Due Process & the Courts

Increased Role of Police in Immigration Enforcement Heightens Need for Suppression of Unlawfully Obtained Evidence

Under the Trump administration’s recent executive order on interior enforcement, state and local police are being pressured to work closely with immigration officers to carry out sweeping immigration enforcement actions. Advocates fear that this approach will have devastating consequences for immigrant communities and undermine public safety and trust between… Read More

New Immigration Court Directive Could Weaken Due Process

The Trump administration released a memorandum this week–effective immediately–which orders the Department of Justice Executive Office for Immigration Review (which manages the immigration courts) to prioritize deportation hearings for certain groups, including any non-citizens who are detained and unaccompanied children who do not have a sponsor. The memo rescinded preexisting… Read More

Supreme Court Nominee Neil Gorsuch on Immigration

President Donald Trump announced his choice Tuesday to fill the Supreme Court vacancy left by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia nearly one year ago. In nominating Tenth Circuit Judge Neil Gorsuch, a Harvard Law School graduate who was confirmed to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals in… Read More

Texas Judge Rules Immigration Family Detention Centers Cannot Get Childcare Licenses

A Texas judge issued a final judgment last Friday prohibiting the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) from issuing a childcare license to the nation’s largest family detention center, in Dilley, Texas and invalidating the license currently held by Karnes County Residential Center in Karnes City, Texas. In… Read More

Ninth Circuit Finds Court Has No Authority to Hear Lawsuit Seeking Access to Counsel for Children

In 2014, a legal challenge was mounted against the federal government for its failure to provide legal representation to indigent children in deportation proceedings. The case, F.L.B.. v. Lynch was brought by the American Immigration Council, American Civil Liberties Union, the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, Public Counsel, and K&L… Read More

Texas Ends Attempt to Deny Birth Certificates to Children of Immigrants

More than a year ago, Texas county officials began to require that foreign passports presented by parents seeking to obtain their child’s birth certificate include a valid U.S. visa. The state also ended its practice of accepting Mexican “matriculas” as a form of identification. As a result, many… Read More

Ninth Circuit Decision Should Prompt End to Family Detention

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday that the Flores Settlement (a 1997 agreement that set legal standards for the detention and release of immigrant children) applies to both unaccompanied and accompanied minors. The Court also found that neither Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) detention and release policies at existing… Read More

This Lawsuit Seeks to Determine Whether Customs and Border Protection Has Improved Its Complaint System

Two years ago, the American Immigration Council released an analysis of data it had obtained from the Department of Homeland Security detailing an utter lack of responsiveness to complaints filed against agents employed by United States Border Patrol. In fact, the report, No Action Taken: Lack of CBP Accountability… Read More

Lawsuit Against DHS and USCIS Seeks Transparency in H-1B Lottery Process

Each year, U.S. employers seeking highly skilled foreign professional workers submit petitions on the first business day of April to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) for the limited pool of H-1B nonimmigrant visa numbers available for the coming fiscal year, which are capped at 65,000 for new hires… Read More