By Manuel D. Vargas Against the backdrop of an unprecedented global pandemic endangering the health and well-being of families across the nation and the world, the Supreme Court will hear argument on October 14 in Pereida v. Barr,an immigration case in which Justice Department lawyers are taking an aggressive position that, if adopted by the Court, would further imperil families with immigrant members. The stakes in the Pereida case are high, now more than ever. The petitioner, Clemente Avelino Pereida, has lived in the United States with his family for twenty-five years, working and [...]
Fund Immigrant Defense, Promote Justice
Gritty North Oakland Street in Aurora doesn’t look like the kind of place where justice meets its match. But across from the self-storage and facing a row of battered warehouses, guards parade migrants into courtrooms where judges decide if they will be allowed to remain in the United States. Whether newcomers to the United States asking for asylum or green-card holders with decades in Colorado, most will not have a lawyer walk into court with them. Unlike the criminal justice system, immigration courts in the United States don’t guarantee lawyers. People who can afford a lawyer can hire [...]
Scholar Strike – Race, Immigration, Imprisonment
I am a lawyer by training, an academic by trade, and an intellectual by calling. For years I have devoted myself to understanding and challenging immigration policing in the United States. As part of #ScholarStrike, I'm sharing a lecture I delivered in 2015 at the University of Denver linking race, immigration, and imprisonment. May the story that I told in 2015 one day be nothing more than a nightmare from which we have awaken. [...]
Defund Police, Limit ICE
By the time Antonio Arceo answered a call from his wife’s cell phone and heard a stranger’s voice asking if he knew Roxana García, a simple run-in with the police was plunging their family into a nightmare. The stranger was a sheriff’s deputy who had stopped García for speeding, then arrested her for not carrying a license. She spent one night at a county jail about an hour west of Chicago, then federal immigration officers took her. Soon García would be deported. What began as an ordinary run-in with local cops ended in a family’s separation. Every day, local police are the entry point [...]
Beyond borders
Last week, I moderated Beyond Borders, a talk hosted by The Biennial of the Americas. The conversation focused on migration, the fluidity of borders, and the people who cross them. Coffee Chat: Beyond Borders from Biennial of the Americas on Vimeo. I was joined by Patricia Kumbakisaka, Tania Chairez, and Maria G. Aguilar Correa. Robin Swanhuyser, Program Director for the Biennial, organized it. [...]
ICE family prison population hits lowest point in years
In the midst of the pandemic, ICE has reduced its family immigration prison population to the lowest level since at least 2016. The agency’s three prisons where parents are confined with their children collectively held 369 people, on average, in May of this year. That’s a drop of over 2,100 people per day from the Trump administration’s peak in May 2018. Data I’ve obtained using Freedom of Information Act requests shows a steady downward trajectory for the nation’s family immigration prisons. When President Trump entered the White House in January 2017, there were almost 1,800 people held [...]
ICE holds migrants for longer in pandemic
In the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, ICE is holding migrants in its prison system for longer periods. Last month, migrants spent almost two months longer in ICE prisons than one year earlier. By comparing ICE data on average length of stay, I’m able to consider an important feature of immigration imprisonment across multiple years. Using Freedom of Information Act requests, I’ve previously learned that in June 2018 migrants spent, on average, 36.0 days inside ICE prisons. In June 2019, they spent roughly the same amount of time there: 37.8 days. But in June 2020, the average length of [...]
Dip in families detained by ICE
The Trump administration’s anti-migrant policies are well known and multifaceted. Interestingly, the government’s heavy-handed approach is showing up in fewer detained families at ICE’s “family residential centers.” Data I obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests show that there were substantially fewer children held alongside their parents in September 2019 than at that point one or two years earlier. From October 2016 to September 2019 (ending on September 14, 2019), the number of people held in ICE’s family immigration prisons peaked in May 2018 when, on an average day, the [...]
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