• Tomsheck’s “July Amnesty”: CBP IA loses hundreds of cases alleging criminal activity by CBP Employees -- Pt. 3

    An unprecedented scandal continues to unfold within Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Fueling this scandal are allegations by James F. Tomsheck about the U.S. largest federal law enforcement agency. Further investigation suggests that the “July Amnesty,” initiated in Tomsheck’s CBP IA’s Integrity Programs Division (IPD) headed by Director Janine Corrado and Assistant Director Jeffrey Matta, casts doubt on Tomsheck’s allegations against his CBP superiors. Along with the July Amnesty in 2011 and the alleged discrimination and firing of Navy Lieutenant Commander (Ret.) J. Gregory Richardson in March 2014, there appear to be a number of other events calling Tomsheck’s leadership at CBP IA into question.

  • Obama’s immigration executive order fuels a resurgence of armed border groups

    The last few years have seen the influence of armed border militias, such as the Minuteman Project, on immigration matters, diminish. A combination of dwindling financial resources, bad publicity, and anti-immigration measures passed by conservative legislatures in border states caused the influence of these groups on the immigration debate to decline, as was their ability to sustain a presence along the Southwest border. President Barack Obama’s recent executive order to provide work permits to roughly five million undocumented immigrants who have been in the country illegally for years, has caused a resurgence of border groups.

  • USCIS tries to avoid HealthCare.gov-like problems in implementing executive order

    President Barack Obama announced the Deferred Action for Parental Accountability(DAPA) initiative on 20 November, and a day later, USCIS began to publish job postings seeking individuals to help with the rollout. Applicants who qualify for DAPA still have until May 2015 before they may apply, but immigration officials are taking a proactive approach and anticipating a large number of applications in order to avoid the mistakes made during the Obama administration’s launch of HealthCare.gov.

  • Undocumented construction workers in NYC will benefit from Obama’s executive action

    Undocumented workers in the U.S. construction industry have much to gain from President Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Parental Accountability (DAPA) initiative, which allows some immigrants to apply for work permits while deferring deportation attempts. New York City’s booming construction market has attracted thousands of undocumented workers who are willing to work for low wages, but it has also encouraged many property developers to ignore safety hazards around construction sites.

  • USCIS looking to fill 1,000 positions in response to Obama’s executive order

    An internal memo from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) notes that the federal government is seeking to fill 1,000 full-time permanent and temporary positions at a new “operational center” in Crystal City, Arlington, Virginia, in response to the Obama administration’s executive actions to allow some five million undocumented immigrants have their deportation deferred, apply for driver’s licenses in most states, and apply for two-year work permits.

  • Undocumented immigrants can now practice law in Florida

    On 20 November, Jose Godinez-Samperio took the oath of admission to the Florida Bar, but unlike many lawyers before him, Godinez-Samperio was not a U.S. citizen.The state legislature amended an existing family law bill to allow would-be lawyers like Godinez-Samperio to practice law in Florida.

  • Obama’s executive action may divert resources from handling legal immigrants

    Critics of President Barack Obama’s executive order on immigration are worried that shifting immigration resources from work done on behalf of legal immigrants to applications filed by those in the country illegally would discourage future immigrants from entering the United States legally.A former federal immigration official compares the new immigration effort to the 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival program (DACA), which drew more than 600,000 applications from Dreamers.One of the effects of DACA was an increase in the wait time for green cards for immigrant spouses of U.S. citizens from five months to fifteen months, which critics blame on personnel being diverted to work on the DACA program.

  • New deportation approach targets convicted criminals, threats to national security

    Last Thursday, President Barack Obama announced the end of Secure Communitiesas part of his immigration reform strategy. The program was designed to identify deportable undocumented immigrants who had committed crimes, by allowing federal immigration agents to access fingerprint records collected at local jails. In many cases, agents requested local law enforcement officials to hold inmates beyond their jail terms until they could be transferred to federal custody. Obama has announced a new initiative — the Priority Enforcement Program— to target only undocumented immigrants who have been convicted of certain serious crimes or who pose danger to national security.

  • Number of unaccompanied children crossing into U.S. declines sharply

    The number of unaccompanied children apprehended by federal agents along the U.S.-Mexico border last October was down by 40 percent compared with October 2013. In the nine sectors of the Southwest border from California to Texas, federal border officials apprehended 2,529 children last October, down from 4,181 in October 2013. Family apprehensions also decreased about 10 percent — from 2,414 in October 2013 to 2,163 in October 2014.

  • Immigration advocates say CBP uses "expedited removal" to deport asylum seekers

    A new complaint to the DHS Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties charge sthat U.S. Customs and Border Protection(CBP) agents routinely ignore asylum seekers’ claim of fear of prosecution in their homeland, a claim which could grant them asylum in the United States. The complaint further states that CBP officers are increasingly using “expedited removal” to deport illegal immigrants. Unlike conventional deportation, expedited removal occurs outside of the judicial process. The number of expedited removal orders more than doubled in less than a decade from 72,911 in 2005 to 193,092 in 2013.

  • Obama’s executive order will shield 5 million undocumented immigrants from deportation

    In the face of bitter protests from Republicans in Congress, President Obama will soon announce that he will be using executive orders to launch a broad overhaul of the U.S. immigration enforcement system. One of the immediate results of the overhaul would be to shield up to five million undocumented immigrants – nearly half of the estimated 11.5 million undocumented immigrants currently in the United States — from the threat of deportation. The president’s orders will also provide many of these undocumented immigrants with work permits.

  • Data indicate there is no immigration crisis

    Is there an “immigration crisis” on the U.S.-Mexico border? Not according to an examination of historical immigration data, according to a new study. The paper examines historical immigration data, the “push” and “pull” factors currently motivating Mexicans and Central Americans to migrate to the United States and attempts to explain why current undocumented immigration across the U.S.-Mexico border has been perceived as a crisis.

  • As U.K. elections approach, immigration debate simmers

    As the 2015 British Parliamentary elections approach, increasing attention is focused on current immigration issues and attitudes in the kingdom, especially by right-leaning politicians.Prime Minister David Cameron vowed to reduce overall migration to the country to less than 100,000 people a year by 2015, including migrants from within the European Union, but critics, including business and academic leaders, say such a goal is unrealistic and undesirable.

  • Los Angeles County to cooperate with ICE on detaining undocumented immigrants

    The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisorsvoted Tuesday to extend 287(g), a program which allows federal immigration agents to train county jail employees to investigate whether certain inmates convicted of serious crimes are in the country illegally. Inmates confirmed as undocumented immigrants are then transferred to Immigration and Customs Enforcement(ICE) detention centers after serving their sentence.Aroud the country, at least 225 law enforcement agencies have decided to refuse hold requests from ICE.

  • More law enforcement agencies refuse to hold undocumented inmates for ICE

    Recent court rulings have emboldened roughly 225 law enforcement agencies across the country to refuse requests from Immigration and Customs Enforcement(ICE) officials to hold undocumented inmates past their release dates so federal authorities can have time to deport them. Until recently, inmates suspected of being in the country illegally were held for an additional forty-eight hours until ICE agents arrived. Some municipalities began limiting the number of holds a few years ago, but several counties and cities have begun to ignore the requests all together after recent court rulings confirmed that the immigration holds are not mandatory.