Judge Marsha Pechman , federal judge in Seattle, Washington, ordered that the government to provide bona fide asylum seekers a bond hearing before an immigration judge within seven days of their request or immediately release them from detention. Judge Pechman additionally ordered that the government must justify continued detentions, record all hearings, and produce the […]
On April 1st, 2019 the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kirsten Nielsen rang the alarm bells about impending humanitarian disaster at the US Mexico border with the recent mass arrival of Central American immigrants. Secretary Nielsen stressed the need to undertake emergency surge operations to respond to the crisis. Therefore, the US Customs Border […]
Back in 2010, the American Bar Association Commission on Immigration put together a voluminous report to tackle the reforms needed to improve the Immigration System and make it fairer and more efficient. At the time, they recommended a number of changes in policy, regulation, and law that would enhance due process mechanisms and fairness in […]
The Trump administration has implemented a number of immigration policies thought to be controversial. One of them is the ‘Zero-tolerance policy’. Its purpose is to enable officials to prosecute all migrants who did not enter the United States through a Port-Of-Entry and want to seek asylum. As a result of that disastrous policy, families have […]
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has become the first federal appeals court to declare that asylum seekers who are not afforded the opportunity of a federal review are in violation of the Constitution. This decision came out of the Thuraissigaim v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security case where Vijayakumar Thuraissigiam filed a habeas petition […]
Immigration judges, law makers and legislators, among other advocates are calling to Congress to shield immigration courts from political influence. Unlike other judges, immigration judges have more restrictions in their decision making power. Immigration judges are not part of the judicial branch, they report to the Department of Justice (DOJ). Additionally, immigration judges are bound […]
The criminalization and violence inflicted on LGBTQ people in Central America and many other countries around the world is what leads them to head to the borders of the United States to seek asylum. Thousands of LGBTQ people flee their native homes where they are faced with homophobia, transphobia, and violence. They come to the […]
While the Trump administration has been fighting hard to convince the nation of an urgent need of a wall at the US-Mexico border, statistics are showing that the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the State Department have been heightening screening and vetting of visa applications for the past 2 years. This administration’s policies are […]
The Executive Office for Immigration Review plan to “significantly reduce the case backlog by 2020” was approved by the Deputy Attorney General for the Department of Justice in October 2018. But it was quickly noted that this plan not only is flawed but it is also challenged by the fundamental and structural problems the US […]
President Trump declared a national emergency on February 14th after he signed a budget deal passed by Congress to fund the government through the end of September. President Trump declared the national emergency in order to get funding from other government agencies for his border wall. The budget deal included only $1.35 billion for a […]
