Border Kids

One Nation? It’s All Regional When It Comes To Staying In U.S.A.

June 2, 2016 By CCM Staff

The Associated Press, using the Freedom of Information Act, is reporting that “… youngsters whose applications are handled by the U.S. government’s regional offices in San Francisco and Los Angeles are far more likely to win approval from asylum officers than those applying in Chicago or Houston…” and the report also explains that “… the figures offer a snapshot of how the government is handling the huge surge over the past two years in the number of Central American children arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border unaccompanied by adults. Tens of thousands of youngsters — many of them fleeing gang violence in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras — have overflowed U.S. shelters and further clogged the nation’s overwhelmed immigration courts.”

The AP backgrounds that “… under federal law, these children can apply to remain in the country in a process that involves an interview with an asylum officer from one of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ eight regional offices. To win their cases, they must show that they have been persecuted or are in danger of persecution.” The report notes that “.. overall, 37 percent were granted asylum, but the rate varied dramatically from 86 percent at the San Francisco office, which handles applications for a swath of the Pacific Northwest, to 15 percent in Chicago, which covers 15 states from Ohio to Idaho.”

Read how much geography is destiny here: AP Exclusive: Children’s Asylum Approvals Vary by US Region

Filed Under: Border Kids, Cases, National Tagged With: Border Kids, immigration courts, immigration services

Trump Promises Deportation, But Obama Already Delivering It

May 31, 2016 By CCM Staff

Advocates say immigration raids are making it more difficult to contact potential Latino voters. | AP

While Donald J. Trump has outraged immigration advocates by saying he intended to deport massive numbers of undocumented residents, the Obama administration is outraging many of the same people by actually deporting families here to seek asylum from dangerous countries. Politico is reporting that “… the administration has so far declined to confirm specifics about the latest round of raids, which were disclosed in a Reuters report this month. According to a document obtained by the news agency, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have told agents across the country to prepare for a 30-day ‘surge’ of arrests targeting mothers and children who have recently arrived in the country illegally but have been told to return to their home countries.

One part of the political fallout is simply that immigrant families that might worry about their status just don’t come to the door when political organizers visit. Politico is all over the story here:

Filed Under: Border Kids, Community, Events Tagged With: Border Kids, Donald trump, immigration, Obama Administration

Atlanta Is Worst For Avoiding Deportation

May 26, 2016 By CCM Staff

STEVE EBERHARDT FOR THE HUFFINGTON POST
Kimberly Pineda Chavez and her mother, Lourdes, came to the U.S. from Honduras.

Elise Foley, the Huffington Post’s immigration reporter, has a devastating story about Atlanta being the “worst” for immigrants hoping to avoid deportation. She notes that “… more than a third of the people detained under what the government calls Operation Border Guardian were from the Atlanta area, more than any other ICE jurisdiction.

There’s a reason for this. Immigration law doesn’t vary from state to state or court to court. But immigrants’ odds do, and by the numbers, Atlanta is one of the worst places in the country to be an undocumented immigrant hoping to avoid deportation. Justice Department-appointed judges in that court denied asylum 98 percent of the time in the 2015 fiscal year, the highest rate of any immigration court that heard more than five cases. Eighty-eight percent of cases that went before Atlanta immigration courts ended with a removal order. That’s way over the national average: In the country as a whole, immigration judges denied about 52 percent of asylum claims, and 69 percent of cases resulted in a deportation order.”

She also backgrounds that “…Atlanta immigration judges have been accused of bullying children, badgering domestic violence victims and setting standards for relief and asylum that lawyers say are next to impossible to meet. Given Atlanta immigration judges’ reluctance to grant asylum, some immigrants who fear returning to their native countries don’t even pursue it.”
Read the story here: Here’s Why Atlanta Is One Of The Worst Places To Be An Undocumented Immigrant

Filed Under: Border Kids, Cases, Community Tagged With: Border Kids, immigration courts, undocumented workers

Obama Administration Defending Jail-Like Family Detention Camps

May 18, 2016 By CCM Staff

Children walk to class at the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas. Charles Reed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, McClatchyDC Report

Lawyers for the detained families filed a motion with the U.S. District Court of Central District of California Tuesday night charging the administration with violating a federal judge’s ruling last summer that prohibits children from being detained – even with their mothers – in jail-like facilities for more time than it takes to process and release them to family members, reports Franco Ordonez at McClatchy news service.

The report notes that “… U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee in Los Angeles found that the Obama administration’s family detention policy violates an 18-year-old court settlement regarding the detention of migrant children. She gave the government until Oct. 23 to comply with her order that required officials release children within five days. She provided an exception that allows officials to hold families for about three weeks under exceptional circumstances like the 2014 border surge of nearly 70,000 families from Central America.”

As background, it is also noted that the “… court filing is only the latest in the family detention saga to cast a shadow on the Obama administration since resurrecting the controversial detention policy because of the surge… the United States is worried enough about violence in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras that its expanding the refugee program for vulnerable migrants. At the same time, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security continues to detain and deport families – many of whom have requested asylum because of the violence – to those same countries.”
Read the story here:
Obama administration pulled back to court over family detention

Filed Under: Border Kids, Community, Events Tagged With: Border Kids, U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee, US Department of Homeland Security, US District Court

Sen. Patrick Leahy: Many children facing deportation are forced to proceed before a judge without a lawyer

May 10, 2016 By CCM Staff

Immigrant children and their mothers arrive in Guatemala after being deported from the United States in 2014. The migrants had come to the U.S. to flee a humanitarian crisis in their homeland. Photo Credit CNN Report, 5/9/2016

A powerful U.S.senator, who serves as the ranking Democrat on the Senate’s justice committee and on the body’s subcommittee on immigration, has authored a national CNN piece opinion piece blasting the nation’s current approach to the “border kids,” our term for often unaccompanied children seeking asylum in the U.S. Asserting that a fair day in court is “… a bedrock principle of our justice system,” Sen, Patrick Leahy of Vermont said that having legal representation is “… especially important for children who cannot advocate for themselves.”

The Democrat didn’t call out the Obama Administration, but does ask “… so how could we possibly expect children to navigate court proceedings on their own?” He answers by noting “… and yet, each year, the United States government does just that. In immigration court, in case after case, a trained federal prosecutor represents the interests of the government while too many children facing deportation are forced to proceed before a judge without a lawyer.” He also says that “.. it is the longstanding policy of the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice to pursue immigration cases against children, even very young children, without lawyers. And it is a longstanding executive policy they are actively defending in federal court, right now.”

You can read his comments, which do not include plans from his various committees, here:

http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/09/opinions/children-need-lawyers-leahy/

Filed Under: Border Kids, Community, National Tagged With: Border Kids, child immigration, Department of Justice, immigration courts, Senator Patrick Leahy

Supreme Court’s Immigration Case Sparking Nationwide Protests

April 22, 2016 By CCM Staff

Protesters opposed to President Obama’s executive actions on DACA and DAPA rally in front of San Bernardino City Hall. (Herald News photo by Alejandro Cano)

It’s a long way from Washington, D.C., to the Inland Empire section of California near Los Angeles. But immigration activists there are taking to streets, along with other demonstrations across the United States, to encourage the U.S. Supreme Court to side with President Obama over his sweeping immigration reforms.

The Fontana Herald-News backgrounded that “… the Supreme Court on April 18 began hearing oral arguments on President Barack Obama’s executive actions on immigration that would shield more than 4 million undocumented residents from deportation. Five out of eight votes are needed for the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA) to go forward; however, the Court seemed divided 4-4 along conservative and liberal lines.”

Five out of eight votes are needed for the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA) to go forward; however, the Court seemed divided 4-4 along conservative and liberal lines. Transcripts from oral arguments indicated that while Justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito worried about the language of Obama’s decrees, Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg noted the humanitarian side of the actions.

The Herald-News says that “… the division could be seen in the streets of the nation, including the Inland Empire, where two opposing groups rallied in Riverside and San Bernardino that day.”
Read the solidly reported story here: http://www.fontanaheraldnews.com/news/supreme-court-hears-oral-arguments-on-immigration-case-protesters-rally/article_e51d93c6-073b-11e6-8f1d-377d69ce8da9.html

Filed Under: Border Kids, Community Tagged With: Border Kids, Chief Justice John Roberts, DACA, DAPA, immigrant rights, Justice Samuel Alito, Supreme Court

Colorado Has Longest Immigration Court Delay: 933 days, 9K cases pending

March 11, 2016 By CCM Staff

Demonstrating for immigrant rights in Arizona. Photo credit, Colorado Public Radio report, 3/3/16

Colorado Public Radio is reporting that the Mile High State “… now has the longest delays in the nation for immigrants trying to have their cases heard before an immigration judge. The average waiting period is 933 days, and there are 9,420 cases pending.”

The network asks Denver immigration attorney Jennifer Casey to explain the situation while noting that it “… could get worse given the immigration-crackdown rhetoric in this political campaign season.”
Her initial comment: “If you look at the immigration courts over the last three years in Colorado, what we’ve seen is a reduction by about 50 percent of the immigration judges here locally. So we went from six judges in 2013 and we’re now down to three judges in 2016.”

The attorney also offers some background: “So, 50 percent reduction in immigration judges, 20 percent increase in cases and then the third factor is that the immigration courts nationally have prioritized certain cases above other cases. So we’ve got a priority docket and those are individuals who have entered the U.S. recently, specifically since May of 2014, who are either unaccompanied children or families with children. Mostly we’re talking about women and children but not exclusively.”
Of course, she also notes that the long delays benefit those with weaker cases to remain in the United States while hurting those with the better cases, because they cannot get a court date to win legal status.

– See more at: Why Denver’s Immigration Court Has The Longest Hearing Delays In The US

Filed Under: Border Kids, Community Tagged With: Border Kids, Colorado, Denver, immigration court

NYT Offers Insight Into Obama’s Immigration Woes

February 1, 2016 By CCM Staff

Photo from NYT report, 1/8/16: A 2-year-old boy from Honduras at a shelter in San Antonio, where he stayed with his mother before joining relatives elsewhere in the United States.

A New York Times story is detailing how an influx of Central American refugees is complicating the Obama Administration’s immigration policies, including how building family detention camps to send an anti-immigration signal in 2014 has come back to challenge legal and political situations in an election year. In particular, the report notes that Jude Dolly M Gee of the Federal District Court of the Central District of California ordered back in August that migrant children could not be held in a locked detention center and had to be released, with their parents, “without unnecessary delay.”

Instead of moving away from the camps, the government doubled-down win increased capacity. The NYT report is also interesting in noting that the camps were meant to send a “stay away” message to potential asylum seekers. It says that the “… Obama administration devised a strategy to manage the influx, putting them in detention centers to convince others that illegal crossers would be caught and sent back.”

Read the report here: A Rush of Central Americans Complicates Obama’s Immigration Task

Filed Under: Border Kids, Community Tagged With: Barack Obama, Border Kids, Central American Refugees, detention camps, immigration, immigration courts

Seeking Safety, Young Migrants Find Abuse At Hands Of U.S. Placement

January 26, 2016 By CCM Staff

Photo Credit: AP report, 1/25/16

The Associated Press is releasing a Los Angeles-based investigative report that pretty much indicts the entire U.S. government effort to deal with those unaccompanied kids seeking a sanctuary in the United States. The tale of epic fail begins “… as tens of thousands of children fleeing violence in Central America crossed the border in search of safe harbor, overwhelmed U.S. officials weakened child protection policies, placing some young migrants in homes where they were sexually assaulted, starved, or forced to work for little or no pay, an Associated Press investigation has found.”

Responding to public pressure, the U.S. simply cut some corners. The AP notes that “… first, the government stopped fingerprinting most adults seeking to claim the children. In April 2014, the agency stopped requiring original copies of birth certificates to prove most sponsors’ identities. The next month, it decided not to complete forms that request sponsors’ personal and identifying information before sending many of the children to sponsors’ homes. Then, it eliminated FBI criminal history checks for many sponsors.”

The AP found dozens of children who were placed in abusive situations and reports that “Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, who chairs the Senate’s bipartisan Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, said he will hold a hearing on the agency’s child placement program Thursday because he is concerned that the failures are systemic.”

Read the AP story here: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/e87200e7361b412fa8c1d5003b7bf357/ap-investigation-feds-failures-imperil-migrant-children

Filed Under: Border Kids, Community Tagged With: Border Kids, child protection policies, immigration reform, Sen. Rob Portman, South American immigrants

New Year Brings Increased Pressure On Immigration Courts

January 5, 2016 By CCM Staff

Photo: From Miami Herald report, 12/30/15

The new year brings a massive government roundup of women and families in the country illegally, which in turn raises the profile of would-be refugees claiming domestic violence as a reason for staying. The Miami Herald has an in-depth, potentially game-changing report that includes noting the half-million cases pending in Immigration Court, which is actually a civil function of the Justice Department and not a federal court in the usual sense.

The newspaper reported that in influx “… of unaccompanied minors and families from Central America that began last year has increased the backlog to nearly half a million cases in immigration court. To receive asylum in the United States, applicants must prove they have well-founded fears of persecution because of “race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion.”

Which applicants are most likely to prevail often depends on judges’ backgrounds, what parts of the country the cases are heard in and whether they have lawyers, according to data from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, known as TRAC, at Syracuse University.

The newspaper also looks at recent judicial changes that might allow more families to stay, and notes the huge holding facilities in Texas. Really, a solid backgrounder in what is emerging as a potential presidential election issue, especially in the pivotal primary state of Florida.

Filed Under: Border Kids, Community Tagged With: Border Kids, domestic violence, Florida primary, immigration court