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The Number of People in ICE Detention with Criminal Records Continues to Drop
As U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has expanded immigration capacity across the country in recent years, the number of people held in its facilities with actual criminal records dropped, according to a new report from Syracuse University’s TRAC Center. Since October 2017, the number of individuals in ICE detention with serious criminal convictions dropped […]
Read MoreDetention of Pregnant Women Increases 52% Under the Trump Administration
The rate at which U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detained pregnant women increased 52% during the first two years of the Trump administration, according to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released last week. 2,098 pregnant women were detained by ICE in 2018, compared to 1,380 in 2016. The increase aligns with a December […]
Read MoreThe Economic Costs for U.S. States Who Opt Out of Refugee Resettlement
In late September, the Trump Administration issued an executive order that requires state and local governments to give written consent to accept refugees. If a state or a locality fails to submit such consent before January 21, agencies will be unable to resettle refugees in those jurisdictions. This will ultimately keep U.S. families from reunifying […]
Read MoreUSCIS Plans Massive Fee Hike for Access to Genealogical Records
If you have ever wanted to trace your family’s immigration history, you should do it now—accessing genealogical records from the 1800s and 1900s may soon become far more expensive than ever before. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is planning to increase its fees to access millions of historical records held under the agency’s Genealogy […]
Read MoreAsylum Seekers Ask Court for Protection from Latest Trump Effort to Eviscerate America’s Asylum System
Immigrant rights attorneys filed an emergency motion to block the government from applying another Trump administration rule to asylum seekers forced by a government policy known as “metering” to wait in Mexico to access the U.S. asylum process. The rule — the latest of the administration’s numerous attempts to eviscerate America’s asylum system — sends asylum seekers to third countries, including Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, to seek protection and would deny those previously subject to the government’s metering policy the opportunity to seek asylum in the United States.
Read MoreThe Government Knew It Didn’t Have the Technology to Track Separated Families. It Did So Anyway.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP)—the agency responsible for systematically separating thousands of migrant families in the summer of 2018—lacked the technology or mechanisms to record and track the separations, a government watchdog group recently found. Family separations—done under the Trump administration’s “Zero Tolerance policy”—started before the policy was even announced. The policy was first […]
Read MoreImmigration Courts Further Limit Legal Help Available to People Facing Deportation
Every year, thousands of people are forced to face the complex deportation system without an attorney representing them. Now, the immigration courts are seeking to limit the assistance that these individuals can receive from “friend of the court” attorneys. The Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), the agency which includes the nation’s immigration courts, released […]
Read MoreICE Revises Its Standards for Some Detention Facilities
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) recently published an update to its National Detention Standards (NDS), which govern the treatment of people held in facilities that rent some of their beds to ICE, often city or county jails. The new standards may weaken some protections for up to 20% of ICE’s detained population. ICE does […]
Read MoreTalking Turkey About America’s Most Pressing Issues
Each year, we gather around dinner tables at Thanksgiving with people we love—but don’t necessarily agree with—when it comes to politics and the direction of the country. The political discourse of the past several years has left many people feeling that their values are under attack. They disagree with or have lost faith in our […]
Read MoreVolunteer Found Not Guilty After Providing Humanitarian Aid to Migrants
Over the last decade, the remains of more than 1,600 people have been found in the Arizona desert. Groups like No More Deaths, whose mission is “ending death and suffering in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands,” work to decrease that number. Their volunteer-based work is motivated by the slogan “Humanitarian aid is never a crime.” Last week, […]
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