I’m back, but don’t have much good news to report. The Dream Act died a painful and very public death in the Senate on December 18th. Although supporters insist the fight is not over, the fight is very much over for the time being. I would be shocked if any legislation granting immigration benefits made it through Congress anytime before election day 2012, Dream Act included. As if the Dream Act update isn’t depressing enough, there’s more bad news: family- based immigrant visa numbers, especially for the second preference category, will severely retrogress come January 1, 2011. Although this shouldn’t affect anyone that obtains their immigrant visa this month, prospective immigrants that had interviews scheduled under the FB-2A or -2B categories in January or later will have a LONG wait before their soon-to-be rescheduled next appointment – approximately two years or so. Hmmm…any other good news? Not really, but I did read an interesting article in the LA Weekly (one of my local newspapers) about problems with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the agency most directly responsible for patrolling the U.S.-Mexico border and detaining/removing any immigrants attempting to the enter the country illegally. According to the article, CBP routinely violates the civil and human rights of undocumented immigrants, with the agency stepping in only when a certain incident becomes public or is otherwise embarrassing. Granted, there are plenty of good agents in CBP, and granted as well, they have one tough job – still, all agents need to be trained in enforcing the law while respecting the civil liberties of the undocumented. I suppose that in the absence of Comprehensive Immigration Reform, I’ll take a kinder, gentler CBP for the time being instead.
If you don’t already know about the American Immigration Council’s Immigration Policy Center (IPC), you might want to check them out. The IPC publishes some great reports on the state of immigration in society, and seems to especially enjoy exploring issues related to ICE enforcement, detention, and removal. Their latest report is titled “ICE’s Enforcement Priorities and the Factors that Undermine Them,” and deals with ICE enforcement under President Obama – more specifically, how the the agency’s partnerships with state and local law enforcement lead to conflicting enforcement priorities. ICE has repeatedly stressed that it wants to remove aliens with serious criminal convictions first, those with minor criminal records or non-criminals second – yet partnering with these state and local agencies has led to the detention and removal of this latter group in record numbers. ICE might purport to “need” programs like 287(g), which allows it to partner with state and local law enforcement agencies, but doing so apparently takes away its ability to formulate policy and move in the direction it wants. I highly recommend reading the full report, which can be accessed here.
An excellent decision from the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) came out today regarding the Child Status Protection Act, or CSPA. CSPA requires that applicants that ”aged out” of an immigrant visa petition, but who are otherwise eligible for derivative status under the Act, have “sought to acquire” lawful permanent resident status within one year of a visa number becoming available. The question in the BIA’s case, In Re Jose Jesus Murillo, was what the phrase “sought to acquire” means - does it require that an application for permanent residence be filed, or do steps short of filing an application still satisfy the law? The BIA came down on the side of the immigrant in this case, saying that Congress would have said “filed” if it meant filed, but instead chose to say “sought to acquire,” which is necessarily broader than specifically filing an application. The Respondent in this case found an attorney and prepared an application within one year of his visa becoming available. According to the court, his actions satisfied the statute, enabling the young Respondent to derive permanent residence through his father’s approved petition. This case got me thinking more generally: why would the government really want to fight this point? The purpose of CSPA was to unite families; given that, why would our government feel the need to push the child of now-permanent residents out of the country so unceremoniously? American immigration law has always reflected some larger policy goals - unite families, protect U.S. workers, kick out criminals, terrorists, and persecutors of others, etc. Does DHS’s appeal in this case really speak to any of those goals? The answer has to be a resounding NO. I for one think that our tax dollars could be used pursuing worthier appeals than this.
According to an article in the L.A. Times today, the Obama Administration has deported a record number of undocumented immigrants for a second straight fiscal year. The United States deported 392,862 undocumented immigrants in FY2010, 3,000 more than the now-second highest year, 2009. I think it’s pretty funny that no one seems impressed or happy with this fact – the left is decrying Obama’s apparent focus on enforcement over immigration reform, and the right thinks that 392,862 is nowhere near enough deportations for one fiscal year. I guess that when it comes to certain issues, Obama just can’t – and won’t – win.
This story appeared on ICE’s website yesterday: one of the people involved in selling “Letters of Refusal” out of the Armenian Consulate in Los Angeles pleaded guilty, setting the stage for the four other defendants in the case to face trial on their own. In case you aren’t in the know, “letters of refusal” are letters stating that a country will not issue an individual a travel document, which in turn means that ICE cannot effectuate a deportation. Individuals that have a final order of removal but cannot be deported can apply for a work permit and remain in the country in pseudo-legal status, as long as they check in with ICE once every month or so. Not a bad deal for those whose luck has run out, eh? Given that, it’s hardly surprising that letters of refusal are such valuable commodities, and that schemes such as the one out of the Armenian Consulate pop up on occasion – although c’mon guys, after enough letters of refusal, someone at ICE is bound to get suspicious.
We hear about the border all the time. Border this. Border that. Border border border. It turns out that the border is changing – at least as far as U.S. Customs and Border Protection is concerned. The New York Times (in another excellent article by the Times’ immigration guru Nina Bernstein) reports that CBP routinely conducts immigration checks of Greyhound Buses and Amtrak Trains that aren’t all that close to the border – and that definitely aren’t close to that border we all hear so much about, the border between the U.S. and Mexico. Repeat Greyhound and Amtrak passengers that might not immediately appear citizen-like enough to CBP have even learned to bring their U.S. passports or other immigration documentation on trips within the Northern United States – a sad comment to me on the way in which the federal government conducts immigration investigations. I expect this sort of round ’em up mentality from places like Arizona, but the federal government should know better. CBP, investigate based on solid leads and concrete evidence, and keep the border where it belongs, at the edges of our country.
Stories have been appearing in newspapers in Texas about deportation proceedings that are mysteriously being terminated for no apparent reason. According to an article in the Dallas Morning Star, ICE is simply focusing on more important things right now – namely, removing criminal aliens. Although I’d love to believe that this is the reason, it sounds a tad too disingenuous to me – especially knowing the deportation-happy folks at ICE as well as I do. I know that ICE Director John Morton has stated over and over that he wants to devote more of his agency’s limited resources to removing criminal aliens, but once ICE gets an undocumented anyone in its web, it seldom lets go so easily. So far, this phenomenon is limited to Texas, but I’d be very interested to see if it spreads to other parts of the country too. Interestingly, ICE also came out with a memo a few days back about requesting that pending applications with USCIS be expedited if they would give someone in removal proceedings a means of immediately gaining status. Could these two developments be part of a new and larger trend? Stay tuned for updates.
Good article in today’s NYT about an apparent ICE policy of not deporting undocumented students. Although ICE’s official position is still “no policy change – we just have other priorities,” immigration attorneys and others in-the-know don’t seem to know any undocumented students that have actually been removed from the United States, which seems to indicate the existence of a very specific policy on ICE’s part. This issue is especially relevant right now in light of the DREAM Act, pending legislation that would legalize undocumented students that have a certain number of years of residence in the United States and no history of criminal activity. The Obama Administration has refused to “officially” grant a moratorium on student deportations, choosing instead to push for passage of the DREAM Act, but it seems that John Morton has created a sort of de facto moratorium anyways, at least for now. What shocks me most from this article is the righteous indignation of some Republican Members of Congress, who are appalled – yet again – by those liberal do-gooders in the White House. According to the article, Rep. Brian Bilbray (R) of California, Chairman of a House immigration caucus said that “[t]he administration appears to want to pick and choose what laws they will follow and which ones they don’t…they are trying to legislate from the White House.” Oh give me a break - Rep. Bilbray, are you really that stupid? With 12 million potential deportees, and a complete lack of funding and resources, do you think it’s a good use of ICE’s time to go after kids in school? Morons like Rep. Bilbray only show why the DREAM Act is so important: left to certain elements of Congress, young people that did not choose to come here and that have the potential to build his country up and make a positive contribution would be unceremoniously given the boot instead. We need firm legislation in place now to prevent that from ever happening.
AILA’s Infonet published a statement today from the labor union that represents ICE employees expressing “no confidence” in ICE Director John Morton and ICE Office of Detention Policy and Planning Assistant Director Phyllis Covens. The gist of the American Federation of Government Employees’ statement is that ICE, through Director Morton and ODPP Assistant Director Covens, has foisted a policy of selective immigration enforcement on the American public that amounts to a general amnesty, and that the nation would be better served by tougher leadership at the head of the agency. Never mind that, under President Obama through Secretary Morton, removal of non-citizens is at an all-time record high (60% higher than during George Bush’s last year in office) - the ICE rank and file feel that the agency is being too soft on the undocumented, and are demanding change. Although some of the points raised in the union’s statement are absolutely ridiculous (“ICE Detention Reforms have transformed into a detention system aimed at providing resort-like living to criminal aliens”), others are salient. Among the more interesting points: agency mismanagement has resulted in trained ICE officers performing largely clerical tasks, ICE officers are restricted from making street arrests – which I don’t think would be very good, but I’m sure is necessary on occasion, and there is no uniform national ICE policy, which leads to a lack of consistency and no accountability whatsoever. I always love seeing the inner-workings of our government, and if this letter is indicative of reality, there are definitely some major problems in the way ICE is run – which can only hurt detained immigrants in the end.
Judge Susan Bolton of the United States District Court for the District of Arizona blocked implementation of parts of Arizona’s controversial immigration law while its constitutionality is analyzed, a potentially major blow to its supporters in Arizona and beyond. Although the law was supposed to go into effect tomorrow, the Judge blocked provisions that relate to checking immigration status during “routine” police stops and requiring immigrants to carry documentation of their status, saying that “[i]f enforcement of the portions of S.B. 1070 for which the Court finds a likelihood of preemption is not enjoined, the United States is likely to suffer irreparable harm…the federal government’s ability to enforce its policies and achieve its objectives will be undermined by the state’s enforcement of statutes that interfere with federal law, even if the Court were to conclude that the state statutes have substantially the same goals as federal law.” The Judge went on to state that “[t]he Court therefore finds that preserving the status quo through a preliminary injunction is less harmful than allowing state laws that are likely preempted by federal law to be enforced” (emphasis added). There you go; in a nutshell, Judge Bolton has already determined that a likelihood exists that portions of Arizona’s law will be preempted by federal law, and Arizona is going to have an uphill battle defending their constitutionality in court. I just wonder if all those other states that wanna be wanna be like Arizona will take notice and scale back their own efforts to enforce federal immigration law as well.
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