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 [...]
ICE enforcement picks up in FY 18, but remains below record highs
In the federal government’s first fiscal year entirely under President Trump, ICE detained more people than a year earlier, but still lags behind Obama-era highs. Fiscal year 2018, which ran from October 1, 2017 to September 31, 2018, saw 396,448 people detained by ICE and 256,085 removed from the United States, ICE reported. ICE’s detention capacity has grown in recent years. Under President Obama, Congress regularly increased the agency’s budget for confinement operations. The agency uses over 600 facilities spread throughout the United States, many of which are nothing more than county [...]
Oregon lawsuit challenges state, local participation in immigration enforcement
By Christopher N. Lasch and Mark Fleming On Thursday, a state trial court judge in Wasco County, Oregon (of Wild, Wild Country renown) will hear summary judgment arguments in Stovall, et. al. v. Northern Oregon Corrections dba NORCOR, No. 17-CV-31082 (Or. Cir. Ct.). At the heart of the lawsuit is a contract known as an “Intergovernmental Services Agreement” (IGSA) between NORCOR, a four-county public prison system, and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency. Under the IGSA, NORCOR jails people for ICE who are in civil immigration proceedings. The question for the trial court [...]
Bulk of immigration prisoners commit basic offenses
Immigration crime is neither unusual nor new. Federal law threatens imprisonment for a host of migration activity. Impersonating a United States citizen can lead to three years behind bars. Smuggling people into the country is too, and if anyone dies in the process it can even result in execution. Far less newsworthy, entering the country without the correct permission is also criminalized. Since 1929, federal law has prohibited entering the United States without the government’s authorization. Doing that once can result in six months imprisonment. Entering the United States without [...]
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