Aggregated Immigration Stories

"In response to an acceleration of deportations — nearly 400,000 people last year — immigrant advocates in Chicago on Monday plan to formally unveil a legal aid and assistance hotline that during a monthlong test period received calls for help from as far away as California from people who had learned of it through word of mouth.

The hotline — 855-435-7693 or 855-HELP-MY-F(amily) — is modeled after ones for homelessness or domestic violence, where volunteers take calls around the clock and guide callers to help."

ANTONIO OLIVO in the Chicago Tribune, Sept. 19, 2011.

Posted by Dan Kowalski at 09:55 AM | Permalink

"In his groundbreaking 2001 study of border enforcement, "Border Games: Policing the U.S.-Mexico Divide," border scholar Peter Andreas rightly observed that border policing has "some of the features of a ritualized spectator sport," noting that the game metaphor reflects the "performance and audience-driven nature" of the politics of border control. As the politics of border security in Texas and Arizona so well illustrate, "secure the border" is a rallying cry that energizes constituencies, catapults politicians to office and produces a steady stream of Fox News appearances for prominent border security hawks. It also diverts the debate over border policies far away from any reflective discussion of the structural causative factors producing the border crisis."

TOM BARRY in Truthout, Sept. 11, 2011.

Posted by Dan Kowalski at 09:24 AM | Permalink

"Complaints of fraudulent and unethical legal advice that can result in the deportation of immigrants are becoming more common in Iowa, according to a state official and immigration attorneys."

JENS MANUEL KROGSTAD in the Des Moines Register, Sept. 11, 2011.

Posted by Dan Kowalski at 08:59 AM | Permalink

"If he cannot hire guest workers, he said, the chain of lost jobs and income for local people would run back to the alligator and crawfish farmers whose crops he would not process and forward to the restaurants that serve his products. That sequence is what Louisiana employers said they hope to avert with the lawsuit. “This is a showstopper,” said Frank Randol, who runs a crawfish business and a Cajun restaurant in Lafayette and represents the Crawfish Processors Alliance, one group in the suit. “In 40 years I’ve been in this business, we’ve faced just about everything,” he said, “but now we are facing our own government trying to shut us down.”"

JULIA PRESTON in the New York Times, Sept. 12, 2011.

[Disclosure: I represent dozens of H-2B employers who would be hit hard by these wage hikes.  Dan Kowalski]

Posted by Dan Kowalski at 08:09 AM | Permalink

Most detained under Secure Communities have scant or no criminal records, data show.

JENS MANUEL KROGSTAD in the Des Moines Register, Sept. 10, 2011.

Posted by Dan Kowalski at 07:26 AM | Permalink

"In 2007, the last year for which there are official estimates, as many as 17,500 people were brought into the United States as human trafficking victims, according to the Department of Justice. Most were used for forced labor or forced sex or both.

And those crime victims have been treated in the same manner as illegal immigrants, people who can be forced to return to countries and circumstances that often helped launch their sad journeys.

But that may be changing."

YVETTE CABRERA in the Orange County Register, Sept. 7, 2011.

Posted by Dan Kowalski at 07:07 AM | Permalink

"The Department of Homeland Security is pushing for 14 miles of border wall to be built through Hidalgo and Starr counties even though it could flood U.S. towns and violate a treaty with Mexico."

MELISSA DEL BOSQUE, Texas Observer, Sept. 7, 2011.

Posted by Dan Kowalski at 11:11 AM | Permalink

Does the H-2A guest worker visa program make it easy to exploit farmworkers?

DAVID BACON in California Lawyer magazine, Sept. 2011.

Posted by Dan Kowalski at 11:01 AM | Permalink

"It means the “left hand isn’t aware of what the right hand is doing,” said Carlos Spector, Lara’s El Paso-based attorney. "I think it’s important to note that this [directive] has not reached the lowest levels of ICE... because [Border Patrol agents] are still picking up pregnant women.""

JULIAN AGUILAR on the Texas Tribune, Sept. 7, 2011.

Posted by Dan Kowalski at 10:31 AM | Permalink

The heartbreaking - and chilling - story of refugees deported to homes they've never known, due to retroactive immigration laws.

SARAH HOY on CNN, Sept. 1, 2011.

Posted by Dan Kowalski at 09:17 AM | Permalink

"Andres Robles, 22, was released yesterday evening from the Lafourche Parish jail without explanation, "They just pulled me out and told me I was getting released," he told me today from his parents' home in Thibodeux, Louisiana. He was really happy to be back in his old bedroom, where he would have been living the last few years if DHS had not unlawfully deported him in 2008, ignoring the fact that he had derived U.S. citizenship from his father in 2002."

JACQUELINE STEVENS, Sept. 2, 2011.

Posted by Dan Kowalski at 09:00 AM | Permalink

"It’s expected that Latinos will be the majority in Texas in about a decade. Yet the state has one of the lowest Latino voter turnout rates in the country. That is why the GOP is making a play for permanent political dominance in the Lone Star State. In collaboration with the Texas Observer, reporter Melissa del Bosque has this profile of Juan Hernandez and the Hispanic Republicans of Texas PAC."

LatinoUSA, Sept. 2, 2011.

Posted by Dan Kowalski at 08:04 AM | Permalink