• 9/11 attacks merged U.S. immigration and terrorism efforts at Latinos' expense: Study

    After September 11, issues of immigration and terrorism merged, heightening surveillance and racializing Latino immigrants as a threat to national security, according to researchers. Latino immigration in the United States has long sparked passionate debates, with Latinos often racialized as “illegal aliens” posing an economic threat. But following the al-Qaeda-led terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, the fear of another attack, coupled with Islamophobia, streamlined immigration agendas with anti-terrorism rhetoric, policies, and institutional efforts, racializing Latinos in a new way, the researchers said.

  • Revisiting a program leading to mass criminalization, incarceration of undocumented migrants

    Immigration reform advocates argue that Operation Streamline, launched in 2005 as part of DHS’s Secure Border Initiative, has failed to deter or reduce illegal border crossings, but has had other, unwanted consequences. Among them: A national federal court docket, 49 percent of which was occupied in 2015 with the prosecution of 70,000 migrants for improper entry and re-entry, leaving fewer resources for the prosecution of more serious federal crimes, and a federal prison population, 23 percent of which is now composed of non-citizens, although these non-citizens represent only 7 percent of the U.S. population.

  • Danish police confiscate money, valuables from asylum seekers to pay for upkeep

    Danish police have taken valuables from asylum seekers for the first time since a controversial law was passed in January, requiring that asylum seekers pay for part of their upkeep by surrendering cash, jewelry, and other valuables to Danish authorities. The law allows police to search asylum seekers on arrival in the country and confiscate any non-essential items worth more than 10,000 kroner, and which have no sentimental value to their owner.

  • 4-4 Supreme Court tie keeps Obama's sweeping immigration reforms blocked

    A 4:4 tie at the Supreme Court has dealt Barack Obama’s immigration program – and his legacy — a major setback. The president took his executive action to shield about four millions of undocumented immigrants from deportation after House Republicans refused to bring to the floor for a vote a 2013 bipartisan Senate legislation which provided a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. Twenty-six states with Republican governors challenged Obama’s executive action, arguing that Obama had exceeded his authority by granting a blanket deportation deferment to millions of undocumented immigrants. A federal judge in Texas ruled in favor of the twenty-six governors, and the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of appeals upheld that Texas court’s decision last November.

  • With persecution, threat of mass killing on the rise, further mass migration is inevitable

    With the refugee crisis far from over, the failure to address persecution in states where peoples are under severe threat makes further mass population movements inevitable. The international human rights organization Minority Rights Group International (MRG) has just launched the 2016 Peoples under Threat index and online map, which seeks to identify those countries around the world which are most at risk of genocide, mass political killing or systematic violent repression.

  • Obama's lawyers ask Texas judge to rethink immigration order

    By Julián Aguilar

    The Obama administration has asked a Brownsville, Texas-based judge to rethink an order that requires the federal government to turn over the private information of thousands of undocumented immigrants. The 19 May order from U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen asserted that the federal government’s attorneys intentionally misled the court during proceedings over the Obama administration’s controversial executive order on immigration.

  • State sued for licensing detention center

    By Madlin Mekelburg

    Grassroots Leadership, which opposes for-profit prisons, has sued the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services for issuing a temporary child-care license to an immigration detention facility in Karnes City. Thenon-profit organization says the department has no authority to regulate detention centers or prisons, and is asking a Travis County District Court for a temporary injunction and restraining order to stop the licensing.

  • Climate-exodus expected as temperatures rise in Middle East, North Africa

    More than 500 million people live in the Middle East and North Africa — a region which is very hot in summer and where climate change is already evident. The temperature during summer in the already very hot Middle East and North Africa will increase more than two times faster compared to the average global warming. This means that during hot days temperatures south of the Mediterranean will reach around 46 degrees Celsius (approximately 114 degrees Fahrenheit) by mid-century. As a result, the number of climate refugees could increase dramatically in future.

  • El Paso doesn't want ID as "sanctuary city"

    By Julián Aguilar

    An El Paso-based immigrant rights group could see its hopes for a municipal ID card dashed after leaders there determined that issuing the card might prompt immigration hardliners to label the town a “sanctuary city.”

  • State-level immigration policies should be subject of cost-benefit analysis

    While immigration policy has been the purview of the U.S. federal government, nearly all states have taken a more-active role on the issue of unauthorized immigration in the past fifteen years through actions such as making drivers licenses available regardless of immigration status and requiring employers to verify eligibility to work, according to a new study. States, however, rarely examine the costs and benefits of such policies before enacting them, suggesting the need for a comprehensive tool to help state policymakers assess the full range of costs and benefits of immigration policies before they are adopted.

  • Texas to re-classify immigrant detention centers as child-care facilities

    In 2015 a judge ordered Texas to shut down two immigration detention centers – but in order to escape implementing the judge’s order, Texas is considering re-classifying the two detention centers as “child-care facilities.” The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services had to address a July 2015 decision from federal Judge Dolly Gee. Gee ruled that the country’s three family detention centers (a third facility is in the process of being shut down) were holding children in “deplorable conditions” that “failed to meet even the minimal standard” for a safe and clean environment for children.

  • U.K.'s citizenship tests act as barriers to naturalization

    Citizenship tests are requiring immigrants to become “super-citizens” and act as barriers to naturalization, according to new research. In the first academic article to consider the experience of people taking the tests, researchers found that they provided immigrants with little useful or practical knowledge and were considered disparaging by requiring them to know things that citizens-by-birth would not.

     

  • U.S. undocumented population declines

    In a just-released report, the Center for Migration Studies of New York (CMS) finds that the U.S. undocumented population has fallen below eleven million for the first time since 2004. The report also offers evidence that the Mexican-born undocumented population continues to decline, falling by more than 600,000 since 2010. The study further describes trends in the undocumented population over the past few years for selected countries of origin and states of residence.

  • France’s emergency anti-terrorism laws; Russian air strikes’ toll; DHS deportation campaign

    The French government plans to propose constitutional amendments aiming to shield state-of-emergency measures from legal challenges; Russian air strikes in Syria, which began 30 September. The Russian strikes have killed 2,132 people, a third of them civilians; DHS is set to launch a campaign to deport illegal immigrant families who arrived in the United States since the beginning of 2014.

  • Texas sues to block resettlement of Syrian refugees

    The Texas Health and Human Services Commission on Wednesday filed suits in federal court against the U.S. State Department, the International Rescue Committee (IRC), and other organizations as part of the state effort to block the resettlement of Syrian refugees in Texas.