In Texas, That ‘Other’ Supreme Court Immigration Ruling Looms Large

July 18, 2017 By
A U.S. border patrol agent looks over the Rio Grande at the border between the United States and Mexico, in Roma, Texas. The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that a U.S. border patrol officer accused of shooting a 15-year-old Mexican on Mexican soil has to stand trial. CARLOS BARRIA/REUTERS

A U.S. border patrol agent looks over the Rio Grande at the border between the United States and Mexico, in Roma, Texas. The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that a U.S. border patrol officer accused of shooting a 15-year-old Mexican on Mexican soil has to stand trial.
CARLOS BARRIA/REUTERS

The recent Supreme Court decision upholding parts of President Trump’s travel ban earned most of the national media’s attention, but another ruling on border issues may also have huge impact. Newsweek magazine explains that “…. the ruling in the case of a teenager shot dead on Mexican soil by a U.S. border patrol officer in 2010 will have consequences for law enforcement along the border… the Supreme Court ruled that the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals must consider the case, rejecting the lower court’s previous ruling that upheld the immunity from prosecution of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Jesus Mesa Jr., who fatally shot a 15-year-old Mexican, Sergio Adrian Hernández Guereca, under his left eye.

The FBI had previously cleared the agent of any wrongdoing, and the government had defended his immunity from civil lawsuits. The family and immigration advocates are welcoming the ruling and note that it will help determine future border agent practices.

See the Newsweek story here:

Trump’s efforts to restrict immigration from Mexico are hitting a legal wall in Texas

Filed Under: Border Kids, Cases, Events Tagged With: , , , , ,

Boston Globe Deep-Dives Into Immigration Court Delays

June 26, 2017 By
Photo Credit: Boston Globe Report, Pat Greenhouse/Staff / File 2015

Photo Credit: Boston Globe Report, Pat Greenhouse/Staff / File 2015

Citing government studies, The Boston Glove is reporting that the immigration court “logjam” has more than doubled over the past decade, to include about a half-million cases including 11,271 cases in Boston,
“As a result, some respondents’ cases may take years to resolve,” government auditors said in the June 1 report on the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review, which oversees the immigration court system.
The Globe story focuses on a woman, her husband, and their two children who “… fled war-torn Syria in 2013, moving first to Lebanon before arriving legally in Massachusetts in March 2014. They applied for asylum, were granted temporary permission to stay, and were given work permits. So far, however, they have no idea how long they’ll be allowed to remain in the United States. Or even if they will.”
The reporting cites several causes for the backlog, including too few judges and the 2014 jump in people seeing refuge here. Immigration courts are considered “civil,” rather than criminal and thus do not have to provide lawyers and other protections. The courts are not part of the federal courts system but are a function of the Justice Department.
Read the Globe story here: At immigration courts, a growing backlog – The Boston Globe

Filed Under: Border Kids, Cases, National Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Report: Half of Californians Worry Somebody They Know Will Be Deported

June 13, 2017 By

A new report by the Capital & Main group, published at Newsweek, outlines how deeply the immigration and deportation issues are felt in California. The report also notes that”… fifty-one percent of California adults said increased federal immigration enforcement left them worried that someone they know could be deported, according to the survey from the Public Policy Institute of California. Thirty percent said they worry ‘a lot’ about it, according to the poll.

The report also notes that, under President Trump, “… deportations have actually fallen…compared with the same time period last year, but the number of arrests of undocumented immigrants has increased. Some of those people are owed a day in court, and the immigration courts are backlogged with pending cases.”

The immigration cours are designated as “civil” cases, as opposed to criminal cases. One difference is that people in civil cases lack the guarantee of a lawyer.

See the story here: http://www.newsweek.com/half-california-adults-believe-someone-know-deported-trump-619282

Filed Under: Border Kids, Cases, National Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Getting Deported Back to Haiti Almost Killed Me

June 6, 2017 By
Illustration Credit: Paul Moreno

Illustration Credit: Paul Moreno

The ongoing debates over United States immigration and refugee policy is bringing many personal stories into the spotlight, mostly featuring immediate concerns. But VICE is offering a compelling story of a South Florida man who was deported back to Haiti at the age of 22. The story is counter-intuitive in many ways – he prefers Reagan to Clinton as American presidents go and offers mixed feelings about how Florida would have worked out.

Now Jean Pierre Marseille is described as a “journalist, fixer, translator, salesman” and “jack of all trades.” His story offers a lesson in how policy translates into personal history, and you can find it here:

Getting Deported Back to Haiti Almost Killed Me

Filed Under: Border Kids, Cases, Events Tagged With: , , , , ,

Chicago Trib Deep-Dives Into Immigration Court Delays

May 23, 2017 By
Dario Castaneda, an immigration attorney who is representing detained immigrant, Francisco Casas, outside of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services field office (West Congress Pkwy.) in Chicago on Tuesday, May 9, 2017. (Jose M. Osorio / Chicago Tribune)

Dario Castaneda, an immigration attorney who is representing detained immigrant, Francisco Casas, outside of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services field office (West Congress Pkwy.) in Chicago on Tuesday, May 9, 2017. (Jose M. Osorio / Chicago Tribune)

The Chicago Tribune is taking a deep dive into the Windy City’s immigration court backlog, including how a DUI sent a man to jail for seven months to await his day in court and other big-picture information. For example, the newspaper reports that “… as recently as 2010, the immigration court in Chicago had fewer than 13,000 pending cases on its docket. By the end of March, that figure had risen to 24,844, according to statistics provided by the federal Executive Office for Immigration Review, which is part of the Department of Justice.

The paper also notes that “… the crunch is partly the result of policy changes under the Obama administration, which made a priority of quickly handling cases that involved children and recent border crossers, particularly in the face of an influx of immigrants coming into the U.S. illegally from Central American countries around 2014. But the Trump administration has contributed to the crunch as well, emphasizing the deportation of detainees who have had contact with the criminal justice system, though even those without records have been caught up in the efforts.”

It’s a solid report and you can find it here: Cases flood Chicago Immigration Court as system reckons with new landscape

Filed Under: Border Kids, Cases, Events, National Tagged With: , , , , , ,

AG Sessions, Immigration Advocates Agree On Judges

April 13, 2017 By
AP, Politico online report, April 2017

AP, Politico online report, April 2017

Politico is among the media outlets noting that, “… for all their opposition to the Trump administration’s immigration agenda,” immigration advocates are welcoming at least one part of the agenda: hiring more immigration judges. In a well-reported story, Politico’s Danny Vinik added that U.S. Attorney General Sessions “… announced that DOJ will seek to add 75 immigration judges to the courts over the next year and will implement reforms to speed up the hiring process. These changes address a real problem with the immigration system—a nearly 600,000-case backlog at the immigration courts—and the move was a rare occasion in which advocates applauded the administration, though they were concerned how Sessions would implement the changes.”

Later, Vinik even deep-dives enough to background that “…immigration judges are technically employees of the Department of Justice, a structure that inherently creates a conflict of interest,since their job is to rule on immigration cases that are pushed by DOJ prosecutors, whereas most of the judiciary is independent. Advocates and the immigration judges union have long pushed to remove the immigration courts from the DOJ. And during the Bush administration, a DOJ investigation found that several immigration judges received their jobs due to their political connections, a scandal that serves as a warning today.”

During comments at the U.S.-Mexican border, Sessions also announced a “streamlined” hiring process for those DOJ judges.

Read the story here: http://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/04/the-one-area-jeff-sessions-and-immigration-advocates-agree-000411

Filed Under: Border Kids, Cases, National Tagged With: , , , , , ,

CM Publisher Makes Case For Bi-Partisian Fix on Immigration Court

January 29, 2017 By
Sara Cocoran Warner, Founding Publisher of the California Courts Monitor

Sara Cocoran Warner, Founding Publisher of the California Courts Monitor

Courts Monitor Publisher Sara Warner, in a Huffington Post blog, makes her case that fixing the swamped immigration courts should be a low-hanging issue for bi-partisian action. Although, perhaps the parties have differing motivations.

See her argument here:

Swamped Immigration Courts Are A Bi-Partisian Fix Opportunity

Filed Under: Border Kids, Cases Tagged With: , , , , ,

Trump’s Election Boosting Efforts For ‘Civil Gideon’ Style Reform

January 3, 2017 By
Photo Credit: LA Times video clip 1/3/2017

Photo Credit: LA Times video clip 1/3/2017

One impact of the pending Trump administration is already being felt as some states and cities are preparing funds to fight deportation. While it’s only one part of the issue, the funding is a boost to the movement for a “civil Gideon” policy that would provide a right to an attorney in some civil cases – like the right to an attorney for criminal cases. The Gideon case was the policy-setting decision for that criminal-case right.

Immigration advocates have long argued that some deportation cases should be among those requiring representation, especially when children are involved. Funding has always been part of the discussion, but some governments are finding cash in the wake of President-Elect Trump’s victory. For example, the Los Angeles Times reports that  LA city and county leaders have “… unveiled a $10-million fund to provide legal assistance for residents facing deportation, the region’s boldest move yet as it prepares for an expected crackdown on illegal immigration by Donald Trump. If approved by lawmakers, Los Angeles’ two top government agencies could find themselves in the position of using public funds to challenge policies sought by the White House and Republican Congress.”

Similar efforts are under way in New York, San Francisco, Chicago and the state of New York.

Read more here:
http://www.latimes.com/local/ lanow/la-me-ln-lafund- 20161219-story.html

Filed Under: Border Kids, Cases, Community Tagged With: , , , ,

The Key To Immigration? Hiring An Attorney

November 3, 2016 By
Wilfredo Allen, center, consults with Marlene Hasner and Camila Correal in his Miami office. Photo Credit: 10/30/16 Miami Herald Report

Wilfredo Allen, center, consults with Marlene Hasner and Camila Correal in his Miami office. Photo Credit: 10/30/16 Miami Herald Report

A Miami Herald report is adding fuel to the argument that would-be immigrants with legal representation fare much better than those without. The newspaper focuses on an individual case that “… seems to prove the theory among immigration lawyers that foreign nationals represented by an attorney in immigration court proceedings have a better chance of winning their case than those left to their own devices. But the first formal study on legal representation of foreign nationals in immigration proceedings actually proves the validity of that theory.”
 
“By reviewing over 1.2 million deportation cases decided across the United States over a six-year period, this report provides an urgent portrait of the lack of counsel in immigration courts,” according to the study issued by the American Immigration Council. “In it, we reveal that 63 percent of all immigrants went to court without an attorney. Detained immigrants were even less likely to obtain counsel — 86 percent attended their court hearings without an attorney. For immigrants held in remote detention centers, access to counsel was even more severely impaired, only 10 percent of immigrants detained in small cities obtained counsel.”
 
You can read the Herald story here: 
For immigrants crossing the border, they need one thing to help win the case
Filed Under: Border Kids, Cases Tagged With: , , , , ,

Former NY Prosecutor Outlines ‘The Real Crisis’ For Immigration

October 26, 2016 By
Quotas for depriving people of their liberty (KATE BRUMBACK/ASSOCIATED PRESS)

Quotas for depriving people of their liberty (KATE BRUMBACK/ASSOCIATED PRESS)

Over the last five years, the budget for immigration courts grew by 74% — but the budget for immigration enforcement agencies grew by over 400%. The result is gridlock that makes those old criminal court dockets look like models of efficiency.

Former Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, writing in the New York Daily News, outlines just how bad the U.S. immigration court crisis has become, blaming political pressures and adding that “… the result is a backlog that staggers the imagination. Today, when immigrants ask when they need to return to court, many are told in 2023.”

 Morgenthau outlines the oft-cited, but still hard to believe, stats: “According to the most recent data from a think tank at Syracuse University, there are currently pending before our immigration courts over half a million removal cases. That averages about 2,000 cases per judge.”

The writer offers some solutions and begins with judges: “What is to be done? Regardless of how one feels about immigration reform generally, everyone can agree that we need to restore sanity to immigration court. First, immigration judges should be real judges. Right now, they are employees of the Justice Department, and not genuinely independent.”

He also makes a call for a sort of Civil Gideon, the idea that some civil cases (as opposed to criminal cases) should require representation (immigration cases are considered civil actions): “Congress must also ensure that immigrants get proper legal representation when their basic rights are at stake… a study published this month disclosed that in 70% of cases involving adults with children, there was no legal representation for the family.”

And, obviously, increase capacity. It’s a well-considered piece from somebody who knows of what they speak. Read it, and find the writer’s other missives on immigration and other issues, here:

 Robert Morgenthau: America’s real immigration crisis

Filed Under: Border Kids, Cases, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , ,
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