Department of Homeland Security
How Should the U.S. Respond to the Syrian Refugee Crisis?
As the Syrian refugee crisis mounts, the United States is being pressured both internally and externally to take in more of the nearly 4 million refugees that have been displaced due to ongoing conflict in Syria. To date, the United States. has taken in 1,500, or less than 0.03… Read More
Five Families Released After Prolonged Detention
On Friday evening, just before the Labor Day weekend, the government released five mothers and their five children, ranging in age from three to seventeen years old, from the South Texas Residential Family Detention Facility in Dilley, Texas. These families, who sought refuge in the United States after fleeing violence… Read More
Restrictionists Continue to Attack H-4 Work Authorization
Save Jobs USA—an organization comprised of IT workers who claim they lost their jobs to H-1B workers—still wants to overturn the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) rule that allows certain H-4 spouses (i.e., spouses of H-1B workers) to apply for work authorization. Although Save Jobs was unsuccessful in stopping… Read More
Newly-Released Government Docs Reveal Dangerous Flaws in Immigration Detention Contracting
The National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC) released government documents this month that expose the severe lack of accountability in the immigration detention system. NIJC’s Immigration Detention Transparency and Human Rights Project publicly posted 90 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) contracts and inspections from 2012 after a four-year legal… Read More
Court Issues Decision in Washtech, Case Challenging Training for U.S.-Educated Noncitizens
This week, a federal district court issued a decision in Washtech (Washington Alliance of Technology Workers v. DHS), a lawsuit brought, in part, by the Immigration Reform Law Institute, to prevent foreign students from having an opportunity to gain meaningful practical experience in the United States. The court… Read More
DHS Faces Challenges as It Rolls Out the Priority Enforcement Program
Among the executive actions on immigration unveiled last November was the announcement that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) would end the controversial Secure Communities program and replace it with the new Priority Enforcement Program (PEP). After months of planning, DHS officially launched PEP last month. The agency has… Read More
ICE’s Computerized Detention Decision-Maker Can’t Work Because of Mandatory Detention Laws
In January 2013, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) implemented the “Risk Classification Assessment” (RCA)—a computerized tool that analyzes evidence and recommends whether to detain or release immigrants facing deportation. Yet ICE still detained 80 percent of its arrestees in FY 2013, in a detention system that… Read More
Study Estimates the Impact of New Priority Enforcement Policies on Deportation Numbers
The Migration Policy Institute released a new report that examines the potential impact of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) new policy guidance for immigration enforcement, which attempts to focus immigration enforcement more specifically on certain categories of individuals while, according to Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson,… Read More
Evidence Shows Asylum Seekers Appear for Court with Alternatives to Detention and Legal Assistance
When thousands of Central American families fled violence to the United States last year, the Administration responded by opening family detention centers, which are detaining mothers and children as their asylum-based claims work through the court system. Family detention has since led to complaints of psychological harm, suicide attempts, protests and hunger strikes by detainees, and lawsuits over lack of due process, all at exorbitant cost. Yet a new paper by the American Immigration Council and Center for Migration Studies, A Humane Approach Can Work: The Effectiveness of Alternatives to Detention for Asylum Seekers, suggests that U.S. detention of asylum seekers is not only harmful, but unnecessary. Read More
Report Finds Border Patrol Deporting Children Without Proper Screening
A recent U.S. government report found that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) deported thousands of Mexican unaccompanied alien children (UACs) under age 14 in violation of its own policies, without adequately screening them for independent decision-making or their fear of returning to Mexico. Read More
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