Courts Monitor Publisher Sara Warner has published a Huffington Post story with her take on recent developments involving the New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. She notes that “… the new Republican-controlled congress rolled up its sleeves and rolled out its agenda over the last week, and along with immigration and budget issues it turns out “asbestos litigation reform” is an apparent priority. The powerful House Judiciary Committee held a formal hearing in Washington in what amounts to a national campaign targeted at bankruptcy transparency – but fueled largely by both a landmark federal case out of North Carolina and the ongoing New York scandal involving the arrest of state assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.”
California Groups Demand ‘Trust’ Implementation
January 29, 2015 By
Across the Golden State protestors this week are asking state officials to fully implement a 2014 law that protects undocumented immigrants reporting crimes or becoming witnesses to wrongdoing. The “Trust Act” was aimed at allowing those immigrants to testify in court or report crime without fear of deportation, but activists say it has not been followed.
The NBC affiliate in San Diego covered protests there and explained that “… the law decreased immigration “holds” in California, which in turn decreased deportations of undocumented immigrants. The law also provided expanded protections for undocumented immigrants. Protesters claim law enforcement officers have violated the state law instead of implementing it.” The immigration holds are actually civil actions, not criminal, so they do not always include safeguards like legal representation.
Watch the NBC 7 San Diego video coverage:
Central American Cases Push Others Aside
January 27, 2015 By
One way to respond to the immigration courts crisis highlighted by those unaccompanied minors from Central America would be to overhaul the system and increase capacity. Another would be to push those cases ahead of others in hopes of discouraging other migrants from coming. Guess which one we’re doing?
The Houston Chronicle has a strong story about “… a startling turnaround for a clogged immigration court system that usually takes about six months between just these first steps [as opposed to 30 days], reflecting the government’s effort to push Central American cases through the pipeline to deter other migrants from coming. The aggressive effort, however, has ramifications for others in the system, which is facing a record backlog of more than 430,000 cases nationwide. Some immigrants’ hearings have been delayed indefinitely, which can impede time-sensitive cases and jeopardize their chances of gaining legal residency. Mexicans, who make up the largest portion of immigration courts’ caseload, saw their disposition times increase by about 13 percent to 533 days, according to a new analysis of court records by Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.”
“The Central American cases have completely taken over the docket,” immigration attorney Salvador Colon told the paper, while another noted that “they’re shoving all the Central Americans in front saying, ‘Go home and tell everyone else not to come because you’re going to be deported. The immigration court here looks like a day care because there are so many little kids hopping around.”
In First, 2014 ‘OTM’ Out-Paced Mexican Immigrant Detention
January 19, 2015 By
For the first time, the OTM, or “other than Mexican,” immigration out-paced Mexican nationals apprehended at the U.S. Mexico during 2014, a Texas ABC News affiliate is reporting. Citing a Pew Research Center study, KRGV in the Rio Grande valley says that “… [in] 2014, the number of Mexican nationals detained was 229,000, compare to nearly 260,000 OTMs. A surge of Central American children made up a large part of the immigration picture last summer. The numbers are lower than in years past, but the open border raises many questions nationally and locally.”
The OTM designation offers a different path for would-be migrants, including an immigration court review before they can be sent back. The bigger numbers come as the U.S. faced a surge from Central American companies, especially among minor children seeking refuge here. The TV station speculates that “… it is possible immigration courts will be busy with thousands of people filing documents. In the next few weeks, it is possible those same courts will likely handle hundreds, possibly thousands, of cases involving new illegal immigrants.” The story outlines border issues involving social services, property insurance and other impacts. See it here.
Denver Case Foreshadows Immigration Showdowns
January 15, 2015 By
A new twist in civil immigration is emerging in Denver, as an immigrant is taking sanctuary in a church basement while protestors make his case an example of people trapped in the on-again, off-again immigration policy crated by President Obama’s executive actions and the resulting Republican opposition.
The Denver Post reports that Arturo Hernandez Garcia, who is in the United States without legal permission, has been living under sanctuary protection in the First Unitarian Society of Denver church. Jennifer Piper, who is with the Denver office of American Friends Service Committee, said he plans to remain in sanctuary until he can secure some relief. Meanwhile, on Tuesday, an immigration court refused to reopen Garcia’s case. His next steps are to apply for a legal stay to stop deportation and to apply for status under Obama’s orders.
About 40 of his supporters rallied outside the immigration court building in downtown Denver to protest the latest legal action in his case.On the same day, the House passed a Department of Homeland Security funding bill that contains amendments that would gut President Obama’s immigration reform measures. One amendment also would end the 3-year-old program that gives law-abiding immigrants brought to the country as children the right to work and to be free from the threat of deportation.
You can expect that immigrants, especially those with families including United States citizens, are going to repeat the Denver example. So stay tuned and check out the Post story here: Immigration vote sends chilling message to those facing deportation
Immigration Judicial Complaints Remain Cloaked
December 30, 2014 By
A federal judge has ruled that identities of Immigration Court judges targeted by misconduct complaints can remain secret, including information like gender and even location of the court. The National Law Journal reports that “… the immigration office disclosed 16,000 pages associated with 767 complaints in the lawsuit, filed by the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) in June 2013. The government released nonconfidential information from substantiated and unsubstantiated complaints. The names of individual judges were redacted.”
The government argued the public release of the judges’ names and other identifying information would infringe privacy interests. U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper agreed, pointing out that the judges are career civil service employees and have privacy rights associated with that standing. That is a reference to Immigration Court judges not being “judges” in the typical sense, but are actually employees of the Justice Department.
‘Border Kids’ Noted In AP’s Top 2014 Stories
December 23, 2014 By
AP photo used in Tampa Bay Times report on 12/22/14 shows “Young detainees sleep in a holding cell on June 18, 2014, at a U.S. Customs and Border Protection processing facility in Brownsville,Texas.”
The unaccompanied Central American minors seeking refuge in the United States was a key event as “immigration” was a Top 10 story in 2014, according to the Associated Press annual survey of U.S. editors and news directors. The wire service said “police killing of unarmed blacks” was the top story and the Ebola outbreak in West Africa was second.
On immigration, the AP says that “… frustrated by an impasse in Congress, President Obama took executive actions in November to curb deportations for many immigrants residing in the U.S. illegally. GOP leaders in the House and Senate pledged efforts to block the president’s moves. Prospects for reform legislation were dimmed earlier in the year by the influx of unaccompanied Central American minors arriving at the U.S. border, causing shelter overloads and case backlogs.” Immigration courts are civil justice proceedings managed by the Justice Department. Judges in the system have called for an overhaul, including making the courts independent of law enforcement.
See the AP story list for 2014 here, via the Tampa Bay Tribune.
A History Lesson On Race-Based Immigration
December 18, 2014 By
Controversy and court challenges over American birth-right citizenship for babies born in the U.S. to illegal immigrants? Targeting a particular group for enforcement because of their race? Accepting the labor and economic contribution while creating an immigrant underclass? An NBC news report outlines those moves against Chinese immigrants under the “Chinese Exclusion Act,” that was repealed in 1943 – after being in place for 61 years.
It was that debate over birth right to U.S. citizenship that brought the Supreme Court’s Wong Kim Ark case, which is still the legal standard today, notes NBC.
The Exclusion Act, says the report, “…. was repealed with the signing of the Magnuson Act on… Dec. 17, in 1943. The legal exclusion of Chinese lasted for sixty-one years. The repeal was named for Warren G. Magnuson, a member of Congress from Washington state, where some of the strongest anti-Chinese sentiment was heard. The repeal, however, was still restrictive, opening up Chinese immigration to just 105 visas.”
Read the NBC report and some details on the policy here: The Chinese Exclusion Act Ended Seventy-One Years Ago, Today
Tomorrow’s Immigration News Today: Devil In The Details
December 1, 2014 By
Not to equate the United States Justice Department with Lucifer himself, but the old saying that “the devil’s in the details” is holding up with President Obama’s immigration actions. You have to read with a particular eye, but a Washington Post report by Juliet Eilperin and Jerry Markon notes that “… one of the provisions the Justice Department lawyers included, which they also pushed for during the creation of the 2012 program, was to make clear that federal immigration officials would still have the option of deporting individuals who might otherwise qualify for a deferral.”
Wait, what? With some 400,000 cases pending in the Justice Department’s own immigration courts, they also have the option of deporting people who would “otherwise” qualify for defferral? The WaPo also reports that the “… memo states that the new policy ‘provides for case-by-case determinations about whether an individual alien’s circumstances warrant the expenditure of removal resources, employing a broad standard that leaves ample room for the exercise of individual discretion by enforcement officials.’”
One point of the story is that some people who might qualify for protection under the Obama action will no self-identify to authorities. It’s the kind of uncertainty that has kept some “Dreamers” from stepping forward. From what we’ve seen in the past year, “trust the Justice Department” is going to be a tough sell, and a future headline will be “Few Take Obama Up On Protection Offer.”
You read it here first! And you can see the excellent WaPo work here.
Obama Does Congress’ Job on Immigration, is Immigration Court Reform Next?
November 21, 2014 By
Courts Monitor Publisher Sara Warner, writing at the Huffington Post “politics” page, notes that President Obama has stepped up to do Congress’ job on immigration; now, she wonders, will the president also address problems in his Justice Department’s immigration courts? With hundreds of thousands of cases pending and a federal investigation into nepotism, it would seem a good next step. Read it here.
