South Carolina, District 7
DHS Says Safety Before Enforcement in the Face of Hurricane Isaac
Today, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) issued a joint letter stating that immigration enforcement actions would not take place if Hurricane Isaac puts people’s lives in danger. Read More
Why Kobach’s Lawsuit Against Deferred Action is Unlikely to Stand Up in Court
Kris Kobach’s official job title is Kansas Secretary of State. But he is better known for drafting—and being hired to defend in court—state and local immigration laws designed to make undocumented residents “self-deport.” His two most notorious undertakings are Arizona SB 1070 and Alabama HB 56, which have largely been eviscerated by federal courts. Yesterday, Kobach embarked on a new legal escapade, filing a lawsuit to block the Obama administration from granting deferred action to so-called “DREAMERers,” undocumented immigrants who arrived in the country as children. Fortunately, although sure to generate headlines, the lawsuit has little chance of standing up in court. Read More
How Deportations Devastate Families and Communities
It goes without saying that unauthorized immigrants live in constant fear of deportation. After all, any chance encounter with U.S. immigration officials can leave an unauthorized immigrant behind bars and in removal proceedings. Less obvious, perhaps, is the impact that deportations have on families and communities. A mother can be left to provide for the family alone when the father is deported. U.S.-born children can wind up in foster care when their parents are deported. And the more frequently such deportations occur, the greater is the pall of fear which hangs over entire immigrant communities. Read More
Busting Myths About Deferred Action
Beginning today, undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children may officially submit requests for deferred action, a form of prosecutorial discretion that protects recipients from deportation and allows them to work legally in the United States for up to two years. As might be expected, numerous inaccuracies have surfaced in media coverage and other commentary about the initiative, known formally as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). Below, we address common falsehoods about deferred action in general and the Obama administration’s initiative in particular. Read More
Why Deferred Action is Not Amnesty
Long before President Obama announced his plan on deferred action for childhood arrivals, immigration restrictionists were arguing that any exercise of prosecutorial discretion benefitting undocumented immigrants was equivalent to “amnesty.” Consequently, it’s no surprise that one of the biggest myths supporters of the program have had to address is that deferred action is a type of amnesty. Read More
Nativist Group’s Report on Immigration Enforcement is Pure Fantasy
With its latest report on President Obama’s immigration-enforcement record, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) has finally fallen down the rabbit hole and into immigration wonderland. Although FAIR has always played fast and loose with the facts, its new report rises to a new level of distortion. The report claims that President Obama has systematically dismantled the immigration-enforcement apparatus of the United States in his quest to dictate “pro-amnesty” policies to an unsuspecting American public. But FAIR relies mostly upon rhetorical bluster and the strategic omission of key facts to make this unbelievable case. Not surprisingly, the truth of the matter is the exact opposite of what FAIR would have you believe: immigration enforcement has expanded under the Obama Administration, not diminished. Read More
Administration Releases Details on Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals
The Department of Homeland Security today released details on its plan to grant “deferred action” to immigrant youths who were brought to the country as children. The announcement, which was accompanied by an updated FAQ and other materials on how to apply, comes eight weeks after DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano revealed the initiative, which could immediately benefit more than 900,000 immigrants. The new guidance from DHS addresses many questions about the application process—the answers to which appear below—but leaves others unresolved. Read More
Restrictionists Misrepresent Data on Immigration Enforcement
Some members of Congress are intent on portraying the Obama administration as “weak” on immigration enforcement, and they aren’t going to let facts get in their way. Yesterday, for example, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) released new data on individuals who had been identified through Secure Communities (S-Comm) but against whom ICE had not taken enforcement action. House Judiciary Chair Lamar Smith characterized the data as proof that the Obama administration has used prosecutorial discretion “recklessly and to the detriment of the American people.” However, a close look at the data reveals that Smith’s sweeping allegations do not hold water. By misusing terms like “recidivism,” and by failing to distinguish between arrests and convictions, Smith intends to paint immigrants as criminals—a link that has been disproven over and over again. Read More
Where and Who Are The Young People Eligible for the President’s “Deferred Action” Initiative
The Obama Administration’s “deferred action” initiative for unauthorized youth who were brought to this country as children has raised a number of crucial questions. How many people will be eligible? Who are they? And where do they live? A new analysis by the Immigration Policy Center (IPC), together with Rob Paral & Associates, provides some answers. While other analyses have produced national and state-level estimates of how many immigrants could benefit from the deferred action initiative, the IPC report provides a new level of detail, breaking down the eligible population by nationality and age at not only the national and state level, but the congressional district level as well. Read More
ICE Numbers on Prosecutorial Discretion Keep Sliding Downward
Since June 15, the immigration world has largely focused on the impending “deferred action” initiative for individuals who could have qualified for relief under the DREAM Act. Meanwhile, comparatively little attention has been paid to the still ongoing review of more than 300,000 pending removal cases for individuals meriting a favorable exercise of prosecutorial discretion. Although Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has not released official statistics from the review for nearly two months, figures derived from a recent media account indicate that the agency is now offering to close cases at less than half the rate as when the initiative began. Read More
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