Enforcement
ICE Releases 2013 Deportation Data
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deported 368,644 immigrants during the 2013 fiscal year, according to the agency’s year-end removal numbers. ICE officials report that 235,093 of those removed were apprehend at the border, and 133,551 people were apprehended in the interior of the U.S. Of… Read More
New Legal Analysis Shows State Compliance with ICE Detainers May Violate the Constitution
Chicago, New York, and San Francisco now prevent local jails from honoring immigration detainers—requests from federal immigration officials for state and local jails to hold a person so that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents can investigate the person’s immigration status—unless an arrestee has been charged with or convicted of certain criminal offenses. And California’s Trust Act, which does virtually the same thing, will go into effect early next year. Yet, while these states have limited who can be subject to an immigration detainer, there are legal questions surrounding this selective enforcement that call into question whether detainers are legal at all. Read More
From the Mouths of Babes: Children Demand Immigration Reform
Families across the U.S. are facing the holidays separated from mothers, fathers, and siblings due to deportations and years-long waits for visas. Children—some of whose parents are undocumented immigrants—have taken to the halls of Congress this week to go to congressional offices, meet with members, and ask them to support immigration reform so that their families won’t be separated. Read More
Local Officials Improve Immigration Enforcement Policies as Congress Fails to Act
The county council in King County, Washington, decided this week that local law enforcement officials will stop honoring federal immigration agents’ requests to detain immigrants who are arrested for low-level crimes. They voted 5-4 for the new policy on Monday, and supporters hope the change “will build trust between local police and immigrants who don’t report crimes for fear they or a family member will be deported,” according to the Seattle Times. Read More
The Punishment Should Fit the Crime for Immigrants, Too
The punishment should fit the crime. That maxim is as old as law itself, dating at least as far back as the Old Testament and Hammurabi’s Code. It’s firmly rooted in our Constitution’s Due Process Clause and the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against excessive fines and cruel and unusual punishment. That principle—referred to as proportionality—appears in both our criminal and civil law. It forbids, for example, the imposition of a life sentence for passing a bad check. It means that the state cannot sentence juveniles for non-homicide crimes to life without parole. And it disallows extreme punitive damages awards. So what does proportionality have to say when the government tries to deport a lawful permanent resident who, a decade ago, shoplifted $200 worth of merchandise from a department store? Right now, astonishingly, nothing: immigration judges do not even consider whether a person’s banishment from the United States is a disproportionate punishment for a crime before ordering the person’s removal. But advocates are working to change this. Read More
Talking Turkey on Immigration 2013
In an effort to preserve harmony at the Thanksgiving table, we have for the last several years offered up tips on making the case for immigration reform in front of, what is for many, the most hostile audience of all—their families. Even in the most congenial of families, there’s likely to be someone who can push your buttons on the immigration issue. But you can, and should, engage them, armed with this year’s advice on talking turkey about immigration reform. Read More
Keeping CBP In Line With Proposed Reforms
In May 2010, Congress submitted a request to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for a review of U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) policy on the use of force by border patrol agents. Drawing on recommendations from a hard-hitting report by DHS’s Office of Inspector General, as well as an internal review and an independent evaluation by the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF), CBP announced compliance with a handful of proposed reforms to its use of force policy. Read More
Report: ICE Officers Fail to Report Some Sex Abuse Claims
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers failed to report numerous allegations of sexual abuse over the last four years, according to a recent report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO). Between October 2009 to March 2013, ICE headquarters received reports of 215 allegations of sexual abuse and assault, but a GAO audit of 10 of those facilities found an additional 28 allegations—40 percent more than the 70 allegations reported by these facilities. Read More
New York’s Highest Court Says that Noncitizens Must Be Warned of Deportation Risk Before Pleading Guilty
The highest court in New York ruled on Tuesday that due process compels state court judges to warn defendants in criminal proceedings who are not U.S. citizens that pleading guilty to a felony may result in their deportation. The court noted that “deportation is a plea consequence of such tremendous importance, grave impact and frequent occurrence that a defendant is entitled to notice that it may ensue…Due process compels a trial court to apprise a defendant that, if the defendant is not an American citizen, he or she may be deported as a consequence of a guilty plea to a felony.” Read More
Detention Bed Mandate is Just One Example of How Immigration is Being Criminalized
For more than a century, study after study has confirmed two simple yet powerful truths about the relationship between immigration and crime: immigrants are less likely to commit serious crimes or be behind bars than the native-born, and high rates of immigration are not associated with higher rates of either violent or property crime. Unfortunately, immigration policy is frequently shaped more by fear and stereotype than by empirical evidence, which is why immigrants are so often treated like dangerous criminals by the U.S. immigration system. Whole new classes of “felonies” are created which apply only to immigrants, deportation is viewed as a just punishment for even minor crimes, and policies to end unauthorized immigration become more and more punitive rather than more rational and practical. In short, immigration itself is being criminalized. Read More
All gifts are matched dollar for dollar
No one should face the immigration system alone
