Tag: Trump immigration policy

Are Officials Protecting Detained Immigrants From COVID-19?

Immigration officials say they are implementing new procedures at detention centers across the country in the midst of the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak, but advocates and experts worry that more needs to be done in order to protect the health of those inside.

On Thursday, a Customs and Border Protection spokesperson said in an email that the agency was using “existing procedures” to keep detainees safe from COVID-19, the disease caused by a strain of coronavirus that originated in China, as well as other communicable diseases.

The spokesperson said the agency had issued guidance to all employees “that outlines the current comprehensive use of Personal Protective Equipment including guidance regarding wearing masks in the appropriate circumstances.” Continue reading.

On immigration, Attorney General Barr is his own Supreme Court. Judges and lawyers say that’s a problem.

Washington Post logoAttorney General William P. Barr quietly intervened in an immigration asylum case last week when he issued a decision that narrowed the definition of torture for asylum seekers who invoke it as a grounds for staying in the United States.

Barr used a process known as “certification,” a historically little-used power of the attorney general that allows him to overrule decisions made by the Board of Immigration Appeals and set binding precedent. Immigration lawyers and judges say the Trump administration is using the power with greater frequency — to the point of abuse — as it seeks to severely limit the number of immigrants who can remain in the United States. The administration is also using it as a check on immigration judges whose decisions don’t align with the administration’s immigration agenda, experts say.

The decision to intervene in a Mexican national’s otherwise unremarkable asylum case is a warning to immigration board members that even their unpublished decisions are being scrutinized, former immigration judge Jeffrey Chase told The Washington Post via email.

TED Talk: What’s really happening at the US-Mexico border — and how we can do better

Federal appeals court blocks President Trump’s ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy but stays its own ruling

Washington Post logoA federal appeals court in California halted the Trump administration’s “Remain in Mexico” asylum policy on Friday, removing one of the key tools the president has used to curb mass migration across the southern U.S. border.

The ruling was in effect for only a few hours, however, as the judges later granted a Trump administration request for an emergency stay “pending further order of this court.” Justice Department lawyers said in court filings that 25,000 migrants have been waiting in Mexico and argued that they feared the ruling would lead to an influx on the southern ­border.

The program — officially known as the Migrant Protection Protocols, or MPP — has required tens of thousands of migrants to cross back into Mexico to await their U.S. asylum hearings, part of an effort to limit access to U.S. soil and to deter people from attempting the journey north to the United States. After more than 470,000 parents and children crossed into the United States last fiscal year, with most quickly freed into the United States amid a massive immigration court backlog, the administration implemented MPP to stop that practice. Continue reading.

They were one of the first families separated at the border. Two and a half years later, they’re still apart.

Washington Post logoFORT MYERS, Fla. — She tries to avoid the word. What she says is that her mom is in Guatemala. Or that her mom has been deported and will try to come back soon.

But when her teacher, or her social worker, or her best friend Ashley asks, Adelaida sounds it out — one of the first words she learned in English. “They separated us.”

Adelaida Reynoso and her mother, María, were among the first migrant families broken up by the Trump administration, on July 31, 2017, long before the government acknowledged it was separating parents and children at the border.

Trump Sending Tactical Units Into Cities To Round Up Immigrants

The Trump is administration is deploying tactical units into multiple sanctuary cities as part of an effort to assist U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in its campaign to detain migrants.

The units are being deployed “in order to enhance the integrity of the immigration system, protect public safety, and strengthen our national security,” Customs and Border Protection spokesman Lawrence Payne told the New York Times.

According to an email sent to CBP personnel, the deployment of the tactical teams will run from February through May. Continue reading.

Trump administration goes to war with states over immigration

The Justice Department sues California and New Jersey to overcome enforcement roadblocks.

The Trump administration dramatically escalated its war with so-called sanctuary states Monday, filing suit against California and New Jersey over laws that federal officials say undermine immigration enforcement.

The Justice Department suits target a California law banning privately run detention centers and a New Jersey law limiting cooperation with federal immigration authorities. The new barrage of litigation also included a suit against a county in Washington state that effectively prohibits federal contractors from using the Seattle airport to carry out deportations.

“In various jurisdictions, so-called ‘progressive’ politicians are jeopardizing the public’s safety by putting the interests of criminal aliens before those of law-abiding citizens,” Attorney General Bill Barr said as he announced the moves during a speech to a sheriffs‘ group in Washington. Continue reading.

Judge permanently blocks another Trump immigration policy

Obama appointee also defends nationwide injunctions.

A federal judge issued a permanent nationwide injunction Thursday against yet another Trump administration immigration policy: a move to make it harder for foreigners to remain in the U.S. after their legal status runs out.

U.S. District Court Judge Loretta Biggs said the 2018 action by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service ran afoul of federal law.

The policy in dispute involves how immigration officials calculate the duration of a foreigner’s “unlawful presence” in the U.S.. Several American college presidents sued over the change, arguing that it could jeopardize more than one million foreign students, scholars, and others who sometimes lose their legal status when switching schools or for other reasons.

Trump Administration Violated Religious Liberty Of Border Volunteers, Judge Finds

The government violated the religious freedom of volunteers compelled by spiritual beliefs to stop migrants from dying in the desert, an Arizona judge ruled.

A federal judge has ruled that President Donald Trump’s administration, which often boasts about defending religious liberty, has violated the religious rights of a group of volunteers at the U.S.-Mexico border.

The Trump administration has spent years cracking down on the work of No More Deaths/No Más Muertes, a Unitarian Universalist ministry in Arizona that provides water and food to migrants crossing a treacherous stretch of desert along the border where dozens have died. Various members of No More Deaths have faced fines and even jail for what they consider to be faith-based, life-saving humanitarian aid.

But for the second time in months, a judge has ruled that the government shouldn’t be punishing these volunteers for putting their faith into practice.