Read any news website, open any newspaper, or tune into any radio station and migration will soon make an appearance. Without journalists speaking to migrants and challenging official accounts, few people could keep track of the latest developments in the story of human mobility. Reporting on Migration from Obama to Trump, part of the Crimmigration Law & Policy Event Series, brings five of the nation’s leading immigration reporters to the University of Denver to share the challenges and possibilities that come with covering this politically controversial, all-important topic. At [...]
Supreme Court expands ICE detention power
In a split decision released today, the U.S. Supreme Court adopted a broad reading of federal statutes authorizing ICE to detain people. The Court’s reasoning in Nielsen v. Preap, No. 16-1363, slip op. (U.S. March 19, 2019), requires ICE to arrest people with certain criminal histories and keep them locked up while immigration judges review their right to remain in the United States. Federal law, five justices concluded, does not exempt people who have been living in the community, even if they have done so for years without incident since release from criminal custody. The Court’s opinion [...]
Sixth Circuit says Michigan felonious assault isn’t a CIMT
By Kim Langona In Hernandez v. Whitaker, the Sixth Circuit concluded that the Michigan felonious assault statute is indivisible. 914 F.3d 430, 435 (6th Cir. 2019). Furthermore, a conviction under this criminal statute, Mich. Comp. Laws § 750.82, is not a crime involving moral turpitude (CIMT) for purposes of removal. Id. Petitioner Julio Edgardo Molina Hernandez was born in El Salvador and entered the United States in 2012 without authorization. Id. at 432. He eventually received permanent resident status as a Special Immigrant Juvenile. Id. In 2016, Immigration and Customs Enforcement [...]
Immigration prisons get healthy budget
The budget bill that President Trump signed last week continues the federal government’s long-term trend toward an expansive immigration prison regime. Tucked into the 1,169-page Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2019, are numerous provisions that ensure that the Departments of Homeland Security and Justice are equipped to lock up large numbers of people suspected of violating immigration law. The most obvious beneficiary, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement division of DHS, comes out with almost $4.3 billion to pay for its enforcement and removal operations. Division A, Department of [...]
Call for Papers: Emerging Immigration Scholars’ Conference 2019
The Works in Progress (WIP) committee for the 2019 Emerging Immigration Scholars’ Conference is now accepting proposals for works-in-progress or incubator ideas. In addition to incubator workshops focused on a research idea, participants are invited to submit proposals for workshops to discuss a litigation or advocacy project that could benefit from group input. The 2019 Conference will take place June 7 and 8, 2019, at Brigham Young University in beautiful Provo, Utah. If you wish to be considered for a works-in-progress or incubator session, please submit your proposal to [...]
In 8 years, inspectors found 7,000 policy violations in ICE detention centers
ICE’s sprawling detention network sometimes appears to operate on nothing more than personal whims, but there are actually written standards that the agency requires its facilities to meet. ICE and its private prison operators routinely fail to do so. During the eight-year period spanning October 1, 2010 to August 1, 2018, internal and external auditors hired by ICE raised almost 7,000 instances of policy violations. Through a Freedom of Information Act request, I obtained a list of every Uniform Corrective Action Plan created anytime a facility operated by or on behalf of ICE was found to [...]
BIA rejects retroactive application of California sentencing change
By Kim Langona In Matter of Velasquez-Rios, issued on October 4, 2018, the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA or the Board) concluded that federal law, rather than state law, must be used to determine the immigration consequences of a state conviction. 27 I&N Dec. 470, 474 (BIA 2018). Thus, a 2014 California legislative enactment that “retroactively lowered the maximum possible sentence” for a state conviction “from 365 days to 364 days, does not affect the applicability of section 237(a)(2)(A)(i)(II) of [the Immigration and Nationality Act] to a past conviction for a crime involving [...]
Trump/McConnell bill would boost ICE detention reach
The bill that President Trump touted as a shutdown-ending compromise is doomed to stall in the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives, but its boost to ICE’s detention powers is worth considering because it maintains a recent trend. Tucked into page 417, the bill dedicates $4,989,158,000—that is, just shy of $5 billion—to ICE’s enforcement, detention, and removal operations. This is a slight bump from the $4.1 billion that the agency’s Enforcement and Removal Operations division received through the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2018 . ERO is one of ICE’s four units, though it [...]
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