How to Strengthen the Bond Between Family Members

BY MARY CAMPBELL

Having family dinners every day of the week might be unrealistic for many families. And even if you're able to sit down and eat together once or twice a week, the quality of your interactions may not be as strong as you'd like. Outsourced work, long commutes, school and after-school activities, and other modern stressors can all weaken family members' bonds. Fortunately, there are plenty of ways to help strengthen your family ties. Regardless of how often you eat together or how close you feel on any given day, strengthening your connection as family members will pay tangible dividends in the long run. These strategies will help you develop stronger relationships with fellow family members.

Talk Often If you want to foster better communication with your family members, you have to talk to them. You can't expect your family to know what's going on in your life if you don't open up to them. Even if you're close to your relatives, you may be hesitant to open up because you think you don't have anything interesting to say. But everyone has a story to tell, and it's important to talk about more than surface-level topics like the weather. Be honest and open about your feelings.

Plan Time Together Family outings are a great way to strengthen your bonds as a family. You can take advantage of the changing seasons to do a variety of activities, like hitting the pumpkin patch in October or the strawberry patch in May. Whether you're indoors or outdoors, family outings provide a great opportunity to share experiences and talk to one another. You don't have to do something super elaborate to build stronger bonds; even a day at the park can be helpful. And you don't have to do it with your entire family; you can go on outings with one or two relatives at a time.

Grow Together Members of your family probably want to see you succeed, and vice versa. But often, their desire to help has nothing to do with your success. It may just be a natural human response to be supportive toward others. To help one another, you'll have to put some effort into it. You might consider forming a support group or simply holding one another accountable for your goals. Whatever you do, make sure you're helping each other, not hindering each other's progress. For example, if one of your siblings needs help finding a job, don't tell them to "just apply to more places." Instead, help them develop a solid plan of action and hold them accountable to it.

Establish Shared Rituals Rituals are a great way to bring you and your family members together. They're not something you do once and then say, "We did it!" They're ongoing, and they can be modified as needed. For example, you could make a big meal every Sunday and invite your grandparents over. Or you could host a regular game night. The frequency and types of activities don't matter as much as your having something you do together regularly.

Be Available and Supportive Be available to family members and support them in their endeavors. Let your relatives know that you are always there for them. There are many ways you can be supportive. Provide them with positive reinforcement, support their goals, and be a good listener when they need someone to talk to.

Conclusion Family bonds can be fragile, especially if you aren't actively working to strengthen them. Keep the lines of communication open with frequent phone calls or text messages just to let them know you are thinking of them. Get together often and have fun. A healthy family support system can strengthen you and every member of your family.l

New Report Reveals Why USCIS Is Plagued by Enormous Backlogs and Wait Times

BY WALTER EWING

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) operates under a flawed funding model. This virtually guarantees that the agency will always be under-funded and understaffed. As a result, USCIS has been plagued for years by enormous backlogs of applications for immigration benefits. The people applying for immigration benefits must endure lengthy wait times before the agency processes their applications. A report released on June 15, 2022, by the USCIS Ombudsman details these flaws in the agency’s funding model and provides recommendations on how to overcome those flaws.

The Flawed “Fee-for-Service” Model Unlike most government agencies, USCIS is required by law to function on a “fee-for-service” basis—meaning that the agency must set the fees it charges for immigration benefits at a level high enough to recover the full costs of providing those benefits. USCIS reviews its fees every two years to ensure that this is taking place. If the fees being charged are not sufficient to cover costs, the agency can adjust the fees. However, the rulemaking process which USCIS must follow to change its fees is very time consuming. The agency must engage in extensive data-gathering and analysis to justify any proposed fee changes. The proposed changes are then subject to multiple levels of review within USCIS, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Once these reviews are completed, officials publish the proposed fee changes in the Federal Register as a “Notice of Proposed Rulemaking” and the public must be given sufficient time to comment on the changes. USCIS must then respond to “all reasonable and relevant comments” before the new fees can take effect. This entire process can take more than two years to complete. At that point, the data which USCIS used to justify the new fees is outdated, meaning that the revenue generated by the new fees may no longer match the actual costs of providing immigration benefits. But if USCIS wants to adjust its fees again, the agency must repeat the same years-long rulemaking process. The last time USCIS established a new fee rule under the Trump administration, it was riddled with political decisions aimed at making immigration more expensive and was struck down as unlawful. The agency’s most recent fee rule was sent to OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) on June 27 and should be published in the near future.

Congress Doesn’t Cover Fee Waivers Another problem with the fee-for-service funding model at USCIS is that Congress does not usually provide any funding through appropriations to help sustain the agency’s humanitarian work. Asylees, refugees, victims of certain crimes, and some individuals who can prove financial hardship do not have to pay filing fees when they apply for immigration benefits. But since Congress does not help pay for these fee waivers, USCIS attempts to cover the cost by increasing all other applicants’ fees. This is very different from the situation at the Department of State and the Department of Health and Human Services, both of which receive annual Congressional appropriations to fund their humanitarian programs. These systemic flaws in how USCIS is funded ensure that, in any given year, the agency is not generating enough revenue to cover its actual workload. The precontinued on page 14

How Haitian Migrants are Treated/ continued from page 1 religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.” Racism negatively affects the lives of Haitians at home and abroad. Yet Haitian migrants today are rarely deemed eligible for asylum. This requires us to think about racism and the treatment of refugees transnationally. Brazil-led UN peacekeeping operations and the outsourcing of U.S. immigration control to Latin America further complicates asylum for Haitians. Why is race is so central to the UN’s refugee convention? Probably because much of it was drafted by former Jewish refugees from the Holocaust and their allies. The drafters added two important clauses. The first one, Article 3, stipulates nondiscrimination by the receiving countries (by “race, religion, and country of origin”). The second is the principle of nonrefoulement that prohibits countries from returning migrants to dangerous conditions back home. Other considerations that determined the final scope of the convention include the breakup of empires and wealthy countries’ continued racial barriers to immigration.

Haiti, colonialism and empires Much of the racism toward Haitians comes from abroad. In the late 1700s, Haitian revolutionaries expelled French colonizers and abolished slavery. A few years later, Haiti provided refuge for victims of enslavement and colonialism elsewhere. But France and other countries demanded reparations for their lost “property,” meaning human beings. Haiti had to pay this debt throughout the 20th century. From 1915 to 1934, the United States military occupied Haiti, with lasting social and political consequences. In 1937, Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo ordered the slaughter of thousands of Haitians living near the border. From the 1950s through the 1980s, the U.S. supported the Duvalier dictatorship. Since then, there has been nearly continuous foreign intervention in Haiti’s politics. Facing economic and political instability, many Haitians go abroad to improve life for themselves and their relatives back home. For Haitians, the lines between diaspora, economic migrant and refugee are often blurred. But legally, these categories can make all the difference.

U.S. sent Haitians back home Starting in 1981, the U.S. adopted a policy of interdicting and processing Haitian migrants at sea. This effectively established a loophole and allowed them to circumvent the principle of non-refoulement and send Haitians back home.

Sao Paulo, SP / Brazil - Haitian refugees. Editorial credit: Nelson Antoine / Shutterstock.com

Following this precedent, wealthy countries today increasingly started to put immigration on “remote control” — in other words, they control immigration from a distance, in international waters and third countries’ territories. There is now a broader outsourcing of security and human rights as Latin American countries have been put in charge of receiving refugees and managing UN peacekeeping missions.

Brazilians in Haiti, Haitians in Brazil In 2004, democratically elected Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide was ousted for the second time, probably with the help of the U.S. Canada, France, the U.S. and other major players quickly recognized the regime that replaced him. Later that year, Haiti received a peacekeeping mission, the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti, known as MINUSTAH. Until 2017, MINUSTAH’s multinational military force was run by Brazilian generals, with much meddling from the U.S., Canada and France. In order to depoliticize the situation, these generals were instructed to deal with the problem of “gangs” by force. Urban neighbourhoods, where gangs supposedly resided, were precisely the bases of Aristide’s political support. In a book about the military commanders of MINUSTAH, these generals called the low-income neighbourhoods of Portau-Prince “favelas,” or shantytowns, suggesting the problem was one of policing. Another term they use is pacificação. This is not just a translation of peacekeeping. Historically, pacificação was an euphemism for the colonization of Indigenous Peoples. It’s also a reference to the work of Rio de Janeiro’s police units called Unidades da Policia Pacificadora. There was an ongoing exchange of security management personnel, ideas and practices between Port-au-Prince and Rio de Janeiro during that period. After the massive 2010 earthquake that

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How Haitian Migrants are Treated/ continued from page 13 displaced hundreds of thousands of survivors, Brazilian authorities became concerned about Haitians arriving in their country. My ongoing research with professors Martha Balaguera and Luis van Isschot at the University of Toronto explores how Haitian migrants are treated in Brazil, Colombia and Mexico.

‘Special relationship’ Brazilian immigration policy is determined by the Conselho Nacional de Imigração (CNIg). In CNIg’s meeting minutes, government officials mention Brazil’s “special relationship” with Haiti (the MINUSTAH operation) as a reason to accept Haitian migrants. However, they argue that Haitians are not refugees, since they migrated because of the earthquake. They don’t acknowledge Brazil’s contribution to Haiti’s political and economic instability. Brazilian officials express concern that Haitians will “establish a more permanent Haitian diaspora” in Brazil. This discourse is consistent with Brazil’s longer history of racially biased immigration policy that favoured Europeans.

In response, Brazilian officials created a humanitarian visa specifically for Haitian migrants. It provides temporary legal status, but doesn’t come with the same protections from deportation and government resources as asylum. As the Brazilian economy worsened, many Haitians went north, hoping to get to the U.S. or Canada. Many go through Colombia, via the Darien Gap, a dangerous zone that links Colombia to Central America.

Haitians travel north In Colombia, Haitians join other migrants’ routes. This includes Colombians, many of African and Indigenous descent, who were displaced through land-grabbing by paramilitaries and local elites. Others are from Venezuela, Africa and Asia. Further north, they join Central American migrants escaping violence from the transnational war on drugs. Then they go to Mexico, where the U.S. has outsourced the management of asylum-seekers. Many give up and stay in Tijuana. In southern Mexico, a kind of open-air prison was created to contain refugees without the right papers to go north. Those who reach the U.S. are then detained, after which many get deported. The 1951 refugee convention was designed to protect people fleeing conditions created by Nazi Germany’s genocidal anti-Jewish racism. But the refugee system fails to prevent the pervasive and often deadly forms of racism that Haitians face. This racism is transnational, and its source are the countries of destination.l 3. Congress should provide appropriated funds to cover the costs of USCIS humanitarian programs (particularly the refugee and asylum programs). 4. Congress should create a new financing mechanism through the Department of the Treasury which USCIS could draw upon to cover costs associated with unexpected events, such as unforeseen pandemics and new Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designations.

USCIS should exercise the authority it already possesses to adjust fees every year to account for the estimates which OMB provides concerning federal pay raises and inflation. Until Congress and the White House thoroughly revamp the funding model on which USCIS is based, the agency will remain incapable of fulfilling its mission or effectively meeting the needs of the people it is supposed to serve. l

Enormous Backlogs/ continued from page 12 dictable result has been a growing backlog of applications for immigration benefits and long delays between the agency’s receipt of an application and when it processes that application. Making matters even worse, when USCIS conducts its regular fee review every two years, it does not factor in what it would cost to reduce application backlogs and processing times. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on USCIS operations made a bad situation even worse. The agency’s offices shut down completely at the beginning of the pandemic and didn’t begin to reopen (at limited capacity) until June 2020. As a result, the agency’s revenue plummeted and the backlog of applications increased dramatically, jumping from 2.7 million in July 2019 to 5.2 million as of June 2022.

The Ombudsman’s Proposed Solutions To permanently fix all of these systemic problems at USCIS, the Ombudsman’s report recommends five changes in how the agency is funded:

1.USCIS must “reengineer” its fee review process to include estimates of how much it will cost to reduce backlogs and processing times. 2. Congress should provide appropriated funds for backlog reduction efforts at USCIS.