Interior Enforcement
What’s Law Got To Do With It? Sheriff Arpaio Defies New DHS Enforcement Guidelines
The Department of Homeland Security recently standardized its 287(g) immigration enforcement agreements with local law enforcement, which allows specially trained local enforcement officers to enforce federal immigration laws. Among the new DHS rules, local law enforcement must now prioritize immigrants with serious criminal records, rather than spend scant time and resources going after undocumented immigrants who are charged with no other crime. These new enforcement provisions, however, leave long-time immigration enforcement abuser, Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, with some important decisions to make. Read More
Kicking Down Doors, Stomping on Rights: New Report Reveals Disturbing Details of ICE Raids
Last week the Immigration Justice Clinic of the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University in New York published a disturbing study that documents ICE’s home raid operations. Constitution on ICE: A Report on Immigration Home Raid Operations found that over the last several years, ICE has increasingly conducted home raids, meaning that they gone to private homes to arrest people rather than doing it in public settings. The report finds a pattern of constitutional violations occurring during home raids including agents kicking in doors and forcing their way into private residences during pre-dawn hours without warrants or other legal authority. ICE agents also seize non-target residents, or “collaterals” from their homes, even if there is no legal authority to take that individual into custody. According to the report, these arrests are based on racial or ethnic profiling. Finally, the authors also found that ICE was illegally searching homes. The stories speak for themselves... Read More
New Yorker Profile of Joe Arpaio is Not a Pretty Picture
The July 20th issue of The New Yorker paints a detailed portrait of Maricopa County, Arizona’s Sheriff Joe Arpaio—and it is not a pretty picture. The profile of “Sheriff Joe” that emerges from the story by journalist William Finnegan is that of a man obsessed with publicity and self-promotion, who has a deep streak of sadism and little regard for the U.S. Constitution, civil rights, actual crime-fighting, or protecting the safety of the public he ostensibly serves. While Arpaio persists in his personal crusade against unauthorized immigrants, serious crimes go unsolved, emergency-response times climb, and the rights of native-born Americans and immigrants alike are routinely trampled in the process. The most remarkable aspect of this story is that Arpaio is still legally permitted to carry a badge and a gun after more than a decade and a half of egregiously abusing his power. Read More
New Yorker Profile of Joe Arpaio is Not a Pretty Picture
Photo by TheRagBlog. The July 20th issue of The New Yorker paints a detailed portrait of Maricopa County, Arizona’s Sheriff Joe Arpaio—and it is not a pretty picture. The profile of “Sheriff Joe” that emerges from the story by journalist William Finnegan is that of a man obsessed with publicity and self-promotion, who has a deep streak of sadism and little regard for the U.S. Constitution, civil rights, actual crime-fighting, or protecting the safety of the public he ostensibly serves. While Arpaio persists in his personal crusade against unauthorized immigrants, serious crimes go unsolved, emergency-response times climb, and the rights of native-born Americans and immigrants alike are routinely trampled in the process. The most remarkable aspect of this story is that Arpaio is still legally permitted to carry a badge and a gun after more than a decade and a half of egregiously abusing his power. Read More
Policy or Politics? DHS Changes and Expands 287(g) Program
Last Friday, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano announced changes to the controversial 287(g) program—a program which allows state and local police agencies to partner with ICE to enforce federal immigration laws. DHS also announced that, rather than waiting for the new policies to be implemented and tested, it has expanded the problematic 287(g) program with 11 new Memoranda of Agreement (MOAs). The 287(g) program has been broadly criticized by immigrant and civil rights advocates, religious leaders, elected officials and the police themselves. Numerous reports from think tanks, academics, community organizations and police associations have shown that the 287(g) program costs valuable resources, results in mistakes and racial profiling, does not effectively control illegal immigration, and makes it more difficult for the police to serve and protect their communities. Even the government found fault with how the program was being implemented. A March 2009 report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found the 287(g) program did not have clear goals and objectives and lacked consistent supervision. Read More
Community Backlash Over Utah’s Flawed Immigration Law
Utah’s “get tough on immigration” legislation, Senate Bill 81 (SB81), went into effect last week on July 1st. The litany of protests from faith groups, local police, and conservatives, however, demonstrates the futility of trying to solve a federal immigration problem through state law. Even Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. hesitated before signing SB81 into law back in March 2008, hoping the federal government would intervene with a national immigration reform bill before the July 1st implementation date. Read More
Major City Police Chiefs Just Say No To Immigration Enforcement
Tired of spending scant time and resources on immigration enforcement, major city police chiefs called on Congress, Wednesday, to move on comprehensive immigration reform. Like most law enforcement officers across the country, chasing down undocumented immigrants proves to be too much of a strain when faced with real priorities… Read More
PASS ID Act Not An Immigration Solution
Introduced by Sen. Akaka (D-HI) last week with 5 co-sponsors, the “Providing for Additional Security in States’ Identification Act” (PASS ID) (S. 1261) would give states a breather from the costs and restrictions imposed by the REAL ID Act, which became law in 2005 without Congressional hearings and as part of must-pass war funding bill. The PASS ID Act, however, would do little for immigrant access to licenses and nothing for a common sense approach to immigration reform. PASS ID would repeal the REAL ID Act, which numerous states have vociferously opposed as a burdensome, unfunded mandate and akin to creation of a national ID system. Currently, 23 states have passed laws and resolutions opposing the REAL ID Act, including Arizona whose former governor, Janet Napolitano, is now the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). But PASS ID—like REAL ID—sets national standards for driver’s licenses. Driver’s licenses won’t be accepted for federal purposes if they don’t meet the national standards. Read More
Obama Administration Begins Rolling Back Midnight Regulations Left by Bush Administration
While a bill that would reform our immigration system waits in queue behind other issues, like healthcare and climate change, the new Administration has begun a good faith effort to right some of the most egregious wrongs left by the former White House. For example, last week Secretary Napolitano suspended the Bush administration’s policy of deporting widows of fallen U.S. soldiers. The Wall Street Journal reported: Only a few hundred people were at risk of deportation under the policy, but critics viewed it as one of the most painful consequences of President George W. Bush's immigration crackdown. Under the current interpretation of federal law, some immigrants whose American spouses had died faced possible deportation because their legal status was in limbo. The clause, known as the "widow penalty," had resulted in a spate of lawsuits. Read More
Administration Begins Rolling Back Midnight Regulations Left by Bush Administration
Photo by lombardi. While a bill that would reform our immigration system waits in queue behind other issues, like healthcare and climate change, the new Administration has begun a good faith effort to right some of the most egregious wrongs left by the former White House. For example, last week Secretary Napolitano suspended the Bush administration’s policy of deporting widows of fallen U.S. soldiers. The Wall Street Journal reported: Only a few hundred people were at risk of deportation under the policy, but critics viewed it as one of the most painful consequences of President George W. Bush's immigration crackdown. Under the current interpretation of federal law, some immigrants whose American spouses had died faced possible deportation because their legal status was in limbo. The clause, known as the "widow penalty," had resulted in a spate of lawsuits. Read More
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