Immigration Deportation

05/20/2013

E-Verify

Immigration Reform: Week Two Is Through

By Michael Macleod-Ball, Chief of Staff, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 11:59am

After two more long days last week of largely unsuccessful attempts to scuttle the immigration reform bill, the Senate Judiciary Committee now is looking at the gargantuan task of wrapping up consideration – somehow, some way – before the end of this week. On Tuesday, the Committee completed work on the border security section of the bill and then began consideration of the section dealing with non-immigrant visas – addressing labor needs. Work on those issues continued on Thursday and then transitioned to enforcement, including the E-Verify employment verification system. All told, the Committee was busy this week – considering 64 amendments and adopting 40 of them. All but two of the amendments were adopted on a bipartisan basis. Ninety-nine amendments have now been considered (including modifications), and quite a few more have been withdrawn, out of the 300 amendments originally filed. Despite the accomplishments, the Committee still must figure out a way to deal with perhaps 150 amendments before Senators return to their home states at the end of the week for the Memorial Day recess.

05/16/2013

Immigration Detention

Scholars to Senate: Prolonged and Indefinite Immigration Detention is Unconstitutional and un-American

By Diana Scholl, Communications Strategist, ACLU at 2:08pm

While most countries accept the return of their citizens if the United States orders them deported, several refuse to take back them back, either because of a lack of formal relations with the U.S. (Cuba, for example), or simply because of slow background check processes.

05/20/2013

Anti-Immigrant Laws

A Key Lesson from the 1986 Immigration Reform Is in Jeopardy

By Diana Scholl, Communications Strategist, ACLU at 12:45pm

Another day, another amendment to the Senate immigration reform legislation from Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) that would harm immigrants' civil liberties. Amendment 17, which will be up for consideration this week in the Senate Judiciary Committee's markup of the immigration reform bill, would unwisely (and unconstitutionally) restrict the ability of immigrants to correct erroneous denials of legalization by barring the courthouse door to them.

04/25/2013

Immigration and Customs Enforcement

Yes, the U.S. Wrongfully Deports Its Own Citizens

By Esha Bhandari, Equal Justice Works Fellow, ACLU at 11:48am

This week's New Yorker features the harrowing ordeal of Mark Lyttle, a U.S. citizen with mental disabilities who was deported to Mexico. Lyttle was born in North Carolina and has psychiatric and cognitive disabilities. He was inexplicably referred to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in 2008 after being misidentified as an undocumented immigrant from Mexico even though he had never been to Mexico, shared no Mexican heritage, and did not speak any Spanish. As the New Yorker article notes, "Lyttle is brown-skinned," and "the vagaries of race and ethnicity obviously played a part" in causing him to be singled out for immigration enforcement.

04/24/2013

Immigration Detention

Historic Decision Recognizing Right to Counsel for Group of Immigration Detainees

By Esha Bhandari, Equal Justice Works Fellow, ACLU & Carmen Iguina, Equal Justice Works Fellow, ACLU of Southern California at 11:22am

In a landmark ruling yesterday, Federal District Judge Dolly M. Gee ordered the federal government to provide legal representation for immigrant detainees in California, Arizona and Washington who have serious mental disabilities and are unable to represent themselves in immigration court. This is a historic decision — it is the first ever to recognize a right to appointed counsel in immigration proceedings for a group of immigrants. Unlike the criminal justice system, where judges are generally required to appoint counsel for defendants who cannot afford a lawyer, there are no safeguards in the immigration enforcement system to ensure the basic fairness of having legal representation for immigrants. As a result, over half of all individuals in immigration court — including 84% of detained individuals — must face the complex legal proceedings alone and unrepresented, while the government is always represented by a lawyer.

04/10/2013

Immigration and Customs Enforcement

Time is Now for Immigration Reform That Offers a Roadmap to Citizenship and Preserves Family Unity

By Vicki B. Gaubeca, ACLU of New Mexico at 11:25am

Immigration reform must not be contingent on the false premise that an airtight 2,000-mile border is required. Instead, Congress should turn to ameliorating the tragedy of family separation along the southern border.

Thousands of families from San Diego to Brownsville have suffered the loss of people they love to deportation. Many of these families are comprised of members who are U.S. citizens, lawful residents and people who've lived here for years and tried unsuccessfully--sometimes for decades--to become residents or U.S. citizens.

03/22/2013

Immigration and Customs Enforcement

Mother Faces Deportation for Having Barking Dogs

By Jennie Pasquarella, ACLU of Southern California & Axel Caballero, Cuéntame at 2:20pm

Where would you expect to find half-a-dozen patrol cars on New Year's Eve? In Bakersfield, California, ranked in the highest ten percent of the most violent cities in America, you'd hope they'd be responding to incidents of violence and preventing murder, rape, and other violent crime. At the very least, you'd expect them to be patrolling for drunk drivers.

Not so. At least not when it comes to prioritizing such matters as "barking dogs." On December 31, 2012, the Kern County Sheriff's Department deployed six police cars and numerous officers at the behest of a resident who called for help from, well, the sounds of two small barking dogs. Her neighbor, Ruth Montaño, a Latina farm-worker, and her three American children owned the dogs.

10/05/2012

Immigration Deportation

U.S. Citizen Wrongfully Deported to Mexico, Settles His Case Against the Federal Government

By Esha Bhandari, Equal Justice Works Fellow, ACLU at 12:15pm

Mark Lyttle, an American citizen with mental disabilities who was wrongfully detained and deported to Mexico and forced to live on the streets and in prisons for months, settled his case against the federal government this week.

Lyttle will receive $175,000 for the suffering he endured after being detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), who deported him despite ample evidence that he was a U.S. citizen. The settlement comes after a federal district court in Georgia ruled in Lyttle’s favor in March, holding that the bulk of his claims against the federal defendants should not be dismissed.

01/23/2013

Immigration and Customs Enforcement

ICE's New Policy Doesn't Fix the Constitutional Problems with Detainers

By Kate Desormeau, ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project at 2:07pm

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) claims that its recently announced new policy on immigration detainers is a major step toward “smarter immigration enforcement,” and it seems to have convinced some editorial boards that that’s true. But serious problems remain.

04/17/2013

Immigration and Customs Enforcement

Americans Overwhelmingly Support a Fair Immigration System

By Laura W. Murphy, Director, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 10:19am

For over 90 years the ACLU has defended the rights of everyone in the United States, whether born in this country or abroad, because the Constitution protects the civil liberties and civil rights of all of them.

The data from a new poll released yesterday that was commissioned by CAMBIO, a new coalition for immigration reform, confirms what we have long known – that the American people agree wholeheartedly that all people in the United States, including immigrants, have fundamental rights under our Constitution.

American Civil Liberties Union