Immigration News
Check out daily roundups of immigration-related news stories, read articles that quote and cite AILA and AILA leadership, and check out analysis from AILA members and leadership on the AILA blog.
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Life or Death Consequences: Part 2
Read Part 1 of this blog post. The story continues… A few days later, I got a desperate email from our local staff: we only had two volunteers lined up for the next week. Worse yet, one lawyer was only available for three days and the other didn't speak Spanish. Continuity was critical: we
Life or Death Consequences: Part 1
I wasn't going to do it. It was just crazy stupid. We didn't have the resources. The hearing was in 20 hours, and that just wasn't enough time to put a case together. And yet, knowing that there were life or death consequences, how could I tell the young mother and little boy sitting in […]
A Failed Hail Mary
A profound moment in immigration history is upon us. Through change in administrative rules, certain H-4 visa holders were able to begin applying for work authorization on May 26. This privilege did not come about easily. Activists, including H-4 spouses themselves, fought long and hard for it. Wh
There’s Something Happening Here
I haven't heard immigration lawyers called heroes many times before (though I know a lot who are). And I'm pretty sure it's the first time I've ever heard it from a sitting member of Congress. But that's what happened Thursday when Congressman Beto O'Rourke (D-TX) said that AILA member Dree Collopy
Answering Questions from the Community
Monday night, the Princeton, New Jersey Human Services Commission hosted a program addressing President Obama's Executive Order on DACA and DAPA. The Princeton community has been out in front building bridges with immigrants that live in the municipality. The DACA/DAPA event was the most recent in
Understanding the Mindset
On May 5 and 6, 2015, Ryan Hutton and Rafael Henry from Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Headquarters invited a group of AILA members to attend a southern border tour in Texas. On the first day, we visited the land border crossing at the Hidalgo Port of Entry, and on the second day we visited [&#
Approaching Liberty
It was some months ago, which seems like yesterday, that volunteers representing the detained children and women in Artesia, New Mexico, were confronted with immigration judges in Arlington, Virgina who said no. There were hearings before one Immigration Judge who would go on and on and on about nat
Game Changer
During a recent campaign event in Nevada, Hillary Clinton blindsided the 2016 Presidential contestants by stating her unequivocal support for comprehensive immigration reform (CIR) and a clear path to citizenship for the undocumented migrants in the U.S. She also stated the obvious - that when immig
Another Kind of Obstacle Course
Interesting piece by Kristina Wong in The Hill last week (Army already enlisting ‘Dreamers' as Congress debates immigration) about 50 DACA recipients (“illegal immigrants“ as the author calls them) joining the United States military. The US military has long tapped skilled people to join its r
Segura
Driving out of the Dilley detention center last Friday, an awareness hung over me as certain and cloudy as the sky itself. I'd just spent the week volunteering with the CARA Family Detention Pro Bono Project. As we pulled onto I-35 towards San Antonio, I scanned the open road and considered that mos
Accessing Justice Requires a Guide
The three-year-old boy was a charmer, no question, so it was disorienting to encounter him in a detention facility in Texas. He loved being pushed in a stroller by his 19-year old mother, barely out of childhood herself. How did they get there? D- is an indigenous woman who married very young in Gua
A Look Back to Artesia, and a Look into Karnes: Part 6
I last visited E- on Saturday, May 2nd; sadly, we met again at Karnes, the scene of all prior visits. It was, I think, our twelfth meeting, and our first since the IJ's oral decision back on April 13th. E- was initially crushed by the decision, to the point where she couldn't bear the thought [
Borderland Preservation or Destruction?
If you can look past the ugly politics in Arizona, it is truly a beautiful place to live and work. I have resided in Tucson, Arizona, for most of my life and there are times when I'll be driving, hiking or running in the surrounding wilderness and the scenery is breathtaking. The saguaro cactus, the
Punch Line Material
Three cheers to Daniel M. Gerstein and Martina L. Melliand for their story (The forgotten cornerstone in the immigration reform debate) in The Hill yesterday regarding the forgotten child in the immigration reform debate: the immigration court. We hear endless stories about increased funding for ICE
Without Good Counsel
On April 21, 2015 - a Harvard University graduate student, Rebekah Rodriguez-Lynn, published a column in the Los Angeles Daily News titled: “How U.S. immigration laws helped tear my family apart.“ Ms. Rodriguez-Lynn is a U.S. citizen and a resident of Southern California; she shares her story
The Queer Community’s Road to Equality
In June 2013, SCOTUS helped turn a page in the queer community's struggle for civil rights. By striking a pertinent portion of the indefensible Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the Justices cleared the way for LGBTQ citizens of this country to strive for full equality under the law - in all 50 states
Fighting to #EndFamilyDetention
I was on a flight to San Antonio Sunday morning and a short while after that was making my way across open farmland to Dilley, Texas, about an hour and half southeast. For this week, I'll be heading up a team of legal volunteers for CARA at the euphemistically named “South Texas Family Residential C
148,000 Missed Opportunities
I'm just now fully coming out of the chaotic, hectic darkness that has clouded every H-1B season for the past many years. Once again, I find myself struggling with “Immigration PTSD“ - Post Traumatic Submission Disorder. The cause of this syndrome is two-fold. First, I live with the dreade
A Look Back to Artesia, and a Look into Karnes: Part 5
Just as the business day was drawing to a close on Monday, April 13th, we received a phone call from IJ Martinez. Unfortunately, the news was disappointing and devastating for E-. While the IJ found her credible and noted for the record that the rape she suffered amounts to torture, he determined
Don’t Ignore the Ethics
Judge Hanen recently refused to lift his injunction blocking the implementation of the president's expansion of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) as well as the new Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA) program. Many are following the case closely, no surprise, as it has im
A Look Back to Artesia, and a Look into Karnes: Part 4
ICE officials at Karnes never responded concerning our request to consider E-‘s release on humanitarian grounds. So, as anticipated, it was back to San Antonio for the hearing on Tuesday, April 7th. I got into town the previous Friday night and then drove down to Karnes on Saturday, Sunday and Mon
A Look Back to Artesia, and a Look into Karnes: Part 3
After several trips to Karnes, I got to know one client's case fairly well. It was and continues to be an education. I'll refer to the client as E-H-. E-H-‘s case is “withholding only,“ which as I learned means that she's not eligible to apply for asylum because of a prior removal. That rem
A Look Back to Artesia, and a Look into Karnes: Part 2
On to Karnes With only the Artesia episode as a guide, I arrived in San Antonio this past January 11th, once again not really knowing what to expect. The two experiences were very different. Whereas in Artesia the volunteers worked 16 to 18 hours every day, including weekends, to serve a detainee
A Look Back to Artesia, and a Look into Karnes: Part 1
Family detention. Artesia. Karnes / Dilley. A year ago these were mere words. Sadly, that's no longer the case. All of us volunteers have seen the families incarcerated at these facilities and we refuse to give up on them as our government seems to want us to do. I wanted to share some of that ex
Why AILA Needs to Reincorporate, and Why Your Vote Counts
On Friday April 17, 2015, AILA will hold a special members meeting in Washington D.C. where members can discuss the proposed move from New York to D.C., and vote on these resolutions either by direct vote at the meeting, or by proxy. Receipt of electronic proxies closes on Friday, April 17, at noo