When a criminal alien isn’t

In conversations about immigration law reform, migrants with criminal records are something of a bogeyman. Like President Obama before him, President Trump claims that his administration’s immigration law-enforcement priorities target so-called criminal aliens. Even advocates frequently turn their backs on migrants who have run up against the criminal justice system. In New York City and Los Angeles, for example, elected officials have insisted that people convicted of certain crimes not benefit from public money intended to help migrants avoid immigration detention and deportation. In Denver, [...]

How Immigrant Defense Funds Reduce Detentions and Deportations

Inside a gleaming office tower in downtown Denver, people file into one of the country’s sixty immigration courthouses. Single men, women, children, even entire families, present themselves before an immigration judge. When their names are called, they learn why the federal government wants them removed from the United States. A trained prosecutor employed by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announces the government’s charges, then the judge turns to the immigrants. Some are fortunate to have a lawyer who can push back. Maybe the government has the facts wrong. Perhaps there is a bit [...]

Crimmigration defense counsel

The boundary between criminal law and immigration law has been blurring for decades. The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988, for example, formed a core part of the early war on drugs, as its title suggests. It also introduced the aggravated felony into immigration law, altering the lives of hundreds of thousands of migrants in the three decades that followed. Two years later, the Immigration Act of 1990 revamped immigration law. Yet when he signed it, President Bush declared it to be a central component of his administration’s attempt to curtail illicit drug activity. But it wasn’t until 2006 that [...]

Improving justice one case at a time

There are currently 540,000 people in deportation proceedings somewhere in the United States. Most will make their final stance against forced separation from their families and homes without an attorney. This is a shameful mark on our nation’s commitment to justice that should stop. Earlier this month, New York officials took a significant step in that direction by funding a state-wide network of attorneys to represent people undergoing immigration court proceedings while detained. More cities and states should follow New York’s lead. Despite what politicians frequently suggest, deciding [...]

California Supreme Court decision opens breathing room for migrants, alters typical political lineup

Last week, the California Supreme Court issued an important decision expanding the ability of migrants given poor advice about the immigration consequences of a conviction to obtain relief. In People v. Patterson, No. S225193, slip op. (Cal. March 27, 2017), the court unanimously held that a migrant isn’t barred from withdrawing a guilty plea that results in mandatory immigration detention and deportability simply because the plea form stated that conviction “may” result in adverse immigration consequences. Pursuant to Cal. Penal Code § 1016.5, all defendants are provided this generic [...]

Beyond Rhetoric: “Sanctuary” in Practice

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents apprehended 680 people over the last week, pointing to the increased role of federal agencies in immigration detention under the Trump administration. While this is still a lower number than the weekly average detained under the Obama administration, it does represent a much larger share of detentions for ICE specifically. Three recent cases of ICE overreach stand out as examples: Guadalupe García de Rayos, an Arizona mother who had checked in with ICE regularly since 2013 to review her status, arrived for her scheduled meeting last week [...]

DHS issues border policing plans

In response to President Trump’s January 25 executive order on border policing, the Department of Homeland Security issued a memo with details about how it plans to carry out the president’s directives. The memo promises to further militarize the Mexican border, expand the nation’s already unprecedented immigration detention capacity, and skirt the immigration court system. Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly signed the memo, titled “Implementing the President’s Border Security and Immigration Enforcement Improvements Policies,” on February 20, 2017. The memo consists of instructions [...]

Immigration courts busy as obstacles to representation continue, government statistics reveal

Without much fanfare, last month the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review, the agency that oversees the nation’s immigration courts, released its important annual compilation of statistical data. Though the report isn’t the only source of information about the immigration court system, it is a hugely valuable glimpse into the front-line adjudication of migrants’ attempts to remain in the United States. The fiscal year 2015 report, released in April 2016, reveals an immigration court system that continues to process hundreds of thousands of removal cases with glaring [...]