Immigration at the Border
Ten Years After 9/11, Is the U.S. Deporting Those Who Threaten to Do Us Harm?
This past weekend, the U.S. commemorated the ten-year anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Life and travel in the U.S. has changed in some significant ways over the past decade, and many observers have noted that immigration policy, in particular, has been deeply affected. The fact that the terrorists were foreign nationals that arrived legally in the U.S. on visas prompted action, including the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, stepped up enforcement along the border, additional scrutiny for visa applicants, and increased partnerships with state and local law enforcement agencies. But ten years later, is the U.S. actually deporting those who threaten to do us harm? Read More
Experts Challenge Conventional Wisdom on Border Security
No one should be shocked by this election season’s default response to immigration questions, “We must secure the border." It's the same tired sound bite as last election cycle. While border security might make for an easy rhetorical punching bag, it seems to be an area the most vocal politicians know the least about and a topic they care little about fixing. If politicians were serious about securing the border, they would be too busy bringing down drug cartels to blame undocumented immigrants for all of our border woes—or so say former Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard and anthropologist Josiah Heyman in papers released this week. Read More
Guns, Drugs, and Money: Tackling the Real Threats to Border Security
The external borders of the United States matter to security, but how and in what ways is neither automatic nor obvious. The current assumption is that borders defend the national interior against all harms, which are understood as consistently coming from outside—and that security is always obtained in the same way, whatever the issue. Some security policies correctly use borders as tools to increase safety, but border policy does not protect us from all harms. The 9/11 terrorists came through airports with visas, thus crossing a border inspection system without being stopped. They did not cross the U.S.-Mexico border. Future terrorists would not necessarily cross a land border. U.S. citizens and residents, and nationals of Western Europe, also represent an important element of the terrorist threat, and they have unimpeded or easy passage through U.S. borders. Fortified borders cannot protect us from all security threats or sources of harm. Read More
U.S. Sentencing Commission Data Reveals Dysfunction of U.S. Immigration System
Federal courts and prisons are being overwhelmed by the broken U.S. immigration system. That is one of the central points to emerge from data contained in a new report from the U.S. Sentencing Commission. It is also a point that is easily missed if you are looking at the wrong numbers. For instance, the numbers of Latinos and non-U.S. citizens who are sent to federal prison are startling. But even more startling is how many of them are going to federal prison because of non-violent immigration offenses. In defiance of common sense, they may be in federal prison even though they have not committed a violent crime or even a property crime. Their only crime might be entering the country without permission. Read More
Lamar Smith Introduces New Agricultural Twist to His Anti-Immigrant Agenda
Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, has added a novel new twist to his anti-immigrant agenda: letting more immigrant workers into the country. In defiance of logic, the man who believes that immigrants merely steal jobs from U.S. citizens now wants to import migrant agricultural workers. At a hearing today of the House Subcommittee on Immigration Policy and Enforcement, Rep. Smith rolled out his latest legislative proposal, called the “American Specialty Agriculture Act” (H.R. 2847). The bill would create a new “H-2C” visa for temporary agricultural workers to replace the existing H-2A program, and would allow growers to bring in up to 500,000 of these workers each year. Read More
President Obama’s Very Legal Move on Immigration
DHS’s recent announcement on enforcement priorities suggests that the agency, along with the Department of Justice, is serious about trying to target those persons who pose a threat to public safety. Unfortunately, there has been little official communication from either agency about the initiatives underway to review current immigration court cases or to issue broader guidance within DHS on prosecutorial discretion, both follow ups to guidelines issued in a June memo from ICE Director John Morton. To fill the void, immigration advocacy groups have attempted to explain what these initiatives are not: NOT an amnesty, NOT a blanket deferral of removal program for all DREAMERs or anyone else, and NOT an abandonment of the deportation laws. But because there has been little official guidance, Administration opponents and immigration restrictionists are doing their best to reshape the policy into all of these things and more. Read More
President Obama’s Very Legal Move on Immigration
DHS’s recent announcement on enforcement priorities suggests that the agency, along with the Department of Justice, is serious about trying to target those persons who pose a threat to public safety. Unfortunately, there has been little official communication from either agency about the initiatives underway to review current immigration court cases or to issue broader guidance within DHS on prosecutorial discretion, both follow ups to guidelines issued in a June memo from ICE Director John Morton. To fill the void, immigration advocacy groups have attempted to explain what these initiatives are not: NOT an amnesty, NOT a blanket deferral of removal program for all DREAMERs or anyone else, and NOT an abandonment of the deportation laws. But because there has been little official guidance, Administration opponents and immigration restrictionists are doing their best to reshape the policy into all of these things and more. Read More
California Passes Other Half of DREAM Act Package
While many applauded Governor Jerry Brown’s recent efforts to make college more affordable for all of California’s students, others insisted the state didn’t go far enough. Back in July, Gov. Brown signed AB 130—a bill that allows undocumented students enrolled in California’s public colleges and universities to receive privately-funded university scholarships from non-state funds. At the time, however, its companion bill, AB 131—which would allow undocumented students to apply for state-sponsored financial aid—was stuck in California’s Senate Appropriations Committee. Last week, despite opposition from immigration restrictionists, both California’s State Assembly and Senate approved AB 131 which is now on its way to Gov. Brown’s desk. Many predict Gov. Brown will sign the measure based on promises he made during his campaign. Read More
Like Previous Administrations, Obama is Using Existing Laws to Improve our Immigration System
The attacks on the Obama Administration from some immigration restrictionists are likely to escalate when Congress returns from its August recess, given the recent announcement that DHS intends to put muscle behind its prosecutorial discretion guidelines. The plan to review 300,000 immigration cases to assess whether they fall within the Administration’s enforcement priorities has already inflamed critics, some of whom are claiming that the President has “torn up the Constitution” and is now “Dictator” Obama. Unfortunately, the use of extreme rhetoric is nothing new. In a paper released today, “Using all the Tools in the Toolbox: How Past Administrations Have Used Executive Branch Authority in Immigration,” the Immigration Policy Center looks at other controversial examples of executive branch authority, particularly the debate over the implementation of the Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act of 1997 (NACARA). Read More
What the New Budget Law Could Mean for Immigrant and Refugee Programs
BY ERIC SIGMON, LUTHERAN IMMIGRATION AND REFUGEE SERVICE* On August 2, after a number of press conferences and late-night negotiation sessions, President Obama signed into law the Budget Control of Act of 2011, legislation that prevented the U.S. government from defaulting on its debt and requires deep cuts into future federal spending. While deficit cutting laws may not sound very interesting to the average reader, this new law will decrease the size and role of the federal government over the next decade. Over the next four months, Congress will have to make decisions that will shape the government’s capacity to provide protection and life-saving assistance to refugees, adjudicate immigration benefits, and enforce U.S. immigration laws along the border and in the interior (apprehensions, detentions, deportations). Read More
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