N.M. Immigrant Detention Center Closing

November 19, 2014 By
The high-profile immigrant detention center in Artesia, N.M., is closing, the San Diego Union Tribune is reporting. The paper says that “… the government told some members of Congress about its plans Tuesday, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement later confirmed the closure to the AP. The administration indicated the facility was no longer needed because they are expanding jails elsewhere.”
 
The U-T adds that: “The Homeland Security Department opened the detention center at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Artesia, New Mexico, in late June amid a crush of tens of thousands of Central American families caught crossing the border illegally. The facility had space to jail about 700 people facing deportation.”
 
Phillip Burch, the mayor of Artesia, said in the past six weeks 448 Central American mothers and children have been released from the detention center and 28 were deported. You can read the story here.
Filed Under: Border Kids, Community Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

El Paso TV Station Makes Case For Immigration Reform

November 18, 2014 By
The ABC affiliate TV station in El Paso, Tx., KIVA, is making the case for immigration courts reform. In a multiple-part series, the station is outlining that “… the nearly 60,000 Central American migrants who came to the U.S. – many unaccompanied children – are going to the front of the line of the immigration courts – worsening the chronic backlog. Because the migrants mostly didn’t cross through El Paso though, Holguin said it’s not affecting the six El Paso immigration courts. 
 
But that’s not the problem in the El Paso region, says KVIA. Their problem is simply capacity. The stories outline the budget situation: “while the U.S. Border Patrol’s budget increased by 30% to $3.5 billion from 2009 to 2013, the immigration court system budget increased by 8% to $289 million in the same time frame. President Obama’s request this summer for $45 million, partly to hire more judges, was denied by Congress.”
 
The reports take a look at how long waits can put pressure on families and institutions. It can be found here: 
Filed Under: Border Kids, Community, National Tagged With: , , , ,

‘Jerk Bill’ Takes Aim At Attorney Bad Behavior

September 24, 2014 By
A business-backed bill that takes aim at certain attorney behavior, typically tactics that show disrespect or are designed to delay the courts, has been signed into law by Gov. Brown, the Sacramento Business Journal is reporting. Backers of the bill argued that, along with giving judges a tool to regulate attorneys, the new law will conserve court resources.
 
The BizJ quotes the president of the Civil Justice Association of California, or CJAC, saying that “…prior to this bill, courts had tools to sanction lawyers who brought frivolous lawsuits but not sanctions if they behaved badly,” said . “Now, if the filing is legit, but the lawyer is behaving like a jerk, the court can smack them with the other side’s legal fees.”
 
Read the report here:
Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

State Supreme Court To Decide Who Can Sue California

September 23, 2014 By
The California Supreme Court has agreed to consider if the 105-year-old California law that allows taxpayers to sue state and local over their policies applies to all residents or just to property owners, according to the San Francisco Chronicle website SFGate.
 
Explains the report: “The state’s high court has never defined the criteria for a taxpayer suit. That issue arose in San Rafael, where Cherrity Wheatherford, a renter and a U.S. citizen, tried to sue over a police practice of impounding cars for 30 days when their drivers lacked licenses. She claimed they were unfairly punishing undocumented immigrants. In May, the First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco dismissed Wheatherford’s suit because she owns no property in the city or county. Taxpayer suits, the court said, are limited to those who pay property taxes in the jurisdiction, which leaves out residents who pay only income, gas or sales taxes.”
 
Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Gov. Brown Calls Child-Immigration Crisis A ‘Tragedy,’ Critic Says Comments Are ‘Empty’

July 15, 2014 By
Photo: gov.ca.gov.com

Photo: gov.ca.gov.com

California Gov. Jerry Brown, who has said the Golden State could be a “leader” on national immigration policy even though the issues involved are usually federally controlled, has called the border-crossing crisis involving unaccompanied children a “crisis,” but stopped well short of commenting on what the state might do about the situation, according to a Fresno Bee newspaper report. The Bee also reports that Brown “…accused critics of exploiting the situation for political gain.”

 
The Bee also reported that the governor’s state Office of Emergency Services “… said earlier this week that the administration has been coordinating with federal and local law enforcement officials, including providing assistance with crowd and traffic control. Brown said Friday that California is a destination for immigrants because they think the state is ‘great.'”
 
“By the way, they may come in through Texas because they have so many holes in the border down there, but they usually want to get over to California as fast as they can because stuff is happening here,” Brown said. He added, “I’m not saying I’m encouraging that. I’m not.”
 
Meanwhile, Neel Kashkari, the Republican conducting what’s largely seen as a longshot campaign to unseat Brown in the November election, called the governor’s comments “empty.”

Read more here.

 

Filed Under: Border Kids, Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Eight New Judges For L.A. Superior

June 20, 2014 By
 
Sixteen new judges were appointed this week to California superior courts, eight of them in Los Angeles. The Courthouse News reports that the L.A. Superior Court judges are Richard J. Burdge Jr., Rupert A. Byrdsong, David J. Cowan, Brian S. Currey, Sherilyn P. Garnett, Christopher K. Lui, Enrique Monguia and Gustavo N. Sztraicher. Find out more about the judges and their immediate background here.
 
Filed Under: Community Tagged With: , , , , ,

Divorce Delay? Not If You Can Pay For Private!

June 10, 2014 By
 
Years of judicial branch budget cuts have delayed civil trials, and divorce cases have been hard-hit as family law judges focus on domestic violence orders and other priorities. While state lawmakers have been slow to react, it seems the free market is making a move: a growing trend is to have “private trials,” and it’s apparently catching on across the country.
 
The Tulsa World newspaper is reporting that “California-based trial consulting firm Decision Analysis has been suggesting clients use a private trial for a long time, but the procedure is just starting to gain popularity, firm president Richard Gabriel said.” He said that “I think people are starting to consider it more and more because state court budgets across the country have been severely slashed,” adding that the cuts mean fewer court staff, increasing the length of time and money it takes for cases to be completed in the public courts system.
 
Other advantages if you can afford to pay for judges, and sometimes juries and other costs: Private trials also provide the privacy that mediation and arbitration do. Petition for divorce and decree of divorce is public record, but unless somebody appeals to the actual court system, the conclusions of law then those specifics are confidential.
 

Despite all that, some studies suggest that you might actually save money because “… complicated civil cases often come out ahead financially because private trials are much quicker.” Read the story here.

Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

CityWatch: Dems Tone-Deaf on Veterans’ Asbestos Issue

June 9, 2014 By

CityWatch has published the recent commentary by California Courts Monitor publisher, Sara Warner. The piece, originally published on the Huffington Post’s national political page, argues that Democrats are tone deaf when it comes to the role that veterans play in asbestos bankruptcy trust issues.

Read it at CityWatch here.

 
 
 
Filed Under: Community Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

After Fed Court Ruling, ICE Detainee Requests Go Unheeded

June 6, 2014 By
 
Reflecting on the fact that many immigration detentions are civil, rather than criminal, actions, more than 100 jurisdictions across the United States have stopped enforcing “holds” issued by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, or ICE. The policy changes follow a federal court ruling in Oregon declaring such practices unconstitutional.
 
More than a dozen of the counties changing the practice are in California, including Los Angeles and San Diego, where authorities have stopped complying with the ICE detainer requests, reports the Orange County Register. The newspaper quotes Julia Harumi Mass, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU of Northern California: “Detaining people based on suspected civil immigration violations without probable cause not only wastes scarce local public safety resources and contradicts our sense of fairness – it undeniably violates the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.” 
 
Read the Register report by Roxana Kopetman here.
Filed Under: Border Kids, Community, National Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Courts Monitor Writer On Vets’ Asbestos Issue

June 5, 2014 By
On the Huffington Post’s national political page today, Sara Warner, publisher of the California Courts Monitor, argues that Democrats are being tone deaf when it comes to the role that veterans play in asbestos bankruptcy trust issues.
 
You can find her comments here: Dems Tone-Deaf on Veterans’ Asbestos Issue
Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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