California, District 50
Immigrant Families Keep a Small Town’s Church — and its Manufacturing Base — Alive
For 20 years, leaders of the predominantly white Trinity United Methodist Church in Dalton, Georgia, had had little luck attracting congregants from the town’s growing immigrant community. Today, that’s changing. A few Hispanic families have now helped the church earn a significant level of trust among the Latino community, says… Read More
Mexican Tax Lawyer Says a Path to Legal Status Would Allow Her to Pay More Into the U.S. Economy
After Maribel Solache’s neighbor was kidnapped in Mexico City more than a decade ago, Solache and her husband took their young children to the United States on a tourist visa. Too fearful to return, the family remained in the northern San Diego suburb of San Marcos. Yet they live in… Read More
After Coming as a Cuban Refugee, This Entrepreneur Built a $50 Million Business
When the dot-com bubble burst in 2001, Cuban-born entrepreneur José Prendes watched the ensuing chaos carefully. He was trying to determine which e-businesses would survive and why. One that continued advertising with television commercials, he noticed, was 1-800-Pet-Meds. “I thought that it had to be a good business, since amid… Read More
Immigrants in Maine
Four percent of Maine residents are immigrants, while 7 percent of residents are native-born U.S. citizens with at least one immigrant parent. Read More
Removal Without Recourse: The Growth of Summary Deportations from the United States
The deportation process has been transformed drastically over the last two decades. Today, two-thirds of individuals deported are subject to what are known as “summary removal procedures,” which deprive them of both the right to appear before a judge and the right to apply for status in the United States. In 1996, as part of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA), Congress established streamlined deportation procedures that allow the government to deport (or “remove”) certain noncitizens from the United States without a hearing before an immigration judge. Two of these procedures, “expedited removal” and “reinstatement of removal,” allow immigration officers to serve as both prosecutor and judge—often investigating, charging, and making a decision all within the course of one day. These rapid deportation decisions often fail to take into account many critical factors, including whether the individual is eligible to apply for lawful status in the United States, whether he or she has long-standing ties here, or whether he or she has U.S.-citizen family members. In recent years, summary procedures have eclipsed traditional immigration court proceedings, accounting for the dramatic increase in removals overall. As the chart below demonstrates, since 1996, the number of deportations executed under summary removal procedures—including expedited removal, reinstatement of removal, and stipulated removal (all described below)—has dramatically increased. In Fiscal Year (FY) 2013, more than 70 percent of all people Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deported were subject to summary removal procedures. Expedited Removal (INA § 235(b)) Read More
Diversity and Transformation: African Americans and African Immigration to the United States
Successive generations of African immigration have continuously transformed the African American community and the sociopolitical climate of the United States. Read More
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