Statistics – Page 3 – immigrationcourtside.com

LITTLE SUPPORT AMONG AMERICANS FOR TRUMP’S WHITE NATIONALIST SCHEME OF SLASHING LEGAL IMMIGRATION!

https://apple.news/A0qG8LufUToKIgRLhjfQEIw

Mariana Alfaro reports in Business Insider:

Americans are more open to increased immigration than most Europeans, though far more people around the world would like to see a decrease in immigration overall, according to a recent poll by the Pew Research Center.

Pew surveyed 27 countries this spring on their views on immigration. Together, Pew reported, these 27 countries house more than half of the world’s international migrants. Of those surveyed, 45% said fewer or no immigrants should be allowed into their country while 36% said they want just about the same number of immigrants – including the U.S.

Among European countries, 82% of Greeks said they would like fewer immigrants to be allowed into the country, which has, since 2015, struggled with a surge of migrants and refugees escaping civil war in Syria. Nearly three-quarters of Hungarians, 71% of Italians, and 58% of Germans also believe fewer immigrants should be allowed to move to their countries, which have also been heavily affected by the refugee crisis.

In the U.S., only 29% of Americans want a decrease in immigration while 44% think about the same amount of immigrants should be allowed in. Nearly a quarter of Americans want immigration to increase. In Mexico, currently facing a surge in Central American migrants, 44% of those surveyed said they wanted immigration to decrease in the country, while 42% said they wanted it to stay the same.

Read more: Jeff Sessions said immigrants should ‘wait their turn’ to come to the US – here’s how complicated that process can be

Spain and Japan are among the most open to the idea of increased immigration, with 28% and 23% of their respective populations opting for more open borders. Japan, known for its isolationist policies and historically low immigration numbers, is currently facing a dire economic threat – its population is getting older.

The Pew report also found that outmigration is widely seen as a problem among the nations surveyed. Greeks (89%) and Spaniards (88%) are the most worried about the number of people leaving their countries, which Pew reported have seen an increase in people moving abroad in recent years. Eight out of 10 Mexicans also see outmigration as a problem. Mexico, according to the United Nations, has one of the largest numbers of people living outside their country, second only to India. But only 64% of those surveyed by Pew in India think outmigration is a problem.

Published on December 10, the report came out the same day global representatives gathered in Morocco to sign the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration. The non-legally binding agreement, backed by Angela Merkel, was created to manage migration for both origin and destination countries but was rejected by several nations, including the U.S., Chile, and Australia.

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While there was little appetite (likely almost none outside of Trump’s base) for the restrictionist scheme to slash legal immigration, there also is a cautionary note for immigrants’ advocates who believe in increases in legal immigration levels; a significant plurality of Americans want to maintain legal immigration at current levels.

Consequently, even though more legal immigration channels appear to me to be 1) in our best economic interests; 2) a way of reducing “extralegal immigration;” 3) helpful in focusing the resources we spend on immigration enforcement; and 4) our destiny as a “nation of immigrants” if we wish to maintain a position of leadership among nations, there is some persuasion to be done before that’s likely to become a political reality.

PWS

12-14-18

THE PROSTITUTION OF EYORE: Founded To Establish Independence, The Immigration Court Agency Puts Out Bogus Statistics To Support Sessions’s White Nationalist Agenda!

THE PROSTITUTION OF EYORE: Founded To Establish Independence, The Immigration Court Agency Puts Out Bogus Statistics To Support Sessions’s White Nationalist Agenda!

By Paul Wickham Schmidt (U.S. Immigration Judge, retired)

The Executive Office for Immigration Review, known as “EOIR” and pronounced “Eyore” as in the sad little donkey from Wininie the Pooh,was founded in 1983 to promote judicial independence and Due Process. Sadly, those have ceased to be the focus, as the beleaguered agency now develops and promotes bogus statistics to advance the White Nationalist xenophobic agenda of chief immigration “enforcer,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Some might have noticed a new way of presenting so-called “asylum statistics.’ Recently, EOIR published the following so-called “statistical tables” on “defensive” asylum applications — that is, those filed by respondents as a defense to removal after they have been placed in proceedings before the Immigration Court. By contrast, applications filed with the USCIS Asylum Office before proceedings are instituted and thereafter “referred” to the Immigration Court if they are not granted are known as “affirmative” applications.

EYORE ROLLS OVER FOR SESSIONS

Here’s the chart:

Executive Office for Immigration Review

DefensiveAsylumApplications Fiscal Year	Filed	Granted	Defensive Receipts : Defensive Grants Ratio
2008	13,213	2,928	4.51:1
2009	12,258	2,458	4.98:1
2010	12,771	2,273	5.61:1
2011	17,988	2,807	6.4:1
2012	19,908	2,891	6.88:1
2013	23,372	2,620	8.92:1
2014	31,046	2,765	11.22:1
2015	45,960	3,388	13.56:1
2016	68,849	4,863	14.15:1
2017	120,094	6,995	17.16:1
2018 (as of 6/30/2018)	83,534	6,946	12.02:1

Anyone familiar with how immigration proceedings actually work immediately would see the problem with this presentation. However, few of those not familiar with EOIR and Immigration court would notice that glaring disconnect.

What’s the problem? This is a classic “apples and oranges”analysis. The number of “applications filed” in a particular year has little, indeed almost nothing, to do with the number granted. That’s because given the dockets at EOIR, applications are very seldom actually decided in the year that they are filed.The minority that are decided in the year filed are almost always applications by detained, usually unrepresented, aliens. Such applications are literally like “shooting fish in a barrel.” Detained unrepresented asylum applicants seldom receive anything even resembling Due Process and are therefore routinely denied asylum.

Moreover, because the system forces respondents to file all possible applications for relief before an “Individual Hearing” is scheduled, respondents who might actually be relying on cancellation of removal, adjustment of status, so-called “stateside waivers,” and other forms of relief must file the “backup” asylum application even if it might well never proceed to a final adjudication. Additionally, even respondents seeking only the lesser relief of withholding of removal or relief under the Convention Against Torture must file on the asylum application, Form I-589, and thus are counted as “asylum applicants” even if they never pursue asylum.

By artificially maximizing the number of “defensive filings,” while taking the grants out of context to minimize them, EOIR artificially creates a bogus picture of only a small number of asylum applications being granted on the merits. Moreover, EOIR compounds the error by presenting a totally bogus and highly pejorative statistic of “filings to grants” without correlating the year filed with the year granted.

No honest professional statistician would participate in such a hoax. The intent obviously is to create a false narrative of overwhelmingly non-meritorious asylum applications to support Sessions’s disingenuous fabricated scenario of “asylum fraud” infecting the system. For example, according the EOIR’s bogus numbers, the ratio of “applications to grants” in FY 2017 was 17 to 1, falsely suggesting very few meritorious asylum applications.

THE “REAL DEAL”

So, what are the only meaningful EOIR asylum statistics. The number of asylum applications granted and denied on the merits in a particular year. And, those statistics present a radically different picture. Let’s look at EOIR’s own Statistical Yearbookthrough 2016 (the last year for which it was published – the 2017 Statistical Yearbookshould have appeared in the spring of 2018 but, for some curious reason hasn’t) the last full year of the Obama Administration:

Immigration Court Defensive Grant Rate

Grants Denials Grant Rate

FY 12 2,854 5,480 34%

FY 13 2,592 6,188 30%

FY 14 2,747 7,254 27%

FY 15 3,390 7,644 31%

FY 16 4,836 10,842 31%

https://www.justice.gov/eoir/page/file/fysb16/download

As recently as 2016, despite the Obama Administration’s ill-advised “Southern Border Initiative” that forced more unprepared individuals into the “defensive” system faster, and notwithstanding the overall politicized slant of asylum law against Central American Asylum seekers (even before Sessions), the grant rate was a very “robust” 31%, essentially one in three, rather than the bogus one out of every 14.5 put forth in EOIR’s Sessions-driven false narrative.

Let’s look a little further into what the real numbers show. Here are the overall grant rates for asylum and withholding of removal (by regulation, all asylum applications are also considered applications for protection under the withholding of removal provisions of the INA) for the five-year period ending in 2016 :

Immigration Court Asylum or Withholding of Removal Grant Rate
	Asylum Grants	Withholding of Removal Grants	Denials of Both Asylum and Withholding of Removal	Grant Rate
FY 12	10,575	1,527	6,978	63%
FY 13	9,767	1,493	7,293	61%
FY 14	8,672	1,453	7,888	56%
FY 15	8,184	1,184	7,685	55%
FY 16	8,726	969	10,533	48%

While there is a remarkable drop in approvals in FY 2016, again, likely due to the Obama Administration’s ill-advised “Southern Border Initiative,” in FY 2016, 48% of asylum applicants whose cases were actually adjudicated on the merits received protection – essentially one-half of applicants.Again, this is a far cry from EOIR’s current misleading scenario which compares grants to both asylum applications that were not adjudicated on the merits during the year and asylum applications that have never been adjudicated and might never be adjudicated at all, as a result of Session’s mismanagement of the Immigration Courts.

Let’s dig a little further. Here is what happens to so-called “affirmative applications,” that is those made initially to the USCIS asylum Office, when they are “referred” to the Immigration court for a full hearing:

Immigration Court Affirmative Grant Rate

Grants Denials Grant Rate

FY 12 7,721 2,964 72%

FY 13 7,175 2,589 73%

FY 14 5,925 1,937 75%

FY 15 4,794 1,172 80%

FY 16 3,890 801 83%

As we can see, the overwhelming number of affirmative asylum applications not granted by the Asylum Office are eventually granted by the Immigration Courts – a huge majority, 83% in FY 2016. At a minimum, this suggests that the USCIS Asylum Offices should be granting many more affirmative asylum applications, thereby keeping them out of Immigration Court altogether.

ACCURATE STATISTICS LEAD TO BETTER CONCLUSIONS

Overall, the real numbers lead to some obvious conclusions that refute the bogus picture of asylum abuse being painted by Sessions and his EOIR accomplices:

About 50% of asylum applicants whose cases are decided on the merits by the Immigration Courts gain protection;
Asylum applicants who are given fair access to lawyers and time to prepare, generally those filing “affirmative” asylum applications, succeed at extremely high rates;
The USCIS Asylum Office could grant many more “affirmative applications” than they currently do.

All of this suggests that a much more logical approach to asylum adjudication would be:

Treating all asylum applicants applying at ports of entry or who are apprehended near the border and found to have a “credible fear” of persecution or torture as “affirmative applicants” whose cases can be initially adjudicated, and often approved, on the merits by the USCIS Asylum Office without bothering the already overloaded Immigration Courts;
Insuring fair access to counsel and adequate preparation time, preferably in a non-detained setting, to those seeking asylum at the border (significantly, represented asylum applicants show up for their court hearings at extremely high rates);
Encouraging “priority scheduling” for cases in Immigration Court where the documentation is compelling and the Assistant Counsel and private counsel have worked together to narrow the issues for a likely grantof protection (obviously, there are less likely to be Due Process issues with “expediting” grants as opposed to denials).
Exploring other forms of protection or legal status for those whose cases are now “stuck” in the Immigration Court backlog (many are now married to U.S. citizens and eligible for “stateside processing,” or have or will have viable claims for Cancellation of Removal as a result of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Pereira.)
Restoring a more realistic and generous “prosecutorial discretion” (or “PD”) policy along the line of that followed during the later years of the Obama Administration would also help reduce and restore some order to the Immigration Court dockets.
Keeping in mind that even denied asylum applicants more often than not are facing life threatening situations in their “home countries;” they just don’t happen to fit our current overly restrictive and legalistic interpretations of asylum law. (Indeed, in my experience most of those denied asylum were credible and had a well-founded fear of harm – they just failed to meet the rather arcane “nexus” requirements for asylum. Upon return, denied asylum seekers often suffer harm or even death. See, e.g.,https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/01/15/when-deportation-is-a-death-sentence;https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/12/obama-immigration-deportations-central-america

Of course, under Sessions, EOIR and DHS are moving in the opposite direction: seeking, without any probative evidence to support their claims, to falsely paint asylum applicants as de-humanized “numbers” who are “gaming” the system. There is “gaming” going on; but, it’s by Sessions and his “go alongs” at EOIR who intentionally are using bogus statistics to paint a false picture of our asylum system.

NO JUSTICE UNTIL BOTH SESSIONS AND EYORE RIDE INTO THE SUNSET

Asylum is an important part of our immigration system. It should and could be much more generously granted and with far less red tape and bureaucracy. Granting asylum is not only our legal obligation (with a moral foundation stemming from the disaster of World War II and its aftermath) but also benefits both our country and, of course, the individuals whose lives are saved.

Yes, there is so-called “asylum fraud.” But, by and large, it doesn’t involve those currently applying at our Southern Border. Indeed, the parts of ICE Investigations that perform reallaw enforcement work, in my experience, do an excellent job of taking apart large asylum fraud rings and “undoing” those asylum grants that were based on fraud. Several significant Chinese and Indonesian “rings” and at least one involving Cameroonian claims were exposed and prosecuted in that manner.

The U.N Convention and Protocol relating to refugees, implemented by our Refugee Act of 1980, was intended to inspire “a generous asylum policy”and actually to extend protection

to those in flight who might not fully satisfy all of the technical requirements of the “refugee” definition. The generous letter and spirit of the Convention and the Refugee Act of 1980 also are reflected in the leading U.S. Supreme Court case, INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca, implementing the generous “well-founded fear” standard for asylum.

Jeff Sessions and his White Nationalist gang are moving to dismantle refugee and asylum protections at all levels. Part of their strategy depends on de-humanization of refugees, bogus statistics, and false narratives. Shamefully, “Eyore” has now become part of that effort, just proving again that Due Process and the rule of law won’t ever be totally restored to our country until we get an independent Article I U.S. Immigration Court.

My friend and colleague, The Honorable Jeffrey Chase, also contributed to this article. The views expressed are mine, and mine alone.

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PWS

08-16-18

🚂🚂 TRAIN WRECK A COMIN’ ON THE SESSIONS/DHS DEPORTATION EXPRESS – New TRAC Stats Show DHS Mindlessly Pushing More Complicated Cases Of Long-Time Residents Into Court As Sessions Moves To “Dumb Down” Quality Of Decisions!

Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse
==========================================
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Greetings. The latest available data from the Immigration Court reveals a sharp uptick in the proportion of cases involving immigrants who have been living in the U.S. for years. During March 2018, for example, court records show that only 10 percent of immigrants in new cases brought by the Department of Homeland Security had just arrived in this country, while 43 percent had arrived two or more years ago. Fully twenty percent of cases filed last month involved immigrants who had been in the country for 5 years or more.

In contrast, the proportion of individuals who had just arrived in new filings during the last full month of the Obama Administration (December 2016) made up 72 percent, and only 6 percent had been here at least two years.

Over time, immigration enforcement priorities have varied, as have the ebb and flow of illegal entrants, visa over-stayers, and asylum seekers. Using the court’s records on the date of entry of each individual, the report examines how long these immigrants typically had resided in the U.S. before their cases were initiated.

To read the full report covering the period from October 2000 through March 2018 go to:

http://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/508/

To examine the length of stay for immigrants by state and county of residence go to:

http://trac.syr.edu/phptools/immigration/nta/

In addition, many of TRAC’s free query tools – which track the court’s overall backlog, new DHS filings, court dispositions and much more – have now been updated through March 2018. For an index to the full list of TRAC’s immigration tools go to:

http://trac.syr.edu/imm/tools/

If you want to be sure to receive notifications whenever updated data become available, sign up at:

http://tracfed.syr.edu/cgi-bin/tracuser.pl?pub=1&list=imm

or follow us on Twitter @tracreports or like us on Facebook:

http://facebook.com/tracreports

TRAC is self-supporting and depends on foundation grants, individual contributions and subscription fees for the funding needed to obtain, analyze and publish the data we collect on the activities of the U.S. federal government. To help support TRAC’s ongoing efforts, go to:

http://trac.syr.edu/cgi-bin/sponsor/sponsor.pl

David Burnham and Susan B. Long, co-directors
Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse
Syracuse University
Suite 360, Newhouse II
Syracuse, NY 13244-2100
315-443-3563

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The insanity, cruelty, lack of judgment, bias, dishonesty, and failure to respect the Constitution continues in “Gonzoland.” Unless Congress gets some backbone fast, our justice system will be in shambles!

PWS

04-19-18

WASHPOST WONKBLOG: THE REAL STAKES IN THE TRUMP GOP RESTRICTIONIST IMMIGRATION PROPOSAL – AN ADDITIONAL 1-5 YEARS OF WHITE SUPREMACY! — “By greatly slashing the number of Hispanic and black African immigrants entering America, this proposal would reshape the future United States. Decades ahead, many fewer of us would be nonwhite or have nonwhite people in our families.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/02/06/trump-immigration-plan-could-keep-whites-in-u-s-majority-for-up-to-five-more-years/?hpid=hp_rhp-top-table-main_wonk-trumpimmigration-1215pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.39256eab8ac1

Jeff Stein and Andrew Van Dam report in “Wonkblog” in the Washington Post:

“President Trump’s proposal to cut legal immigration rates would delay the date that white Americans become a minority of the population by as few as one or as many as five additional years, according to an analysis by The Washington Post.

The plan, released by the White House last month, would scale back a program that allows people residing in the United States to sponsor family members living abroad for green cards, and would eliminate the “diversity visa program” that benefits immigrants in countries with historically low levels of migration to the United States. Together, the changes would disproportionately affect immigrants from Latin America and Africa.

The Census Bureau projects that minority groups will outnumber non-Hispanic whites in the United States in 2044. The Post’s analysis projects that, were Trump’s plan to be carried out, the date would be between 2045 and 2049, depending on how parts of it are implemented.

(The Post’s methodology for estimating the annual impact of Trump’s proposed cuts is explained in more detail at the bottom of this story. Projecting this far into the future entails certain assumptions that could alter the range, but demographic experts said The Post’s approach was reasonable.)

All told, the proposal could cut off entry for more than 20 million legal immigrants over the next four decades. The change could have profound effects on the size of the U.S. population and its composition, altering projections for economic growth and the age of the nation’s workforce, as well as shaping its politics and culture, demographers and immigration experts say.

“By greatly slashing the number of Hispanic and black African immigrants entering America, this proposal would reshape the future United States. Decades ahead, many fewer of us would be nonwhite or have nonwhite people in our families,” said Michael Clemens, an economist at the Center for Global Development, a think tank that has been critical of the proposal. “Selectively blocking immigrant groups changes who America is. This is the biggest attempt in a century to do that.”

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Read the complete article, along with supporting “wonkie” stats, at the above link.

Yup! It is, and probably always has been, about White Nationalism and racism! Trump and his gang have just made it “fashionable” to be overtly racist again.

And, make no mistake about it, the REAL targets here are African American and Latino American citizens — immigrants are just a subterfuge. After all, if African Americans and Latinos were “good for America” why wouldn’t we want more of them and their families?

No, as Trumpie let on in his White House debacle, it’s all about trying (futilely) to make America “more White like Norway.” “Making America Great Again” is not so subtile “code language” for “Making America White Again.” Trump and his restrictionist cronies and misguided followers are not good for the future of America, or for the world.

PWS

02-06-18

ADMINISTRATION PANICS AS BORDER ARRIVALS (NOT SURPRISINGLY) CONTINUE TO RISE – BUT, CLAIMS OF AN “EMERGENCY” ARE TOTALLY BOGUS! – TAL @ CNN REPORTS!

http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/10/politics/border-crossings-up-trump-effect/index.html

Tal isn’t just following DACA. She “does it all” when it comes to migration. Here’s her latest report:

“Trump admin grapples with rise in border crossing numbers it once touted

By Tal Kopan, CNN

The Trump administration is pointing to a recent uptick in illegal border crossings as evidence that it needs more authority — even as it continues to tout a longer-term decrease as proof of the effectiveness of its policies.

Illegal entries to the US have risen substantially over the past few months.

In a rare statement on its monthly report of apprehensions and rejections at the border, the Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday both praised the numbers and said work remained.

“The final border apprehension numbers of 2017, specifically at the southern border, undeniably prove the effectiveness of President Trump’s commitment to securing our borders,” said DHS spokesman Tyler Houlton, noting the numbers over the last year were 40% below the final year of President Barack Obama’s tenure.

But, Houlton said, the recent increase spelled trouble.

“The significant increase over the last month in the number of family units and unaccompanied children coming across the border illegally highlights the dire need for Congress to immediately adopt responsible pro-American immigration reforms. … The Secretary will require fixes to these loopholes as part of any immigration package negotiated (in a meeting Tuesday) at the White House.”

After a sharp drop in the number of undocumented immigrants attempting to cross the border at the beginning of the Trump administration, the President and his administration frequently cited the low numbers as evidence that Trump’s immigration policy works.

But starting in the summer, crossings began to again approach historic levels. With 40,513 apprehensions and rejections at the southern border in December, the total numbers are behind fiscal years 2016 and 2017, but surpass crossings in fiscal years 2013, 2014 and 2015.

The administration has employed aggressive rhetoric and spoken consistently about securing the border and cracking down on undocumented immigrants in the US. Arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement are up — but little has operationally changed at the border and deportations last year lagged behind the last year of Obama’s presidency.

Trump is pushing for aggressive policies as part of a deal to protect the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, as conservatives argue that allowing undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship will only add incentives for potential illegal crossings in the future.”

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We’re clearly dealing with “Amateur Night at the Bijou” here! Anybody with even passing familiarity with or competency in immigration policy would know better than to do the “victory dance” based on a couple of months of DHS enforcement data. It’s not like DHS is renowned for either the accuracy of its enforcement statistics or the depth and quality of analysis thereof.

First, and foremost, the increased arrivals of families and children from the Northern Triangle presents no real security issue. Most turn themselves in at the border or the nearest Border Patrol Station and seek asylum. Indeed, if anything, the unrelentingly negative rhetoric of the Trumpsters probably leads a few individuals who would otherwise turn themselves in or apply at the port of entry to try to get inland to avoid more or less mandatory detention.

Clearly, the driver here is conditions in the Northern Triangle, which continue to deteriorate, notwithstanding the absurd political determination by Secretary Neilsen that it was” A-OK” to send long term residents from El Salvador back there. The solution is definitely not more militarization of the border or more unnecessary and inhumane detention.

No, its a combination of 1) working to improve conditions that force folks to flee the Northern Triangle; 2) working with the UNHCR other stable countries in the Americas to distribute the flow more evenly among “receiving countries;” and 3) developing either a temporary refuge program or a more realistic, generous, and easily administered program to grant asylum, withholding, and/or relief under the CAT to those many who meet the legal requirements properly interpreted.

At bottom, there really isn’t much difference between these folks and waves of Cuban refugees whom we accepted, processed, and successfully integrated into our society with greatly beneficial results for both the Cubans and America.

Time to be done with the xenophobia and the racially-inspired bias against Central Americans fleeing for their lives. No, this Administration is unlikely to do that. And, that’s why the problems caused by irregular migration are likely to continue long into the future no matter how much “tough guy” rhetoric Trump or anyone else spews out and how much we spend on unnecessary border militarization.

Yes, there are real security and law enforcement problems at the Southern Border. For sure! But more women and children fleeing conditions in the Northern Triangle aren’t among them. If anything, the Trump Administration’s fixation on those who aren’t a real security problem deflects focus from the real problems of drug and human smuggling and the possible entry of those who would actually be risks to our safety and security.

PWS

01-10-18

NEW DOJ REPORT ON MIGRANTS IN FEDERAL PRISONS SHEDS LITTLE LIGHT BUT RE-IGNITES HEATED DEBATE!

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/21/us/undocumented-immigrants-crimes.html?smprod=nytcore-ipad&smid=nytcore-ipad-share

As reported by Vivian Yee in the NY Times:

About one in five inmates in federal prison are foreign-born, and more than 90 percent of those are in the United States illegally, according to a report released on Thursday by the Trump administration, which has sought to highlight the dangers it says unauthorized immigrants pose to public safety.

Officials at the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security quickly framed the statistics as evidence that the country needed stricter anti-immigration measures, particularly the wall President Trump has pushed to erect across the southern border.

The report arrives as the White House and Republicans in Congress insist that any legislative deal to restore legal protections for young immigrants who were brought to the country illegally as children must include more restrictions on legal and illegal immigration.

. . . .

Administration officials have repeatedly emphasized what it says are links between unauthorized immigrants and crime, even opening an office to advocate for the victims of crimes committed by immigrants. But a large body of research has suggested that immigrants are no more likely, and often less likely, to commit serious crimes than native-born Americans.

The proportion of unauthorized immigrants in federal prison may be explained partly by the fact that immigration offenses now account for about half of all federal prosecutions, including those for smuggling people into the United States, illegally entering the country and illegally re-entering the country after being deported.”

Predictably, Attorney General Jeff Sessions seized upon the report to re-iterate his oft-made claim that we’re in the middle of an “alien crime wave:”

“At the border and in communities across America, our citizens are being victimized by illegal aliens who commit crimes,” the attorney general, Jeff Sessions, said in a statement on Thursday, calling on Congress to pass Mr. Trump’s immigration agenda. “The simple fact is that any offense committed by a criminal alien is ultimately preventable.”

Also predictably, Sessions’s claim was vigorously rejected by pro-immigrant advocacy groups:

“The report proves one thing only: The administration will take any opportunity possible to twist facts to demonize immigrants,” said Tom Jawetz, the vice president for immigration policy at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank. “The vast majority of immigrants in federal prison are there for crimes that only immigrants can be charged with — illegal entry and illegal entry after removal. When you cook the books you shouldn’t pretend to be surprised by the results.”

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The Administration’s conclusions were also rejected in a report filed by Alex Nowrasteh of the Cato Institute, a Libertarian think tank:

https://www.cato.org/blog/new-report-illegal-immigrant-criminality-reveals-little-admits-its-own-shortcomings

Nowrasteh writes:

“The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) today released a report that found that about 94 percent of foreign-born inmates in Federal prisons are illegal immigrants. That is not surprising, as illegal immigrants convicted of an immigration offense are incarcerated in federal prison and account 7.3 percent of all inmates. Likewise, drug traffickers who cross international borders are also in federal prison and account 46.3 percent of all prisoners. Thus, illegal immigrants are overrepresented in federal prison because the federal government enforces immigration laws and many drug trafficking laws but only a small fraction of all those incarcerated for all crimes committed in the U.S. are in federal prisons.

The authors of this DHS/DOJ report do deserve credit for highlighting its shortcomings. On the first page, it states:

This report does not include data on the foreign-born or alien populations in state prisons and local jails because state and local facilities do not routinely provide DHS or DOJ with comprehensive information about their inmates and detainees. This limitation is noteworthy because state and local facilities account for approximately 90 percent of the total U.S. incarcerated population.

The federal prison population is not representative of incarcerated populations on the state and local level, so excluding them from the report means that it sheds little light on nationwide incarcerations by nativity, legal status, or type of crime. On the last point, it is shocking how unrepresentative federal prison is regarding the types of crimes its inmates are convicted of. In 2016, 67,742 people were sentenced to federal prison. Almost 30 percent of them were for immigration offenses. Those immigration convictions comprised 100 percent of the convictions for immigration crimes in the United States in 2016. By contrast, there were only 85 federal convictions for murder out of a nationwide total of 17,785 murder convictions that year, comprising less than 0.5 percent of all murders.

If Garcia Zarate had actually been convicted of murdering Kate Steinle, then he would have been incarcerated in California state prison and he would not show up as an illegal immigrant murderer in this DHS/DOJ report. What good is a federal report on illegal immigrant incarceration rates if it would have excluded Kate Steinle’s killer had he been convicted?

The DHS/DOJ report also explained why they did not include an estimate of illegal immigrants incarcerated on the state and local level:

DHS and DOJ are working to develop a reliable methodology for estimating the status of state and local incarcerated populations in future reports.

A March 2017 Cato Institute Immigration Research and Policy Brief employed a commonly used residual statistical methodology to analyze the incarcerated population in the U.S. Census for 2014. We found that illegal immigrants were about 44 percent less likely to be incarcerated than native-born Americans. I look forward to reviewing any methodology that the federal government comes up with but illegal immigrant criminals would have to be severely undercounted in prisons to give them an incarceration rate that even approaches native-born Americans.

The broad finding among criminologists and economists who study this topic is that immigrants are less crime-prone than natives whether measured by the areas where they live or their incarceration rates. Although there is less research on illegal immigrant criminals, the general finding is that they are less crime-prone or about as criminally inclined as native-born Americans. The DHS/DOJ report reveals no new information about incarcerations on the federal level, does not provide evidence for a higher nation-wide illegal immigrant incarceration rate, nor does it support the administration’s plea for more border security.”

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Meanwhile, over at the American Immigration Council (“AIC”), another pro-immigrant group, Walter Ewing, although not mentioning the DOJ report specifically, asserts that here is no basis for the “nativists” claim that crimes by migrants are a crisis:

http://immigrationimpact.com/2018/01/03/nativists-claims-immigration-crime/

Ewing writes in AIC’s Immigration Impact blog:

“Social scientists have concluded that immigrants are far less likely than the native-born to commit serious criminal offenses or end up behind bars. More than one hundred years of research has firmly established this fact. Yet nativists still claim that undocumented immigrants pose a threat to public safety and national security.

They do this in two ways.

First, in the nativist mindset, since undocumented immigrants have broken a law by coming to or staying in the United States without authorization, they are all “criminals”—and criminals are dangerous. Therefore, according to this line of reasoning, undocumented immigrants must be dangerous criminals.

Second, since some undocumented immigrants are in fact serious criminals, nativists argue that we would have fewer criminals in the United States if we had fewer undocumented immigrants. Yet the same reasoning applies to any social group. If we had fewer white people, or short people, or blonds in this country, then there would be fewer serious criminals as well since some criminals are white, and some are short, and some are blond. Missing from this argument is the fact that immigrants commit crimes at a much lower rate than the native-born.

An example of the nativist line of reasoning comes from a story on Frontpage Magazine by retired Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) agent Michael Cutler. The story throws together a collection of disembodied incarceration statistics with inflammatory political rhetoric. Cutler also argues, without citing a primary source, that undocumented immigrants are responsible for nearly a third of all murders in the country.

While Cutler can’t credibly back up his claims, there is no shortage of credible researchers who have demonstrated the absence of any relationship between high rates of immigration and high crime rates. In just the past three years, three compelling studies have been added to the pile of evidence which has been growing for decades concerning the lack of any connection between immigration and crime.

A study released in 2017 concluded that “undocumented immigration was significantly associated with reductions in drug arrests, drug overdose deaths, and DUI arrests” between 1990 and 2014. The study “provides evidence that undocumented immigration has not increased the prevalence of drug or alcohol problems, but may be associated with reductions in these public health concerns.”

Another recent study found no relationship between undocumented immigration and rates of violent crime. The authors note that their findings undermine what they call the “Trump Hypothesis,” a notion which holds that undocumented immigration is fueling “violent and drug-related crime in the United States” as declared by President Trump’s 2015 presidential campaign announcement.

Finally, a 2014 study found that “immigrants to the United States are less likely to engage in violent or nonviolent antisocial behaviors than native-born Americans.” Notably, native-born Americans were approximately four times more likely to report violent behavior than Asian and African immigrants and three times more likely than immigrants from Latin America.”

Cutler’s piece ignores this evidence and resorts to simplistic rhetoric; labeling any immigrant in prison for any offense a “criminal alien” and accusing them of terrorizing the American people. But it is immigrants—particularly the undocumented—who risk being terrorized by nativists in their zeal to stereotype and scapegoat immigrants as the source of every ill that afflicts the United States.

The former INS agent characterizes the statistics in his story as “the stunning numbers the Left cannot refute.” However, it is Cutler who seemingly can’t refute the body of research which thoroughly discredits his arguments.”

***************************************

Suffice it to say that the grandiose claims about the DOJ report’s findings made by Sessions and others in the Administration appear problematic, at best.

PWS

01-04-18

TRAC: IMMIGRATION COURT BACKLOG CONTINUES TO MUSHROOM TO NEARLY 660,000 CASES WITH NO END IN SIGHT!

Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse
==========================================
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Greetings. During the first two months of FY 2018, the Immigration Court number of pending cases climbed by an additional 30,000. According to the latest case-by-case court records, the backlog at the end of November 2017 had reached 658,728, up from 629,051 at the end of September 2017. Despite the hiring of many additional immigration judges, there has been no apparent slackening in the growth of this backlog. The rate of growth during the first two months of FY 2018 was in fact greater than the pace of growth during FY 2017.

California leads the country with the largest Immigration Court backlog of 123,217 cases. Texas is second with 103,384 pending cases as of the end of November 2017, followed by New York with 89,489 cases.

These and other findings are based upon very current case-by-case court records that were obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and analyzed by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University. For further highlights see:

http://trac.syr.edu/phptools/immigration/court_backlog/apprep_backlog.php

And for full details, go to TRAC’s online backlog tool at:

http://trac.syr.edu/phptools/immigration/court_backlog/

In addition, many of TRAC’s free query tools – which track the court’s overall backlog, new DHS filings, court dispositions and much more – have now been updated through November 2017. For an index to the full list of TRAC’s immigration tools go to:

http://trac.syr.edu/imm/tools/

If you want to be sure to receive notifications whenever updated data become available, sign up at:

http://tracfed.syr.edu/cgi-bin/tracuser.pl?pub=1&list=imm

or follow us on Twitter @tracreports or like us on Facebook:

http://facebook.com/tracreports

TRAC is self-supporting and depends on foundation grants, individual contributions and subscription fees for the funding needed to obtain, analyze and publish the data we collect on the activities of the U.S. federal government. To help support TRAC’s ongoing efforts, go to:

http://trac.syr.edu/cgi-bin/sponsor/sponsor.pl

David Burnham and Susan B. Long, co-directors
Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse
Syracuse University
Suite 360, Newhouse II
Syracuse, NY 13244-2100
315-443-3563

———————————————————————————
The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse is a nonpartisan joint research center of the Whitman School of Management (http://whitman.syr.edu) and the Newhouse School of Public Communications (http://newhouse.syr.edu) at Syracuse University. If you know someone who would like to sign up to receive occasional email announcements and press releases, they may go to http://trac.syr.edu and click on the E-mail Alerts link at the bottom of the page. If you do not wish to receive future email announcements and wish to be removed from our list, please send an email to trac@syr.edu with REMOVE as the subject.

**************************************

Of personal interest to me, the U.S. Immigration Court in Arlington, Virginia now has a pending caseload approaching 40,000 cases! Yet, amazingly, the “powers that be” apparently are still detailing Arlington immigration Judges to other dockets! Talk about ADR in action! No wonder cases are being set for Individual Hearing dates 4-5 years in the future!

PWS

01-04-18

TRAC IMMIGRATION: MORE ARRESTS, MORE ENFORCEMENT, MORE DETENTION, MORE U.S. IMMIGRATION JUDGES, MORE GRANDIOSE CLAIMS – FEWER REMOVALS, FEWER COURT FILINGS, MORE COURT BACKLOGS – Somehow, The Trump Administration’s “Gonzo” Immigration Enforcement Program Doesn’t Add Up!

“==========================================
Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse
==========================================

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Greetings. Preliminary figures based upon case-by-case court records as of the end of September 2017 indicate that the number of DHS issued NTAs (notices to appear) initiating proceedings in Immigration Court is substantially down since President Trump took office. This is surprising since ICE states that its apprehensions were up during this same period.

There were also increasing delays at DHS before NTAs, once issued, were actually filed in Immigration Court. This backlog of un-filed NTAs helped obscure the fall in Trump-initiated cases. Over 75,000 DHS filings in court after January 20, 2017 actually were of deportation cases begun under the Obama administration.

Despite the drop in court filings, and the hiring of 74 additional immigration judges over the past year, the court backlog also increased by 113,020 cases during FY 2017 – most of it since President Trump assumed office. As of the end of September 2017 the Immigration Court backlog has grown to 629,051 cases.

These and other findings are based upon very current case-by-case court records that were obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and analyzed by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University.

For the full report, go to:

http://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/487/

In addition, many of TRAC’s free query tools – which track the court’s overall backlog, new DHS filings, court dispositions and much more – have now been updated through September 2017. For an index to the full list of TRAC’s immigration tools go to:

http://trac.syr.edu/imm/tools/

If you want to be sure to receive notifications whenever updated data become available, sign up at:

http://tracfed.syr.edu/cgi-bin/tracuser.pl?pub=1&list=imm

or follow us on Twitter @tracreports or like us on Facebook:

http://facebook.com/tracreports

TRAC is self-supporting and depends on foundation grants, individual contributions and subscription fees for the funding needed to obtain, analyze and publish the data we collect on the activities of the U.S. federal government. To help support TRAC’s ongoing efforts, go to:

http://trac.syr.edu/cgi-bin/sponsor/sponsor.pl

David Burnham and Susan B. Long, co-directors
Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse
Syracuse University
Suite 360, Newhouse II
Syracuse, NY 13244-2100
315-443-3563″

*********************************************

The Trump Administration is good at “obfuscation of data.” Seems like the upcoming appearance of EOIR Acting Director James McHenry before the House Immigration and Border Security Subcommittee on Wednesday, November 1, would be a good time for legislators to start asking some tough questions about how resources are being used (or not) at EOIR and why U.S. Immigration Judges were detailed, at Government expense, to locations where they had insufficient cases to keep busy while leaving jam-packed dockets behind.

They might also be curious as to how EOIR could be requesting a dramatic increase in Immigration Judges when additional positions allocated by Congress several years ago remain unfilled and, according to a recent GAO Report, Immigration Judge hiring has taken an average of two years (yet most of those hired are already on the government payroll and in jobs requiring full background checks).

They also might want to get an accounting for the continuation of the DOJ/EOIR practice of Aimless Docket Reshuffling (“ADR”) which “jacks up” backlogs while denying many due process of law.

PWS

10-30-17

SURPRISE! – GONZO LIES: “2017 is on pace for the second-lowest crime rate since 1990 — and near-record low murders” — Sessions Fabricates “Crime Wave” To Support White Nationalist Anti-Hispanic, Anti-Black Political Narrative! –“It’s irresponsible to incite public panic based on falsehoods, and it makes our police officers’ jobs harder.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/09/06/2017-is-on-pace-to-have-the-second-lowest-crime-rate-since-1990-and-near-record-low-murders/?utm_term=.d5c197d6052e

Philip Bump reports in the Washington Post:

“At his swearing-in as the nation’s top law enforcement official in February, Attorney General Jeff Sessions picked up a thread that had run throughout Donald Trump’s campaign for president: America is experiencing an alarming crime wave.

“We have a crime problem,” Sessions said. “I wish the rise that we are seeing in crime in America today were some sort of aberration or a blip. My best judgment, having been involved in criminal law enforcement for many years, is that this is a dangerous, permanent trend that places the health and safety of the American people at risk.”

Preliminary analysis of crime data from the nation’s 30 largest cities released by the Brennan Center for Justice on Wednesday suggests that it isn’t. According to the center’s overview of crime and murder data, 2017 is on pace to have the second-lowest violent crime rate of any year since 1990.

From the report:

The overall crime rate is projected to drop by 1.8 percent to the second-lowest point since 1990.
The violent crime rate is projected to fall by 0.6 percent, also to the second-lowest point in over 25 years. (The lowest rate was in 2014.) “This result,” the report’s authors write, “is driven primarily by stabilization in Chicago and declines in Washington, D.C., two large cities that experienced increases in violence in recent years.”
The murder rate is projected to be down 2.5 percent, on-par with the rate in 2009.

Explore the center’s data for each of the country’s largest cities.

While there was indeed a national uptick in violent crime and murder during 2015 and 2016, one of the underrecognized drivers of those shifts was the sharp increase in killings in two cities, Chicago and Baltimore, which combined made up more than half of the increase in murders in large cities from 2014 to 2017. This year, the number of murders in Chicago alone is expected to drop 2.4 percent. But it’s declines in New York, Houston and Detroit that are driving the overall decrease.

Inimai Chettiar, director of the justice program at the center, told The Post that the analysis suggested two things.

“First, the long-term trend toward safer cities isn’t going anywhere,” Chettiar said over email. “The evidence conclusively shows there is currently no national crime wave. Second, short-term fluctuations in crime are often driven by local factors.”

There are several cities that reinforce that point. The murder rate in Charlotte, doubled over the first half of 2017, for example, even as it fell sharply in other places.

Chettiar addressed Sessions’s concerns directly.

“Our data leads us to believe that the upticks in 2015 and 2016 were likely short-term fluctuations,” she wrote, noting that “not enough research has been done to identify the exact catalyst.”

The center, which is a part of the New York University School of Law, shared its report with Ronal Serpas, a former New Orleans police superintendent who now co-chairs an organization focused on reducing incarceration rates.

“In contrast to what we have been hearing from the president and attorney general, this new data from police departments shows that all measures of crime and murder are in decline this year,” Serpas said in a statement provided to The Post. “It’s irresponsible to incite public panic based on falsehoods, and it makes our police officers’ jobs harder.” Both Serpas and Chettiar noted that in places where violent crime had increased the Trump administration’s focus was best placed on that crime — as opposed to immigration violations, for example.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions stands waiting during a meeting with the Fraternal Order of Police in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in March. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

As the Trump campaign and then the Trump presidency cited localized increases as examples of the crime threat that Trump pledged to solve, independent observers frequently noted that, despite the uptick in crime in recent years, overall levels were still near recent lows following the sharp drop of the last 20 years. The Brennan Center’s analysis suggests that this trend will continue, leading the administration to a no-doubt vexing problem:

Is it too soon to claim credit?

*******************************************************

I’ve noted many times before that Session’s disingenuous, xenophobic, White Nationalist focus on immigration enforcement actually makes the country less safe from crime. This report confirms that.

Moreover, with his “morbid fixation” on spreading a false narrative on immigration, Sessions has abandoned the real law enforcement functions of the DOJ, particularly in the areas of civil rights, voting rights, police brutality, prison reform, protection of the LGBTQ community, right-wing hate groups, domestic violence, and effectively combatting gangs, drug cartels, and human traffickers. As I’ve noted before, the latter three groups have been energized and empowered by Sessions’s focus on janitors, maids, gardeners, Dreamers and other “collaterals” — even dissing legal immigrants ands implicitly U.S. citizens of ethnic and immigrant heritage — rather than working on nuanced solutions to real law enforcement problems. By sowing unnecessary fear, mistrust, and terror among law-abiding productive members of migrant communities, he has basically “green-lighted” them as targets for crime, domestic violence, sexual exploitation, and gang recruitment. Ironically, this is a scenario I heard many times from individuals seeking refuge from third world countries: “I can’t go to the police because they won’t help and might even abuse or arrest me with impunity.”

Sessions is destroying the hard work of of community policing in ethnic communities in many cities throughout the U.S. One reason that many jurisdictions abandoned the “Safe Communities” program pushed by the Obama Administration is because they found it was a misnomer: busting undocumented workers and minor offenders actually did not make communities “safer.” Rather than learning from history, Sessions is doubling down on past failures. “Irresponsible” might be too kind a word to describe the Trump-Sessions White Nationalist legal agenda.

PWS

09-09-17

Not So Fast, My Friends! — Border Intrusions Increase In May N/W/S Administration’s (Perhaps Premature) “Victory Dance!”

http://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jun/11/illegal-immigration-across-southwest-border-increa/

Stephen Dinan reports in the Washington Times:

“Illegal immigration across the southwest border appears to have jumped 27 percent in May, according to numbers released this week by Homeland Security, breaking a three-month streak of declines under President Trump and suggesting that the slump in migrants has bottomed out.

The Border Patrol nabbed 14,535 illegal immigrants in the southwest last month, up from just 11,129 in April. Analysts said that the number of people caught is a rough measure of the overall flow of people trying to sneak in.

The number of illegal immigrants showing up at ports of entry without authorization also ticked up, from 4,649 to 5,432.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the agency that oversees the Border Patrol and the ports of entry, acknowledged the increase in crossings, but attributed it to “a seasonal uptick.”

CBP said it “expects the uptick to continue” through the summer months.

The numbers suggest that while Mr. Trump appears to have changed the calculations of many border crossers, there’s still a segment of the population — particularly among Central Americans — determined to make the journey.

Agents usually record an uptick from April to May, but the jump this year is the largest on record.

Still, it’s by far the lowest May total on record. For example, May 2016 saw more than 40,000 illegal immigrants caught at the border.

Illegal immigration from Cuba and Haiti had been a problem last year, but had dipped under the final months of President Obama and again under Mr. Trump.

Now, Cubans appear to be surging again, while Haitians remain low.

Two other special categories of migrants — unaccompanied minors and families traveling together — also saw increases last month, rising from a combined 2,117 nabbed by the Border Patrol in April to 3,070 in May.”

**********************************

We should also keep in mind that according to other recent reports, the largest flow of asylum applicants is now from Venezuela. Most of them are middle class and business-oriented individuals who already have visas enabling them to enter the U.S. legally. Once admitted, they can apply for asylum at any time during the first year following entry. Such individuals would not show up in any of the border or port of entry statistics.

PWS

06-12-17

DHS Reports 740,000 Visa Overstays! — Oh, Those Canadian Businessmen & Tourists, Threatening Our National Existence By Hanging Around & Spending Their Dollars Here — Will A Wall Along The Northern Border Be Next?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/us-nearly-740000-foreigners-overstayed-visas-last-year/2017/05/22/f70bea2e-3f16-11e7-b29f-f40ffced2ddb_story.html?tid=hybrid_content_2_na&utm_term=.db2c42f1f0db

The AP reports in the Washington Post:

“SAN DIEGO — Nearly 740,000 foreigners who were supposed to leave the United States during a recent 12-month period overstayed their visas, the Homeland Security Department said Monday, detailing a crucial but often overlooked contributor to the number of people in the country illegally.

President Donald Trump has proposed spending billions of dollars to erect a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico and hire more border agents, but those measures would not address people who arrive legally and stay after their visas expire. An estimated 40 percent of the roughly 11 million people in the country illegally stayed past their visas.

There were 739,478 overstays from October 2015 through September 2016 among visitors who arrive by plane or ship — more than the population of Alaska.

The total number of overstays is much larger but has not been quantified because the statistic doesn’t include how many people leave by land.

The cost and technological hurdles to develop a checkout system at congested land crossings are enormous because the sites are so busy. Last year, Homeland Security tested facial scans at a San Diego border crossing but has npt said if the technology works or will be expanded.

Homeland Security last year published the number of overstays for the first time in at least two decades, saying 527,127 people who came by air or ship stayed past their visas from October 2014 to September 2015.

This year’s report added student and foreign exchange visitors and many visa categories for temporary workers, while last year’s only counted business travelers and tourists. Homeland Security said it will make additional improvements in future reports, including more data on people who cross by land.

Overstays accounted for 1.5 percent of the 50.4 million visitors who arrived by plane or ship in the latest period, Homeland Security said. Canada occupied the top slot for overstays among business travelers and tourists, followed by Mexico, Brazil, Venezuela and the United Kingdom. Germany, Colombia, China, India and Italy rounded out the top 10.”

******************************************

Read the complete,article at the link.

Immigration is a much more complex and nuanced subject than this Administration will acknowledge. But, I’m not sure that these raw numbers, without more analysis, are anything we should be losing sleep over.

PWS

05-24-17

Two New Tools To Help You Understand/Practice Immigration Law: 1) USCIS “StatPack” & 2) Travel Ban Litigation Guide!

Nolan “Eagle Eyes” Rappaport kindly alerted me to this comprehensive source of USCIS immigration and citizenship data:

https://www.uscis.gov/tools/reports-studies/immigration-forms-data

*********************************************

Additionally, Dan “Mr. Blog” Kowalski over at Lexis was kind enough to send me this like to a nationwide “Travel Ban” Litigation Database from “Lawfare,” helpfully organized by Circuit:

https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__lawfareblog.com_litigation-2Ddocuments-2Dresources-2Drelated-2Dtrump-2Dexecutive-2Dorder-2Dimmigration&d=DQIFAg&c=euGZstcaTDllvimEN8b7jXrwqOf-v5A_CdpgnVfiiMM&r=CeRQeXwCO1XABbcnui0VccohOAIcGihP TU6SjunQmI&m=8DFHNqD9Wh7TH2g60EeuBylX7190m96Q_YTMDTMs5P0&s=evpzDZD-Isv1nTFviIW1D-wNdPdmyJyu9fl1qEQXgf8&e=

******************************************

Check both of these out! Thanks again to Nolan and Dan for their tireless efforts to promote an informed approach to immigration law and policy!

PWS

05-07-17

TRAC Starts Analyzing “Trump Enforcement Data” — Initial Results Are Inconclusive

http://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/462/

“Because of these filing and recording delays, it is too soon to determine overall trends. However, some large shifts in the composition of post-Trump cases are suggestive:

The court is now seeing many more cases where the individual was detained at the time the case is filed, and fewer non-detained cases. See Figure 1.

California, as compared to Texas and New York, are seeing larger numbers proportionately than previously.

The court is receiving fewer cases from individuals who entered the country within the last year, including fewer unaccompanied juveniles and women with children seeking refuge in the U.S.”

********************************

Read the complete report, with charts, at the above link. These results do appear consistent with the Trump initiatives — more detention, fewer cases being referred from the border, more action in major urban areas such as California.

But, as a “rank amateur,” I found the stats too small a sample, too early in the Administration to draw any valid conclusions. In other words, our expectations as set by the Executive Orders might be affecting how we interpret the data.

Thanks to Nolan Rappaport for alerting me to this item.

PWS

03/21/17

DHS Stonewalls TRAC Request For Detainer Data — Releases Own Reports With Arguably Useless/Misleading Data — Is “Amateur Night At The DHS” Underway?

Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse
==========================================
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Greetings. Today Immigration and Customs Enforcement issued its first weekly report on detainers that it said had been refused by non-federal law enforcement agencies. Unfortunately, the information ICE released is very limited and selective.

At the same time ICE released its report, the agency has started withholding other more comprehensive detainer-by-detainer information that ICE previously released to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University in response to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. ICE does not claim the withheld information is exempt from disclosure, it simply claims past releases were discretionary and it is no longer willing to make many of these details available to the public.

Unfortunately, because of these ICE refusals, TRAC is unable to update its online free web query tool that allows the public to view all detainers as well as notices issued to each local law enforcement agency, month-by-month, during both the Bush and Obama Administrations, and then track what happened. TRAC’s apps cover not simply whether a detainer was refused, but whether ICE actually took the person into custody. They also show how often deportation ultimately occurred following the use of a detainer. To view these TRAC online tools see:

Detainers: http://trac.syr.edu/phptools/immigration/detain/
Removals: http://trac.syr.edu/phptools/immigration/remove/

In contrast, the limited information in ICE’s new weekly report makes meaningful comparisons difficult. ICE’s report does not provide any information on how many detainers the local law enforcement agency may have received in total, listing only those that ICE recorded as refused. The public also does not know, for example, how often ICE issued a detainer but then decided not to take the person into custody. Or having taken individuals into custody, found it did not have a legal basis to deport them.

ICE’s report does not provide any information about the content of the detainer itself, or even whether the original detainer request met legal requirements that were outlined in the Department of Homeland Security’s November 2014 memorandum regarding limits on its legal authority to issue detainers.

David Burnham and Susan B. Long, co-directors
Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse
Syracuse University
Suite 360, Newhouse II
Syracuse, NY 13244-2100
315-443-3563

**************************************

Thanks to Nolan Rappaport for passing this along. Sadly, it’s probably just the beginning of what will be a concerted effort by the Administration and DHS to prevent any meaningful statistical analysis of DHS operations, thereby inhibiting real accountability.

PWS

03/20/17

CNN: Does Sudden Drop In S. Border Stops Mean Trump’s “Get Tough” Policy Is Working? Only Time Will Tell, But DHS Views News Favorably!

http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/08/politics/border-crossings-huge-drop-trump-tough-talk/index.html

Tal Kopan reports:

“Washington (CNN) Illegal Southwest border crossings were down 40% last month, according to just released Customs and Border Protection numbers — a sign that President Donald Trump’s hardline rhetoric and policies on immigration may be having a deterrent effect.

Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly himself announced the month-to-month numbers, statistics that CBP usually quietly posts on its website without fanfare.
According to CBP data, the 40% drop in illegal Southwest border crossings from January to February is far outside normal seasonal trends. Typically, the January to February change is actually an increase of 10% to 20%.
The drop breaks a nearly 20-year trend, as CBP data going back to 2000 shows an uptick in apprehensions every February.
The number of apprehensions and inadmissible individuals presenting at the border was 18,762 people in February, down from 31,578 in January.
It will still take months to figure out if the decrease in apprehensions is an indication of a lasting Trump effect on immigration patterns. Numbers tend to decrease seasonally in the winter and increase into the spring months.
But the sharp downtick after an uptick at the end of the Obama administration could fit the narrative that it takes tough rhetoric on immigration — backed up by policy — to get word-of-mouth warnings to undocumented immigrants making the harrowing journey to the border.”

******************************

Read the full article at the link.

PWS

03/089/17

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