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Census Shows Population Gains Due to Growing Latino Population
The first 2010 Decennial Census data was made available this week, and the U.S. population rose 9.7% since 2000. As a result of population changes, reapportionment will likely shift the political balance in Congress. Some states (Texas, Florida, Georgia and South Carolina) will gain seats, in part due to the growth in their Latino populations […]
Read MoreNot Without a Fight: DREAM Students Refuse to Back Down
Although the Senate failed to reach the 60 votes necessary to achieve cloture on the DREAM Act on Saturday, DREAM supporters are refusing to go down without a fight. As disappointment turns to anger, DREAM Activists are again turning up the heat with statements aimed at “political leaders who chose to obstruct progress for personal […]
Read MoreSenate Vote on DREAM Act Tomorrow
Last night, Senator Harry Reid filed cloture on the DREAM Act (in addition to a stand-alone repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT)), which sets the stage for a cloture vote on DREAM Saturday morning. If the Senate musters the 60 votes needed to proceed to the bill (cloture), it will then have up to […]
Read MoreLegislators in Key States Stand Up for DREAM
Today, a group of concerned state legislators from Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Texas and Utah joined forces to stand up for the DREAM Act. On a conference call this afternoon, these local legislators explained how DREAM would benefit their local communities and urged their senators—Sens. Snowe and Collins (R-ME), Sen. Brown (R-MA), Sens. Cornyn and Hutchison […]
Read MoreAcademic Community Rallies Behind DREAM Act
As public support for the DREAM Act continues to mount in the build up to a Senate vote, the academic community is stepping forward on behalf of undocumented youth who call America home. Today, noted immigration scholars from Princeton, the University of North Carolina, NYU, UC-Irvine, and the University of Washington banded together to discuss […]
Read MoreWill Local Lawmakers Take the Immigration Enforcement Bait?
As local lawmakers begin to lay the groundwork for next year’s legislative agenda, some are attempting to prioritize immigration enforcement ahead of efforts to jump-start flagging economies. In Oklahoma, for example, an internal storm is brewing between a House Republican and the Speaker-elect about where the party’s “social agenda” (read: immigration enforcement) fits on the […]
Read MoreRestrictionist Group Continues Cynical Legacy of Counting Costs While Ignoring Benefits
In a new report, the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) paints a misleading financial portrait of the DREAM Act. The report, entitled Estimating the Impact of the DREAM Act, claims that the bill would be a burden on U.S. taxpayers and would “crowd out” native-born students in the classroom. However, the available evidence does not […]
Read MoreHow Much Conservative Muscle Will It Take To Lift the DREAM Act?
While some would have you believe that immigration reform is a liberal issue championed only by Democrats, past debates and prior attempts to pass immigration reform have shown us that Republicans and conservatives are champions as well. Granted some of the most stalwart Republican supporters have recently turned their back on reasonable debate (think John […]
Read MoreSpin Control: Putting Myths about the DREAM Act Out to Pasture
As the DREAM Act continues to gather momentum during lame-duck, some conservative Congressional members are scrambling to brand the legislation as “amnesty” in an attempt to scare the American public. Among the myths is the idea that the DREAM Act’s passage would somehow cheat native born students out of opportunities. This tired effort to pit […]
Read MoreNon-Citizens with Mental Disabilities
In 2009, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detained approximately 380,000 people. Roughly 15 percent of the non-citizen population in detention, or around 57,000 people, have a mental disability. Unfortunately, these mental disabilities often go unrecognized by law enforcement and immigration officials, resulting in less access to justice for the individual and greater confusion and complexity for the attorneys and judges handling the cases. The consequences of immigration enforcement for unauthorized immigrants, long-term permanent residents, asylum-seekers, and other non-citizens with mental disabilities can be severe. Even U.S. citizens have been unlawfully detained and deported because their mental disabilities made it impossible to effectively defend themselves in court.
Teasing out the complicated issues of fair treatment for people with mental disabilities caught up in our broken immigration system is not easy, particularly because it must be disentangled from the many challenges facing all immigrants who find themselves in immigration custody or in proceedings before the immigration court. As a report by Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union aptly put it:
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