In written reports and Congressional hearings, CIS Fellow and former Immigration Judge Andrew Arthur has frequently proposed and defended inhumane immigration policies such as the Trump Administration’s “zero-tolerance” policy which resulted in thousands of families being separated at the border and detained. Arthur called this policy “absolutely crucial” to reducing the flow of parents and their children,” and has claimed that “there really is no other choice” for the federal government.
About
- Since 2017, Andrew Arthur has served as the Resident Fellow in Law and Policy for the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), working alongside CIS colleagues Mark Krikorian, Jessica Vaughan, Steven Camarota, John Miano and Ronald Mortensen.
- At CIS, he authors policy briefs and has provided testimony at Congressional hearings where he advocates for harsh enforcement policies at the Southern border and in the interior of the U.S. such as ‘zero-tolerance,’ and additional policies designed to remove humanitarian protections for children and adults seeking asylum.
- Arthur’s boss at CIS, Mark Krikorian has defended the organization’s circulation of content from the VDARE, a site that routinely publishes the work of white nationalists and anti-Semites by comparing it to The New York Times: “Some of what VDare publishes is sensible, some of it is not, and some of it is downright scurrilous. Kind of like the New York Times.”
- On April 19, 2018 Arthur moderated a CIS “Immigration Newsmaker” event featuring the Executive Office for Immigration Review’s James McHenry.
Anti-immigrant Views
- The CIS fellow has implied that the group does not find the Trump Administration’s “zero tolerance” policy of family separation harsh enough, stating his belief that the Attorney General’s failure to detain unaccompanied minor children incentivizes older children to enter the U.S., as well as encouraging parents of younger children to “have their children smuggled illegally to the United States.”
- Arthur and CIS support removing protections from children in detention, and Arthur has lamented the Flores Settlement as a “loophole.” The CIS fellow has argued for the use of family detention as a deterrent to asylum seekers and illegal immigration, claiming before Congress that “an increase in detention will make it less likely that aliens will enter the United States illegally.”
- During a March 2019 House Judiciary hearing on immigration, Arthur feigned ignorance when asked by Congressman Hank Johnson if he was aware that John Tanton had founded the organization for which Arthur himself worked, saying: “I do not know what role Mr. Tanton played.” Later in the exchange the CIS fellow acknowledged that the group had circulated content by VDARE in their immigration newsletter. Arthur was challenged again over the founding of CIS at a September 2019, House Judiciary hearing on the Muslim Ban, by Congresswoman Ilhan Omar.
Anti-immigrant Activity
- While at CIS, Arthur has used his platform as a fellow, to advocate for policies harmful to many groups of immigrants including DACA recpipents, TPS holders, and asylum seekers.
- Arthur and CIS have for years advocated for leveraging protections for Dreamers in exchange for massive reductions in legal immigration and harsh enforcement policies. In their effort to derail a deal on DACA in 2017 and 2018 the group helped to propagate the term “chain-migration,” which they used to deride family reunification.
- Arthur has attacked the TPS program in blogs for CIS and in congressional testimony.
- In a 2017 blog for CIS titled, “Temporary’ Protected Status: The Biggest Misnomer in Immigration,” Arthur called on Congress and the President to act “dispassionately,” towards the hundreds of thousands of TPS holders who have built their life in the U.S. and if deported would be removed to conditions which are not safe.
- In March 2019 testimony delivered to the United States House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary, Arthur called on Congress to limit DHS’s authority on TPS extensions, “Congress should act to limit the authority of the Secretary of Homeland Security to extend TPS in the future to ensure that it is used properly and effectively.”
- In another 2017 blog for CIS, Arthur compared TPS to the opioid epidemic in the United States, writing, “TPS is similar to another pressing topic of the day, opioid use. If a patient is in true pain, administering opioids will be a palliative. The longer that the drug is used, however (especially when it is no longer needed), it becomes habit-forming, and the subsequent withdrawal itself becomes a painful process with its own set of deleterious consequences.”