06/17/13 Today, director of ICE John Morton announced that he would be leaving his position at the end of July to take a position at a private company. Morton has held his position since May 2009, and ICE has deported more than a million people during his tenure. Below is a response from the National Day [...]
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04/22/13 Today, the Senate Judiciary Committee is holding a hearing on the immigration reform legislation drafted by the “Gang of Eight.” As we noted in the post below, the anti-immigrant Senators, led by Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and leader of the “Gang of Hate” Jefferson Beauregard Sessions (R-AL) on the panel invited several witnesses from the Tanton [...]
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03/14/13 The manufactured kerfuffle of ICE’s release of a number of immigrants from detention facilities last month has officially reached the phase where House Republicans hold hearings to show off how outraged they are by the Obama Administration. Typically, such hearings are full of fact-free fearmongering about criminals running amok on the streets. But while this [...]
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01/11/13  Earlier this week, the Migration Policy Institute published a report, Immigration Enforcement in the United States: The Rise of a Formidable Machinery. The headline of MPI’s press release summed up its findings, “U.S. Spends More on Immigration Enforcement than on FBI, DEA, Secret Service & All Other Federal Criminal Law Enforcement Agencies Combined.” Of course, [...]
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12/14/12 A new directive yesterday from the Department of Homeland Security announced that US Border Patrol agents will no longer serve as interpreters when local police and law enforcement agencies need language help.  According to the new guideline, translation help should now come from private services often used by government agencies. Border Patrol agents who are [...]
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10/17/12 Trouble is brewing in Detroit again. This week, ICE agents approached two immigrant families while they were dropping off their children at Cesar Chavez Academy in Southwest Detroit.  One father, Hector Orozco, was dropping off his son when he was arrested, and remains in detention. Another family was stopped outside the Manuel Reyes Vistas Nuevas [...]
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08/27/12 On Friday, the California State Assembly voted to pass the Trust Act in a 48-26 vote. Briefly, the Trust Act is the opposite of anti-immigrant legislation that is currently plaguing the country, and is a clear alternative to the Secure Communities enforcement program (which costs taxpayers in the state upto $65 million/year, according to a [...]
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08/23/12 Kris Kobach, immigration advisor to the Romney campaign, architect of the infamous Arizona and Alabama immigration laws, and driving force behind the Republican Party’s hard line platform on immigration, today joined with Roy Beck of NumbersUSA, the head of a leading anti-immigrant organization, and Chris Crane, the head of the ICE Union, to file a [...]
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07/20/12 Cross-Posted at Mom’s Rising: I’d like to believe that most Americans, perhaps with the exception of the hard-core nativists, like Rep. Steve King and Romney advisor Kris Kobach, knows our nation’s immigration policies need to be fixed.  But behind these failed policies are real human beings:  those who make decisions about how to enforce the [...]
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06/11/12 After a growing outcry by immigrants, allies, and Members of Congress, outraged at the record number of deportations carried out by the Obama Administration, the Department of Homeland Security announced a new policy in June 2011 that was supposed to focus immigration enforcement on the “worst of the worst” and spare individuals who have been in the [...]
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05/22/12 Detroit: Home to Kid Rock, Eminem, and one of America’s most rogue ICE agencies. Detroit ICE agents are known as some of the most aggressive immigration agents in the country.  Just last year, they were targeting parents they suspected of being undocumented by stalking children at an elementary school. Other victims have spoken up about [...]
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05/16/12 In 2008, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Florida raided the home of Adolfo Garcia and Julio Diaz, reportedly in search of human traffickers.  Although no one in the home was involved in trafficking, the agents stormed the house and violently arrested Garcia, Diaz and several others for civil immigration violations.  ICE agents punched [...]
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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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05/08/12 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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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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04/04/12 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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08/24/11 Local and national immigration experts spoke on a call with reporters to relate stories and highlight concerns that Secure Communities and other police-immigration collaboration efforts are destroying the relationship between police and immigrants and making communities across the country less safe.
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08/10/11 A mother strip-searched in front of her teenage son; parents stalked by immigration officials outside of their children's elementary school; a man shoved into a wall so hard that the plaster cracks; and a pregnant woman denied medication. Troubling signs of potential police misconduct? Apparently, not to the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
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08/02/11 There is going to be a rally from 11 am - 2 pm CT outside of the ICE Headquarters to show support for Andy Mathe's family. The address is 101 W Congress Parkway, Chicago, IL (on the corner of W Congress Pkwy and S Clark St.)
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07/13/11 The battle to stop Alberto Yanez's deportation is far from over, but at least it has been delayed for another year. Alberto Yanez -- father of three American citizens, brother of two American citizens, and a passionate DREAMer -- saw major breakthrough when he was granted a one year stay of deportation through January of next year.
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06/22/11 Outrageous news out of Glenwood Springs, Colorado today: a team of agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement reportedly swept through a corner of the Strawberry Days festivities on Saturday, rounding up two or possibly three suspects.
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06/17/11 Today, Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced that it is establishing an advisory board to review the Secure Communities deportation program, and implementing new guidance throughout the field on prosecutorial discretion.
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05/06/11 In response to Governor Quinn's (see previous blog post from today) attempt to opt-out of the Secure Communities Program, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is saying "No, actually. We won't let you."
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05/05/11 The morning of March 31 started out like most others, with parents driving their children to school and Ali Abdel, the principal of Hope of Detroit Academy, watching over the morning safety patrol. Chaos, however, was lurking behind the scenes, in the form of Detroit ICE agents who had tailed several parents from their homes to the school.
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04/19/11 Move over, Jersey Shore. The AMC channel has announced that it will be launching a new reality show this fall, Inside DHS, based on the inner workings and daily toils of the Department of Homeland Security. That's right, the Department of Homeland Security, the same people who are responsible for cancer-scanning your grandmother and getting way too up in your grill, are now getting their own show.
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04/18/11 After stops in Boston, Providence, and Chicago, Congressman Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) is taking his 20-city "Change Takes Courage" tour to Detroit, home to our recent coverage of outrageous ICE abuses involving agents stalking elementary schools and strip-searching mothers.
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