South Carolina, District 7
Immigration Court Backlog Keeps Growing (and Growing, and Growing…)
Two recent reports from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) contain discouraging news about the backlog in our nation’s immigration courts. One noted that the number of pending removal proceedings has reached a record high, while the other reported that a relatively small number of cases have been closed through the exercise of prosecutorial discretion. Although the figures provide cause for concern, it remains unclear—absent additional information from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)—whether the backlog is growing despite the effort to close low-priority cases, or actually because of it. Read More
Don’t Jump to Conclusions About Costs of Deferred Action
The Associated Press (AP) reported yesterday that the deferred action initiative for eligible, young immigrants, which is still under development, could cost more than $585 million. While some critics immediately jumped on this as proof that taxpayers would be made to pay for the new initiative, that’s just not the way things work at USCIS. While taxpayers foot the bill for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Custom and Border Patrol operations, (including the cost of detention and deportation of immigrants) the public doesn’t routinely foot the bill for programs administered by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. In fact, it’s much more likely that the deferred action initiative will be paid for by the people who use it. Read More
Why the Administration Should Avoid a Fight Over Anti-Detainer Laws
Yesterday’s TIME Magazine carried a story on what it billed as the Obama administration’s “next immigration battle”—the spread of state and local laws around the country preventing jails from holding immigrant detainees on behalf of the federal government. California and Chicago appear poised to join the list, and federal officials have floated the possibility of taking legal action to block such measures. This battle, however, pits states and localities trying to limit inappropriate detention against the federal government’s desire to cast a wide net for potential immigration violators. It’s a fight the federal government should think twice about taking on. Read More
How Overburdened Immigration Courts Can Be Improved
By Naike Savain. Immigration courts are notorious for significant backlogs and lacking sufficient resources to timely and justly adjudicate the hundreds of thousands of removal cases pending before them. And, despite recent announcements that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is exercising prosecutorial discretion in some removal cases, immigration courts throughout the country struggle to manage their caseloads. In fact, some courts are scheduling hearings as far out as 2015, yet Congress seems unwilling to appropriate additional funding. A recent study commissioned by the Administrative Conference of the United States, however, addresses the gap between immigration courts’ workload and resources and recommends several improvements to the system. Read More
For Immigrants, Alternatives to Detention Not All They’re Cracked Up to Be
On any given day, approximately 300,000 immigrants in the United States have pending removal proceedings to determine whether they will be deported from the country. Of those, about 10% are kept in detention centers while proceedings are pending, with the rest are subject to alternatives ranging from the posting of bail to the use of electronic ankle monitors. While few if any immigrants prefer to be detained, a recent report explains that many alternatives to detention (ATD) program impose hardships themselves. Read More
Some States Attempt to Move Forward on Immigration Laws Following Supreme Court Decision
Prior to the Supreme Court’s recent decision on Arizona SB 1070, other states that passed immigration laws were also embroiled in complicated legal battles. Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, and Utah all passed restrictive immigration laws, parts of which were challenged in court and subsequently enjoined pending the Supreme Court’s ruling on Arizona. Now that the Supreme Court has ruled, however, each state is now attempting to interpret that ruling in an effort to implement its immigration law. Read More
A Breakdown of DHS’s Deferred Action for DREAMers
While today’s headlines assess the significance of President Obama’s deferred action announcement on Friday, many are still sorting through the news to get answers to basic questions about who is covered under the new program. Prior to President Obama’s statement that DHS would halt the deportation of immigrant youth who met criteria similar to the DREAM Act, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano released a memo and a set of questions and answers that outline eligibility and a basic timeline for implementing the new directive . Read More
Immigrant-Owned Small Businesses Contribute More to Economy Than You’d Think
In the never-ending debate over the impact that immigration has on the U.S. economy, the role of immigrant small businesses usually goes unnoticed. While mention is sometimes made of the fact that two in five Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants, the little businesses—the majority that employ under 100 people—are often forgotten. In large part, this is due to the absence of basic data on the subject. However, a new report from the Fiscal Policy Institute (FPI) finally quantifies the value of immigrant small businesses to the U.S. economy. Read More
Updated Figures Highlight Shortfalls of Prosecutorial Discretion Program
As reported in today’s New York Times, the Department of Homeland Security has reviewed nearly 300,000 pending deportation cases over the past seven months in search of low-priority immigrants deserving prosecutorial discretion. While immigrant advocates cheered the policy when it was announced, figures released yesterday suggest that the program is not only falling short of initial expectations, but that the numbers are heading in the wrong direction. Read More
Filling Quotas or Setting Priorities? ICE Announcement to Increase Deportations Raises Concerns
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) recently announced that it would pull 150 agents from desk jobs and add them to Fugitive Operations Teams—teams created to locate and detain “fugitive immigrants” who pose a threat to the nation or the community or who have a violent criminal history—in order to find and deport additional “criminal aliens.” According to the LA Times, ICE reported it was "experiencing a shortfall in criminal removals for the fiscal year" and need to increase the numbers. While it’s a good idea for ICE to use limited resources pursuing serious criminals, the reality is that ICE’s definition of “criminal alien” is very broad and the Fugitive Ops Team end up deporting unauthorized immigrants who pose no threat to the community. Read More
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