Controversial Program Now Includes All Texas Counties
"A controversial Department of Homeland Security program that identifies immigrants in local jails now operates in every Texas county."
JULIAN AGUILAR in the Texas Tribune, Sept. 29, 2010.
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September 29, 2010
September 27, 2010
Our Lawless Border: The Murray Danard Case
"Drawing from recently obtained immigration court records, this five-piece series describes how U.S. immigration agents turned a Canadian couple's vacation into a nightmarish trip through the labyrinth of immigration deportation proceedings."
Jacqueline Stevens, Sept. 2010.
September 24, 2010
Mexican Journalists Seek U.S. Asylum; At Least One Granted So Far
"A Mexican journalist who was the target of death threats like those made by drug cartels says he has been granted asylum in the United States in a case believed to be the first of its kind since the country's bloody drug war began."
PAUL J. WEBER and OLGA R. RODRIGUEZ for the Associated Press, Sept. 23, 2010.
"Mexico's drug war, which has claimed more than 28,000 lives, has become one of the most dangerous stories in the world. Some journalists have taken the ultimate step: They have fled to the United States to seek political asylum."
JOHN BURNETT for National Public Radio, Sept. 24, 2010.
September 23, 2010
Rogue Former Immigration Agent Faces Sentence
"The woman was just 19 when she caught a bus from a city suburb in El Salvador through Guatemala to the Mexican border. From there she took a train that carried her across Mexico to the U.S., where she boarded a bus that was heading to North Carolina and her final destination, Durham.
She made the journey mostly alone. She had friends who left El Salvador with her, but they scattered once they crossed into Mexico. She traveled a route rife with smugglers and sex traffickers and drug cartels, and says there were times she was afraid she would die. "I thought if something happens to me, I won't be able to see my mother again."
She avoided the dangers en route to America, but four years after she arrived, in 2009, she was blackmailed by a man who claimed to be an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent. Over several months, in dozens of ominous e-mails and text messages, he threatened to have her deported unless she had a sexual relationship with him.
Last October, Bedri Kulla, who was born in Canada but is a U.S. citizen, pled guilty in federal court on charges of violating her civil rights. As part of the plea agreement, the court can dismiss the blackmail charge. Kulla's sentencing hearing is scheduled for Sept. 24."
REBEKAH L. COWELL in Indy Week, Sept. 22, 2010.
September 21, 2010
Supreme Court Asked To Review Deportation Of U.S. Citizen
"Ms. Castro later sued the government, saying the agents had no legal authority to detain, much less deport, her daughter. Nor should Border Patrol agents, she said, take the place of family-court judges in making custody decisions.
The last court to rule in the case, the full United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in New Orleans, rejected Ms. Castro’s arguments, over the dissents of three judges.
The brief unsigned majority decision, echoing that of the trial judge, said the appeals court did not “condone the Border Patrol’s actions or the choices it made.” But, the decision went on, Ms. Castro could not sue the government because the agents had been entitled to use their discretion in the matter.
Ms. Castro’s lawyers last month asked the to hear the case, in a petition bristling with restrained incredulity."
ADAM LIPTAK in the New York Times, Sept. 20, 2010.
September 18, 2010
Expert: Makes "Perfect" Sense To Attach DREAM Act To Defense Bill
""Passage of the Dream Act would be extremely beneficial to the U.S. military and the country as a whole," said Margaret Stock, a retired West Point professor who studies immigrants in the military. She said it made "perfect" sense to attach it to the defense-authorization bill."
MIRIAM JORDAN in the Wall Street Journal, Sept. 18, 2010.
September 17, 2010
Arizona's border tighter, arrests down, but at a cost
"Two fences - one concrete to block cars, the other barbed wire to block people - cut through a wide valley in the Tohono O'odham Nation Reservation west of Tucson. Ground sensors and infrared night-vision cameras scan the vast terrain. Teams of Border Patrol agents comb dirt and concrete roads, perch at roadside checkpoints and search the Sonoran Desert by air and ATV. Welcome to the nation's busiest border and epicenter of the U.S. immigration debate."
LEE ROOD in the Des Moines Register, Sept. 12, 2010.
September 15, 2010
Report Details Widespread Lack of Legal Counsel for Detained Immigrants
"In a survey of immigration detention facilities nationwide, the Chicago-based National Immigrant Justice Center found that more than half did not offer detainees information about their rights, and 78% prohibited private phone calls with lawyers.
More than 80% of detainees were in facilities that were isolated and beyond the reach of legal aid organizations, resulting in heavy caseloads of 100 detainees per immigration attorney, the survey found. Ten percent of detainees were held in facilities in which they had no access at all to legal aid groups."
KEN DILANIAN for the Chicago Tribune's Washington Bureau, Sept. 14, 2010.
[Read the report and appendices online and listen to a podcast of attorneys and a formerly detained client.]
September 14, 2010
Feds Dump U.S. Citizen In Mexico Despite Carrying "Papers"
"Nearly three months after U.S. immigration officials dumped Luis Alberto Delgado in Mexico despite his insistence that he is a U.S. citizen, the 19-year-old was permitted to re-enter the country last weekend with the U.S. government's blessing."
SUSAN CARROLL in the Houston Chronicle, Sept. 13, 2010.
September 13, 2010
Ted Robbins on "Operation Streamline"
September 12, 2010
Lessons From Hazleton: A "Fundamental Misconception"
In 2006 the city of Hazleton, in northeastern Pennsylvania (pop. approx. 25,000,) enacted a series of local ordinances aimed at unauthorized aliens living and working in Hazleton. "Hazleton’s mayor, as well as other local officials ... concluded that aliens lacking lawful status were to blame for certain social problems in the City ... and that the federal government could not be relied upon to prevent such aliens from moving into the City, or to remove them... . Accordingly, City officials decided to take independent action to regulate the local effects of unlawful immigration." (Lozano v. Hazleton, p. 12.)
This was not an isolated effort. The National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) reported that in 2009 over 200 state laws relating to immigration were enacted, and over 300 such laws and resolutions were enacted in the first half of 2010.
The Hazleton ordinances were designed to prevent unauthorized aliens from obtaining employment or rental housing. Individuals and groups sued the city, alleging the ordinances are unconstitutional and violate federal and state statutes.
In 2007 the federal district court ruled that the ordinances were indeed unconstitutional because they are preempted by controlling federal immigration laws. Hazleton appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
On September 9, 2010 the Third Circuit issued its 188-page decision, upholding the district court's finding of unconstitutionality, though on somewhat different reasoning. The plaintiffs' advocates were pleased: "This is a major defeat for the misguided, divisive and expensive anti-immigrant strategy that Hazleton has tried to export to the rest of the country," said Omar Jadwat, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union Immigrants' Rights Project. "The Constitution does not allow states and cities to interfere with federal immigration laws or to adopt measures that discriminate against Latino and immigrant communities." The defendants' advocates were subdued: "Kris Kobach, a law professor who represents ... Hazleton ... told The Associated Press that Hazleton's ruling was on the 'extreme end of the spectrum when it comes to these issues.'" Hazleton's mayor, Lou Barletta, vowed to take the case up to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Beyond the constitutional issues of interest to lawyers and legislators, what lessons can the general public draw from the Third Circuit's opinion? There are two main points that should be emphasized.
First, and most importantly, the Court discussed a "fundamental misconception" at the heart of the Hazleton ordinances: "Hazleton goes to great lengths to defend its housing provisions as providing for an accurate assessment of tenants’ immigration status, and only denying housing to those whom the federal government confirms are here unlawfully. Even assuming Hazleton is correct, this argument does not advance Hazleton’s cause; rather, it highlights the fundamental misconception at the heart of these ordinances. Through its housing provisions, Hazleton attempts to remove persons from the community based on current immigration status. However, as Justice Blackmun explained in Plyler: “the structure of the immigration statutes makes it impossible for the State to determine which aliens are entitled to residence, and which eventually will be deported.” 457 U.S. at 236 (Blackmun, J., concurring). ...Stitched into the fabric of Hazleton’s housing provisions, then, is either a lack of understanding or a refusal to recognize the complexities of federal immigration law. Hazleton would effectively remove from its City an alien college student the federal government has purposefully declined to initiate removal proceedings against.38 So too would Hazleton remove an alien battered spouse, currently unlawfully present, but eligible for adjustment of status to lawful permanent resident under the special protections Congress has afforded to battered spouses and children. See 8 U.S.C. § 1229b(b)(2). In each of these instances, as in every single instance in which Hazleton would deny residence to an alien based on immigration status rather than on a federal order of removal, Hazleton would act directly in opposition to federal law." (Lozano at 138-140.)
Second, the Court addressed the issue of language: "Hazleton refers to persons who are not lawfully present within the United States as “illegal aliens.” Plaintiffs refer to them as “undocumented immigrants.” We recognize that there are significant criticisms of each term. See, e.g., Beth Lyon, When More “Security” Equals Less Workplace Safety: Reconsidering U.S. Laws that Disadvantage Unauthorized Workers, 6 U. Pa. J. Lab. & Empl. L. 571, 576 (2004) (“Scholarly and popular concerns about the phrase ‘illegal alien’ abound, pointing out that the phrase is racially loaded, ambiguous, imprecise, and pejorative.”); Martinez v. Regents of the Univ. of Cal., 83 Cal. Rptr. 3d 518, 522 n.2 (Cal. Ct. App. 2008) (“[T]he term ‘illegal alien’ [is] less ambiguous [than the term ‘undocumented immigrant.’]”), rev. granted, 198 P.3d 1 (Cal. 2008). Federal immigration law defines an “alien” as “any person not a citizen or national of the United States.” 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(3). “Immigrant” is defined as “every alien except an alien who is within [certain specified] classes of nonimmigrant aliens,” and generally refers only to lawful permanent residents. 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(15). Congress has preferred the term “alien” to describe those persons who lack lawful immigration status, see, e.g., 8 U.S.C. §§ 1182, 1227, 1228. We will use the word “alien” rather than “immigrant” because “alien” is more precise, and precision is important to discussions in this area. When discussing issues of employment, we will use the official term: “unauthorized alien.” 8 U.S.C. § 1324a. However, when discussing issues of immigration status, we will use either: “aliens not lawfully present” or “aliens lacking lawful immigration status,” rather than “illegal aliens.”" (Lozano at 11-12.)
In sum, the Court said that immigration law is federal law rather than state or local law, that an alien's immigration status can change, and that aliens should not be stigmatized by labels, regardless of immigration status.
In coming U.S. Supreme Court terms, as this and other state cases make their way up the appellate chain, the federal preemption issue will remain uppermost in the minds of the lawyers. All of us, though, as voters and as civic participants, should keep in mind the other, broader lessons of Hazleton. And in the end, we must also keep in mind the hard economic realities driving migration, laws or no laws. As noted by veteran border watcher Charles Bowden, "The only way you’ll stop Mexicans coming to the U.S. is if you lower American wages to the same level as Vietnam. ... What we’re seeing is something right out of the Bible. This is an exodus."
September 10, 2010
What Is "Attrition Through Enforcement," And Can It Work?
For years, restrictionists such as Mark Krikorian and his Center for Immigration Studies ("CIS") have touted the concept of "attrition through enforcement" as an alternative to mass detentions and deportations. Here's Krikorian's 2005 description:
"Shrink the illegal population through consistent, across-the-board enforcement of the immigration law. By deterring the settlement of new illegals, by increasing deportations to the extent possible, and, most importantly, by increasing the number of illegals already here who give up and deport themselves, the United States can bring about an annual decrease in the illegal-alien population, rather than allowing it to continually increase."
Does this notion hold water?
Decades of in-depth, scholarly research done at the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies (UC San Diego) gives us the answer, a resounding "No."
"it is the combination of poor job prospects in the United States with higher costs of migration (mainly, people-smugglers’ fees) that has discouraged new migration in recent years, among both legal and unauthorized migrants. ...[N]either the economic crisis nor workplace raids and other forms of interior enforcement are inducing large numbers of migrants already in the United States to go home."
In November 2010, look for a new book, "Recession Without Borders: Mexican Migrants Confront the Economic Downturn," to underscore this point.
As noted by veteran border watcher Charles Bowden, "The only way you’ll stop Mexicans coming to the U.S. is if you lower American wages to the same level as Vietnam. ... What we’re seeing is something right out of the Bible. This is an exodus."
Hazleton Loses Round Two
"A federal appeals court on Thursday upheld a lower-court ruling striking down ordinances adopted by the City of Hazleton, Pa., that banned illegal immigrants from renting housing or being employed there.
The 188-page ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, in Philadelphia, is the broadest statement by a court to date on the vexing question of how much authority states and towns have to act on matters that are normally the purview of the federal government, constitutional lawyers said."
JULIA PRESTON in the New York Times, Sept. 9, 2010.
September 06, 2010
Indictment Accuses Firm of Exploiting Thai Workers
"A federal grand jury in Honolulu has indicted six labor contractors from a Los Angeles manpower company on charges that they imposed forced labor on some 400 Thai farm workers, in what justice officials called the biggest human-trafficking case ever brought by federal authorities."
JULIA PRESTON in the New York Times, Sept. 3, 2010.
Leaving water in desert for migrants not litter, court says
September 02, 2010
Mexican Reporter Seeks Asylum After Doing His Job
"Two years after arriving with his son at a U.S. border crossing at Antelope Wells, N.M. to seek asylum in the U.S., Gutiérrez still waits for an immigration judge to rule on his application and his residency status. The pre-dawn drive that led him to the border crossing — where he was handcuffed and whisked away by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents — marked the beginning of his exile, one that continues today. His plight, his attorney says, underscores a problem with U.S. reluctance to grant asylum to Mexicans for fear of alienating the Mexican government."
JULIAN AGUILAR in the Texas Tribune, Sept. 2, 2010.
September 01, 2010
Migrants say Arizona worth risk of crossing
"Deaths of illegal immigrants in Arizona have soared this summer toward their highest levels since 2005 - a fact that has surprised many who thought that the furor over the state's new immigration law and the 100-plus degree heat would draw them elsewhere along the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border."
AMANDA LEE MYERS and JULIE WATSON for the Associated Press, Sept. 1, 2010.