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Alabama Settles Last Legal Challenge to State’s Self-Deportation Law
The state of Alabama settled a lawsuit last week over one of the last remaining provisions of HB 56, the punitive immigration measure often called the “show me your papers” law. Legislators first approved the law in 2011, but when lawmakers passed revisions to HB 56 in 2012, they including a requirement that the state […]
Read MoreLoss of high-skilled immigrants hurts growth, wages
Deepthi Valli is weighing choices she’d rather not have to make: Return to India or enroll in graduate school. It doesn’t appear she can keep working at Cerner Corp. Valli, 26, is one of thousands of highly skilled foreign-born employees whose U.S. employers can’t get the work visas needed to keep them employed. Federal limits […]
Read MoreFederal Court Refuses to Dismiss Case of U.S. Citizen Girl Who Was Deported
In 2011, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), a component of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), unlawfully detained a 4-year-old girl when she arrived at Dulles Airport in Virginia, deprived her of any contact with her parents, and then sent her back to Guatemala. The girl’s father subsequently filed a lawsuit on his daughter’s […]
Read MoreReports of Sexual Abuse at Family Detention Center Follows History of Abuse Allegations
Immigrant women held at a Texas family detention facility allege that guards have sexually abused and harassed them, according to a complaint legal groups filed with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) last week. Lawyers say at least three employees at the Karnes County center “are suspected of engaging in harassment and sexual abuse in […]
Read MoreLatest Numbers Show Record-Breaking Deportations in 2013
Last week, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released its immigration enforcement statistics for the 2013 fiscal year, which ended September 30. The Obama administration set another record for deportations, removing 438,421 individuals from the United States—up nearly 5 percent from the 418,397 removals in 2012. As MPI’s Marc Rosenblum told the New York Times, […]
Read MoreLabor shortage looms: Record crops coming and Mid-Columbia farmers not ready
Columbia Basin and Yakima Valley farmers are looking for skilled workers to hand pick apples, harvest wine grapes, sort newly harvested onions and weed rows of blueberry bushes. They need them now, but finding enough workers is tough because of localized shortages of seasonal, skilled farmworkers and a tight labor supply statewide. While the difficulties […]
Read MoreProposed Refugee Program Limited in Central American Impact
Earlier this week, President Obama issued a memo that set the refugee cap at 70,000 refugees for the 2015 fiscal year. This is the same cap as Fiscal Year 2014, but the 2015 regional allotment for Latin America and the Caribbean decreased to 4,000 from 5,000. This region includes Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador, the […]
Read MoreThe Failings of Family Detention at Artesia
The inhumanity of family detention and the danger of short-changing basic due process protections are on full display in the detention center in Artesia, New Mexico, where hundreds of women and children are being held by the U.S. government. The Washington Post reports this week on a tour they took of the facility recently and […]
Read MoreExecutive Grants of Temporary Immigration Relief, 1956-Present
Much has been made of President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, through which he deferred deportation for young adults brought to the U.S. as children. But as immigration legal scholar Hiroshi Motomura has noted, the president has broad executive authority to shape the enforcement and implementation of immigration laws, including exercising prosecutorial discretion to defer deportations and streamline certain adjudications. In fact, history books reveal that President Obama’s action follows a long line of presidents who relied on their executive branch authority to address immigration challenges.
Read MorePlan That Allows DREAMers to Serve in Military Limited
Only a small number of undocumented immigrants could serve in the military after the Obama administration last week announced that young immigrants who qualify for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) can apply through the Military Accessions Vital to National Interest (MAVNI) program. The military has used MAVNI since 2008 to recruit immigrants on non-citizen […]
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