• Wave of illegal children immigrants shifts debate on use of executive powers

    After several immigration bills stalled in Congress, President Barack Obama, in 2012 and 2013, issued a series of executive orders to limit the number of deportations of illegal immigrants. Many who advocated a tougher stance on immigration have charged Obama with failure to consult with Congress. The Obama administration is now trying to find a way to deport Central American illegal immigrants, many of them unaccompanied children, without running afoul of a George W. Bush 2008 law which makes such deportation difficult – and some of his immigration criticswant him to take executive action on the issue, a shift from their usual criticism that he has abused his executive powers.

  • NYC forms a task force to coordinate accommodation for migrant children

    New York City officials have formed a task force to help coordinate accommodation for Central American children who have arrived in the city in recent months after weeks and months of living under the care of immigration and border officials near the Southwest border. Since October 2013, federal officials have sent more than 3,200 children to New York City and elsewhere in the state to live with relatives or guardians, and about 7,000 more are expected to arrive in the coming months, according to officials who have been briefed by federal authorities.

  • No extra funding for increased Pentagon presence on southern border

    Marine Corps Gen. John Kelly, commander of U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), has stated that illegal immigration and its effects are threatening to destabilize the region and are a national security threat to the United States. President Barack Obama’s $3.7 billion supplemental request to congress, however,, does not include any additional funding for military operations.

  • Appeals Court blocks Arizona’s order denying driver’s licenses to “dreamers”

    A three-judge panel of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has blocked an August 2012 executive order issued by Arizona’s Republican governor Jan Brewer which denies driver’s licenses and other public benefits to young immigrants who are allowed to remain in the United States under a 2012 Obama administration policy.

  • Efforts to discourage unaccompanied minors from entering U.S. have so far failed

    The administration’s efforts to discourage children from Central America and Mexico from illegally entering the United States continue to gain little traction, and the number of migrants under eighteen years old illegally crossing the U.S-Mexico border continues to increase. Officials blame the surge in young migrants on the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, a 2008 law which made it difficult to repatriate unaccompanied minors without letting then appear before an immigration judge. The administration has asked Congress to change the 2008 law to give DHS greater discretion in repatriating Central American children more quickly, but some Senate Democrats have vowed to block narrow changes to immigration laws.

  • State collapse in the hemisphere an “existential” threat to U.S.: Southern Command chief

    Marine Corps Gen. John Kelly, commander of U.S. Southern Command, is asking Congress to allocate more resources to help combat the flow of illegal drugs, weapons, and people from Central America. “In comparison to other global threats, the near collapse of societies in the hemisphere with the associated drug and (undocumented immigrant) flow are frequently viewed to be of low importance,” Kelly said. “Many argue these threats are not existential and do not challenge our national security. I disagree.”

  • U.S. should re-evaluate definition of skilled workers in immigration policy: experts

    A new study suggests the United States should re-evaluate its definition of skilled workers to include informal skills of migrant workers. The study identifies lifelong human capital — knowledge and technical and social skills — acquired and transferred throughout these migrants’ careers. The researchers discovered that skills among these migrants not only include basic education and English, but also technical and social skills and competencies acquired informally on and off the job throughout their lives — skills that are used in construction, domestic, retail and hospitality work.

  • Proposed border security surge threatens to create ghost towns along the border -- again

    The U.S. Customs and Border Patrolhas apprehended more illegal immigrants in the Rio Grande Valley in the first eight months of fiscal 2014 (160,000) than it did for all of fiscal 2013 (154,453). Last May, agents apprehended over 1,100 illegal immigrants per day in the Rio Grande Valley. Texas officials have now authorized the Department of Public Safety(DPS) to send additional law enforcement personnel to patrol areas along the Texas-Mexico border at a cost of $1.3 million each week for the remainder of the year. Some residents compared the proposed surge, announced last week, to 2013’s Operation Strong Safety, which, these residents say, resembled a police state which created ghost towns along the border where illegal immigrants became afraid to go to work or send their children to school for fear of deportation.

  • Sharp increase in the number of unaccompanied children crossing into U.S.

    DHS’ Office of Immigration Statisticsreports that U.S. Border Patrolagents apprehended 30,000 children traveling alone illegally across the Mexican border in 2013. The Border Patrol expects to arrest as many as 90,000 children this year, and about 142,000 children in 2015. The Office of Management and Budgethas notified the Senate Appropriations Committeethat the increase in the number of children crossing the border alone would cost the government at least $2.28 billion, about $1.4 billion more than the Obama administration had budgeted for in its Unaccompanied Alien Childrenprogram.

  • U.S. govt. the largest employer of undocumented immigrants

    At least 60,000 undocumented immigrants have worked at federal detention centers while waiting for an immigration court to hear their case. While detained, many immigrants work as cooks and janitors at federal and privately-run detention centers, often making less than $1 a day. The cheap labor saves the federal government and private companies at least $40 million a year by making it unnecessary to pay outside contractors the $7.25 federal minimum wage. Since about half of all immigrants in immigration court typically win their case, this means that that tens of thousands of legal immigrants are working for less than a dollar a day in immigration detention facilities.

  • U.S. recalibrating Secure Communities

    The number of municipalities cooperating with Secure Communities has grown from fourteen in 2008 to more than 3,000 today, and about 283,000 immigrants have been deported under the program between 2008 and April of this year. More and more municipalities, however, refuse to hold undocumented immigrants in jail on behalf of Secure Communities.DHS chief Jeh Johnsonsays Secure Communities needs a “fresh start,”and President Barack Obama is planning to limit deportations to undocumented immigrants who have been convicted of violent crimes.

  • Server outages continue to hobble immigration courts’ work

    The servers of the U.S. Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR)support the fifty-nine immigration courts administered by the EOIR,the electronic registry for accredited immigration attorneys and representatives, and the 260-plus immigration court judges and staff. For the last six weeks, these servers have suffered from severe outages, hobbling the work of the immigration courts. During the six week period, about 366,724 cases were pending, butcourt clerks were unable to access court records, enter new records in the system, and make digital recordings of hearings.

  • A bill offers a military path to citizenship for Dreamers

    The Enlist Act,authored by Representative Jeff Denham (R-California) would allow immigrants who were brought to the United States illegally before 2012 and below the age of fifteen at the time (Dreamers) to enlist in the military, earning them permanent legal status, and upon honorable discharge, eligibility for U.S. citizenship. Denham and his co-sponsors tried to get the proposal though the National Defense Authorization Act(NDAA), a bill likely to pass, but House leaders rejected the idea.

  • Hitting the reset button on Secure Communities

    Last Tuesday law enforcement officials said they anticipate a “reboot” of the controversial immigration enforcement program, Secure Communities, in which police officers are asked to submit fingerprints taken by police to DHS so the individuals stopped by the police can be screened for deportation eligibility. Critics argue the program leads to too many low-level criminals and non-criminals being turned over to immigration authorities, and in addition to the cost involved in the process, the program could make witnesses and victims of crime reluctant to cooperate with law enforcement.

  • Lawmakers criticize DHS’s spending on border security projects

    Lawmakers last week raised concerns about what they described as DHS undisciplined spending on various birder security projects. The hearing was held a week after the Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report citing DHS as a “high risk” for government waste. The DHS Acquisition Accountability and Efficiency Act, which aims to improve the department’s discipline, accountability, and transparency in acquisition program management, will be considered by the full House after the Committee on Homeland Security gave its recommendation to the act last week.