Immigration Courts
Immigration courts play a crucial role in ensuring that immigration laws are applied fairly and consistently, providing due process to those facing removal. Learn more about issues facing the courts today and explore the actions we're taking to ensure the rights of immigrants are upheld and legal integrity is maintained.
Another Study Highlights Need for Legal Representation in Immigration Court
Findings released last week by the New York Immigration Representation Study reveal what immigration advocates long have said: whether a person has legal representation is a critical factor in obtaining a favorable result in immigration court. The findings—which are based on a study of individuals apprehended in New York from October 2005 through December 2010—show that amongst noncitizens who are not in detention, 74 percent of those with lawyers obtained favorable outcomes, versus only 13 percent of those without lawyers. Amongst noncitizens in detention, 18 percent of those represented by attorneys obtained favorable outcomes in immigration court, versus only 3 percent of those who lacked representation. Read More
ACLU Files Lawsuit Against Utah’s Immigration Enforcement Law
Today, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), National Immigration Law Center (NILC), and the law firm of Munger, Tolles & Olsen filed a class action lawsuit against Utah’s HB 497— an SB1070-inspired immigration-enforcement bill. Last March, Utah passed three distinct immigration bills that collectively were designed to go beyond the enforcement-only approach of Arizona’s SB1070 through the addition of state-based guest worker programs. Those programs, however, do not go into effect until a host of other conditions are met, leaving the enforcement provisions of HB 497 as the only part of the Utah plan with any teeth. Set to go into effect on May 10, HB 497 presents many of the same Constitutional challenges as SB 1070, thus making a court challenge inevitable. Read More
Four Cheers for the Ninth Circuit’s Ruling on SB 1070
In a clean sweep for the rule of law, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld a preliminary injunction yesterday against four key provisions of SB 1070—Arizona’s notoriously misguided attempt to drive undocumented immigrants from the state. The court’s comprehensive ruling left in place a lower court decision from July which temporarily blocked much of the measure from going into effect. Though the future of the case is far from settled, the upshot of the decision is clear: the federal government, and the federal government alone, sets the terms for enforcing federal immigration law. Read More
Legal Action Center Pursues Campaign to Protect Judicial Review
Washington D.C. – In a continuing effort to protect the right to judicial review and promote greater federal court oversight of immigration decisions, the American Immigration Council’s Legal Action Center (LAC) recently submitted an amicus brief in another case involving a sua sponte motion to reopen. A three-judge panel in… Read More
IJs Should Exercise Authority to Halt Proceedings against Noncitizens with Serious Mental Disabilities
Washington D.C. – This week, the American Immigration Council’s Legal Action Center (LAC) and Texas Appleseed filed an amicus brief with the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) supporting Immigration Judges’ authority to terminate removal proceedings against noncitizens with serious mental disabilities where a full and fair hearing… Read More
Legal Action Center Urges Court to Strike Down Regulation Barring Post-Departure Motions to Reopen
Washington D.C. – This week, the American Immigration Council’s Legal Action Center, joined by the American Immigration Lawyers Association, submitted an amicus brief to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals in Contreras-Bocanegra v. Holder, urging the court to strike down the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (BIA)… Read More
Federal Court Upholds Immigrants’ Right To Reopen Cases From Outside the U.S.
Washington, D.C. – Today, a federal appellate court chastised the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) for preventing noncitizens from reopening their cases from outside the United States. This important ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit repudiates the government’s view that immigration judges and the… Read More
Despite Limits, How Padilla v. Kentucky Will Endure
Retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, author of the Padilla v. Kentucky opinion. Immigrant advocates rejoiced last spring when the Supreme Court made clear in Padilla v. Kentucky that criminal defense lawyers must inform noncitizen clients if pleading guilty to a particular crime could result in their deportation. Since then, the Court’s ruling has provided much-needed relief for many immigrants whose lawyers failed to properly advise them. At the same time, however, the immigrants’ rights community is realizing that the decision has its limits and will not help all noncitizens whose lawyers failed to give such advice in the past. Read More
Despite Limits, How Padilla v. Kentucky Will Endure
Retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, author of the Padilla v. Kentucky opinion. Immigrant advocates rejoiced last spring when the Supreme Court made clear in Padilla v. Kentucky that criminal defense lawyers must inform noncitizen clients if pleading guilty to a particular crime could result in their deportation. Since then, the Court’s ruling has provided much-needed relief for many immigrants whose lawyers failed to properly advise them. At the same time, however, the immigrants’ rights community is realizing that the decision has its limits and will not help all noncitizens whose lawyers failed to give such advice in the past. Read More
A One-Man Wrecking Crew: New Report Details the Costly Career of Kris Kobach
It is hardly surprising that the newly elected Kansas secretary of state, Kris Kobach, ran an election campaign which featured the baseless claim that “the illegal registration of alien voters has become pervasive” in the state. As a new report from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) describes in detail, Kobach has built a long and varied career out of attacking immigrants; first in the Bush Administration, targeting legal immigrants from Muslim and Arab countries, and later as the architect of city ordinances and state laws targeting unauthorized, mostly Latino immigrants. Yet, while Kobach’s anti-immigrant initiatives have served to advance him politically and financially, virtually all of them have ended up being costly failures for which taxpayers ultimately foot the bill. Read More
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