Immigration Courts
Municipalities Help Advance Access to Counsel for Immigrants
Historically, “immigrants facing deportation are not provided an attorney if they cannot afford one.” But across the country, municipalities are taking steps to improve access to counsel for those who otherwise would be forced to proceed in immigration court alone. Cities are establishing programs to provide free legal… Read More
Children in Jail: What It’s Like for Immigrants Held at Artesia Center
By Megan Jordi, legal director at the New Mexico Immigrant Law Center. The rule of law is only a mirage in the remote, dusty town of Artesia, New Mexico, where the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is holding more than 600 Honduran, Salvadoran, and Guatemalan women and children. The… Read More
House and Senate Face Stalemate over Proposals to Fund Border Challenges
Members in the House and Senate are offering competing proposals to address humanitarian needs as child migrants cross the U.S.-Mexico border alone, but it could be difficult to reconcile the two plans before the August recess. The Obama administration requested $3.7 billion in additional funding earlier this month. Read More
DOJ Adds Temp Judges and Shifts Priorities in Response to Unaccompanied Minors
Congress has long neglected the immigration court system, like so many other aspects of our immigration infrastructure. For years, while the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has dedicated more and more resources to immigration enforcement efforts, resources for the immigration courts have not commensurately increased. As a result, immigration courts cannot keep up with their current workload. This has become increasingly evident as courts struggle to handle the growing number of deportation cases DHS has brought against unaccompanied children. And while the Obama administration has requested emergency supplemental funding to hire 25 new immigration judges, it is unclear whether this funding will materialize. In an attempt to bring some immediate relief, the Department of Justice announced a new rule that permits the Department to hire temporary judges. Read More
Dearth of work visas slow Houston’s tech scene
Houston and U.S. technology companies in over 200 metropolitan areas faced difficulties hiring workers due to a lack of H-1B worker’s visas, a recent study shows. According to a study produced by the Partnership for a New American Economy, in 2007 and 2008, the system of… Read More
Study: Providing Representation for Indigent Immigrants Could Pay for Itself
U.S. immigration laws provide only minimal due process protections for even the most vulnerable immigrants facing deportation, and in 59 percent of cases, immigrants are forced to navigate the byzantine immigration court system without representation, including many unaccompanied children. Many do not… Read More
Immigration Courts’ Computer Malfunction Slows an Already Crowded System
For more than a month, the computer system that manages federal immigration court cases has been down due to a massive malfunction. According to a notice on the website for the Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR), which oversees immigration courts, “A hardware failure has resulted in the… Read More
Unaccompanied Children Deserve Fair Representation in Immigration Courts
News stories and NGO reports continue to document the plight of “unaccompanied children,” and their complex legal issues were brought to the attention of Congress when Attorney General Eric Holder told the House Judiciary Committee last month that the Department of Justice needs to do more to address… Read More
Drop in Court-Ordered Deportations Means Little to Overall Deportation Numbers
Last week, the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR)—the division within the Department of Justice that runs that immigration court system—released its FY2013 Statistics Yearbook detailing the number of deportation cases begun and completed in the immigration courts nationwide. The Yearbook showed a decrease in the number of… Read More
The Washington Post Exposes Sorry State of Immigration Courts
This week, the Washington Post ran a front page article drawing attention to the fact that our nation’s immigration courts are operating in crisis mode. The immigration courts are so overcrowded that judges are forced to make split-second decisions regarding complex legal issues, calling into question whether the court system is fairly administering justice. The article featured a morning in the life of one immigration judge who had 26 cases to hear before lunchtime. That equates to an average of just seven minutes per case. Given the high stakes involved in deportation cases—which can range from permanent separation from family in the United States to being returned to a country where a person fears for his or her life—a system that is overburdened and under-resourced is simply unacceptable. Read More
All gifts are matched dollar for dollar
No one should face the immigration system alone
