Responding to the outcry over his administration’s policy of separating migrant families, President Trump signed an executive order today ostensibly limiting separation while simultaneously expanding family detention. The executive order explicitly links the alternative nightmares of family separation and detention. The executive order purports to end the family separation policy. Indeed, it claims that the administration’s policy is to “maintain family unity, including by detaining families.” To do that, the president ordered DHS to “maintain custody of alien families during the pendency [...]
Immigration crime cases fill federal courts in 2017
Immigration crime has become a common feature of federal court dockets across the United States. I previously wrote that in fiscal year 2016 there were 68,314 defendants prosecuted for federal immigration crimes (see similar accounts of 2012 and 2010). Approximately 10,000 fewer defendants had their cases disposed of in the 2017 fiscal year, which might explain a small drop in immigration-related imprisonment, but the overall trend as similar. In the fiscal year that began under President Obama and ended under President Trump, there were more defendants prosecuted for immigration crimes before [...]
Justice Department takes swipe at California
On Tuesday, the Justice Department sued California claiming parts of three new state laws intended to protect immigrants violate the United States Constitution. This next step in the Trump administration’s hardline immigration enforcement practices isn’t a surprise. On the contrary, the ongoing dispute between federal officials and the country’s most populous and economically productive state has been leading in this direction for at least fourteen months. Now that the complaint has been filed, the irony of the Trump administration’s main legal claim is remarkable. The thrust of the Justice [...]
Immigration crime cases in the 1970s
Since the last years of the second term of President George W. Bush, immigration crime prosecutions have dominated the national picture of criminal dockets in the federal district courts. In 2016, for example, I previously reported about a staggering 68,314 immigration crime cases disposed of that year. No other category of offense even came close. The second most prosecuted category of offense that year, drug crimes, numbered less than 24,000 prosecutions. It hasn’t always been this way. Traditionally, prosecutors didn’t seek criminal penalties for people who violated immigration law. At [...]
Harboring prosecutions are rare, but attorney general wants more
Earlier this month, federal prosecutors in Arizona brought criminal charges against a local activist who devotes his free time to helping migrants survive the deadly desert route northward. Scott Daniel Warren, prosecutors allege in a complaint accusing him of violating a federal law against harboring migrants, provided two people with “food, water, beds, and clean clothes” for three days. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has been a vocal proponent of deploying the Justice Department’s extensive resources against migrants. In a April 2017, he urged prosecutors to ramp up criminal charges for [...]
Texas anti-migrant law largely halted or curtailed
As attention remains focused on Hurricane Harvey’s devastating impact on the Texas Gulf Coast, the state’s controversial immigration law was to go into effect on Friday. Late Wednesday, a San Antonio federal court put that schedule on hold for most of the law. Its “show-me-your-papers” provision, however, can go into limited effect. Senate Bill 4 marks the pinnacle of state Republican elected officials to tie state and local governments to ICE’s immigration enforcement practices. The law authorizes police to ask about immigration status. It requires compliance with immigration detainers [...]
Detainer without probable cause of crime violates 4th Amendment
Adding to the growing caselaw about the constitutional infirmities of immigration detainers, a federal district court in Texas concluded this week that a detainer lacking probable cause of criminal activity violates the Fourth Amendment. Trujillo Santoyo v. United States, No. 5:16-cv-00855-OLG, slip op. (W.D. Tex. June 5, 2017). This case involved an individual arrested on criminal charges that were dismissed without a conviction. While lawfully jailed in the Bexar County Adult Detention Center during the pendency of the criminal case, ICE issued an immigration detainer against Trujillo [...]
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 [...]
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