THE GIBSON REPORT 03-11-19 – Compiled By Elizabeth Gibson, Esquire, NY Legal Assistance Group

TOP UPDATES

 

Leaked Documents Show Government Tracking Journalists, Immigration Advocates

NBC: The documents obtained by NBC 7 Investigates show the U.S. Government has a secret database of journalists and immigration advocates where agents collected information on them and in some cases, placed alerts on their passports. Those alerts kept at least three photojournalists and an attorney from entering Mexico to work.

 

Report: ICE Tracking NYC Protests Through ‘Anti-Trump’ Spreadsheet

Gothamist: The tracking was revealed in an email sent by HSI, obtained by the magazine via a public records request, which contained a four-page “Anti-Trump Protest Spreadsheet 07/31/2018,” detailing the time, location, organizers and descriptions of 17 such events happening over a 17-day period last summer.

 

Trump to demand $8.6 billion in new wall funding, setting up fresh battle with Congress

WaPo: President Trump on Monday will request at least $8.6 billion more in funding to build additional sections of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, setting up a fresh battle with Congress less than one month after he declared a national emergency.

 

Hundreds of immigrant recruits risk ‘death sentence’ after Army bungles data, lawmaker says

WaPo: Army officials inadvertently disclosed sensitive information about hundreds of immigrant recruits from nations such as China and Russia, in a breach that could aid hostile governments in persecuting them or their families, a lawmaker and former U.S. officials said.

 

Migrant Families Arrive In Busloads As Border Crossings Hit 10-Year High

NPR: The U.S. Border Patrol apprehended more than 66,000 migrants at the Southern border in February, the highest total for a single month in almost a decade.

 

Migrants in Limbo as Court Backlog Balloons and Costs Skyrocket

Bloomberg: Spending at U.S. immigration courts has almost doubled to $119 million in fiscal 2018 from $61 million in fiscal 2015, an analysis of contracts shows. ManTech International Corp. and Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corp. are among those getting contracts, according to the Bloomberg Government study. But despite the spending and lawmakers’ efforts to bolster the immigration courts, the backlog has also doubled.

 

Why U.S. Visa Numbers Are Down

NPR: In 2018, temporary visas were down 7 percent, and immigrant visas for people coming for permanent residence – those were down 5 percent.

 

ICE Has a Podcast

ICE: During this episode of Careers at ICE, hear from Special Agent Allison Carter Anderson and Special Agent Cory Downs, who will discuss what it’s like to be a Special Agent with ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations, or HSI.

 

US Immigration Is Stuck in the Stone Age—and It’s Putting Lives In Danger

Nation: Lost files, poor communication, faulty technology, and seemingly endless delays: federal audits show that Mikhail and Bayley’s experiences weren’t unusual for the agency, which spends $300 million per year on paper and has disastrously mismanaged a 13-year effort to go digital—often leaving immigrants to deal with the consequences.

 

24 deported parents who returned to border hoping to be reunited with their children have been detained

ABC: Twenty-four migrant parents who returned to the United States on Saturday after they said they were separated and deported without their children are now being detained by the U.S. government, according to Erika Pinheiro, a lawyer for the families and the litigation and policy director of Al Otro Lado.

 

‘They used the kids to get to parents like me’: How ICE’s human smuggling initiative targeted parents and children

CIR: CE officials said the operation, called the Human Smuggling Disruption Initiative, targeted people who paid for coyotes to bring children across the border. However, a review of the operation by Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting casts doubt on that official narrative. A search of more than 1,400 smuggling-related cases filed in federal court in the seven months during and after the operation turned up only one case that was clearly connected to the program.

 

Senators push Trump on emergency legal status for 74,000 Venezuelans

WaExaminer: President Trump’s team has been mulling the possibility of granting Temporary Protected Status, a legal protection from deportation that can be granted to people who confront “extraordinary and temporary conditions” in their home country, for weeks. They haven’t come to a decision yet, but congressional support for the proposal is building as lawmakers look to alleviate the humanitarian crisis under way as Maduro defies international calls to relinquish power.

 

Banks bow to pressure to stop profiting from Trump’s immigration policy, but Big Tech remains defiant

WaPo: Last week, JPMorgan Chase, the nation’s largest bank, became the latest major corporation to distance itself from Trump’s immigration policies, concluding that its investments in private detention centers conflicted with its broader business strategy.

 

Five takeaways from Wednesday’s hearings on immigration and family separation

CNN: Homeland Security’s acting inspector general said the office is investigating how the agency is processing asylum seekers and whether undocumented parents were deported without their children. And Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan was forced to rehash the botched rollout of that policy to skeptical lawmakers.

 

Census Bureau Seeks Citizenship Data From DHS Ahead of 2020 Census

TIME: As the U.S. Supreme Court weighs whether the Trump administration can ask people if they are citizens on the 2020 Census, the Census Bureau is quietly seeking comprehensive information about the legal status of millions of immigrants.

 

Immigration Groups Want Data On HIV Asylum Seekers

Gothamist: It’s been nearly a decade since the United States began allowing people with HIV from abroad to enter the country as immigrants. But the U.S. has never provided data on the number of HIV-positive refugees or asylum seekers admitted since the immigration law changed in 2010, despite efforts from groups including the Center for American Progress and Immigration Equality.

 

LITIGATION/CASELAW/RULES/MEMOS

 

In ruling with ‘sweeping implications,’ 9th Circuit rules asylum-seeker is entitled to habeas review

ABA: Immigrants seeking asylum may seek habeas review of the procedures leading to expedited removal orders, a federal appeals court has ruled. The March 7 decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at San Francisco has “sweeping implications,” according to a press release by the American Civil Liberties Union.

 

New York Lawsuit Challenges Replacement of Immigration Court Hearings with Video Technology

Lawfare: In the latest salvo in a long debate over the use of video teleconferencing (VTC) technology in immigration courts, several legal aid organizations filed a class-action lawsuit on Feb. 12 in New York challenging the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) practice of denying in-person hearings to immigrants.

 

Another Federal Judge Bars Trump Administration’s Census Citizenship Question

Recorder: A federal judge in San Francisco has issued a decision finding that the Trump administration’s decision to add a question about citizenship to the 2020 U.S. Census was “arbitrary and capricious.”

 

Humanitarian and Security Crisis at Southern Border Reaches ‘Breaking Point’

DHS: The U.S. Border Patrol is currently encountering illegal immigration at the highest rates since 2007, according to new data. In fact, in February more than double the level of migrants crossed the border without authorization compared to the same period last year, approaching the largest numbers seen in any February in the last 12 years, The New York Times reported.

 

S.___: Fair Day in Court for Kids Act of 2019

On 3/6/19, Senator Mazie Hirono (D-HI), along with Senator Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) and Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR), announced the Fair Day in Courts for Kids Act of 2019, which would provide legal representation for unaccompanied immigrant children during removal proceedings. AILA Doc. No. 19030637

 

S.___: Immigration Court Improvement Act of 2019

On 3/6/19, Senator Mazie Hirono (D-HI), along with Senator Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) and Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR), announced the Immigration Court Improvement Act of 2019, would help insulate immigration judges from political interference or manipulation. AILA Doc. No. 19030638

 

DHS Announces Extension of TPS Designation for South Sudan

DHS Secretary Nielsen announced the extension of the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designation for South Sudan for 18 months, through November 2, 2020. Further details, including information on the re-registration process and EADs, will appear in a Federal Register notice. AILA Doc. No. 19030831

 

DOS Announces U.S. Embassy in Bogota Begins Processing Venezuelan Immigrant Visas

DOS announced that due to suspension of routine visa services, nonimmigrant visa applications may be submitted at an Embassy or Consulate outside of Venezuela. The U.S. Embassy in Bogota, Colombia has been designated as the primary site to process immigrant visas for residents of Venezuela. AILA Doc. No. 19022834

 

RESOURCES

 

 

EVENTS

 

 

ImmProf

 

Sunday, March 10, 2019

Saturday, March 9, 2019

Friday, March 8, 2019

Thursday, March 7, 2019

Wednesday, March 6, 2019

Tuesday, March 5, 2019

Monday, March 4, 2019

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Thanks so much to Elizabeth for organizing the “New Due Process Army Reunion Dinner” at Le Botaniste following the FBA Asylum and Immigration Law Conference at New York Law School last Friday, March 8. It was wonderful seeing many former Georgetown Law students, Arlington Immigration Court interns, Judicial Law Clerks, and the many practitioners, retired judges, professors, FBA officials, and NAIJ members who stopped by to “celebrate due process” and envision what a brighter future for America could look like with an independent Immigration Court.

PWS

02-11-19