Department of Homeland Security
DHS Issues Tropical Storm Karen Guidance
As they have done during previous weather-related emergencies, the Department of Homeland Security issued guidance directing that immigration enforcement activities be suspended. The directive notes: “…to the extent that Karen impacts law enforcement operations and/or the storm triggers the need for an officially ordered evacuation or an emergency government… Read More
How a Government Shutdown Likely Affects Immigration Agencies
The government’s fiscal year ends today, and without legislation authorizing spending to continue, whether for the full fiscal year or even a few weeks, many federal offices and services will be shuttered starting tomorrow. Unfortunately, the chances the United States government will avoid a shutdown are low. The Senate has tabled the House-approved spending bill, which defunds the Affordable Care Act, and sent it back to the House, but it is unlikely that a consensus will be found before the midnight deadline. This means that beginning Tuesday, an estimated 800,000 to 1 million federal employees will be furloughed and government offices and national parks will close. Details of the impact of the shutdown are emerging and the situation is fluid, but based on what we do know and what happened the last time the federal government shut down in 1996, here is what likely will happen: Read More
Customs and Border Protection’s New “Use of Force” Initiatives Are Welcome First Steps
The endemic use of force within U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) made national headlines in 2010 when Anastacio Hernandez Rojas, a 42-year old Mexican national living in San Diego, was killed by a Border Patrol Officer while in CBP custody. Since then, at least 18 other people have have died as the result of alleged excessive use of force by CBP officials, including six U.S. citizens and seven minors under 21. These incidents prompted the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to review the use of force at CBP. A report issued earlier this month by DHS’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) exposes the inadequacies of the “use of force training” for Border Patrol agents and a series of operational flaws in the agency’s monitoring of employee misconduct. Read More
Fear Mongering via Mexican Asylum Cases
Here’s how an immigration rumor gets started. Take one local Fox news station, mix in a bunch of undisclosed sources complaining about asylum seekers at the Otay border crossing, add in some inflammatory comments from the chairman of the board of the Center for Immigration Studies, and just wait for the story to get blown up and out of proportion by anti-immigrant-fed media sources. For added zest, make sure the story airs shortly after a highly publicized event, like the detention and release of the DREAM9 at the Mexican border, which can be easily mixed up and conflated into some kind of threat to the country’s integrity and security. Read More
Steve King’s Tall Tales About Immigrants and Crime Don’t Add Up
There is no denying that Rep. Steve King (R-IA) has a vivid imagination. As he sits in Border Patrol vehicles at night, he apparently sees hundreds of DREAM Act-eligible drug mules with muscular calves hauling heavy loads of marijuana across the border. How does he know these drug mules would meet the rather stringent criteria for legalization under the DREAM Act? Hard to say. How does he know these drug mules outnumber their valedictorian counterparts by a ratio of one hundred to one? No one can say. What is certain is this: when it comes to the topic of immigration and crime, nativists like King have no need for facts when there is so much fear and innuendo at their disposal. Perhaps this is because the facts are so stacked against them. Read More
Former Attorney General Gets it Wrong on DOMA and Same Sex Immigration Benefits
Former Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales is advocating in the New York Times that the Supreme Court decision in U.S. v. Windsor, which invalidated Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), should not allow the Obama administration to afford immigration benefits to married, same-sex bi-national couples. Rather, he argues, the administration is bound by a disturbing, 30-year-old Ninth Circuit case, Adams v. Howerton, which rested on discriminatory and outdated law and facts. Essentially, Mr. Gonzales is urging that the administration ignore 30 years of social progress and legal developments and return to a 20th century mentality and jurisprudence. He is mistaken. Read More
Polls: Huge Support for Immigration Reform
Politico June 13, 2013 Immigration reform continues to attract broad public support as the Gang of Eight compromise legislation moves through the Senate, according to a huge raft of polling conducted for three pro-reform groups: the Partnership for a New American Economy, the Alliance for Citizenship and Republicans for Immigration… Read More
Congressional Opponents of Immigration Reform Demand Endless Increases in Border Security
Not surprisingly, the issue of border security is emerging as the biggest stumbling block to passage of the immigration reform bill now moving through the Senate. Conservative opponents of reform are refusing to support any measure that would grant legal status to unauthorized immigrants already in the country without first achieving that most nebulous of goals: “securing the border.” Yet the calls of these critics for “enforcement first” conveniently overlook the fact that the United States has been pursuing an “enforcement first” approach to border security for more than 20 years—and it has yet to work. Read More
Will Due Process Protections Be Preserved in Senate Mark-Up?
On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee began its mark-up of Title III of S.744, the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act. When the mark-up continues on Monday, Senators are likely to vote on amendments addressing immigration courts. These amendments will be crucial in determining whether the full Senate receives a bill that provides due process protections to immigrants in removal proceedings. Read More
Can We Afford Not to Include 11 Million People in Health Care Reform?
By Sonal Ambegaokar, Health Policy Attorney at the National Immigration Law Center. To date, policy discussions regarding immigrants and health care and other benefits primarily focus on negative stereotypes and myths. As a result, the default policy solution to any issue involving immigrants and benefits is to simply deny the benefits, even when the immigrants are in the U.S. lawfully. Yet this solution is counter-productive for three main reasons: first, it is not cost-effective; second, it fails to actually address the systemic failures in our national health care and immigration policies; and third, it legally sanctions the exclusion and ostracizing of immigrants as the “other.” Read More
All gifts are matched dollar for dollar
No one should face the immigration system alone
