05/09/12 Yesterday, four members of the “Southern 32” appeared in New Orleans immigration court, where a judge granted them temporary relief from deportation while ICE considers their requests for prosecutorial discretion.  The judge refused to move forward with their deportation cases even though the ICE lawyer arrived in court determined to press the cases forward, despite [...]
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05/09/12 House Republicans have hijacked this year’s reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), empowering abusers and disempowering victims for political purposes.  Their version is opposed by leading domestic violence prevention groups and the National Organization of Women, among others, yet Republican leaders continue to push it forward. Yesterday, a Huffington Post piece revealed that a [...]
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05/08/12 Casa De Maryland took to the streets yesterday to protest the Obama Administration’s failure to implement immigration policy that would keep undocumented immigrants who fit certain criteria safe from deportation. And, those activists took to the streets right outside of  the DC headquarters of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (a.k.a. ICE.) Famously known in our advocacy world [...]
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05/07/12 Last week, the regional ICE office in charge of New Orleans, Tennessee, Alabama, and other localities completed its review of over 3,000 deportation cases pending in the region’s immigration courts.  Among the cases are those of the “Southern 32,” thirty-two immigrant leaders from the Congress of Day Laborers who are still facing deportation simply because [...]
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04/30/12 Last week, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released its long-awaited response to last year’s report from the Secure Communities Task Force. Secure Communities, the Obama Administration’s signature immigration enforcement program, has been fiercely criticized by law enforcement experts, state governors and legislatures, community leaders and members of Congress as a deportation dragnet that has systematically [...]
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04/27/12 Today, Dream Activist brings us news of a ninth grader who is scheduled to be deported this coming Sunday. According to their petition: Victoria was brought to the US when she was only 3 years old. Carina, Victoria’s mother wanted to give her little girl a better future, something she couldn’t do in Argentina. She [...]
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04/24/12 Currently, there are an estimated 5,000 U.S citizen children lingering in foster care due to the detainment or deportation of their parents. Deportation policy in the US is supposed to focus on “violent offenders and people convicted of crimes; not families, not folks who are just looking to scrape together an income.”  A New York [...]
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04/17/12 Last June, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director John Morton outlined criteria for prosecutorial discretion in a memo, which called on ICE officials to consider a range of factors in determining whether an individual should be deported or not. Here’s how the Immigration Policy Center described the memo after it was issued: On June 17, [...]
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04/12/12 It was last year that we first told you about Pedro Gutierrez, a DREAMer from Arizona who aspires to become a Marine, who came to the US when he was 7.  His grandmother, his only caretaker, died when he was still a child, leaving him an orphan.  But Pedro rallied, and with the help of [...]
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04/04/12 A lot has been written this week on the recent ICE sweep that arrested more than 3,100 undocumented immigrants over the span of six days, involving more than 1,900 ICE officers in every state across the nation.
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03/26/12 Last June, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director John Morton outlined criteria for prosecutorial discretion in a memo, which called on ICE officials to consider a range of factors in determining whether an individual should be deported or not.
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03/26/12 This morning, despite pleas from his wife, children and dozens of community members from Manitowoc, WI, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) deported Jaime Martinez Espinal, leaving his US citizen wife, Jennifer, and their four children, in a state of financial and emotional ruin.
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03/26/12 This morning, despite pleas from his wife, children and dozens of community members from Manitowoc, WI, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) deported Jaime Martinez Espinal, leaving his US citizen wife, Jennifer, and their four children, in a state of financial and emotional ruin.
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03/23/12 A positive development in the deportation case of Alfonso Garcia. He's undocumented, a DREAMer and he's married to a US citizen. But, the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which prohibits federal recognition of same-sex benefits, complicates the situation, because Alfonso is married to Brian Willingham.
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03/22/12 Jaime is a fourteen-year resident of Manitowoc, Wisconsin who is the sole provider for his wife and four children, who has been detained by ICE for nearly a month and who could be deported at any time.
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03/19/12 It's not often that you get to hear in English what Spanish language journalists are writing about, but since immigration is a core issue for many Latino voters, you might have guessed – correctly – that it's also an issue highlighted every day in Spanish language media.
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03/14/12 The Obama administration's newest guidelines for prosecutorial discretion are seven months old—yet cases which should be dismissed are still coming up every day. A couple of weeks ago we wrote about Daniela Palaez, the Florida valedictorian in danger of imminent deportation. Today we're writing about Gabino Sanchez, a 27-year-old father of two who has been in the US since he was 14.
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02/28/12 The Obama Administration's announcement that it would phase out one component of its troubled 287(g) immigration enforcement program has been hailed by some as a breakthrough.
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02/23/12 In anticipation of the Republican primary in Arizona, the Center for American Progress (CAP) today has released a new report, "Staying Put but Still in the Shadows," an analysis which finds that harsh anti-immigrant laws do not cause undocumented immigrants to self-deport, only to hunker down deeper into the shadows.
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02/16/12 Colorlines has another story about families being ripped apart by the nation's broken immigration system. This is about Felipe Montes, who was deported in 2010. His children were place in foster care. Now, officials in Allegheny County in North Carolina want to strip him of his parental rights.
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02/14/12 Last week, Frank (Sharry) wrote a blog post at Huffington Post about the Chair of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX).
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02/07/12 The hot new immigration buzzword these days is "self-deportation," also known as "attrition through enforcement," and the Immigration Policy Center has a new report this week explaining the full, frightening reality of what it is.
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02/06/12 Mitt Romney's "self-deportation" strategy found another critic over the weekend: John McCain. Yesterday, Al Punto's Jorge Ramos asked McCain about Romney's self-deportation plan. McCain doesn't approve.
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02/03/12 Last November, the Applied Research Center produced a report, Shattered Families: The Perilous Intersection of Immigration Enforcement and the Child Welfare System, revealing the devastating impact deportations have on families. This week, ARC's Rinku Sen appeared on ABC's Nightline to discuss the real world impact of the deportation policy.
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02/02/12 In an op-ed today in the New York Times, Antonio Alarcon, a 17 year old DREAMer, describes living life without his parents who "self-deported" to Mexico. As he explains, "self-deportation" is a term that Mitt Romney made popular in a Florida GOP debate.
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02/02/12 "This American Life," the New York Times Lede blog and the Rachel Maddow show this week both put out pretty amusing historical pieces on the concept of self-deportation and its origins as a hysterical, satirical joke.
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02/02/12 Ever since Mitt Romney issued his support for "self-deportation," a policy also known as "attrition through enforcement," voices from around the country have responded by highlighting just how unworkable and extreme a policy like this would be.
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