ICE task force member questions decision to terminate Secure Communities agreements

The National Immigration Forum — a member of a task force created by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to help improve its Secure Communities immigration enforcement program — is questioning ICE’s decision to terminate agreements to implement the program in an effort to prevent agencies from opting out of it altogether. #

BREAKING: Undocumented youth start protests in Atlanta

Eight undocumented youth from around the country — including one from Michigan — have moved to shut down a major thoroughfare in Atlanta to protest state laws that ban enrollment in state universities by undocumented youth.

“We feel that the time for us to stand up has come. I am More…

Report: Secure Communities immigration program deporting mostly low-level criminals

Immigration and Customs Enforcement data received through a Freedom of Information Act request shows that Secure Communities, a federal immigration enforcement program, detains and deports people who are not criminals.

In a press release issued last week, the More…

Mexico responds to reports of ATF policy encouraging gun smuggling

Last week, The American Independent reported on a policy within the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ (ATF) “Project Gunrunner” program to let guns “walk”: that is, to encourage firearm sales to known gunrunners in the interest of following the guns back to the cartels that ordered their More…

Civil rights groups question new ICE detention facility in Karnes City

Southeast of San Antonio, plans are set for the construction of a new immigrant detention center — one that Immigration and Customs Enforcement calls its first civil detention facility, but civil rights groups are still concerned over where that leaves ICE’s promise to improve the detention system in the U.S. More…

What happens to children when their parents are detained or deported?

The Daily Beast has a good story today on Encarnación Romero, a Guatemalan woman who was jailed on immigration charges for two years and ended up losing parental rights to her infant son. Romero faked documents to secure a job at a Missouri poultry plant, which was raided More…

ACLU alleges racial profiling led to ICE raid

The ACLU filed a formal complaint yesterday claiming U.S. citizens and legal residents were wrongly targeted for a raid in April by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents because they spoke Spanish. ICE agents raided a bus of 42 people, some of whom were citizens or legal residents, headed More…

The business case against E-Verify (and immigration enforcement of employers)

The Obama administration says it has stepped up immigration enforcement at workplaces through quiet audits of company personnel paperwork to catch a record number of employers who hire illegal workers. Advocates of E-Verify, a program that checks the immigration status of workers before or after they are hired, argue that More…

Will a Republican House mean beefed-up immigration enforcement and more deportations?

With the GOP set to take over the House in January, I’ve been trying to pinpoint some immigration proposals — if any exist — that House Republicans, Senate Democrats and President Obama might agree on. Beyond mandating E-Verify and banning “sanctuary cities,” the next session might More…

Immigration courts add 23 judges

The Justice Department has sworn in 23 new immigration judges, increasing the number of judges by about 10 percent in one day, according to a post Tuesday on the DOJ website. (The post, strangely, does not say what day the justices were sworn in, noting only that it More…