Tag Archives: Immigration

Truck driver formally indicted for 10 immigrant deaths in Texas

FILE PHOTO: Police officers work on a crime scene after eight people believed to be illegal immigrants being smuggled into the United States were found dead inside a sweltering 18-wheeler trailer parked behind a Walmart store in San Antonio, Texas, U.S. July 23, 2017. REUTERS/Ray Whitehouse/File Photo

By Jon Herskovitz

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) – A truck driver accused of smuggling immigrants inside a packed and sweltering tractor-trailer through Texas, 10 of whom died, was formally indicted by a federal grand jury on Wednesday on charges that can carry the death penalty, prosecutors said.

James Bradley Jr., 60, was given a five-count indictment that included charges of transportation of undocumented aliens resulting in death and conspiracy to transport aliens resulting in death. If convicted on these charges, he could face up to life in prison or death, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas said.

A lawyer for Bradley was not immediately available for comment.

The incident was one of the deadliest cases of immigrant smuggling in recent U.S. history and brought renewed attention to the dangers of human trafficking.

Law enforcement was called to investigate a suspicious tractor trailer in a Walmart parking lot in San Antonio on July 23 and found about 39 people in the trailer, eight of whom were dead. Others were in perilous health, and two died later, court documents showed.

Many of the immigrants in the trailer ran when Bradley opened the doors. Nearly 200 people may have been inside the truck, according to the documents.

Bradley told law enforcement officials that he did not know about he was carrying human cargo.

“Bradley said he went to open the doors and was surprised when he was run over by ‘Spanish’ people and knocked to the ground,” the criminal complaint said.

Seven men from Mexico and an 18-year-old man from Guatemala were among the dead. The other two fatalities included a juvenile whose name has not been made public and an adult who has not yet been identified, prosecutors said.

Of the survivors, 22 were in federal custody and charged as material witnesses, two remained in hospital and five were released from hospital and turned over to U.S. immigration authorities, prosecutors said.

Some survivors have sought to offer testimony in exchange for consideration of visas that would allow them to stay in the United States, their attorneys said.

In 2003, 19 people died after traveling in an 18-wheeler truck through Victoria, Texas.

(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Toni Reinhold)

U.N. panel urges end to detention of would-be immigrants in U.S.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrest an immigrant in San Clemente, California,

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) – A U.N. human rights panel urged the United States on Monday to end widespread detention of would-be immigrants including asylum-seekers, saying the practice has “grown exponentially” and violates international law.

The holding of migrants and would-be refugees in custody is often “punitive, unreasonably long, unnecessary and costly” and should be used only as a last resort, the panel said in a 23-page report to the United Nations Human Rights Council.

Each year, an estimated 352,850 people are detained across the United States pending the outcome of their immigration proceedings at a cost of about $2 billion, it said.

The independent experts, who form the U.N. working group on arbitrary detention, were reporting on their mission last October at the invitation of the Obama administration.

“The Working Group is of the view that all administrative detention, in particular of immigrants in an irregular situation, should be in accordance with international human rights law; and that such detention is to be a measure of last resort, necessary and proportionate and be not punitive in nature, and that alternatives to detention are to be sought whenever possible,” the report said.

In Washington, a White House spokeswoman said “That’s a question for the U.N.” when asked to comment on the panel’s findings. The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

President Donald Trump has backed legislation to crack down on illegal immigrants, describing it as vital to protect American lives.

The U.N. experts interviewed 280 detainees during their visits to nine prisons in Texas, California and Illinois. Some were remote locations with limited access to legal services.

They reported seeing immigrants and asylum seekers held in “punitive conditions” comparable to those of convicted criminals despite their right to seek asylum under international law.

In some cases, the length of detention pending immigration proceedings was “unreasonable”, lasting from six months to more than one year without resolution.

The experts voiced concern at Trump’s executive order in January and an implementing memorandum that “lay the groundwork for expanding the existing detention system by increasing the number of individuals subject to immigration detention”.

“Under the order, apprehended individuals may be detained ‘on suspicion’ of violating federal or state law, which includes unauthorized entry,” they said.

They received information in March that the Department of Homeland Security was considering separating children from parents caught crossing the border, “in an attempt to deter illegal immigration from Mexico,” they said.

“This is particularly serious given the increasing trend of unaccompanied children migrating to escape violence and reunite with family members.”

 

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

 

Chicago sues Trump administration over sanctuary city plan

FILE PHOTO - Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel listens to remarks at a news conference in Chicago, Illinois, U.S. on December 7, 2015. REUTERS/Jim Young/File Photo

By Julia Jacobs

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Chicago on Monday sued to prevent the Trump administration from enforcing new policies that would withhold money from so-called sanctuary cities that deny U.S. immigration officials access to local jails.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court, said the federal policies force the nation’s third largest city to choose between its constitutional rights and funding for law enforcement.

“These new conditions also fly in the face of longstanding City policy that promotes cooperation between local law enforcement and immigrant communities,” the lawsuit said.

The policies also include a requirement that local law enforcement agencies give federal authorities 48 hours notice before releasing anyone wanted for immigration violations.

Democratic Mayor Rahm Emanuel said on Sunday that the city would sue, escalating a pushback against an immigration crackdown launched by Republican President Donald Trump’s administration.

“We are bringing this legal challenge because the rhetoric, the threats from this administration embodied in these new conditions imposed on unrelated public safety grants funds are breeding a culture and climate of fear,” Emanuel’s senior legal adviser, Corporation Counsel Ed Siskel, said on Monday.The conditions from the Justice Department apply to the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grants, which provide money to hundreds of cities. Chicago is expected to receive $3.2 million this year for purchasing equipment.

Siskel said the city will follow the initial complaint with a motion for a preliminary injunction to halt the government’s imposition of the new conditions.

The city will request a decision from the judge before the Sept. 5 deadline to apply for the Byrne grant, Siskel said.

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said on Monday that Chicago officials have shown an “open hostility” to enforcing laws designed to reduce crime and protect law enforcement.

He added that more Chicagoans were murdered last year than residents of Los Angeles and New York combined, and that Chicago needed to reverse a “culture of lawlessness.”

“This administration will not simply give away grant dollars to city governments that proudly violate the rule of law and protect criminal aliens at the expense of public safety,” Sessions said in a statement.

The lawsuit is the first to challenge the Justice Department over the Byrne program but is not the first legal attack on the administration’s sanctuary city policies.

Emanuel said on Sunday that the lawsuit would prevent the administration from setting a precedent that could be used to target other funding.

Sanctuary cities in general offer illegal immigrants safe harbor by declining to use municipal resources to enforce federal immigration laws. Dozens of local governments and cities, including New York and San Francisco, are part of the sanctuary movement. “Sanctuary city” is not an official designation.

The lawsuit came nearly two weeks after Sessions said the Justice Department would bar cities from the Byrne program unless they allowed immigration authorities unlimited access to local jails and give the 48 hours pre-release notice.

Chicago and its high murder rate have been frequently criticized by Trump, and cracking down on illegal immigration was a theme of his 2016 presidential campaign.

(Reporting by Mark Weinraub and Julia Jacobs; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Trump administration moves to make tougher U.S. visa vetting permanent

A sign warns of surveillance at the International Arrival area at Logan Airport in Boston.

By Yeganeh Torbati

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Trump administration moved on Thursday to make permanent a new questionnaire that asks some U.S. visa applicants to provide their social media handles and detailed biographical and travel history, according to a public notice.

The questionnaire was rolled out in May as part of an effort to tighten vetting of would-be visitors to the United States, and asks for all prior passport numbers, five years’ worth of social media handles, email addresses and phone numbers and 15 years of biographical information including addresses, employment and travel history. (See: http://bit.ly/2v0qsR2)

A State Department official declined to provide data on how many times the form had been used or which nationalities had been asked to fill it out since May, only stating that it estimates 65,000 visa applicants per year “will present a threat profile” that warrants the extra screening.

President Donald Trump ran for office in 2016 pledging to crack down on illegal immigration for security reasons, and has called for “extreme vetting” of foreigners entering the United States. On Wednesday, he threw his support behind a bill that would cut legal immigration to the United States by 50 percent over 10 years.

The Office of Management and Budget, which must approve most new federal requests of information from the public, initially approved the form on an “emergency” basis, which allowed its use for six months rather than the usual three years.

The State Department published a notice in the Federal Register on Thursday seeking to use the form for the next three years. The public has 60 days to comment on the request.

The questions are meant to “more rigorously evaluate applicants for terrorism, national security-related, or other visa ineligibilities,” the notice said.

While the questions are voluntary, the form says failure to provide the information may delay or prevent the processing of a visa application.

Trump ordered a temporary travel ban in March on citizens of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. After months of legal wrangling, the Supreme Court in June allowed the travel ban to go forward with a limited scope.

The form does not target any particular nationality.

Seyed Ali Sepehr, who runs an immigration consultancy in California serving Iranian clients applying for U.S. visas, said that since late June, all of his clients who have been referred for extra security checks have also been asked to fill out the new form.

Kiyanoush Razaghi, an immigration attorney based in Maryland, said he knows of Iraqis, Libyans and Iranians who have been asked to fill out the form.

Immigration attorney Steve Pattison said one of his clients, who is not from one of the six travel ban countries, had been asked to fill out the new form when applying for a visitor visa, indicating that consular officers are using it broadly.

“It could be that everyone is missing another consequence of the use of the form – its deployment in a far wider sense to cover all sorts of individuals,” Pattison said.

 

(Reporting by Yeganeh Torbati; editing by Sue Horton and Grant McCool)

 

Trump administration moves to make tougher U.S. visa vetting permanent

FILE PHOTO: A sign warns of surveillance at the International Arrival area, on the day that U.S. President Donald Trump's limited travel ban, approved by the U.S. Supreme Court, goes into effect, at Logan Airport in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S., June 29, 2017. REUTERS/Brian Snyder

By Yeganeh Torbati

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Trump administration moved on Thursday to make permanent a new questionnaire that asks some U.S. visa applicants to provide their social media handles and detailed biographical and travel history, according to a public notice.

The questionnaire was rolled out in May as part of an effort to tighten vetting of would-be visitors to the United States, and asks for all prior passport numbers, five years’ worth of social media handles, email addresses and phone numbers and 15 years of biographical information including addresses, employment and travel history. (See: http://bit.ly/2v0qsR2)

A State Department official declined to provide data on how many times the form had been used or which nationalities had been asked to fill it out since May, only stating that it estimates 65,000 visa applicants per year “will present a threat profile” that warrants the extra screening.

President Donald Trump ran for office in 2016 pledging to crack down on illegal immigration for security reasons, and has called for “extreme vetting” of foreigners entering the United States. On Wednesday, he threw his support behind a bill that would cut legal immigration to the United States by 50 percent over 10 years.

The Office of Management and Budget, which must approve most new federal requests of information from the public, initially approved the form on an “emergency” basis, which allowed its use for six months rather than the usual three years.

The State Department published a notice in the Federal Register on Thursday seeking to use the form for the next three years. The public has 60 days to comment on the request. (See: http://bit.ly/2uZNXJD)

The questions are meant to “more rigorously evaluate applicants for terrorism, national security-related, or other visa ineligibilities,” the notice said.

While the questions are voluntary, the form says failure to provide the information may delay or prevent the processing of a visa application.

Trump ordered a temporary travel ban in March on citizens of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. After months of legal wrangling, the Supreme Court in June allowed the travel ban to go forward with a limited scope.

The form does not target any particular nationality.

Seyed Ali Sepehr, who runs an immigration consultancy in California serving Iranian clients applying for U.S. visas, said that since late June, all of his clients who have been referred for extra security checks have also been asked to fill out the new form.

Kiyanoush Razaghi, an immigration attorney based in Maryland, said he knows of Iraqis, Libyans and Iranians who have been asked to fill out the form.

Immigration attorney Steve Pattison said one of his clients, who is not from one of the six travel ban countries, had been asked to fill out the new form when applying for a visitor visa, indicating that consular officers are using it broadly.

“It could be that everyone is missing another consequence of the use of the form – its deployment in a far wider sense to cover all sorts of individuals,” Pattison said.

(Reporting by Yeganeh Torbati; editing by Sue Horton and Grant McCool)

Trump and senators seek to slash legal immigration

President Trump speaks during an announcement on immigration reform accompanied by Senator Tom Cotton and Senator David Perdue. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

By Ayesha Rascoe and Mica Rosenberg

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) – After a crackdown on illegal immigration that has sharply reduced the number of unauthorized border crossings from Mexico, U.S. President Donald Trump is now turning his attention to reducing the number of legal immigrants in the country.

The White House is throwing its support behind a bill developed by Republican senators Tom Cotton of Arkansas and David Perdue of Georgia that would cut legal immigration by 50 percent over 10 years by reducing the kinds of relatives immigrants can bring into the country.

But the legislation faces an uphill climb to get through Congress where some senior Republicans back comprehensive immigration reform, not a tough crackdown.

Under the new bill, known as the RAISE Act, the United States would prioritize high-skilled immigrants by setting up a merits-based system similar to those used by Canada and Australia.

Trump and the Republican lawmakers blasted the current immigration system as out of date and argued that it hurts American workers by driving down wages.

“This competitive application process will favor applicants who can speak English, financially support themselves and their families and demonstrate skills that will contribute to our economy,” Trump said.

The Senators said they worked closely with the White House on this latest version of their bill. “This is probably our third or fourth visit to the Oval Office to work with President Trump,” Cotton told reporters.

LONG HISTORY

Slashing legal immigration has long been pushed by low-immigration advocacy groups in Washington like NumbersUSA and the ideas have been backed by now-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who is now facing public criticism from Trump.

NumbersUSA President Roy Beck hailed the bill and said that it “will do more than any other action to fulfill President Trump’s promises as a candidate.” Trump vowed to crack down on illegal immigration during his campaign and signed two executive orders soon after taking office to increase border security and interior enforcement.

Cotton and Perdue said their bill does not affect temporary visas for workers in certain tech sectors and seasonal jobs that are popular with many businesses. They stressed that the legislation was narrowly focused, an approach they hoped would be able to get bipartisan support.

“We’re not trying to boil the ocean here and change everything about our immigration law,” Cotton said.

But other Republican lawmakers said the bill might be going too far. Senator Lindsey Graham, from South Carolina, said his state is dependent on immigrant labor to sustain the two biggest sectors of the economy, agriculture and tourism.

Economists have called into the question the benefits of cutting legal immigration. FWD.us, a group that represents the tech industry said that the bill would “severely harm the economy.”

The bill aims to end the diversity visa lottery, which allows 50,000 people from underrepresented countries to obtain green cards.

It also sets a 50,000 annual cap on refugees, instead of a level mandated by the president.

Refugee organizations said permanently limiting number of refugees allowed in the country goes against an American value of offering safe haven to people fleeing violence and oppression.

Trump suggested at an event in New York’s Long Island on Friday, where he spoke out against violence committed by Central American gang members, that immigrants today are different than in previous generations.

“What happened to the old days when people came into this country and they worked and they worked and they worked and they had families and paid taxes and they did all sorts of things and their families got stronger and they were closely knit?” Trump asked the audience of law enforcement officers. “We don’t see that.”

(Additional reporting by Roberta Rampton in Washington)

In New York, Trump to use gang violence to press for deportations

A makeshift memorial stands outside a park, where bodies of four men were found on April 13, in Central Islip, New York, U.S., April 28, 2017. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton

By Roberta Rampton and Mica Rosenberg

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) – President Donald Trump will travel on Friday to a New York community shocked by a recent spate of graphic gang murders to highlight his efforts to stop illegal immigration and boost deportations.

Trump’s trip to Long Island gives the president an opportunity to showcase some progress on his agenda even as other legislative efforts flounder – and some respite from the chaos of a nasty power struggle among his senior staff that blew up on Thursday.

On Friday, Trump will highlight his administration’s push to deport members of the Mara Salvatrucha gang, better known as MS-13, the existence of which his White House blames on lax enforcement of illegal immigration from Central America.

“It’s going to be a very forceful message about just how menacing this threat is, and just how much pain is inflicted on American communities,” a senior administration official told reporters ahead of the trip.

Trump’s visit comes as his Attorney General Jeff Sessions traveled to El Salvador to highlight progress on the gang crack-down.

The gang took root in Los Angeles in the 1980s in neighborhoods populated with immigrants from El Salvador who had fled civil war. The Justice Department has said MS-13 now has more than 10,000 members across the United States.

On Long Island – not far from the New York City borough of Queens, where Trump grew up – MS-13 was behind the murders of two teenage girls in a suburban neighborhood last September, and four young men in a park in April.

There have been 17 murders on Long Island tied to the gang since January 2016, the Suffolk County Police Department has said.

Under Trump, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has targeted the gang, deporting more than 2,700 criminal gang members in fiscal 2017, up from 2,057 in the whole of the previous fiscal year, the White House has said.

“We are throwing MS-13 the hell out of here so fast,” Trump said earlier this week at a rally in Ohio.

Trump made concerns about illegal immigration a centerpiece of his campaign. One of his first actions in office was to scrap Obama-era guidelines that prioritized convicted criminals for deportations.

His administration is now taking a harder line on Central American youth who have crossed the border illegally without guardians – a group that law enforcement has said has been targeted for recruitment by MS-13.

Immigration agents plan to target teenagers who are suspected gang members, even if they are not charged with any crime, according to a memo seen by Reuters.

But civil rights groups say police and immigration agents have unfairly targeted some teenagers.

“We received complaints in recent weeks from terrified parents on Long Island that teens have already been detained on the thinnest of rationales, such as wearing a basketball jersey,” said Sebastian Krueger from the New York Civil Liberties Union.

There have been at least two lawsuits filed by people claiming they were mistakenly included in gang databases and then targeted for deportation, said Paromita Shah, from the National Immigration Project at the National Lawyers Guild.

(Reporting by Roberta Rampton and Mica Rosenberg; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

Driver due in court in Texas for deaths of nine smuggled in truck

Police officers work on a crime scene after eight people believed to be illegal immigrants being smuggled into the United States were found dead inside a sweltering 18-wheeler trailer parked behind a Walmart store in San Antonio, Texas, U.S. July 23, 2017.

By Jim Forsyth

SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) – The driver of a truck in which at least eight men were found dead alongside dozens suffering in sweltering conditions in San Antonio, Texas was expected to appear in court on Monday, over what authorities called a case of ruthless human trafficking.

Thirty people, many in critical condition and suffering from heat stoke and exhaustion, were taken out of the vehicle parked outside a Walmart store that lacked air-conditioning or water supply, San Antonio Fire Chief Charles Hood said. A ninth man died later at a hospital.

Outside temperatures topped 100 degrees F (37.8 C).

Another person found in a wooded area nearby was being treated, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas said. All the dead were adult males.

“All were victims of ruthless human smugglers indifferent to the well-being of their fragile cargo,” said San Antonio-based U.S. Attorney Richard Durbin Jr.

“These people were helpless in the hands of their transporters. Imagine their suffering, trapped in a stifling trailer.”

The truck’s driver, named by the U.S. Attorney’s Office as James Mathew Bradley Jr., 60, of Clearwater, Florida, was arrested, with a criminal complaint set to be filed in federal court in San Antonio on Monday.

Bradley is expected to have an initial court appearance soon after, the U.S. attorney said.

Several agencies have launched investigations into the case.

The dead men, who have not yet been identified, were discovered after officials were led to the trailer by a man who asked a Walmart employee for water.

San Antonio is about 150 miles (240 km) north of the Mexico border.

Mexico’s government said it deplored the deaths and that it had asked the authorities for an exhaustive investigation.

In a statement, it said its consul general in San Antonio was working to identify the victims’ nationalities and, if necessary, repatriate their remains to Mexico.

 

U.S. STEPS UP RAIDS

Raids on suspected illegal immigrants have increased across the United States in recent months, after President Donald Trump vowed to crack down on entrants without authorization or overstaying their visas.

In Texas alone, federal immigration agents arrested 123 illegal immigrants with criminal records in an eight-day operation ending last week.

The San Antonio deaths come more than a decade after what is considered the worst immigrant smuggling case in U.S. history, when 70 people were found stuffed into an 18-wheeler. Nineteen died in the incident in Victoria, Texas, about 100 miles (160 km) southeast of San Antonio, in May 2003.

San Antonio Police Chief William McManus said other suspects fled the scene as police arrived. Video showed “there were a number of vehicles that came and picked up other people who were in that trailer,” he said.

Twenty people were airlifted to hospitals in conditions ranging from critical to very critical, Hood said. Eight more are listed in less serious condition.

McManus said those in the truck, whose origins were unclear, ranged from school-age juveniles to adults in their 30s. He said the Department of Homeland Security had joined the investigation.

Experts have been warning that tougher immigration policies could make it harder to stop human trafficking. Measures tightening international borders encourage would-be migrants to turn to smugglers, while fear of deportation deters whistle-blowing, they said.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials defended the use of tough methods to fight human smuggling.

“So long as I lead ICE, there will be an unwavering commitment to use law enforcement assets to put an end to these practices,” the agency’s acting director, Thomas Homan, said in a statement.

The Border Patrol has regularly reported finding suspected immigrants in trucks along the U.S. border with Mexico.

This month, 72 Latin Americans were found in a trailer in Laredo. In June, 44 people were found in the back of a vehicle in the same Texas city, which lies directly across the Rio Grande from Mexico.

San Antonio has a policy of not inquiring about the immigration status of people who come into contact with city officials or police.

It was among several cities in Texas that filed a federal lawsuit last month to block a state law set to take effect in September that would force them to cooperate closely with immigration agents.

“San Antonio will not turn its back on any man, woman, or child in need,” Mayor Ron Nirenberg said in a statement responding to the truck deaths.

(Corrects headline, paras 1 and 2 to show that eight bodies were found in truck, not nine; a ninth man died later at a hospital.)

 

(Additional reporting by Barbara Goldberg in New York); Editing by Chris Michaud and Clarence Fernandez)

 

Exclusive: U.S. immigration raids to target teenaged suspected gang members

FILE PHOTO: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Assistant Field Office Director Jorge Field (R), 53, and Field Office Director David Marin arrest a man in San Clemente, California, U.S., May 11, 2017. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson/File Photo

By Julia Edwards Ainsley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. immigration agents are planning nationwide raids next week to arrest, among others, teenagers who entered the country without guardians and are suspected gang members, in a widening of President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigrants.

The raids are set to begin on Sunday and continue through Wednesday, according to an internal memo seen by Reuters. The teenagers targeted will be 16- and 17-years-old.

The raids represent a sharp departure from practices during the presidency of Barack Obama. Under Obama, minors could be targeted for deportation if they had been convicted of crimes, but were not arrested simply for suspected gang activity or membership.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said in a statement that a person can be identified as a gang member if they meet two or more criteria, including having gang tattoos, frequenting an area notorious for gangs and wearing gang apparel.

The agency said it does not comment on plans for future law enforcement operations, but that it focuses on individuals who pose a threat to national security and public safety.

The memo instructing field offices to prepare for the raids was dated June 30. A Department of Homeland Security official speaking on background confirmed on Friday the raids were still scheduled to take place, though ICE could still change its plans.

Trump, who campaigned on the promise of tough immigration enforcement, has made deporting gang members, especially those belonging to the El Salvador-based Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, a top priority.

“You have a gang called MS-13. They don’t like to shoot people. They like to cut people. They do things that nobody can believe,” Trump said at a rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa last month. In a May speech, the president promised the gang would be “gone from our streets very soon, believe me.”

‘THIS IS TROUBLING’

Although children can be deported like adults, U.S. immigration law considers minors arriving at the border without a parent or guardian particularly vulnerable and gives them additional protections.

Minors apprehended entering the country without a guardian are placed in custody arrangements by U.S. Health and Human Services, often with a family member living in the United States.

Law enforcement agencies maintain databases of individuals suspected of having gang affiliations, but the lists have come under fire from civil rights groups.

Marielena Hincapie, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center in Los Angeles, said the databases often contain inaccurate information.

“This is troubling on several levels,” Hincapie said. “For one, the gang databases in places like California are rife with errors. We have seen babies labeled as potential gang members.”

Immigration lawyer David Leopold of Ulmer & Berne said innocent children could be swept up in the raids.

“In many cases, children don’t freely decide to join a gang. They are threatened by older gang members and forced to get a gang tattoo if they live in a certain neighborhood,” he said.

The raids planned for next week will also target parents who crossed the border illegally with their children and have been ordered deported by a judge, and immigrants who entered the country as children without guardians and have since turned 18, according to the memo.

The document directs field offices to identify people in their areas that meet the criteria.

The Obama administration targeted those two groups in 2016 raids that sought to deter a surge of illegal border crossings by families and minors that began in 2014.

Obama, however, directed immigration agents to prioritize for deportation only those who had committed serious crimes or had recently entered the country.

(Reporting by Julia Edwards Ainsley; Editing by Sue Horton and Ross Colvin)

Judge refuses to remove block on Trump sanctuary city order

U.S. President Donald Trump attends a "Made in America" event on pharmaceutical glass manufacturing at the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, U.S., July 20, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

By Dan Levine

(Reuters) – A U.S. judge on Thursday refused to revisit a court order that blocks President Donald Trump’s administration from carrying out a policy designed to threaten the granting of federal funds to so-called sanctuary cities.

U.S. District Judge William Orrick III in San Francisco ruled that a recent memo from the Justice Department that appeared to narrow the scope of Trump’s executive order on sanctuary cities did not remove the need for a court-ordered injunction.

Orrick wrote that the memo is not binding and the attorney general can revoke it at any time.

A Justice Department spokeswoman could not immediately be reached for comment.

Trump issued the order in January, shortly after he was inaugurated, directing that funding be slashed to all jurisdictions that refuse to comply with a statute that requires local governments to share information with U.S. immigration authorities.

Sanctuary cities generally offer safe harbor to illegal immigrants and often do not use municipal funds or resources to enforce federal immigration laws. Dozens of local governments and cities, including New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, have joined the growing “sanctuary” movement.

The Trump administration contends that local authorities endanger public safety when they decline to hand over for deportation illegal immigrants arrested for crimes.

After Trump issued the sanctuary cities executive order, California’s Santa Clara County – which includes the city of San Jose and several smaller Silicon Valley communities – sued, saying it was unconstitutional. San Francisco filed a similar lawsuit.

In a ruling in April, Orrick said Trump’s order targeted broad categories of federal funding for sanctuary governments and that plaintiffs challenging the order were likely to succeed in proving it unconstitutional.

The Justice Department asked Orrick to revisit that ruling, after Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued a memo which said the only funds the government intended to withhold were certain grants tied to law enforcement programs.

Orrick voiced skepticism at a hearing earlier this month.

(Reporting by Dan Levine; Editing by Leslie Adler)