• Nebraska city free to enforce ordinance banning renting to undocumented immigrants

    In response to the increasing numbers of Latino immigrants in the town of Fremont, Nebraska, city leaders proposed in 2010 an ordinance which would ban renting to undocumented immigrants. The public outrage that followed led immigrant rights groups to request the U.S. Supreme Court to review and strike down the ordinance because it may interfere with federal immigration laws.

  • Public schools must accept children regardless of citizenship, immigration status: DOJ

    Last week, the Obama administration reaffirmed its position on public school education for children, regardless of their citizenship or immigration status. The state and district obligations regarding school enrollment are influenced by the result of the 1982 Supreme Court decision in Plyler V. Doe, which discarded a Texas law that denied education funding for undocumented children. Some states like Alabama and Arizona have passed their own education laws, but these have been superseded by the 1982 Supreme Court ruling.

  • DHS wants changes in Calif.’s ID for undocumented immigrants

    California is preparing to issue drivers’ licenses to undocumented immigrants who have been permitted to stay in the United States, but DHS has rejected the state’s design for the license card. DHS wants the cards to be unique enough to distinguish them from regular drivers’ licenses, but immigrant rights activists do not want the design to be so different that license holders would suffer from discrimination.

  • The influence of the Minutemen Project and similar groups has diminished

    The Minuteman Project and like-minded groups tried to make their own contribution to stopping illegal immigration by positioning their members across the U.S.-Mexico border, equipped with binoculars, American flags, and sometimes guns. Dwindling financial resources and publicized personal troubles of some of the group’s leaders have diminished the group’s ability to maintain a presence along the Southwest border. Observers say that the project represents the past in the debate over illegal immigration.

  • Canadian citizens fight a section of Canada’s Immigration Act they consider too broad

    Several civilians targeted under Section 34 (1) (f) of Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, are voicing their concerns that the measure is too broad and unreasonable. The bill, in place since 2001 in response to 9/11, blocks national admission to anyone who has supported an organization with possible grounds for acts of terrorism.

  • DHS mulling deportation policy changes

    As part of an ongoing review of immigration deportation policies, DHS secretary Jeh Johnson is considering limiting deportations of undocumented immigrants who do not have serious criminal records. If adopted, the new policy would affect tens of thousands of immigrants who could have been deported because they committed repeat immigration violations such as re-entering the country illegally after being deported, failing to follow deportation orders, or missing an immigration court date.

  • Number of undocumented immigrants deported for minor offenses quadrupled

    The Obama administration has dramatically increased the number undocumented immigrants being deported for minor offenses. Figures obtained by the New York Times through a Freedom of Information Act show a four-fold increase in deportations. Two-thirds of the nearly two million deportation cases the NYT studied involved people who had committed minor infractions or had no criminal record. The number of cases relating to people whose most serious offence was a traffic violation has quadrupled, rising from 43,000 over the last five years of George W Bush’s presidency to 193,000 since Obama took office.

  • Anti-immigrants backlash in Europe intensifies

    Anti-immigration groups and parties are enjoying a surge in many European countries, including Britain, France, and Austria, as many European economies face high unemployment and declining wages. The open-border policies of the European Union (EU), which allow citizens of EU member states to work and receive social welfare anywhere within the EU, have led many citizens to call for immigration limits and quotas.

  • Critics: administration does not deport deportation-eligible undocumented immigrants

    A recent report by the Center for Immigration Studies(CIS), a Washington, D.C. nonprofit calling for more restrictive immigration policies, says that in 2013, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deported fewer than 195,000 illegal immigrants despite receiving more than 720,000 notices on immigrants who could be eligible for deportation. Moreover, 68,000 immigrants released from pending deportation cases had criminal convictions on their records, the report stated. Pro-immigration advocates say the figures are misleading. “CIS is essentially asserting that a legal-permanent resident or a recently naturalized citizen with a broken tail light should be charged by ICE and removed from the country although there is no basis in law for such action,” said Benjamin Johnson of the American Immigration Council.

  • DHS hits reset button on the Electronic Immigration System (ELIS)

    DHS has awarded InfoZen 3-year, $11.9 million contract — the first of multiple contracts — for the Electronic Immigration System (ELIS), designed to process immigration forms. This is the latest attempt to digitize the processing system after spending roughly $1 billion and five and a half years under a contract led by IBM. IBM’s “design is poorly thought through and inconsistently applied by the developers. The result is duplication of efforts, time spent on rework, slowness in debugging problems, poor quality code, etc.,” said CIS chief information officer Mark Schwartz.

  • Judge rebukes Sheriff Arpaio, his deputy for mocking, defying court orders

    Grant Murray Snow, District Judge for the United States District Court for Arizona, earlier this week rebuked Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County and chief deputy Jerry Sheridan for defying and mocking Snow’s order, issued last year, to stop targeting Latinos during routine patrols, traffics stops and work raids. “Whether or not the sheriff likes it, there is a distinction in immigration law that was not understood by the population and, with all due respect to you, it is not understood by the sheriff, which is that it is not a criminal violation to be in this country without authorization,” Judge Snow said pointedly.

  • Debate intensifies over Obama deportation instruction to ICE

    President Barack Obama’s recent instruction to DHS to find “more humane” ways to deport illegal immigrants has sparked yet another debate between immigration supporters and critics as to what exactly Obama’s directive meant. Supporters of undocumented immigrants hope DHS will cease all deportations deemed unnecessary, while opponents of Obama’s immigration policies urge DHS to carry out the country’s immigration laws as written by Congress.

  • White House to reassess deportation policy internally

    President Barack Obama, after his meeting with key Latino leaders last Friday to discuss further implementation of reform under current law, has announced that the administration will take another look into current deportation policies.

  • Washington State offers college financial aid to children of undocumented immigrants

    Governor Jay Inslee of Washington State yesterday signed legislation which will offer college financial aid to students brought into the United States illegally by their parents. California, Illinois, Texas, and New Mexico have passed similar legislations. The measure represents a shift in the position of State Senate Republicans: last year, the GOP-controlled Senate blocked a similar measure,called the Dream Act of Washington State, but earlier this month the Senate passed its own version of the bill, which the the governor, a Democrat, signed.

  • Secure Communities triggers deportation of undocumented immigrants with no criminal records

    The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Secure Communitiesprogram sends fingerprint data from local law enforcement and the Federal Bureau of Investigationto immigration officers to identify and deport illegal immigrants who commit major crimes. The program has expanded from fourteen jurisdictions in 2008 to more than 3,000 today. Immigration advocates say that the program’s emphasis on identifying and deporting undocumented immigrants who have committed crimes in the United States notwithstanding, it has also triggered the deportation of 5,964 undocumented immigrants with no criminal records.