In November 2014, the Secretary of Homeland Security announced two new memorandum clarifying priorities on prosecutorial discretion and enforcement priorities. These policies are to be implemented by all DHS agencies, including USCIS, when deciding which aliens to arrest, detain, and remove from the US and when and how to exercise prosecutorial discretion. What follows is […]
In 2007, Congress passed a bipartisan appropriations bill that discretely embedded several riders and conditions on federal funding allocations that have had a tremendous effect on immigration proceedings in the United States ever since. One such provision in the statute firmly requires Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to maintain a minimum quota of 34,000 immigrants […]
By Danielle Beach-Oswald On November 20, 2013, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) issued a News Release announcing proposed changes to international student programs. According to ICE’s website, “ICE is proposing changes to the requirements governing its Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) that are intended to improve management of international student programs and increase […]
By: James Sellars JD/MA Candidate, American University In a 2010 agency-wide memo describing the Obama Administration’s approach to immigration enforcement, former ICE director John Morton stated that “the removal of aliens who pose a danger to national security or a risk to public safety shall be ICE’s highest immigration enforcement priority.” Despite the Obama administration’s […]
By: Helena Coric* An overwhelming amount of sources discuss the backlog problems our immigration system is facing. In deportation proceedings, the difficulties become more apparent as hearings are delayed and one is left to simply wait it out. For those individuals that feel they do not have a strong case or lack the funds for […]
By: Helena Coric* The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) recently released some striking information about U.S. federal immigration enforcement. The data is effectively broken up by nationality, geographic location, year and type of immigration charge. It provides a better understand of the deportation proceedings. Listening to media reports on deportation statistics under the Obama administration […]
By: John Nicholas Mandalakas* A recent report, titled “Invisible in Isolation,” documents the growth of immigration detention facilities and investigates the nature and procedure of the confinement therein. Facilities used for detaining immigrants in theUnited Statesare equivalent to facilities in which convicted criminals are housed. Many county jails and traditional detention centers are used […]
By: John Nicholas Mandalakas* It seems like when you hear immigration today, everyone is centered on migrant workers seeking unskilled jobs, but there is a huge section of immigration that is often overlooked. Take for instance, the American Scientist Shortage—that is to say, the lack of graduates for Science Technology Engineering and Mathematic (STEM) […]
The Department of Homeland Security has included additional degrees to the list of Classification of Instructional Program (CIP) codes. According to the DHS interim final rule (IFR) of April 2008, nonimmigrant students who graduate with a science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) degree, are also eligible to apply for the 17 month extension of optional […]
Finally, the day has come where some common sense has been injected into 287(g) Secure communities program that should never have been implemented to start with and was doomed to failure from its inception. This program trained local officers to act as immigration officers without the training or knowledge needed. Close to 70 agencies had […]
