The man who allegedly attacked Paul Pelosi, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s husband, at their home was reportedly a migrant in the United States without the federal government’s authorization. David DePape has been charged with multiple crimes as a result of last week’s attack, including attempted murder, burglary, and assault with a deadly weapon. News reports now suggest that DePape is a Canadian citizen who last entered the United States in 2008. If he hasn’t left since then and no other information emerges about his citizenship status, he would certainly be in the United States in [...]
California private prison ban is illegal, 9th Circuit says
California’s immigrants’ rights movement suffered a big blow this week when a federal appellate court declared the state’s ban on private prisons likely unconstitutional. Assembly Bill 32, signed by Governor Gavin Newsom in 2019, took aim at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency’s massive prison network by undercutting the federal government’s private prison partners. AB 32 bars private detention sites anywhere in California. A different statute that wasn’t part of this lawsuit bars local governments from entering into new agreements to detain migrants. Combined, these two laws [...]
Uvalde massacre & immigration law aid
Another mass shooting in the United States means another instance in which migrants might have been victimized or witness to a crime. Details are quickly developing about what happened in Uvalde, Texas on Tuesday, but there is no reason to doubt that migrants weren’t present in some form either as students, employees, or nearby community members. After several mass shootings in recent years, migrants have come forward to assist police investigations. The treatment at the hands of federal immigration agents has been checkered, with at least one survivor being deported. It doesn’t have to be [...]
ICE prosecutorial discretion guidance
This week the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency released guidance about the Biden administration’s approach to immigration court cases. Removal proceedings—the formal name for what most people refer to as deportation proceedings—are to be governed by the detailed memo issued on April 3 by ICE’s Principal Legal Advisor Kerry E. Doyle. In turn, the Doyle Memo builds on a separate memo issued in September 2021 by Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas. On behalf of the Biden administration, the Mayorkas Memo identified three priorities for DHS officials to use when making [...]
Chronicling Arizona’s Immigration Politics
Like the California of the 1990s, Arizona is where immigration politics have clashed most fiercely in the last decade or so. In their new book Driving While Brown: Sheriff Joe Arpaio Versus the Latino Resistance, journalists Terry Greene Sterling and Jude Joffe-Block dive deeply into the changing politics of Arizona, examining Joe Arpaio’s rise to prominence and the intensity of efforts to defeat him at the ballot box. In a conversation with me, the authors will discuss the changing politics of migration in Arizona and their efforts to cover a story full of big personalities and impactful [...]
Tracking ICE Surveillance
In less than two decades of existence, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has developed a sophisticated network of digital surveillance practices that relies heavily on partners in private industry and local government. On Tuesday, November 9, Tracking ICE Surveillance brings together two advocates at the forefront of efforts to understand ICE’s use of surveillance technologies for a conversation about modern immigration policing practices: Jacinta Gonzalez, Senior Campaign Organizer at Mijente, and Nina Wang, a Policy Associate with the Center on Privacy and Technology at [...]
Private prison can’t pay $1/day, jury says
A federal jury in Washington sided with detainees and the state attorney general yesterday in a lawsuit claiming that private prison corporation GEO Group violated state minimum wage laws by paying detainees $1 per day to cook and clean at the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma, Washington. The verdict in two cases, Nwauzor v. The GEO Group, No. 3:17-cv-05769 (W.D. Washington September 26, 2017) and State of Washington v. GEO, No. 3:17-cv-05806 (WD Wash. October 9, 2017), now returns to the jury for it to determine the damages GEO Group owes the former detainees who are part of the [...]
Tort Law Comes to Immigration Advocacy
As legislative attempts to alter immigration law have failed time and again, policies under the influence of executive branch agencies have become critical features of the immigration law landscape. Along with that, litigation has challenged officials’ efforts to mold immigration policies to reflect the political priorities of the administration occupying the White House. Advocates frequently turn to constitutional claims or the strictures of congressional enactments. But a few creative lawyers are turning to much older legal doctrines to advocate on behalf of migrants. In Tort Law Comes [...]
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