(Im)migration Movements & the Law

In April, President Trump had a message for the 800,000 young undocumented immigrants who were given permission to live in the U.S. under President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program: “The dreamers,” he said, “should rest easy.” We now know that was a lie. In September, Trump announced he was ending the DACA program in six months, plunging nearly a million young immigrants’ lives into chaos. But Trump’s assault on DACA recipients began much earlier than previously known. During his administration, federal immigration authorities have illegally stripped DACA protections from DACA recipients who have only been accused of a crime or found guilty of a minor misdemeanor that doesn’t affect their DACA status. Their protections have been taken away without any notice, any explanation, or any opportunity to respond. They now face deportation back to their parents’ home countries, even though America is the only true home they’ve ever known. To stop the government’s abuses, we filed a class action lawsuit today on behalf of DACA recipients and the Inland Empire – Immigrant Youth Collective, a grassroots organization led by immigrant youth in Southern California. Our lawsuit seeks to hold the administration to the promises it made and ensure that DACA provides protection from deportation for however long the program exists. The story of one of our lead plaintiffs, Jesús Alonso Arreola Robles , shows what’s at stake. In February, Jesús was wrongly arrested by a Customs and Border Protection agent for smuggling immigrants into the country and had his car and cellphone confiscated as well. After spending three weeks in immigration detention, Jesús finally went before an immigration judge who found that he wasn’t involved in smuggling and released him on bond. Jesús thought his nightmare was over, but it was only beginning. A few days later, the government issued a notice that his DACA had been terminated without any explanation. Without a work permit, Jesús couldn’t make a living, and CBP has refused to return his car and phone. Now he faces the possibility of deportation to Mexico — a country he left when he was one year old. What happened to Jesús , and many other DACA recipients like him, is unlawful. Under the DACA program, the government must give prior notice to young immigrants of their termination from the program and allow them to contest it. Instead, the government is revoking DACA status without due process, based on unsubstantiated suspicions of criminal activity or minor run-ins with the law, such as traffic offenses, even though these people have not violated the terms of the program and continue to be eligible for it. No one should lose their ability to live and work in the United States after being merely accused of wrongdoing. Nor should they be stripped of a benefit as important as DACA without basic due process protections. People like Jesús — who met all the requirements for DACA, came forward courageously and provided their information to the government, paid a fee, and planned their lives in reliance on the program — deserve DACA’s protections for as long as they continue. But the reality is that DACA has never been enough. The Trump administration’s arbitrary decision to end the program makes it clear that we cannot leave these young people’s fate to whoever happens to be sitting in the White House. Congress must act immediately to pass a clean Dream Act that would put people like Jesús on a path to citizenship and demand that the president sign it into law. Only the Dream Act will ensure that DACA recipients become full and permanent members of the country they know as their home. Only the Dream Act can protect these Americans from a president who tells them everything will be okay and then callously throws their lives into disarray. For more information, click here: https://www.aclu.org/blog/were-suing-trump-administration-taking-daca-away-people-whove-followed-rules

The status DACA is currently in limbo in the Supreme Court. It is imperative that people know what is going on, and why it is important to continue to fight, regardless of the decision of the Supreme Court. Join RAICES, Make The Road NY, Center For Community Change/FIRM Action, and NAKASEC for this discussion.

The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program was started by the Obama administration for undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children.

The future of young immigrant "Dreamers" will be up to the Supreme Court as it hears arguments over the legality of President Trump's termination of the Obama-era DACA program. CBS News immigration reporter Camilo Montoya-Galvez explains how undocumented immigrants could be affected.

Protection from deportation and the chance to work have been life-changing for DACA recipients. Will Trump get rid of it? Subscribe to our channel! http://goo.gl/0bsAjO The most consequential decision President Donald Trump made on immigration in his first year in office wasn’t about the wall, or who’s going to pay for it, or anything else he talked about incessantly on the campaign trail. It was his decision to announce, on September 5, that his administration would be winding down the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program — a program he didn’t mention outright, that many people didn’t know about and even fewer understood. The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, which has protected nearly 800,000 young adult unauthorized immigrants from deportation and allowed them to work legally since 2012. The immigrants protected through DACA grew up in the US; people might not assume they are unauthorized immigrants, and they might not have even known it themselves until they were teenagers. The program was supposed to give them a chance to build a life here. Now, DACA is on the chopping block. Trump, under pressure to make a decision about its future before September 5 (the day a group of Republican state officials were set to sue over its constitutionality), has decided that no one new will be protected under the program — and that those currently covered will start to lose their protection and work permits on March 6, 2018. The prospect of DACA’s demise is throwing the program into sharp relief: calling attention to the “DREAMers” who’ve been able to benefit from it, and the ways in which their lives have been changed over the past five years. Vox.com is a news website that helps you cut through the noise and understand what's really driving the events in the headlines. Check out http://www.vox.com Check out our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/IZONyE Follow Vox on Twitter: http://goo.gl/XFrZ5H Or on Facebook: http://goo.gl/U2g06o

What is it like to grow up as an undocumented youth in America? In "Undocumented Americans," three undocumented youth who arrived as young children - Jong-Min, Pedro and Silvia - share their stories of how they are fighting hard to achieve their piece of the American dream. Their experiences are emblematic of the struggles of millions of undocumented children and youth in America who deal daily with isolation from peers, the struggle to pursue an education, fears of detention and deportation and the trauma of separation from family and loved ones. This video calls for valuing the contributions of and caring for all members of our society, even those without documentation. To learn more about this topic, visit http://www.apa.org/topics/immigration.

Recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program who live in Arizona spoke out after the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the program.

The Supreme Court's decision to block President Trump's attempt to end the DACA program was a win for Dreamers, but many say the country has a long way to go on immigration and racial inequity.

President Biden has issued one of the most restrictive immigration policies ever declared under a recent Democratic administration. It will temporarily shut down the U.S.-Mexico border, deny asylum to most migrants who do not cross into the U.S. via ports of entry, and limit total asylum requests at the southern border to no more than 2,500 per day. The ACLU has threatened to sue the Biden administration over what reporter John Washington, who covers immigration in Arizona, calls an “excruciating and likely deadly” decision. “An illegal asylum seeker is a contradiction in terms,” Washington continues. “People have the right, according to U.S. law, to ask for asylum irrespective of how they crossed the border or where they are or what their status is. And this rule really flies in the face of that.”

"Grounded in the illuminating stories of immigrants facing deportation, the family members who support them, and the attorneys who defend them, this book invites readers to question matters of fairness and justice in immigration court and beyond"--

"This book argues that punitive federal immigration policies in the United States lead to "medical legal violence" that unites criminal law, immigration enforcement, and healthcare policy in ways that undermine the health of many Latinx immigrants and implicate the safety-net healthcare institutions and personnel that provide their care"--;"An urgent study on how punitive immigration policies undermine the health of Latinx immigrants. Of the approximately 20 million noncitizens currently living in the United States, nearly half are "undocumented," which means they are excluded from many public benefits, including health care coverage. Additionally, many authorized immigrants are barred from certain public benefits, including health benefits, for their first five years in the United States. These exclusions often lead many immigrants, particularly those who are Latinx, to avoid seeking health care out of fear of deportation, detention, and other immigration enforcement consequences. Medical Legal Violence tells the stories of some of these immigrants and how anti-immigrant politics in the United States increasingly undermine health care for Latinx noncitizens in ways that deepen health inequalities while upholding economic exploitation and white supremacy. Meredith Van Natta provides a first-hand account of how such immigrants made life and death decisions with their doctors and other clinic workers before and after the 2016 election. Drawing from rich ethnographic observations and in-depth interviews in three states during the Trump presidency, Van Natta demonstrates how anti-immigrant laws are changing the way Latinx immigrants and their doctors weigh illness and injury against patients' personal and family security. The book also evaluates the role of safety-net health care workers who have helped noncitizen patients navigate this unstable political landscape despite perceiving a rise in anti-immigrant surveillance in the health care spaces where they work. As anti-immigrant rhetoric intensifies, Medical Legal Violence sheds light on the real consequences of anti-immigrant laws on the health of Latinx noncitizens, and how these laws create a predictable humanitarian disaster in immigrant communities throughout the country and beyond its borders. Van Natta asks how things might be different if we begin to learn from this history rather than continuously repeat it." -- Publisher's description

"What becomes of men the US locks up and kicks out? From 2009 to 2020, the US deported more than five million people -- over 90 percent of them men. Banished Men tells 186 of their stories. How, it asks, does forced expulsion shape men's lives and sense of themselves? In this book, a team of thirty-one Latinx students and an award-winning scholar of gender and migrant exclusion uncover a harrowing system that weaves together policing, prison, detention, removal, and border militarization -- and overwhelmingly targets men. Guards and gangs beat them down, both literally and metaphorically, as if they are no more than vermin or livestock. Their ties with family are severed. In Mexico, they end up banished: in limbo and stripped of humanity. They do not go "home." Their fight for new ways of belonging, as people of both "here" and "there," forms a devastating, humane, and clear-eyed critique of the violence of deportation"--

"In December 2017, U.S. immigration authorities shackled and abused 92 African refugees for two days while attempting to deport them by plane to Somalia. When national media broke the story, government officials lied about what happened. Shackled tells the story of this harrowing failed deportation, the resulting class action litigation, and two men's search for safety in the United States over the course of three long years. Through Abdulahi and Sa'id's firsthand accounts, immigration lawyer Rebecca Sharpless brings to life the harsh consequences of the U.S. deportation system and how racism and antiblackness operate within it. Sharpless follows the money that ICE funnels into local jails, private contractors, and charter jets, exposing a sprawling system of immigration enforcement that detains and abuses noncitizens at scale. Woven with the wider context of Abdulahi and Sa'id's stories, this immigration odyssey reveals disturbing truths about Somalia, asylum, and the U.S. court system. Shackled will galvanize readers-activists, attorneys, scholars, and policymakers alike-to call out and dismantle this brutal infrastructure"--

"A powerful argument for separating immigration enforcement from the criminal legal system, by one of the nation's foremost "crimmigration" experts"--

"The 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program was supposed to be a stepping stone, a policy innovation announced by the White House designed to put pressure on Congress for a broader, lasting set of legislative changes. Those changes never materialized, and the people who hoped to benefit from them have been forced to navigate a tense and contradictory policy landscape ever since, haunted by these unfulfilled promises. Legal Phantoms tells their story. After Congress failed to pass a comprehensive immigration bill in 2013, President Obama pivoted in 2014 to supplementing DACA with a deferred action program (known as DAPA) for the parents of citizens and lawful permanent residents and a DACA expansion (DACA ) in 2014. But challenges from Republican-led states prevented even these programs from going into effect. Interviews with would-be applicants, immigrant-rights advocates, and government officials reveal how such failed immigration-reform efforts continue to affect not only those who had hoped to benefit, but their families, communities, and the country in which they have made an uneasy home. Out of the ashes of these lost dreams, though, people find their own paths forward through uncharted legal territory with creativity and resistance"--

The Supreme Court must reverse the judgments of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and the District Court for the District of Columbia, and the orders of the District Court for the Eastern District of New York, preventing the Department of Homeland Security from winding down the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy.

The fate of Dreamers, those brought to the United States as children, is on uncertain ground as the U.S. Supreme Court reviews the Trump administration’s decision to rescind DACA. However, the momentum of the youth-led immigrant rights movement gives hope that the law will follow.

Up-to-date information & resources for undocumented students

By Juan-Andrés Fuentes Migration and citizenship have become increasingly relevant topics of discussion both nationally and internationally. For instance, last February, the Albanian Congress appro…

This webinar offers up-to-date information on enforcement mechanisms at the southwest border including the implementation of the new, abbreviated removal process dubbed Circumvention of Lawful Pathways.

"First book to argue that immigrant and refugee rights are part of the fight for racial justice; offers a humanitarian approach to reform and abolition"--

"Fleeing war and violence, many refugees dream that moving to the United States will be like going to heaven. Instead, they enter a deeply unequal American society, often at the bottom. Through the lived experiences of families resettled from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Blair Sackett and Annette Lareau reveal how a daunting obstacle course of agencies and services can drastically alter refugees' experiences building a new life in America. In these stories of struggle and hope, as one volunteer said, "you see the American story." For some families, minor mistakes create catastrophes-food stamps cut off, educational opportunities missed, benefits lost. Other families, with the help of volunteers and social supports, escape these traps and take steps toward reaching their dreams. Engaging and eye-opening, We Thought It Would Be Heaven brings readers into the daily lives of Congolese refugees and offers guidance for how activists, workers, and policymakers can help refugee families thrive"--

"Through an examination of the historical development and contemporary outcomes of the "aggravated felony" category of deportable crimes, From Criminalization to Deportation provides new understanding of the ways that criminal justice system inequities are reproduced through processes of immigration enforcement and deportation. The severe, expansive, and racially disparate outcomes of the aggravated felony are met with innovative legal responses, bolstered by networks of community-based resistance-with key implications for those concerned with creating equal systems of justice and protecting the rights of immigrants nationwide"--

"The Border Reader is an anthology which gathers previously published foundational works of humanities and interpretive social science scholarship on the U.S.-Mexico border. Edited by anthropologist Gilberto Rosas and American and Latinx studies scholar Mireya Roza, this Reader brings together essays that mobilize feminist, queer, Indigenous and critical ethnic studies perspectives to theorize the border region as a site of epistemic rupture and knowledge production"--

"Offers a novel contribution to immigration legal scholarship by rewriting Supreme Court immigration law opinions from a critical immigration legal theory lens. Contests fundamental presumptions in doctrinal immigration law and shows how entrenched system of power, alongside racism, sexism, and stereotypes, have marred the immigration law landscape"--

More children than ever are crossing international borders alone to seek asylum worldwide. In the past decade, over a half million children have fled from Central America to the United States, seeking safety and a chance to continue lives halted by violence. Yet upon their arrival, they fail to find the protection that our laws promise, based on the broadly shared belief that children should be safeguarded. A meticulously researched ethnography, Precarious Protections chronicles the experiences and perspectives of Central American unaccompanied minors and their immigration attorneys as they pursue applications for refugee status in the US asylum process. Chiara Galli debunks assumptions about asylum, including the idea that people are being denied protection because they file bogus claims. In practice, the United States interprets asylum law far more narrowly than what is necessary to recognize real-world experiences of escape from life-threatening violence. This is especially true for children from Central America. Galli reveals the formidable challenges of lawyering with children and exposes the human toll of the US immigration bureaucracy--Publisher's description.

President Joe Biden said Thursday that he doesn’t believe border walls work, even as his administration said it will waive 26 laws to build additional border barriers in the Rio Grande Valley amid heightened political pressure over migration.

Living in a mixed-status immigrant family might mean that your grandmother could be deported at any moment, your son could be arrested at work, or your mother's deportation hearing is postponed--again. Such uncertainty and fear are the reality of life for mixed-status families--those that include both undocumented immigrants and US citizens. In Contested Americans, Cassaundra Rodriguez explores how members of mixed-status families experience and articulate belonging in the United States. The sixteen million people in the US who fall under this classification share the fear of a family member's possible deportation or the anxiety of leaving behind a child or elderly relative. Rodriguez highlights how different members of the same mixed-status families mediate undocumented statuses while maintaining the collective whole of a family. For many young adults, this may mean negotiating the sponsorship of their immigrant parents, and for the parents, planning for the emotional, physical, and financial well-being of their children in case of deportation. Contested Americans is a timely book, filled with vivid storytelling, that shows how immigration policies, racism, and privilege collide in the backdrop of the lives of millions of mixed-status families--Publisher's description.

"In recent years, dozens of counties in North Carolina have partnered with federal law enforcement in the criminalization of immigration-what many have dubbed 'crimmigration.' Southern border enforcement still monopolizes the national immigration debate, but immigration enforcement has become common within the United States as well. While Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations are a major part of American immigration enforcement, Felicia Arriaga maintains that ICE relies on an already well-established system-the use of local law enforcement and local governments to identify, incarcerate, and deport undocumented immigrants"--

"After fleeing homophobia and threats to her life in her native El Salvador, 'Carla' was detained for two years inside the Buffalo Federal Detention Center. Her letters provide a powerful and unique account of a queer woman's experience inside America's asylum system. Letters from Inside a US Detention Centre reconstructs Carla's story from the correspondence between Carla and Jane Juffer, a professor at Cornell University, and from excerpts from the legal decisions made while she was being held in immigration detention. Contextualised with explanation and analysis of detention in the United States, the book examines how detention exacerbates the trauma many migrants experience and becomes another site of fear, intimidation, and uncertainty. Carla's narrative is a powerful story, and one that illustrates grievous injustices in the U.S. immigration and asylum system. The book will be of immense value to immigration activists and scholars alike, especially in feminist studies, queer studies, and those studying the intersections of prisons and detention centres"--