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 [...]
Colorado Republicans target sanctuary cities—again—in pursuit of Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda
By César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández and Christopher N. Lasch After suffering a party-line defeat in a state House committee last month, Republican state legislators in Colorado are once more attempting to coerce cities, counties, school districts, and law enforcement agencies to entangle themselves in immigration enforcement. The “Colorado Citizen Protection Against Sanctuary Policies Act” (Senate Bill 281), like the Republicans’ earlier failed bill, is a wrong-headed effort to solve a largely nonexistent problem. Perpetuating the myth of immigrant criminality Following the Trump [...]
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 [...]
Constitutional collision in Colorado anti-immigrant bill
By César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández and Christopher N. Lasch The virulent tone of immigration rhetoric that propelled Donald Trump to the presidency has come to Colorado. A Republican state legislator proposes to bar cities or local governmental units from limiting their cooperation with ICE. And then he goes where even President Trump hasn’t dared: criminalizing the very act of voting in favor of limiting cooperation with ICE. The proposal, House Bill 17-1134, titled the “Colorado Politician Accountability Act,” is a constitutional train wreck. If our students submitted this for a course, [...]
Federal prosecutor in Texas joins anti-sanctuary fray
Travis County, Texas, home to the state capital Austin, has been in a long-running battle against Republican state elected officials who have claimed the liberal haven has adopted policies that endanger the public. Governor Greg Abbott claims that Travis County’s refusal to abide by all immigration detainers “is not a pronouncement of sound public policy; it is a dangerous game of political Russian roulette — with the lives of Texans at stake.” In response, the governor directed the state’s criminal justice division to cut off approximately $1.5 million in state funding that was slated to go [...]
Sanctuary campuses map
Since Donald Trump's victory in November, much has been said about sanctuary. Across the United States, university students, faculty, and staff have mobilized to pressure their administrations to move in the direction of creating a safe haven for migrants. I'm part of a team at the University of Denver that, among other things, is attempting to gather helpful resources for administrators and advocates on a website we're calling the Constitution Campus Clearinghouse. Among the most exciting resources I've come across recently is a graphical display of the budding sanctuary campus movement. [...]
Must local police work for ICE?
Donald Trump has made no secret of his desire to attack communities that resist his hateful rhetoric about migrants. In particular, he has repeatedly stated that he will work with Congress to cut off federal funding to so-called “sanctuary cities.” Like with much else, he hasn’t bothered to tell us what he means by a sanctuary city. That term is thrown around so much that without a working definition, it is hard to make sense of which cities might come under attack by a Trump anti-sanctuary move. As I wrote in Crimmigration Law, though “sanctuary policies” take a variety of forms, “they all [...]