Immigration and Customs Enforcement
USCIS Changes Employment Eligibility Verification: One Step Back and One Step Forward
Despite concerns expressed by stakeholders, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has returned to a one-page format for Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification. What may seem like a technical change has important consequences for employees and their employers. For nearly 38 years, employers and certain agricultural recruiters and referrers… Read More
The True Impact of Biden’s Asylum Transit Ban
On Tuesday, a federal judge ruled that the Biden administration’s asylum transit ban was illegal and should be vacated. The ruling isn’t in effect yet – it was delayed for 14 days and may be stayed indefinitely by the 9th Circuit or the Supreme Court. This would leave the… Read More
New Complaint Shows ICE’s Use of Solitary Confinement Is Excessive
“If I spoke too loudly, solitary. If I climbed on top of a table to get a guard’s attention, solitary. If I had suicidal thoughts, solitary. When the guards would tease me about being deported back to my home country and make airplane sounds at me and gesture like a… Read More
Supreme Court Refuses to Narrow Criminal Grounds of Removability
In a split decision issued on June 22, the Supreme Court ruled against two noncitizens seeking to overturn agency findings that their state criminal convictions qualified as “aggravated felonies.” Under immigration law, an aggravated felony makes a noncitizen deportable. Their cases hinged on whether the definition of “obstruction of… Read More
Supreme Court Allows Biden Administration to Reinstitute Its Immigration Enforcement Priorities
Last Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision in U.S. v. Texas, which allows the Biden administration to resume its implementation of guidelines for immigration enforcement within the interior of the United States, otherwise known as enforcement priorities. The Court held that the states challenging the legality of… Read More
DHS Launches Process for Afghans to Extend Permission to Stay in the US
Time was running out for many Afghan refugees living and working in the United States after American troops withdrew from Afghanistan. Thanks to the Biden administration’s recent decision to extend what is known as “parole,” many Afghans will now be given the opportunity to continue to live and work… Read More
ICE Is Shifting Bond Payments to an Electronic System
Last week, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced the launch of CeBONDS, a new system people can use to pay bonds and secure the release of individuals in immigration detention. The new system allows people paying the bond—referred to as obligors—to go through most of the process online… Read More
DHS Publishes Privacy Document About ATDs and the Data They Collect – Two Decades Late
Written by Raul Pinto and Rebekah Wolf of the American Immigration Council The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) published the Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) implementation of Alternative to Detention Programs (ATD) on March 17. ATD programs provide noncitizens in removal… Read More
Deadly Detention Center Fire Is a Reminder: Both the US and Mexico Are Failing Migrants
On Monday night, 39 migrants died, and another 27 were seriously injured, in a fire in a Mexican detention center in Ciudad Juarez. The migrants—most of them from Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Venezuela—were being held for deportation by the Mexican immigration enforcement agency INM, after a sweep to pick… Read More
Where the ‘Migrant Protection Protocols’ Stand, Four Years After Going Into Effect
Last week, a federal court in California issued a decision allowing asylum seekers and other plaintiffs to continue their legal challenge to the Trump-era “Remain in Mexico” program, officially (and in true Orwellian fashion) called the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP). The program—which forced migrants to wait indefinitely in… Read More
America's story is an immigrant story.
