Tag: Trump immigration policy

Trump to end asylum protections for most Central American migrants at US-Mexico border

The Hill logoThe Trump administration is moving to end asylum protections for most Central American migrants, the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security announced Monday.

According to text of the rule set to publish in the Federal Register on Tuesday, asylum seekers who pass through another country before reaching the United States will be ineligible for asylum when they reach the southern border.

The move marks an acceleration in the Trump administration’s efforts to reduce the number of migrants crossing the U.S. border with Mexico and has the potential to considerably reduce the number of asylum claims.

View the complete July 15 article by Morgan Chalfant, Jacqueline Thomsen, Chris Mills Rodrigo and Rafael Bernal on The Hill website here.

‘No shower, no shower!’: Migrants’ shouts greet Pence as he visits Texas detention centers

The vice president saw detainees packed into their holding areas surrounded by chain-link fence.

Vice President Mike Pence saw firsthand the extreme overcrowding migrants are often forced to endure at federal detention centers when he visited two Friday in Texas.

Agents wore face masks, and video showed detainees packed into their holding areas surrounded by chain-link fence, the concrete floors littered with silver thermal blankets. Reporters accompanying Pence described the facility as smelling “horrendous.”

A group of men detained behind chain link fencing shouted to news cameras, “No shower, no shower!”

View the complete July 12 article by Dennis Romero on the NBC News website here.

Trump drops census effort, announces new plan to ‘count’ noncitizens

‘The 2020 reelect is a big factor in this battle for Trump,’ GOP strategist says

President Donald Trump lost a battle Thursday when he dropped his bid to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census, but by reviving the effort in dramatic fashion he amassed more ammunition for his coming reelection campaign.

During an unrelated social media forum event at the White House, Trump criticized federal judges and the Supreme Court for blocking his attempt to add the question, calling it a “left-wing” effort to erode rights. And he teased a “solution.” Once in the Rose Garden to address the citizenship matter, he declared, “we are not backing down.”

“We will defend the right of the American people to know the full facts about the population, size of citizens and noncitizens in America,” he said. “Knowing this information is vital to formulating sound public policy.”

View the complete July 11 article by John T. Bennett on The Roll Call website here.

Ignoring Congress, ICE Detaining Record Numbers In For-Profit Camps

Immigration and Customs Enforcement under the Trump administration is detaining a record number of people, despite Congress telling it not to. And, according to a new report, it’s doing so with for-profit detention camps, allowing businesses to make a dime off of suffering families.

Earlier this year, as part of a deal to end the government shutdown, Congress provided ICE with a goal of reducing the number of detainees to 40,520 by September.

Mother Jones reported Tuesday that ICE blew past that limit and pushed its detainment population to an “all-time high” of 54,000.

View the complete July 10 article by Cortney Rock on the National Memo website here.

Thousands Are Targeted as ICE Prepares to Raid Undocumented Migrant Families

New York Times logoNationwide raids to arrest thousands of members of undocumented families have been scheduled to begin Sunday, according to two current and one former homeland security officials, moving forward with a rapidly changing operation, the final details of which remain in flux. The operation, backed by President Trump, had been postponed, partly because of resistance among officials at his own immigration agency.

The raids, which will be conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement over multiple days, will include “collateral” deportations, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the preliminary stage of the operation. In those deportations, the authorities might detain immigrants who happened to be on the scene, even though they were not targets of the raids.

When possible, family members who are arrested together will be held in family detention centers in Texas and Pennsylvania. But because of space limitations, some might end up staying in hotel rooms until their travel documents can be prepared. ICE’s goal is to deport the families as quickly as possible.

View the complete July 11 article by Caitlin Dickerson and Zolan Kanno-Youngs on The New York Times website here.

Trump increasingly boxed in on census citizenship question

The Hill logoPresident Trump looks to be increasingly boxed in on his effort to add a controversial citizenship question to the 2020 census.

Judges have repeatedly ruled against the Trump administration on the question since officials first announced last year that it would be included in the next decennial population survey.

But that hasn’t stopped the president from doubling down on the issue, even as census materials are being printed without the controversial question.

View the complete July 10 article by Jacqueline Thomsen on The Hill website here.

15-year-old migrant girl says border agent sexually assaulted her while other officers watched

She said the border patrol agents laughed at her assault.

In a complaint, a 15-year-old migrant girl from Honduras said that a U.S. border agent put his hands inside her bra, pulled down her underwear, and groped her in front of other officers and immigrants, during what was supposed to be a routine pat-down.

The allegation, first reported by NBC News, is under investigation by the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General. The teenage girl said “she felt embarrassed as the officer was speaking in English to other officers and laughing,” according to the incident report.

The alleged assault happened at a Yuma, Arizona, facility, which there have been allegations of unsanitary and crowded conditions in addition to misconduct and abuse. Children have said they were scared of officers at the center because they would react with anger to requests. A child said he wore the same underwear for 10 days because he was afraid to ask for a clean pair.

View the complete July 10 article by Casey Quinlan article on the ThinkProgress website here.

Congress Refuses To Spend Millions For Trump’s Revision Of Census Forms

The Democratic congressman who oversees funding for the Census Bureau said on Tuesday that he will block Trump from wasting millions of dollars to reprint the 2020 census survey in order to rig it for Republicans.

Trump lost a Supreme Court case challenging his attempt to insert a question about citizenship into the census, which would undercount millions of black and Latino residents and unduly benefit the Republican Party. Despite the ruling — and even though the printing process on the census forms has already begun — Trump has continued pushing for the question to be included.

“It seems like the Trump Administration will stop at nothing in its efforts to undermine the completion of a fair and accurate 2020 Census,” Rep. José E. Serrano (D-NY) said in a statement.

View the complete July 9 article by Oliver Willis on the National Memo website here.

Judge rejects Justice Dept request to pull lawyers from census case

The Hill logoA federal judge in New York on Tuesday blocked the Department of Justice (DOJ) from changing its entire legal team handling a case on the census citizenship question in federal court in the state.

U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman found that DOJ’s motion did not address a procedural rule requiring them to provide a reason for the attorneys’ withdrawal from the case.

He wrote that the department’s filing offers “no reasons, let alone ‘satisfactory reasons,’ for the substitution of counsel.”

View the complete July 9 article by Jacqueline Thomsen on The Hill website here.

United Nations Blasts Migrant Detention Centers For ‘Damage’ To Children

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet slammed the current state of facilities used by the Trump administration to detain migrants families.

“As a pediatrician, but also as a mother and a former head of State, I am deeply shocked that children are forced to sleep on the floor in overcrowded facilities, without access to adequate healthcare or food, and with poor sanitation conditions,” Bachelet, a former president of Chile, said in a statement released on Monday.

“Detaining a child even for short periods under good conditions can have a serious impact on their health and development — consider the damage being done every

View the complete July 8 article by Oliver Willis on the National Memo website here.