been conspicuously on display during daily press briefings, Vladimir Putin has largely hidden behind his loyal lieutenants. Forced to address the issue in mid-March, the Russian president first assured citizens that “everything’s under control.” But by the next week, the situation had become bad enough that he had to take some sort of action. Unwilling as always to be the bearer of bad news, he announced a week off of work in a televised speech, then left Sobyanin and Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin to do the dirty work of closing restaurants and parks.
Many nonetheless sneaked out to enjoy the first week of warm weather with a barbecue, reportedly infuriating the mayor. On March 30, Sobyanin declared a “self-isolation regime,” ordering Muscovites to leave the house only for food, medicine, work, or to take out a pet or the trash.
The majority tried to stay home as much as possible, and those who did go out started wearing masks more often. Yandex, Russia’s equivalent to Google, drew on user data to create a five-point “self-isolation index,” with zero representing normal activity and five representing completely empty streets. For the most part, it hovered in the low threes.
The seed had already been planted, however, and the number of infections continued to rise exponentially. When the Bolshoi Theater decided to check all of its employees for Covid-19 last week, 34 tested positive. Reports of overflowing hospitals abounded. Ambulances raced through the streets.
On Friday, Sobyanin announced the permit system, a move that activists have described as an illegal invasion of privacy that is ripe for abuse. “When we’re talking about the life and health of a huge number of people, we have no choice. Especially when we see that not everyone is following the limits we’ve set,” the mayor said.
Putin’s spokesman was more blunt: “Residents of Moscow didn’t show the required discipline.”
But Besedina and others have argued that it was not residents’ lack of discipline but rather the government’s lack of communication that was to blame. Putin’s statements painting Covid-19 as a foreign problem that Russia had “contained” hardly instilled a sense of urgency, and little public education work has been done.
Meanwhile, doctors who complained about Russia’s unpreparedness were threatened with disciplinary actions. A criminal case under a new law against fake news about the coronavirus was opened against a woman who wrote on social media that a hospital in Sestroretsk had released an infected person.
While protective shields have just begun to appear in a few stores and offices, hand sanitizer stations are still hard to find. Medical masks have been sold out for weeks at pharmacies around the city as medical staff complain of equipment deficits.
At the same time, the lockdown has begun to take a toll on families’ finances.
“If you tell people all day every day that the situation is under control and only elderly people with coexisting illnesses die, and at the same time don’t give them any economic support, then people aren’t going to stay home,” urban activist and former municipal deputy Maxim Katz wrote.
A recent survey found that 12 percent of Moscow workers had lost their jobs as a result of the coronavirus measures and 32 percent were temporarily not working. Thirty-nine percent had seen their income fall significantly. Coronavirus Amid Partisan Politicking, Revelations on a Covid Origins Article Jimmy Tobias It’s Not “Unreasonable” to Want to Change Our Rotten Health Care System Gregg Gonsalves Covid Has Left Deep Wounds in America’s Rural Communities Anne N. Sosin
On the way from the store last week, I came across a crowd outside the local unemployment office. The city workers said they couldn’t let any more people in. The crowd refused to leave, shouting that they didn’t have money for food. The standoff ended only when workers agreed to take down everyone’s name to let them in the next day.
Moscow city hall has increased unemployment benefits, and on Wednesday it said it would allocate an additional 7 billion rubles ($95 million) to this end. But the situation will only get worse as the virus spreads, and often businesses stop paying wages without officially firing people.
On Tuesday, economists including Sergei Guriyev, the self-exiled former director of Moscow’s New Economic School, called on Russia to draw on its national welfare fund to issue monthly payments of 20,000 rubles ($275) to every citizen. Small businesses, he said, should receive the same amount for each employee to help pay wages and rent.
Fomina, the accountant, said she and her husband, a car salesman whose dealership is currently closed, are afraid of losing wages as the crisis continues. Their 6-year-old son’s kindergarten is also shut down.
“Some [employers] might force people to go on unpaid leave, they might just not say it,” she explained.
“In April they will pay salaries,” she added, “but it’s not clear how much.”


thenation--2020-04-20--The Next Voter Suppression

The Next Voter Suppression

EDITOR ’ S NOTE : The Nation believes that helping readers stay informed about the impact of the coronavirus crisis is a form of public service .
For that reason , this article , and all of our coronavirus coverage , is now free .
Please subscribe to support our writers and staff , and stay healthy .
Republicans have opened a new front in their war on American democracy , and it is the cruelest yet .
Refusing to heed warnings that in-person voting in Wisconsin ’ s April 7 elections could spread the coronavirus , they worked with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the state ’ s Democratic governor to postpone in-person voting and extend the absentee deadline so Wisconsinites could safely cast ballots by mail .
“ Wisconsin ’ s election offers a nightmare vision of what the whole country could see in the fall , ” warned Ben Wikler , the Democratic Party of Wisconsin ’ s chairman .
“ A fight where Democrats struggle to balance democracy with public health , and the GOP remorselessly weaponizes courts , election laws , and the coronavirus itself to disenfranchise millions of voters who stand in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or spikes anew in the fall , this could be a recurring nightmare .
The bare-bones story of the Wisconsin fiasco is jarring .
Republican legislative leaders openly mocked and obstructed efforts by Governor Tony Evers to do what 15 other states had already done : restructure election plans to avoid sending voters to the polls while they were under orders to stay at home .
Why ?
Wisconsin voters were deciding the fate of a state Supreme Court justice appointed by the previous governor , Republican Scott Walker .
“ Republicans , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ holding the election in the midst of the pandemic gave incumbent conservative justice Dan Kelly a better chance of holding his seat.
” The scheme failed ; Kelly was ousted .
That hard-won victory ought not obscure the lengths to which the GOP went to thwart it .
When Evers issued an election-eve order to block in-person voting and extend the timeline for casting and returning absentee ballots , Republicans got their allies on the conservative-dominated state Supreme Court to upend his order , and conservatives on the US Supreme Court intervened to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to make absentee voting easier .
Congress Must Seize the Spotlight Back From Trump Tens of thousands of Wisconsinites had to choose between voting and staying safe .
For those who are immunocompromised and saw the window for receiving absentee ballots closed by the courts , it was no choice at all ; they were disenfranchised .
Others took the risk , even as epidemiologists warned the elections could become a public health disaster—especially for the already hard-hit African American community in Milwaukee .
“ People died fighting for the right to vote @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they vote , ” Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes said on Election Day .
“ Politicians are silencing the voices of black and brown people or putting us in harm ’ s way for their own partisan gain.
” This was the ugliest example of voter suppression in a state that has , over the past decade , been a proving ground for the GOP ’ s win-at-any-cost ethos .
Of course , Donald Trump was paying attention .
As the president attacked vote-by-mail plans to increase safety and fairness in the November elections @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Wisconsin won ’ t stay in Wisconsin .
But the Democrats are not powerless .
They need to demand—with hard bargaining that forces the Republicans ’ hand—that funding for safe elections is included in federal stimulus packages and in tight state budgets .
They need to conduct a massive education campaign to promote early and absentee voting .
And they need to channel the anger of Wisconsinites forced to choose between voting and safety into a clear warning that Trump and his allies will stop at nothing in their deadly pursuit of power @

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Nation believes that helping readers stay informed about the impact of the coronavirus crisis is a form of public service. For that reason, this article, and all of our coronavirus coverage, is now free. Please subscribe to support our writers and staff, and stay healthy.
This article appears in the May 4/11, 2020 issue.
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Republicans have opened a new front in their war on American democracy, and it is the cruelest yet. Refusing to heed warnings that in-person voting in Wisconsin’s April 7 elections could spread the coronavirus, they worked with judicial allies to block a move by the state’s Democratic governor to postpone in-person voting and extend the absentee deadline so Wisconsinites could safely cast ballots by mail.
“Wisconsin’s election offers a nightmare vision of what the whole country could see in the fall,” warned Ben Wikler, the Democratic Party of Wisconsin’s chairman. “A fight where Democrats struggle to balance democracy with public health, and the GOP remorselessly weaponizes courts, election laws, and the coronavirus itself to disenfranchise millions of voters who stand in its way.” If the coronavirus lingers or spikes anew in the fall, this could be a recurring nightmare.
The bare-bones story of the Wisconsin fiasco is jarring. Republican legislative leaders openly mocked and obstructed efforts by Governor Tony Evers to do what 15 other states had already done: restructure election plans to avoid sending voters to the polls while they were under orders to stay at home. Why? Wisconsin voters were deciding the fate of a state Supreme Court justice appointed by the previous governor, Republican Scott Walker. “Republicans,” observed Politico, “calculated that holding the election in the midst of the pandemic gave incumbent conservative justice Dan Kelly a better chance of holding his seat.” The scheme failed; Kelly was ousted.
That hard-won victory ought not obscure the lengths to which the GOP went to thwart it. When Evers issued an election-eve order to block in-person voting and extend the timeline for casting and returning absentee ballots, Republicans got their allies on the conservative-dominated state Supreme Court to upend his order, and conservatives on the US Supreme Court intervened to thwart a federal judge’s order to make absentee voting easier. More From John Nichols A GOP Debate Without Trump Is the Definition of Pointlessness August 11, 2023 A Win for Abortion Rights, a Win for Democracy: Ohio Voters Reject Issue 1 August 9, 2023 The Biggest Threat to Donald Trump Could Be the Constitution Itself August 4, 2023
Tens of thousands of Wisconsinites had to choose between voting and staying safe. For those who are immunocompromised and saw the window for receiving absentee ballots closed by the courts, it was no choice at all; they were disenfranchised. Others took the risk, even as epidemiologists warned the elections could become a public health disaster—especially for the already hard-hit African American community in Milwaukee. “People died fighting for the right to vote, and now people might die if they vote,” Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes said on Election Day. “Politicians are silencing the voices of black and brown people or putting us in harm’s way for their own partisan gain.”
This was the ugliest example of voter suppression in a state that has, over the past decade, been a proving ground for the GOP’s win-at-any-cost ethos. Of course, Donald Trump was paying attention. As the president attacked vote-by-mail plans to increase safety and fairness in the November elections, Wikler warned that what happened in Wisconsin won’t stay in Wisconsin.
But the Democrats are not powerless. They need to demand—with hard bargaining that forces the Republicans’ hand—that funding for safe elections is included in federal stimulus packages and in tight state budgets. They need to conduct a massive education campaign to promote early and absentee voting. And they need to channel the anger of Wisconsinites forced to choose between voting and safety into a clear warning that Trump and his allies will stop at nothing in their deadly pursuit of power.


thenation--2020-04-20--Putting Food on the Table During a Pandemic

The Nation and Magnum Foundation are partnering on a visual chronicle of untold stories as the coronavirus continues to spread across the United States and the rest of the world .
Each week we ’ re focusing on and amplifying the experiences of frontline workers and communities disproportionately affected by the upheaval , all through the independent lens of image makers whose role in recording , collecting , and communicating stories is especially crucial in a time of collective isolation .
This photo essay was supported by the Economic Hardship Reporting Project This week , photographer Arlene Mejorado shines a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ food distribution networks that have become lifelines for countless people during the coronavirus crisis .
As Mejorado explains , “ Undocumented workers have long been the backbone of the food industry in California as farmworkers and service industry employees , but they are also now the most impacted by the mass unemployment the pandemic has unleashed , with no safety net to rely upon.
” Mejorado herself has worked as a hostess , bartender , and a line cook : “ I was often assigned to be a ‘ translator , ’ for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ firsthand how the undocumented back-of-house workers who do the heaviest lifting to hold up LA ’ s food culture are rarely recognized for their important work.
” Mejorado spent the past week at some of the food pickup spots across LA that are providing a lifeline in an incredibly dangerous time for undocumented immigrants .
Some , like the grassroots program Mutual Aid Action Los Angeles , have long been providing free and affordable food to families around MacArthur Park , home to one of the largest Central American populations outside of Central @ @ @ @ @ @ @ responding to the crisis , like No Us Without You , started by two Chicanos and a Mexican-American from Boyle Heights who work in hospitality and are distributing food to undocumented back-of-house restaurant workers that have been laid off .
Volunteers make up a large part of Grab N Go , a daily free meal program for students and their families at various LA schools , and Trans-Latin @ Coalition runs a free meal program daily that serves the trans Latinx community .
“ These photographs , ” Mejorado says , “ reflect @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as experts of their own needs , and are working hard to keep their communities intact .
”

The Nation and Magnum Foundation are partnering on a visual chronicle of untold stories as the coronavirus continues to spread across the United States and the rest of the world. Each week we’re focusing on and amplifying the experiences of frontline workers and communities disproportionately affected by the upheaval, all through the independent lens of image makers whose role in recording, collecting, and communicating stories is especially crucial in a time of collective isolation. This photo essay was supported by the Economic Hardship Reporting Project (@econhardship).
This week, photographer Arlene Mejorado shines a light on Los Angeles’s volunteer-led food distribution networks that have become lifelines for countless people during the coronavirus crisis. As Mejorado explains, “Undocumented workers have long been the backbone of the food industry in California as farmworkers and service industry employees, but they are also now the most impacted by the mass unemployment the pandemic has unleashed, with no safety net to rely upon.” Mejorado herself has worked as a hostess, bartender, and a line cook: “I was often assigned to be a ‘translator,’ for the kitchen staff, and I saw firsthand how the undocumented back-of-house workers who do the heaviest lifting to hold up LA’s food culture are rarely recognized for their important work.”
Mejorado spent the past week at some of the food pickup spots across LA that are providing a lifeline in an incredibly dangerous time for undocumented immigrants. Some, like the grassroots program Mutual Aid Action Los Angeles, have long been providing free and affordable food to families around MacArthur Park, home to one of the largest Central American populations outside of Central America, and some are new initiatives responding to the crisis, like No Us Without You, started by two Chicanos and a Mexican-American in Boyle Heights who work in hospitality and are distributing food to undocumented back-of-house restaurant workers that have been laid off. Volunteers make up a large part of Grab N Go, a daily free meal program for students and their families at various LA schools, and Trans-Latin@ Coalition runs a free meal program daily that serves the trans Latinx community.
“These photographs,” Mejorado says, “reflect how people are stepping into new roles as experts of their own needs, and are working hard to keep their communities intact.”


thenation--2020-04-20--The Long, Winding, and Painful Story of Asylum

Piedras Negras , Coahuila , Mexico—Fourteen men were slumped on mattresses and chairs , smoking inside the warehouse , watching over the migrants .
One of the men had a pistol tucked into his waistband ; another had a pistol resting on his lap .
The men were fussing with their phones , ribbing each other , killing the morning .
A slight waft of marijuana smoke lingered in the air .
Someone hocked noisily , spat.1 This excerpt is adapted from The Dispossessed : A Story of Asylum at the US-Mexican Border and Beyond ( Verso , 2020 ) @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , hard-gazing 24-year-old Salvadoran man , nonchalantly grabbed his black knockoff Puma backpack—the one his mother had bought for him back in Jiquilisco—wove through the maze of sitting and slumped bodies , and walked out onto the patio.2 Hey , vato , where you going ?
one of the men called .
Just to shower , Arnovis said .
That OK ?
3 The shower was a five-gallon paint bucket filled with water , a plastic bowl floating on the surface .
It was set next to a tall concrete wall .
A @ @ @ @ @ @ @ patio .
A couple of the 14 coyotes—Arnovis had counted them—could see him through a large window .
He grabbed the bucket and hauled it over to the door , where he plugged a coiled heating rod into an outlet , ran it back outside , and dropped it into the bucket .
He stepped out again and , as the water began to warm , scanned the yard .
The walls were high—definitely higher than he could jump .
The branch of a mango tree growing on the other side of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ might be able to reach it .
But he wasn ’ t sure if it would hold his weight.6 That branch , he thought , my only hope.7 The basic idea of asylum is simple : Someone comes to your door because they are in danger , because they are afraid .
You open your door , and you share your roof .
But within this simple idea lies a labyrinth constructed of different sorts of fear .
Some fear is grounded in immediate physical danger , some is diffused in general conditions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ some completely imagined .
Some fears are unrealized , some send you to your grave.8 As a legal construct , asylum is less simple .
According to the 1951 United Nations Refugee Convention , which set the original international standard for defining refugees and asylum seekers , an asylum seeker is someone who “ owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race , religion , nationality , membership of a particular social group or political opinion , is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to avail himself of the protection of that country ; or who , not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events , is unable or , owing to such fear , is unwilling to return to it.
” 9 Fear is the requisite for asylum , but the definition is based on a fear of a specific entity , the state , and a fear of being persecuted by the state or its representatives .
Many of today ’ s asylum @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Mexico ( which , taken together , account for most of the people seeking asylum in the United States ) , are fleeing non-state persecutors .
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees ’ ( UNHCR ) Handbook on Procedures and Criteria for Determining Refugee Status , “ in general , the applicant ’ s fear should be considered well founded if he can establish , to a reasonable degree , that his continued stay in his country of origin has become intolerable to him.
” 10 The US Supreme @ @ @ @ @ @ @ well-founded fear after Congress adopted the language of the Refugee Convention into law with the 1980 Refugee Act .
During the oral arguments for a 1987 case , Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Cardoza-Fonseca , in which a Nicaraguan woman who overstayed her visa appealed to the United States for asylum , attorney Dana Leigh Marks suggested defining such fear according to the “ reasonable person ” standard : Would a reasonable person in this same factual situation fear persecution upon return to their country ?
But the justices sought a more quantifiable @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the quivering subjectivity of fear .
In his majority opinion Justice John Paul Stevens wrote , “ One can certainly have a well-founded fear of an event happening when there is less than a 50 percent chance of the occurrence taking place.
” 11 Justice Harry Blackmun argued in a concurring opinion that “ the very language of the term ‘ well-founded fear ’ demands a particular type of analysis—an examination of the subjective feelings of an applicant for asylum coupled with an inquiry into the objective nature of the articulated reasons for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tried throwing out a few examples , and here he and Marks , still in the oral argument , engage in some frightful repartee.13 Scalia : Let ’ s assume that the persecution in the country you ’ re talking about is very…it ’ s horrible persecution , it ’ s torture ; it isn ’ t just incarceration… .
Now , suppose my chances of actually being subjected to that if I go back are one in a thousand .
Would I have a well-founded fear of going back ?
14 Marks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be reasonable to have that fear in view of the small chance that something is going to happen.15 Scalia : I know it would , and what ’ s the answer ?
16 Marks : The answer is that the tryer of fact should look at the specific facts which you put forth to show the objective situation.17 Scalia : You see , I don ’ t know the answer to that .
Is that a well-founded fear or not ?
18 Marks : One in a thousand , I ’ m sure @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Marks was a 32-year-old immigration attorney presenting her first case before the Supreme Court .
Today she is an immigration judge and president emerita of the National Association of Immigration Judges .
When I spoke with her in 2018 , 32 years after she had argued Cardoza-Fonseca , she told me she had been heavily counseled to avoid any attempt at quantification and that Scalia had “ backed her into a numerical corner.
” Stevens finally settled on what has become an unofficial 10 percent standard : If an asylum applicant has at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ being shot , tortured , or otherwise persecuted , ” they meet the requirements for being eligible for protection.20 Immigrants Are Bearing the Brunt of the Coronavirus Crisis What we are left with : To be well founded , fear should be “ subjectively genuine and objectively reasonable ” and can be based on a one in 10 probability of occurrence .
The legal grappling with this complex structure of an emotion hasn ’ t exactly made matters clearer .
And yet , when you feel it , nothing could be more lucid @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more instant.21 Arnovis ’ s brother , living in a suburb of Kansas City , had wired money to the wrong coyote , a man named Gustavo .
Well , his brother didn ’ t wire the money ; his brother ’ s friend did .
His brother doesn ’ t have papers and couldn ’ t send the money on his own , which may have been why there was a mix-up .
Gustavo—the wrong coyote—got $ 700 for doing nothing , and he didn ’ t see any good reason to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Arnovis it was a life-and-death problem—was that the family didn ’ t have any more money .
After a deportation to El Salvador from Mexico a few weeks earlier and a down payment on the $ 6,000 smuggling fee—the family sold a prized goat for 200 bucks to help pay for the first trip—there was nothing left.22 El Suri—the coyote who did not get the money—was the guy actually planning to take Arnovis across the border .
The two of them had hit it off , joking around on the migrant trails ; @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Arnovis stay in Mexico and work with him .
Arnovis got along with everyone .
He liked to tell jokes to quell tension and rarely complained—that is , he was just being himself and wasn ’ t angling for a job in human smuggling .
Maybe if it was just between El Suri and Arnovis , they could have worked something out .
But El Suri had a boss .
The boss wanted his money.23 As El Suri made a couple of calls , Arnovis hovered nervously .
He remembers one call on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ El Suri to head back south to take the next load .
I ’ m waiting , El Suri said , for this one last kid to pay up .
We ’ re trying to get his brother to wire us .
The man on the other end suggested El Suri chop off one of Arnovis ’ s fingers and send it to his brother.24 El Suri hung up .
Arnovis leaned against the warehouse wall .
He felt his future rushing at him like an oncoming train .
A crescendo and then—not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ there are two paths by which someone can gain refugee status in the United States—as a refugee or an asylee .
Refugees apply from a country they have temporarily escaped to or from their own country , which must be of “ special humanitarian concern ” to the State Department .
There are numerical limits , per region , on the number of refugees admitted each year .
The 2018 ceiling for refugees from all of Latin America and the Caribbean was 1,500 people .
But that was the ceiling ; the actual @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Latin America and the Caribbean in 2018 was less than 1,000 .
Overall , in the same year , 22,405 refugees were resettled in the United States , and that number took another nosedive in 2019 , with the 2020 ceiling set at 18,000 , the lowest ever .
White House officials have also reportedly considered shutting down the program altogether .
In 1980 , the total number of refugee admissions into the US—the majority from East Asian countries such as Vietnam , Cambodia , and Laos , as well as the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ meanwhile , there are no numerical limits .
Asylees apply once they ’ re in the United States or when they show up at a port of entry .
As the ceiling for refugees collapses—and as the other pathways to immigration are foreclosed—more and more people fleeing danger are making their way to the US and asking for protection through the asylum process .
In 2017 , 331,700 people applied for asylum in the United States , the most of any year so far this decade—almost twice as many as in 2015 , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in 2010 .
Just over 30,000 cases were decided , however , meaning the backlog of pending cases is rising sharply .
Worldwide , there were 837,478 asylum seekers in 2010 , according to the UNHCR .
By 2018 , that number topped 3.5 million.28 It all started on a soccer field in 2016 .
Arnovis accidentally knocked his elbow into the mouth of the brother of a gang leader in Corral de Mulas , a small town on El Salvador ’ s southern peninsula .
One gang tried to get revenge , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” as the situation rapidly escalated .
He received death threats , and his brother-in-law—whom gang members had mistaken for Arnovis—had a machete wielded over his neck .
Arnovis ’ s life had become unlivable , and there was no resolution or safety except in flight .
You ’ re dead , they told him .
Sos tumba .
It was either submit to his grave at home or take wing .
Even if he tried to stay and somehow dodged the multiple threats , he was putting his family at risk , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he fled : a months-long journey through Guatemala and Mexico , riding on top of trains , surviving cold and hunger and detention and robbery and the constant , nagging , needling fear that finally brought him here , to a coyote safe house across the border from Texas.30 After another call , El Suri explained the situation : I got no problem with you , man .
You ’ re only 200 bucks to me .
But the jefe , El Suri said , he doesn ’ t fuck around .
He @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and if you don ’ t have it by then , he ’ s going to come by , and what he ’ s going to do—he ’ s going to cut you into pieces.31 Arnovis nodded , trying to take it in , trying to think .
Trying to get out of the way of the oncoming train.32 No money , and he was dead .
That simple.33 After a while El Suri called Arnovis ’ s brother again , trying to convince him to drum up the money.34 If you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we ’ re going to have to take care of your brother.35 There were about 75 people crashed , sprawled , and breathing on the open warehouse floor .
Arnovis found an open spot and slumped down .
After a while he tried calling his brother again but couldn ’ t get through .
Then he tried Gustavo , the coyote who ’ d pocketed the money for doing nothing .
Surprisingly , he answered.36 Gustavo !
Arnovis said , and explained the situation .
It was all a mistake .
He was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he didn ’ t pay his coyote tomorrow , and they had meant to wire El Suri but had accidentally sent the money to him , so if he could just return it….37 What do you mean , you don ’ t have it ?
39 Yeah , don ’ t have it anymore .
And just a word of advice , Gustavo added .
If they told you they were going to hack you into pieces , you better pay , or find a way to get out of there .
And @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : These people don ’ t fuck around.42 To lay bare the political nature of asylum protections : During the 1980s the United States took in Cubans and Nicaraguans ( fleeing communist governments that the US openly opposed ) but summarily denied Haitians , Guatemalans , and Salvadorans ( fleeing US-backed authoritarian governments ) .
In 1987 , Nicaraguans were granted asylum at a rate of 84 percent .
Meanwhile , for both Salvadorans and Guatemalans the approval rate throughout the 1980s hovered between 1 and 3 percent .
A 1982 Immigration and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s flagrantly discriminatory interpretation of the 1980 Refugee Act and the 1951 Refugee Convention : “ Different criteria sometimes may be applied to different nationalities… .
In some cases , different levels of proof are required of different asylum applicants.
” 43 Asylum policy has remained both grimly discriminatory and starkly political .
The United States denies almost 90 percent of Mexican claims , while granting over 80 percent of claims from Eritreans—a gaping and irreconcilable disparity .
In part , the difference owes to the mutual economic dependency between the United States @ @ @ @ @ @ @ diplomatic sucker punch for the US to openly acknowledge that Mexico either persecutes or can not protect its own citizens , but it has no problem making that same assessment about Eritrea.44 Although terrorism has replaced the specter of communism , it is still largely fear—the nation ’ s—that drives hard-line immigration , asylum , and refugee policies .
We codify the nation ’ s fears into law , yet we delegitimize the fears of our neighbors , the fears of refugees and asylum seekers—many of whom are fleeing not the abstract , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ replacement , ” or improbable violence but actual , immediate , duck-for-cover , jackboots-kicking-at-your-door , the-roof-is-collapsing fear.45 Arnovis went back to El Suri .
He told him he ’ d work for him , do whatever he wanted .
El Suri told him that was great .
Terrific .
He ’ d be glad to have him.46 But he still needed to pay.47 He had 12 hours to figure a way out .
That night was long , the floor hard and cold .
Arnovis sat in a daze , hugging his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ moans of his fellow migrants crowding the open floor .
It was like they were in a mass grave , but still alive .
In his anguish , he still felt hope ; he still rejected the fact that his final truth would come to him the next morning : that train , then silence.48 In the morning , walking out to take a shower on the cold patio under the watchful eye of the 14 coyotes , he found his salvation : a tree branch.49 If he could reach it , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he could pull himself up to the top of the wall , grab on , and—maybe—get over .
He didn ’ t know what was on the other side , but it was almost certainly better than what was on this side.50 After plugging in the water heater and looking up at the mango branch for another moment , he walked over to it and jumped.51 The marrow of civilization , Thomas Hobbes reasoned , is not mutual interest but rather mutual fear .
We are frightened of each other , and so @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rules of engagement : politics .
You intuit the need to protect yourself , but you need to rationalize , or legislate , the need to protect your neighbor .
In submitting our authority of self-protection to the state , we expect protection not only for ourselves , but for and with our compatriots .
In other words , we are all safer if we are all safe.52 But demarcating who is given room under the wing of the Leviathan has been an ongoing controversy that has , in part , sparked conflict @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has also spurred the development of institutionalized state protections , such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Refugee Convention , that today—at least on paper—extend rights and protection to every single human being on the planet .
Sovereignty needs steel and statecraft ; the extension of rights and protections needs incubation and cultural shifts .
According to the “ contact hypothesis , ” the best way to counteract prejudice—to diminish fear—between majority and minority groups , between residents and newcomers , is by integration and patience .
Fear typically prompts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Robin writes , “ What makes fear such a source of political élan is either the memory or the expectation of political entropy.
” Nothing signifies political entropy more than—you can almost hear an Ennio Morricone theme—a stranger coming to town.53 Two countervailing fears leave asylum seekers outside any state protections : the instigating fear that pushes people to flee their country , and the receiving population ’ s fear that propels them to slam the door .
What results is a global crisis of homelessness : millions of people left in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , as Hannah Arendt cogently observed , is to be rightless .
Since the origin of human rights in the late 18th century , laws and protections have been hitched closely to the state .
That is , if you fall or are pushed out from under its wing , you fall into a political abyss.54 I first met Arnovis in the summer of 2018 , just as the family separation crisis , in which the US government was tearing thousands of children from their parents after they crossed the border in search @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and condemnation .
It was about six months after he had been trapped and threatened in the Piedras Negras safe house .
At his home in the small town of Corral de Mulas on the rural coast of El Salvador , I interviewed him for this magazine .
I would return to his home multiple times over the next year , staying and living with the family.55 Hear From Immigrants and Refugees in Their Own Words At that point , when I first met him , he had been deported twice from the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ He had spent months in detention , months on the migrant trails , and had had his 6-year-old daughter , Meybelín , taken away by US agents and sent to an undisclosed location .
It was just a few weeks after Meybelín had been shipped back to him , and he and his family were in a state of extended shock , starting to pick up the pieces of their lives , assessing the damage .
And he wasn ’ t even free yet .
He was home , but the threats he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ present , and he and his family were living in a state of constant fear and anxiety.56 Back in Piedras Negras , the mango branch held .
Arnovis reached up with his other hand and clutched the next branch , planting his feet against the concrete wall .
In another heave he had a hold on the top edge .
He braced his feet , yanked himself up , and then swung a leg over the wall .
That was when he heard one of the coyotes .
What the fuck !
57 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the wall and saw a few dozen kids in uniforms crossing the patio of a school .
The mango tree was too far for him to reach the trunk and shinny down .
There was nothing to do but fall onto the hard concrete in his black hand-me-down dress shoes.59 Arnovis didn ’ t hesitate .
He didn ’ t have time .
He didn ’ t even jump .
He just let go.60

This article appears in the May 4/11, 2020 issue.
Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico—Fourteen men were slumped on mattresses and chairs, smoking inside the warehouse, watching over the migrants. One of the men had a pistol tucked into his waistband; another had a pistol resting on his lap. The men were fussing with their phones, ribbing each other, killing the morning. A slight waft of marijuana smoke lingered in the air. Someone hocked noisily, spat.1
This excerpt is adapted from The Dispossessed: A Story of Asylum at the US-Mexican Border and Beyond (Verso, 2020).
Arnovis, a thin, strong, hard-gazing 24-year-old Salvadoran man, nonchalantly grabbed his black knockoff Puma backpack—the one his mother had bought for him back in Jiquilisco—wove through the maze of sitting and slumped bodies, and walked out onto the patio.2
Hey, vato, where you going? one of the men called. Just to shower, Arnovis said. That OK?3
And your backpack?4
My clothes.5
The shower was a five-gallon paint bucket filled with water, a plastic bowl floating on the surface. It was set next to a tall concrete wall. A few wires crisscrossed the sky above the patio. A couple of the 14 coyotes—Arnovis had counted them—could see him through a large window. He grabbed the bucket and hauled it over to the door, where he plugged a coiled heating rod into an outlet, ran it back outside, and dropped it into the bucket. He stepped out again and, as the water began to warm, scanned the yard. The walls were high—definitely higher than he could jump. The branch of a mango tree growing on the other side of the wall dipped down far enough that he might be able to reach it. But he wasn’t sure if it would hold his weight.6
That branch, he thought, my only hope.7
The basic idea of asylum is simple: Someone comes to your door because they are in danger, because they are afraid. You open your door, and you share your roof. But within this simple idea lies a labyrinth constructed of different sorts of fear. Some fear is grounded in immediate physical danger, some is diffused in general conditions of oppression; some is exaggerated, some completely imagined. Some fears are unrealized, some send you to your grave.8
As a legal construct, asylum is less simple. According to the 1951 United Nations Refugee Convention, which set the original international standard for defining refugees and asylum seekers, an asylum seeker is someone who “owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it.”9 Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann
Fear is the requisite for asylum, but the definition is based on a fear of a specific entity, the state, and a fear of being persecuted by the state or its representatives. Many of today’s asylum seekers, especially those from Central America and Mexico (which, taken together, account for most of the people seeking asylum in the United States), are fleeing non-state persecutors. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ (UNHCR) Handbook on Procedures and Criteria for Determining Refugee Status, “in general, the applicant’s fear should be considered well founded if he can establish, to a reasonable degree, that his continued stay in his country of origin has become intolerable to him.”10 Current Issue View our current issue
The US Supreme Court also wrestled with the definition of well-founded fear after Congress adopted the language of the Refugee Convention into law with the 1980 Refugee Act. During the oral arguments for a 1987 case, Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Cardoza-Fonseca, in which a Nicaraguan woman who overstayed her visa appealed to the United States for asylum, attorney Dana Leigh Marks suggested defining such fear according to the “reasonable person” standard: Would a reasonable person in this same factual situation fear persecution upon return to their country? But the justices sought a more quantifiable criterion than reasonableness—they tried to pin down the quivering subjectivity of fear. In his majority opinion Justice John Paul Stevens wrote, “One can certainly have a well-founded fear of an event happening when there is less than a 50 percent chance of the occurrence taking place.”11
Justice Harry Blackmun argued in a concurring opinion that “the very language of the term ‘well-founded fear’ demands a particular type of analysis—an examination of the subjective feelings of an applicant for asylum coupled with an inquiry into the objective nature of the articulated reasons for the fear.”12
Justice Antonin Scalia tried throwing out a few examples, and here he and Marks, still in the oral argument, engage in some frightful repartee.13
Scalia: Let’s assume that the persecution in the country you’re talking about is very…it’s horrible persecution, it’s torture; it isn’t just incarceration…. Now, suppose my chances of actually being subjected to that if I go back are one in a thousand. Would I have a well-founded fear of going back?14
Marks: It depends on whether it would be reasonable to have that fear in view of the small chance that something is going to happen.15
Scalia: I know it would, and what’s the answer?16
Marks: The answer is that the tryer of fact should look at the specific facts which you put forth to show the objective situation.17
Scalia: You see, I don’t know the answer to that. Is that a well-founded fear or not?18
Marks: One in a thousand, I’m sure it’s not.19
In 1986, Marks was a 32-year-old immigration attorney presenting her first case before the Supreme Court. Today she is an immigration judge and president emerita of the National Association of Immigration Judges. When I spoke with her in 2018, 32 years after she had argued Cardoza-Fonseca, she told me she had been heavily counseled to avoid any attempt at quantification and that Scalia had “backed her into a numerical corner.” Stevens finally settled on what has become an unofficial 10 percent standard: If an asylum applicant has at least a 10 percent chance of “being shot, tortured, or otherwise persecuted,” they meet the requirements for being eligible for protection.20 Coronavirus Immigrants Are Bearing the Brunt of the Coronavirus Crisis Cinthya Santos Briones, The Nation and Magnum Foundation
What we are left with: To be well founded, fear should be “subjectively genuine and objectively reasonable” and can be based on a one in 10 probability of occurrence. The legal grappling with this complex structure of an emotion hasn’t exactly made matters clearer. And yet, when you feel it, nothing could be more lucid than fear—more all-consuming, more convincing, more instant.21
Arnovis’s brother, living in a suburb of Kansas City, had wired money to the wrong coyote, a man named Gustavo. Well, his brother didn’t wire the money; his brother’s friend did. His brother doesn’t have papers and couldn’t send the money on his own, which may have been why there was a mix-up. Gustavo—the wrong coyote—got $700 for doing nothing, and he didn’t see any good reason to give it back. The problem—and for Arnovis it was a life-and-death problem—was that the family didn’t have any more money. After a deportation to El Salvador from Mexico a few weeks earlier and a down payment on the $6,000 smuggling fee—the family sold a prized goat for 200 bucks to help pay for the first trip—there was nothing left.22
El Suri—the coyote who did not get the money—was the guy actually planning to take Arnovis across the border. The two of them had hit it off, joking around on the migrant trails; earlier, El Suri had even suggested Arnovis stay in Mexico and work with him. Arnovis got along with everyone. He liked to tell jokes to quell tension and rarely complained—that is, he was just being himself and wasn’t angling for a job in human smuggling. Maybe if it was just between El Suri and Arnovis, they could have worked something out. But El Suri had a boss. The boss wanted his money.23
As El Suri made a couple of calls, Arnovis hovered nervously. He remembers one call on speakerphone. Someone was trying to convince El Suri to head back south to take the next load. I’m waiting, El Suri said, for this one last kid to pay up. We’re trying to get his brother to wire us. The man on the other end suggested El Suri chop off one of Arnovis’s fingers and send it to his brother.24
Yeah, maybe.25
El Suri hung up. Arnovis leaned against the warehouse wall. He felt his future rushing at him like an oncoming train. A crescendo and then—not boom but silence, death.26
Today, there are two paths by which someone can gain refugee status in the United States—as a refugee or an asylee. Refugees apply from a country they have temporarily escaped to or from their own country, which must be of “special humanitarian concern” to the State Department. There are numerical limits, per region, on the number of refugees admitted each year. The 2018 ceiling for refugees from all of Latin America and the Caribbean was 1,500 people. But that was the ceiling; the actual number of refugees granted protection from all of Latin America and the Caribbean in 2018 was less than 1,000. Overall, in the same year, 22,405 refugees were resettled in the United States, and that number took another nosedive in 2019, with the 2020 ceiling set at 18,000, the lowest ever. White House officials have also reportedly considered shutting down the program altogether. In 1980, the total number of refugee admissions into the US—the majority from East Asian countries such as Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, as well as the Soviet Union—was over 200,000.27
For asylees, meanwhile, there are no numerical limits. Asylees apply once they’re in the United States or when they show up at a port of entry. As the ceiling for refugees collapses—and as the other pathways to immigration are foreclosed—more and more people fleeing danger are making their way to the US and asking for protection through the asylum process. In 2017, 331,700 people applied for asylum in the United States, the most of any year so far this decade—almost twice as many as in 2015, and roughly six times as many as in 2010. Just over 30,000 cases were decided, however, meaning the backlog of pending cases is rising sharply. Worldwide, there were 837,478 asylum seekers in 2010, according to the UNHCR. By 2018, that number topped 3.5 million.28
It all started on a soccer field in 2016. Arnovis accidentally knocked his elbow into the mouth of the brother of a gang leader in Corral de Mulas, a small town on El Salvador’s southern peninsula. One gang tried to get revenge, a rival gang offered him “protection” as the situation rapidly escalated. He received death threats, and his brother-in-law—whom gang members had mistaken for Arnovis—had a machete wielded over his neck. Arnovis’s life had become unlivable, and there was no resolution or safety except in flight. You’re dead, they told him. Sos tumba. It was either submit to his grave at home or take wing. Even if he tried to stay and somehow dodged the multiple threats, he was putting his family at risk, especially his young daughter.29
And so, he fled: a months-long journey through Guatemala and Mexico, riding on top of trains, surviving cold and hunger and detention and robbery and the constant, nagging, needling fear that finally brought him here, to a coyote safe house across the border from Texas.30
After another call, El Suri explained the situation: I got no problem with you, man. You’re only 200 bucks to me. But the jefe, El Suri said, he doesn’t fuck around. He wants your money by 10 tomorrow morning, and if you don’t have it by then, he’s going to come by, and what he’s going to do—he’s going to cut you into pieces.31
Arnovis nodded, trying to take it in, trying to think. Trying to get out of the way of the oncoming train.32
No money, and he was dead. That simple.33
After a while El Suri called Arnovis’s brother again, trying to convince him to drum up the money.34
If you don’t send $300, we’re going to have to take care of your brother.35
There were about 75 people crashed, sprawled, and breathing on the open warehouse floor. Arnovis found an open spot and slumped down. After a while he tried calling his brother again but couldn’t get through. Then he tried Gustavo, the coyote who’d pocketed the money for doing nothing. Surprisingly, he answered.36
Gustavo! Arnovis said, and explained the situation. It was all a mistake. He was going to be hacked into pieces if he didn’t pay his coyote tomorrow, and they had meant to wire El Suri but had accidentally sent the money to him, so if he could just return it….37
I don’t have it, Gustavo said.38
What do you mean, you don’t have it?39
I don’t have it.40
The $700 my brother wired you?41
Yeah, don’t have it anymore. And just a word of advice, Gustavo added. If they told you they were going to hack you into pieces, you better pay, or find a way to get out of there. And then he said something Arnovis already knew: These people don’t fuck around.42
To lay bare the political nature of asylum protections: During the 1980s the United States took in Cubans and Nicaraguans (fleeing communist governments that the US openly opposed) but summarily denied Haitians, Guatemalans, and Salvadorans (fleeing US-backed authoritarian governments). In 1987, Nicaraguans were granted asylum at a rate of 84 percent. Meanwhile, for both Salvadorans and Guatemalans the approval rate throughout the 1980s hovered between 1 and 3 percent. A 1982 Immigration and Naturalization Service memorandum revealed the government’s flagrantly discriminatory interpretation of the 1980 Refugee Act and the 1951 Refugee Convention: “Different criteria sometimes may be applied to different nationalities…. In some cases, different levels of proof are required of different asylum applicants.”43
Asylum policy has remained both grimly discriminatory and starkly political. The United States denies almost 90 percent of Mexican claims, while granting over 80 percent of claims from Eritreans—a gaping and irreconcilable disparity. In part, the difference owes to the mutual economic dependency between the United States and Mexico. It would be a diplomatic sucker punch for the US to openly acknowledge that Mexico either persecutes or cannot protect its own citizens, but it has no problem making that same assessment about Eritrea.44
Although terrorism has replaced the specter of communism, it is still largely fear—the nation’s—that drives hard-line immigration, asylum, and refugee policies. We codify the nation’s fears into law, yet we delegitimize the fears of our neighbors, the fears of refugees and asylum seekers—many of whom are fleeing not the abstract, future-oriented fear of possible demographic change, “replacement,” or improbable violence but actual, immediate, duck-for-cover, jackboots-kicking-at-your-door, the-roof-is-collapsing fear.45
Arnovis went back to El Suri. He told him he’d work for him, do whatever he wanted. El Suri told him that was great. Terrific. He’d be glad to have him.46
But he still needed to pay.47
He had 12 hours to figure a way out. That night was long, the floor hard and cold. Arnovis sat in a daze, hugging his knees, listening to the snores and moans of his fellow migrants crowding the open floor. It was like they were in a mass grave, but still alive. In his anguish, he still felt hope; he still rejected the fact that his final truth would come to him the next morning: that train, then silence.48
In the morning, walking out to take a shower on the cold patio under the watchful eye of the 14 coyotes, he found his salvation: a tree branch.49
If he could reach it, and if it didn’t break, he could pull himself up to the top of the wall, grab on, and—maybe—get over. He didn’t know what was on the other side, but it was almost certainly better than what was on this side.50
After plugging in the water heater and looking up at the mango branch for another moment, he walked over to it and jumped.51
The marrow of civilization, Thomas Hobbes reasoned, is not mutual interest but rather mutual fear. We are frightened of each other, and so we draw each other close, establish rules of engagement: politics. You intuit the need to protect yourself, but you need to rationalize, or legislate, the need to protect your neighbor. In submitting our authority of self-protection to the state, we expect protection not only for ourselves, but for and with our compatriots. In other words, we are all safer if we are all safe.52
But demarcating who is given room under the wing of the Leviathan has been an ongoing controversy that has, in part, sparked conflict, conquest, and holocaust. It has also spurred the development of institutionalized state protections, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Refugee Convention, that today—at least on paper—extend rights and protection to every single human being on the planet. Sovereignty needs steel and statecraft; the extension of rights and protections needs incubation and cultural shifts. According to the “contact hypothesis,” the best way to counteract prejudice—to diminish fear—between majority and minority groups, between residents and newcomers, is by integration and patience. Fear typically prompts the opposite of patience. As Corey Robin writes, “What makes fear such a source of political élan is either the memory or the expectation of political entropy.” Nothing signifies political entropy more than—you can almost hear an Ennio Morricone theme—a stranger coming to town.53
Two countervailing fears leave asylum seekers outside any state protections: the instigating fear that pushes people to flee their country, and the receiving population’s fear that propels them to slam the door. What results is a global crisis of homelessness: millions of people left in the cold of statelessness. To be stateless, as Hannah Arendt cogently observed, is to be rightless. Since the origin of human rights in the late 18th century, laws and protections have been hitched closely to the state. That is, if you fall or are pushed out from under its wing, you fall into a political abyss.54
No entry: Under the US’s new protocols, asylum seekers who make it to the US can now be returned to Mexico to languish in shelters or on the street until their case is heard. (Gregory Bull / AP)
I first met Arnovis in the summer of 2018, just as the family separation crisis, in which the US government was tearing thousands of children from their parents after they crossed the border in search of asylum, was gaining international attention and condemnation. It was about six months after he had been trapped and threatened in the Piedras Negras safe house. At his home in the small town of Corral de Mulas on the rural coast of El Salvador, I interviewed him for this magazine. I would return to his home multiple times over the next year, staying and living with the family.55 Migrant Voices Hear From Immigrants and Refugees in Their Own Words John Washington
At that point, when I first met him, he had been deported twice from the United States and once from Mexico. He had spent months in detention, months on the migrant trails, and had had his 6-year-old daughter, Meybelín, taken away by US agents and sent to an undisclosed location. It was just a few weeks after Meybelín had been shipped back to him, and he and his family were in a state of extended shock, starting to pick up the pieces of their lives, assessing the damage. And he wasn’t even free yet. He was home, but the threats he had thrice tried to flee were still present, and he and his family were living in a state of constant fear and anxiety.56
Back in Piedras Negras, the mango branch held. Arnovis reached up with his other hand and clutched the next branch, planting his feet against the concrete wall. In another heave he had a hold on the top edge. He braced his feet, yanked himself up, and then swung a leg over the wall. That was when he heard one of the coyotes. What the fuck!57
This fucking vato! another shrieked.58
Arnovis looked down the other side of the wall and saw a few dozen kids in uniforms crossing the patio of a school. The mango tree was too far for him to reach the trunk and shinny down. There was nothing to do but fall onto the hard concrete in his black hand-me-down dress shoes.59
Arnovis didn’t hesitate. He didn’t have time. He didn’t even jump. He just let go.60