Border Enforcement
Migration at the border is a multifaceted issue, challenging the U.S. to secure our borders while upholding the human rights of individuals seeking safety and better opportunities. Balancing national security with compassion and our legal obligations to asylum seekers presents intricate dilemmas, and we collaborate with policymakers to advance bipartisan, action-oriented solutions.
Beyond A Border Solution
- Asylum
- May 3, 2023
America needs durable solutions. These concrete measures can bring orderliness to our border and modernize our overwhelmed asylum system. Read…
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The Faulty Legal Arguments Behind Immigration Detainers
In late June 2012, the Supreme Court struck down three provisions of Arizona’s SB 1070 and left a fourth vulnerable to future legal challenge. As has been well documented, the Court’s rejection of SB 1070 tipped the balance in favor of federal enforcement and away from state and local enforcement of the immigration laws. But this essay explores a less obvious consequence of the Court’s decision: its implications for the viability of a critical federal enforcement mechanism: the immigration “detainer.” An immigration detainer is a piece of paper that federal immigration officials send to state and local jails requesting that they continue holding an individual for up to 48 business hours after he or she would otherwise be released, so that agents of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) can investigate the person’s status and assume custody if necessary. Also known as immigration “holds,” detainers are the key enforcement mechanism behind federal enforcement initiatives like the Criminal Alien Program and Secure Communities. There has been considerable confusion as to whether a detainer is a mere request that ICE be notified of a suspected immigration violator’s impending release, or a command by ICE that state or local officials hold a prisoner for ICE beyond the time the prisoner would otherwise be released. Independent of that question, however, the Court’s decision in Arizona v. United States identifies a more fundamental problem: that detainers may violate the Constitution and federal statutes even when honored on a voluntary basis. Read More
House Bi-Partisan Budget Deal Gives Hope to Immigration Activists
One day before Congress left town for the holiday recess, the House of Representatives approved a two-year budget deal by a wide margin. Despite some GOP opposition to the plan, House Speaker John Boehner allowed a vote on the plan, which passed with a majority of Democratic and Republican votes. The budget outline now heads to the Senate for a vote. Before the vote on Thursday, Boehner attacked extremely conservative factions within his party who he said were standing in the way of progress. He told reporters these groups were “misleading” and added, “I think they’re pushing our members in places where they don’t want to be. And frankly, I just think that they’ve lost all credibility.” Read More
Nuevos Informes Revelan Cultura de Crueldad dentro de la Patrulla Fronteriza
Esta semana el American Immigration Council publicó dos nuevos informes que muestran a las claras ciertos patrones sistemáticos en el uso de la fuerza por parte de la Patrulla Fronteriza de los Estados Unidos. En particular, los informes ponen en evidencia una serie de abusos, tanto físicos como verbales, ejercidos contra inmigrantes indocumentados durante el proceso de aprehensión o mientras los mismos están detenidos. Asimismo, documentan prácticas corrientes de retención de pertenencias de los migrantes ocurridas durante el proceso de deportación. Read More
House Hearing Misses the Mark on Asylum Claims
The House Judiciary Committee held a hearing Thursday about whether or not abuse of the asylum system is “overwhelming our borders.” What the committee ended up focusing on, however, was the alleged abuse of the credible fear screening process, a preliminary step in the application process for some asylum seekers. Although credible fear is different from asylum, this distinction was lost at times during the hearing despite the best efforts of the witnesses. Read More
New Reports Expose Subculture of Cruelty Within the U.S. Border Patrol
There is a subculture of cruelty within the Border Patrol—and, more broadly, within the entire machinery of the U.S. deportation regime. From the ranks of frontline Border Patrol agents to the guards in private, for-profit detention facilities, the abuse of detainees is widely tolerated and even accepted. This is the central finding to emerge from the second wave of the Migrant Border Crossing Study (MBCS). Wave II of the MBCS is currently housed in the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Arizona and the Department of Sociology at George Washington University. The survey is a study of 1,110 randomly selected, recently repatriated migrants who were surveyed in six Mexican cities between 2009 and 2012. The results of this study are being released in a series of three reports titled Bordering on Criminal: The Routine Abuse of Migrants in the Removal System. Read More
Bordering on Criminal: The Routine Abuse of Migrants in the Removal System
This two-part series highlights the findings of the Migrant Border Crossing Study—a binational, multi-institution study of 1,110 randomly selected, recently repatriated migrants surveyed in six Mexican cities between 2009 and 2012. The study exposes widespread mistreatment of migrants at the hands of U.S. officials in the removal system. Part I: Migrant Mistreatment While in U.S. Custody This report focuses on the mistreatment of unauthorized migrants while in U.S. custody. Overall, we find that the physical and verbal mistreatment of migrants is not a random, sporadic occurrence but, rather, a systematic practice. One indication of this is that 11% of deportees report some form of physical abuse and 23% report verbal mistreatment while in U.S. custody—a finding that is supported by other academic studies and reports from non-governmental organizations. Another highly disturbing finding is that migrants often note they are the targets for nationalistic and racist remarks—something that in no way is integral to U.S. officials’ ability to function in an effective capacity on a day-to-day basis. Read More
As Congress Looks to Next Year, Activists Keep Immigration Reform Alive
Congress takes a holiday break at the end of this week and won’t return from recess until January. This pause in the legislative calendar, however, has little meaning for immigration activists who are continuing to push Congress to act on immigration reform. While the timetable may be changing, the… Read More
From the Mouths of Babes: Children Demand Immigration Reform
Families across the U.S. are facing the holidays separated from mothers, fathers, and siblings due to deportations and years-long waits for visas. Children—some of whose parents are undocumented immigrants—have taken to the halls of Congress this week to go to congressional offices, meet with members, and ask them to support immigration reform so that their families won’t be separated. Read More
Local Officials Improve Immigration Enforcement Policies as Congress Fails to Act
The county council in King County, Washington, decided this week that local law enforcement officials will stop honoring federal immigration agents’ requests to detain immigrants who are arrested for low-level crimes. They voted 5-4 for the new policy on Monday, and supporters hope the change “will build trust between local police and immigrants who don’t report crimes for fear they or a family member will be deported,” according to the Seattle Times. Read More
The Punishment Should Fit the Crime for Immigrants, Too
The punishment should fit the crime. That maxim is as old as law itself, dating at least as far back as the Old Testament and Hammurabi’s Code. It’s firmly rooted in our Constitution’s Due Process Clause and the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against excessive fines and cruel and unusual punishment. That principle—referred to as proportionality—appears in both our criminal and civil law. It forbids, for example, the imposition of a life sentence for passing a bad check. It means that the state cannot sentence juveniles for non-homicide crimes to life without parole. And it disallows extreme punitive damages awards. So what does proportionality have to say when the government tries to deport a lawful permanent resident who, a decade ago, shoplifted $200 worth of merchandise from a department store? Right now, astonishingly, nothing: immigration judges do not even consider whether a person’s banishment from the United States is a disproportionate punishment for a crime before ordering the person’s removal. But advocates are working to change this. Read More
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