refugee children

Writer Calls Out U.S. Policy On Border-Children Crisis

August 29, 2014 By CCM Staff

The writer Ruben Navarrette is citing MLK and Democratic governors in a new CNN piece that also says the Obama Administration is misleading the public about what is actually happening to unaccompanied Central American children seeking refuge in the United States.

Navarette, who is also a Daily Beast online columnist and syndicated nationally via the Washington Post Writers Group, begins by citing the civil rights icon: “In his epic ‘Letter from the Birmingham Jail,’ the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. observed that ‘justice too long delayed is justice denied.’ But now that the Obama administration is fast-tracking the deportation of thousands of undocumented minors, perhaps hoping to get rid of them before the November elections, it’s clear that expedited justice is just as bad.”

The writer adds that, “… despite the President’s claim that there is no rush in returning the children and due process would be preserved, the reality is much different. Kids are given court dates they can’t possibly be expected to make — often in another state. Many don’t have lawyers. Deportation cases are being rushed through the pipeline.”

He also suggests that the crisis might become a 2016 presidential election issue, noting that “… Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, a possible contender for the Democratic nomination in 2016, warned that the administration was giving the migrant children death sentences. O’Malley told a gathering of the National Governors Association in Nashville, Tennessee: ‘We are not a country that should turn children away and send them back to certain death.'”

It is one of the strongest indictments yet of how the U.S. is handling the crisis, and you can read it at CNN here: Fast-tracking children to possible death

Filed Under: Border Kids, Community, Courts Budget, Refugee Children Tagged With: 2014 election, access to justice, Civil Courts, CNN, court rationing, election, immigration, immigration reform, midterm elections, Obama, refugee children, refugee kids

Immigration Court Scrutiny Brings Cries For Chance

August 28, 2014 By CCM Staff

Those tens of thousands of border children seeking asylum in the United States have shed light on the nation’s immigration courts, and it’s hard to like what we’re seeing. Now, the leaders of the National Association of Immigration Judges are calling on Congress to crate what many of us though we had all along – an independent immigration court system. It turns out that the “court” is actually part of law enforcement, in effect a division of the Department of Justice.

That means, for example, that immigration judges cannot hold federal prosecutors from the Department of Homeland Security in contempt of court because judges are considered to be lawyers working for the Justice Department. Erin Kelly, of the Gannett Washington Bureau, writing in USA Today, has a great report that quotes Judge Dana Leigh Marks, a San Francisco-based immigration judge and president of the National Association of Immigration Judges: “We need an independent immigration court system which stands on its own. Enforcement should not be allowed to control courts.”

See the story here: Immigration judges call for reform

Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: access to justice, Civil Courts, court cuts, court rationing, immigration, immigration reform, justice denied, Justice Rationing, refugee children, refugee kids

‘Rocket Dockets’ Set For Border-Children Immigration

August 13, 2014 By CCM Staff

The federal government is creating “rocket dockets” to process unaccompanied border children, hoping to slow the flow of children by showing a policy of quick returns. Critics are responding that the new practice moves too quickly in a system inadequate to provide legally required court oversight and without a system for legal representation.

The U.K.-based Guardian newspaper has a good overview, reporting that “.. under normal rules, the recent arrivals would have queued at the tail-end of a backlogged system where migrants wait months or years for hearings at overstretched immigration courts… instead, with Republicans accusing the president of neglecting border security, the administration vaulted the newly arrived children to the front of the line, and said they would have initial court hearings within 21 days.”

They also cite a California-based critic: “We appreciate the government’s attempt to deal with these [new] cases expeditiously, but not to this extreme. We think 21 days is too fast. Maybe 60 days would be preferable,” said Caitlin Sanderson, director of the Los Angeles-based Esperanza Immigrant Rights Project, which has staff attorneys representing about 270 children pro bono.

See the story here.

Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: border crisis, california courts, civil court backlog, Civil Courts, deportation, Immigrant Children, immigration, immigration reform, refugee children, The Guardian

D.C. And L.A. Getting More ‘Border Children’

August 8, 2014 By CCM Staff

The Los Angeles Times is breaking down where the children caught illegally crossing the border are going, noting that cities like Washington with large populations from the originating countries are getting the most newcomers. The Times says reports that D.C. “… is home to an estimated 165,000 Salvadoran immigrants, the nation’s second-largest population after the Los Angeles area’s 275,000, according to the Migration Policy Institute. The capital region had 42,000 immigrants from Guatemala and 30,000 from Honduras.”

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Children and Families reports that 2,234 unaccompanied minors were released to sponsors in Virginia between Jan. 1 and July 7, ranking the state fifth after Texas, New York, Florida and California. It’s not noted in the story, but those numbers are expected to accelerate as tens of thousands of children being held are processed into the Immigration Court system.

Read the report here: Amid border crisis debate, many new immigrants land in D.C. area

Filed Under: Border Kids, Community, Courts Budget, National Tagged With: border crisis, california courts, Civil Courts, court backlog, refugee children, refugee kids, Unaccompanied Children

Border Cases Expedited Over Backlog

August 7, 2014 By CCM Staff

The tens of thousands of “border children” immigration cases are being moved to the front of the line in immigration courts, often moving ahead of people who have waited for years to have their day in court, says a Sacramento Bee newspaper report. The story follows a San Francisco immigration court where two judges were assigned “special dockets.”

“The border surge cases are now getting top billing on our dockets, and this immigration court has already been resource-deprived to the point of being anorexic,” said one of the judge quoted in the report. That judge had 2,482 cases on her docket July 25, before the surge of cases began arriving.

The flood of new cases is straining a court that was already overtaxed before tens of thousands of children started crossing illegally into the United States, says the report.

See the story here.

Filed Under: Border Kids, Community, Courts Budget, National Tagged With: border crisis, california courts, Civil Courts, court backlog, refugee children, refugee kids, Unaccompanied Children

Mercury News Blasts Border Crisis Response

August 1, 2014 By CCM Staff

The San Jose Mercury News is blasting the government response to the border crisis of unaccompanied children, saying that “… surely the United States will meet this hemisphere’s crisis in a humane manner befitting its history” and outlining that the “policy” crisis is really a funding crisis.

“Republicans have wanted to fund enforcement but not judges,” asserts the paper. “There are just 243 nationwide. Los Angeles County alone has more than 400 judges on its Superior Court. There’s no way the immigration judges can keep up, let alone catch up… refugees from violence are a worldwide challenge. People fleeing wanton slaughter in places like Somalia, Syria and Uganda often end up in nearby countries that are ill-equipped for the influx. But they try.”

The editorial is being picked up around California, and you can read it here: Another View: July 21, 2014

Filed Under: Border Kids, Community, Courts Budget, National Tagged With: border crisis, Civil Courts, immigration crisis, immigration reform, refugee children, Unaccompanied Children

US House Drops Border-Crisis Bill

July 31, 2014 By CCM Staff

BREAKING NEWS: The U.S. House of representatives has dropped a bill that would have provided some $659 million in funding to address the 60,000 unaccompanied children that have arrived on the southwest border. The Huffington Post noted that “… the bill had significant opposition from Democrats, but GOP leadership decided to add a separate vote, if the first were to pass, on a measure meant to bring on conservative support: ending a key Obama policy that allows undocumented young people in the U.S. for years to remain in the country.

Citing other reports, HuffPo says the GOP needed to get to 218 votes but managed only 214.

The HuffPo backgrounder graf is pretty good: “More than 57,500 unaccompanied children and teenagers have been apprehended after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally since October, overwhelming a system already plagued by backlogs and in need of significant resources. President Barack Obama requested $3.7 billion to deal with the crisis, and Senate Democrats proposed a $2.7 billion package. House Republicans introduced a bill to approve just a fraction of that sum — with the possibility of appropriating more funds later — with conditions many Democrats oppose, such as changing a 2008 law so unaccompanied minors from countries other than Mexico and Canada can be deported more quickly and sending the National Guard to the border.”

Read the report here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/31/house-border-vote_n_5638449.html

Filed Under: Border Kids, Community, Courts Budget, National Tagged With: access to justice, border crisis, Congress fails to act, huffington post, immigration, immigration crisis, immigration reform, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, John Boehner, refugee children, US Congress, US House

AP Story On Immigration Crisis Gets Traction

July 29, 2014 By CCM Staff

A Los Angeles-based story by Amy Taxin of the Associated Press continues to be used by those making the case for legal representation for the unaccompanied children awaiting processing to determine if they can stay in the U.S.

Her story opens in Los Angeles with a dramatic courthouse scene: [The judge} … grabbed four thick books and dropped each one on his desk with a thud, warning the families in his Los Angeles courtroom about the thousands of pages of immigration laws and interpretations that could affect their cases, and urging them to get a lawyer. “This is even smaller print,” he said of the 1,200-page book containing regulations during the hearing last month. “I am not trying to scare you, but I’m trying to ensure your children get a full and fair hearing.”

To read the AP report via the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch, click here.

Filed Under: Border Kids, Community, Courts Budget, National Tagged With: access to justice, asylum, border crisis, Border Security, Central America, Civil Courts, immigration crisis, immigration reform, Los Angeles, refugee children, Unaccompanied Children

Finally: Capacity Cited In Immigration Courts Crisis

July 28, 2014 By CCM Staff

For the “about time” file, discussion of the ongoing crisis of unaccompanied Central American children seeking refuge in the U.S. is moving beyond theories and finger-pointing to address the capacity issue. And that issue is that there’s not enough court capacity.

The Reuters news service has a sobering report that walks us through the numbers: “… U.S. immigration courts have a backlog of 375,373 cases, almost 50,000 more than they faced two years ago, according to Justice Department figures… one of the 243 judges presiding over 59 immigration courts in the United States, is setting hearing dates as far off as 2018. It now typically takes three to five years for cases to clear the system, judges and lawyers said… on a recent Wednesday at a crowded immigration court in Arlington, Virginia, a judge was setting February 2017 asylum hearings for juveniles. While Reuters does not mention it, we would add that this is possible because immigration courts are civil, not criminal, and thus exempt from decades of “timely trial” laws.

The report does cite budget cuts and other problems, like passing more complex laws without increasing capacity to implement the changes, but also says that the government’s planned solutions are likely to only make things worse.

See the report here.

Filed Under: Border Kids, Community, Courts Budget, National Tagged With: budget cuts, Civil Courts, court budget, immigration, immigration crisis, immigration reform, refugee children

Immigration Debate Shifts To U.S. Role

July 25, 2014 By CCM Staff

Debate over the immigration crisis of unaccompanied Central American children is shifting from immediate needs like housing and toward the role of the United States in creating the causes for the influx. An editorial blog from The Dallas Morning News explains why understanding the U.S. role is so important: “If Central American minors can make a credible claim that deportation would expose them to persecution or sexual exploitation in their home countries, U.S. immigration judges are likely to be lenient and let them stay. But the bar is set very high — and for a good reason.”

As stories surface about U.S.-based gangs operating in the countries of origin for the children, you can expect that debate over “causes” to increase. And how the civil immigration courts manage to verify any claims is going to be interesting.

Here’s the Morning News take from editorial writer Tod Robberson: Tod Robberson / Editorial Writer | Dallas Morning News

Filed Under: Border Kids, Community, Courts Budget, National Tagged With: Civil Courts, Dallas, immigration, immigration reform, refugee children