Criminalizing unlawful presence

It’s been more than a decade since the massive immigrants’ rights marches of 2006, but the images remain palpable. Millions of immigrants and their allies took to the streets in the country’s major urban centers and small towns alike. Had it been enacted, Representative James Sensenbrenner’s infamous bill, H.R. 4437, would have criminalized presence in the United States in violation of immigration law. Today, the House Judiciary Committee takes up a bill that revives Sensenbrenner’s failed attempt. The Michael Davis, Jr. and Danny Oliver in Honor of State and Local Law Enforcement Act, H.R. [...]

Systemic indifference in ICE detention leads to unnecessary deaths

In a prison population of roughly 400,000, someone is bound to die. But it doesn’t have to happen because of sheer indifference as a report released today found sometimes occurs in ICE detention. Advocacy groups Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Community Initiatives for Visiting Immigrants in Confinement (CIVIC) teamed up to take an in-depth look of medical records for eighteen deaths in ICE custody. The organizations tasked two independent experts with extensive experience in inmate medical care delivery with reviewing records of deaths from 2012 to 2015. Based on those analyses plus interviews [...]

Congress finds more money for immigration imprisonment

The budget bill making its way through Congress and expected to receive the president’s signature offers plenty of money for immigration imprisonment. If enacted, the bill would fund federal government operations through September 30, 2017. The nation’s immigration imprisonment regime is delegated among various agencies. Some agencies hold migrants under civil law authority and others use criminal confinement powers. All hold people who are not United States citizens because of the federal government’s claims that they violated some provision of immigration law. The Immigration and [...]

ICE deaths

The Trump Administration is busy expanding the nation’s immigration prison archipelago. An internal DHS document reports that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has already boosted its capacity by 1,100 beds available nightly. It is has identified an additional 21,000 beds that it could potentially tap. As I wrote last week, the Detention Watch Network has confirmed that ICE has secured agreements for over 2,000 beds in recent months and is currently negotiating for access to an additional 1,500 beds. Even before this increase, ICE already operated an enormous prison estate. For [...]

Texas Republican Admits He’s Pushing Private Prison Corporation’s Bill

A Republican state representative admits that he is promoting a bill written by the private prison corporation GEO Group. The bill would make it easier for private prison corporations to help the federal government lock up migrant families. “I've known the lady who’s their lobbyist for a long time,” Representative John Raney reportedly told the Associated Press last week. “That’s where the legislation came from.” The second-largest private prison operator in the United States, GEO runs an immigration prison in Karnes City, Texas, about sixty miles south of San Antonio, where it holds entire [...]

In Trump’s first 100 days, immigration imprisonment booms

On April 29, President Trump marks his first 100 days in office. In that time, he has certainly busied himself attacking migrants much as he did on the campaign trail. Staff in the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice, meanwhile, has made time for significant expansions to the nation’s population of immigration prisoners. According to news reports tracked by Detention Watch Network, the federal government is in the process of adding prison beds in at least four locations in Florida, and Texas. In total, DWN has confirmed that the federal government has secured [...]

Immigration continues lead role in federal criminal prosecutions

The federal criminal justice system is squarely focused on immigration activity. In the 2016 fiscal year, 68,314 defendants were prosecuted in federal courts for federal immigration crimes, the administrative office that helps operate the federal courts reported this month. This represents forty-three percent of all people prosecuted for federal crimes that year. Two crimes made up the bulk of federal immigration crime prosecutions. Illegal entry, a misdemeanor, and its felony counterpart, illegal reentry. No other category of federal crime came near immigration to receive top billing among [...]

ICE’s new immigration detainer policy remains legally flawed

Today, ICE issued a new policy regarding use of immigration detainers. Sometimes called immigration holds, detainers are requests by ICE that a local law enforcement agency continue holding someone in the LEAs custody. The purpose of continued confinement is to give ICE time to pick up the individual. The policy announced today instructs immigration officers, including local police deputized as immigration officers pursuant to a 287(g) agreement, to issue detainers against anyone who they have probable cause to believe is removable from the United States. Though couched in carefully crafted [...]