Filter
Pope Should Remind Congress That Values Matter in Immigration Debate
House Speaker John Boehner recently announced that Pope Francis has accepted an invitation to address a joint session of Congress during his first visit to the U.S. later this year. While we do not know if the Pope will share his views on U.S. immigration policy, if he does, it won’t be the first time […]
Read MoreUnrepresented Children Still Being Fast-Tracked Through Immigration Hearings
Since the government began “prioritizing” the deportation of unaccompanied children and mothers with children last summer, legal service providers and other court observers across the country have reported that immigration judges are giving children less time to find attorneys before moving forward in their cases. Now, children without attorneys are being forced to explain why, […]
Read MoreSenate Hearing Shows Deferred Action Programs are Beneficial to Social Security
The Senate Homeland Security committee on Wednesday held its first hearing about President Obama’s immigration executive actions. The hearing and the witnesses testifying focused on the “implications and unanswered questions” about the deportation relief offered to some undocumented immigrants included in the president’s actions. First, the Social Security Administration’s chief actuary, Stephen C. Goss, provided testimony […]
Read MoreWhite House Proposes Plan to Address Causes of Children Fleeing Central America
President Obama requested $1 billion in his fiscal year 2016 budget proposal to address the root causes of unaccompanied children fleeing to the United States. Vice President Joe Biden announced the plan for these funds in a New York Times op-ed, saying that “[a]s we were reminded last summer when thousands of unaccompanied children showed […]
Read MoreWhy Are Immigration Court Hearings Being Set Into 2019?
The immigration court system in the United States is being stretched to the breaking point. Immigration courts have long been expected to do more and more work without the additional funding or personnel needed to do the job effectively. But now, the courts are struggling to handle newer cases involving Central American children and families […]
Read MoreSenate Shoots Down House’s Bad Homeland Security Funding Bill
The House-passed bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security—and the anti-executive action amendments that were added—failed to advance in the Senate on a procedural vote. Senators voted 48 to 51, with Republican Dean Heller (NV) joining with the Democrats to vote against the measure. Because it was a procedural vote, the bill needed more […]
Read MoreEarly Legislative Action in States Shows Mixed Bag of Immigration Proposals
While some state attorneys general are suing to stop President Obama’s immigration executive actions, many state lawmakers are working to address immigration issues within their own states. New York, for example, is trying to pass new reforms to help young immigrants afford college while Colorado legislators try to limit additional funding to the state agency […]
Read MoreYogurt boom, labor shortage puts New York dairy industry in middle of immigration debate
Thanks to a spike in yogurt consumption and production, the dairy industry in New York is booming. But with that comes an issue of its own: where to find workers. New York is now the third largest state for U.S. dairy production, trailing only dairy kings Wisconsin and California, according to United States Department of […]
Read MoreA Compelling Case Study in Family Detention and Pro Bono Counsel
When the family detention center in Artesia, New Mexico, was hastily propped up by the U.S. government in order to detain and rapidly process women and children for deportation, immigration rights advocates raised alarms. Over the course of several months, as an uptick in families and unaccompanied minors appeared at the U.S. border, the media-fueled […]
Read MoreSix Reasons Why Sen. Jeff Sessions’ ‘Immigration Handbook’ is a Work of Fiction
The chairman of the Senate Immigration Subcommittee, Jeff Sessions (R-AL), wasted no time in advertising his antipathy towards immigrants. Shortly after assuming his post, Sessions released an “Immigration Handbook for the New Republican Majority” that, in only 23 pages, managed to distill just about every fact-free sound bite ever conceived by the nativist imagination. From […]
Read MoreMake a contribution
Make a direct impact on the lives of immigrants.
