President Trump has made it known that he is no fan of the judiciary. Only one month into the Trump Administration, it appears that ICE is taking its cues from the president. Judging from recent actions, the nation’s lead immigration law enforcement agency seems intent on scaring migrants away from legal processes. In the course of one week, four incidents, seemingly unrelated, might make a reasonable observer think twice about engaging with immigration law authorities. On February 8, ICE arrested several men across the street from a Virginia church where they had taken shelter from the [...]
Reflections on a Donald Trump Presidency
By Linus Chan Bearing witness to sorrow, pain and injustice has always been part of the package deal of being an immigration attorney. Immigration law is diverse, rich and an example of how to define what our country's values are. Deciding who can be our neighbors, co-workers, teachers, and family often requires us to articulate our vision of the United States and how it is to remain a shining light on a hill. I represent non-citizens detained by immigration officials and who face removal from our country and exile from their homes and family. Many of my clients are those people [...]
Beyond Deportation: The Relationship Between Prosecutorial Discretion and Criminal Activity
By Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia This blog post will focus on a small but important portion of my new book Beyond Deportation: The Role of Prosecutorial Discretion in Immigration Cases and specifically the historical relationship between prosecutorial discretion and criminal activity. As a primer, prosecutorial discretion in immigration cases refers to any choice made by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) (or its predecessor, the Immigration and Naturalization Service) about whether and/or to what extent to enforce the law against a person. While deferred action is the most popular form of [...]
Lawsuit reveals DACA data treasure trove
Litigation often reveals fascinating information tough to obtain otherwise and the states’ lawsuit against the federal government’s use of its executive powers to provide temporary lawful status to many migrants already in the United States is proving to be no exception (for more on that lawsuit see my article here). A document that the United States filed in federal court last week provides a much-needed glimpse into DACA’s internal operations. In a formal declaration, Donald W. Neufeld, the associate director for service center operations at USCIS, gives a detailed accounting of the [...]
Executive authority & prosecutorial power in immigration law
Rumors are twirling that President Obama will soon announce his plans for reshaping the immigration law regime through use of his extensive executive authority. The president and high-level administration officials have repeatedly stated that such an announcement will be made before the end of the year, but recent news reports suggest it might happen as early as this week. Much has been written about the extent of the president’s legal authority, including some very well reasoned legal analyses by top-notch scholars. Stephen Legomsky, the former chief counsel at the U.S. Citizenship and [...]
US Dist Ct: ICE agents’ lawsuit against prosecutorial discretion survives
In a decision about a politically contentious lawsuit, a federal district court struck a blow at the Department of Homeland Security’s use of prosecutorial discretion to manage its removal work. Crane v. Napolitano, No. 3:12-cv-03247-O, slip op. (N.D. Tex. April 23, 2013) (O’Connor, J.). The court strongly suggested that it will uphold the bulk of the claims brought against DHS by the ICE union challenging ICE’s prosecutorial discretion memoranda and the specific prosecutorial discretion initiative known as Deferred Action Against Childhood Arrivals (DACA). As I detailed before, the agents [...]
US Dist Ct: ICE agents have standing to pursue challenge to prosecutorial discretion policy
A U.S. District Court announced that several ICE agents challenging the Obama Administration’s prosecutorial discretion and deferred action policy initiatives may take their claims to trial. Crane v. Napolitano, No. 3:12-cv-03247-O, slip op. (N. Dist. Tex. Jan. 24, 2012) (O’Connor, J.). The court concluded that the agents have standing to pursue their claim that they may suffer adverse employment consequences as a result of doing what the INA, the federal statute that governs immigration law, requires of them. The ICE agents’ single surviving claim is that Secretary Napolitano’s deferred [...]
Update on deferred action crime bars
In June I wrote about the crime-based bars to deferred action under the Obama Administration’s much-discussed policy initiative for young people lacking authorization to be in the United States. Since then the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agency, the Department of Homeland Security unit charged with administering the policy initiative, has released more specific guidance on the vaguely defined bars. Otherwise eligible applicants will ordinarily be denied if they have been convicted of a felony, “significant misdemeanor,” or three or more non-significant misdemeanors. According to [...]