Tag Archives: Immigration

Bloomberg: Trump and Netanyahu Discuss Border Fence, Status of Jerusalem

By Ben Brody

Donald Trump “discussed at length Israel’s successful experience with a security fence that helped secure its borders” during a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that lasted longer than an hour, according to a statement from the Republican presidential nominee’s campaign.

Trump’s proposal to build a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico as way to confront illegal immigration has become a cornerstone of his campaign, although the statement did not say whether he drew direct parallels with Israel’s border fence, which is meant to combat terrorism.

The real estate investor also “acknowledged that Jerusalem has been the eternal capital of the Jewish People for over 3000 years, and that the United States, under a Trump administration, will finally accept the long-standing Congressional mandate to recognize Jerusalem as the undivided capital of the State of Israel,” his campaign said after Sunday’s meeting.

Read the full article at Bloomberg.com

Closing private detention centers for migrants would pose problems

U.S. migrant detention center bracelets and rosaries hang from a religious statue at a migrant shelter in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico,

By Julia Edwards

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Federal immigration agents have raised concerns about the U.S. government possibly ending its use of private detention centers used to detain undocumented migrants, a potential policy shift that some say could damage the United States’ capacity to enforce its immigration laws.

In line with a Justice Department move to phase out privately managed federal prisons, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said last month it would consider a similar change for the centers where thousands of migrants are detained, including those who have entered the country illegally and those seeking asylum or some other protected status.

There are more than 180 migrant detention centers in the United States, ranging from Pennsylvania to California, housing more than 33,000 people per day. Almost three-quarters of those detained are housed in centers that are run by or in conjunction with private contractors. (http://bit.ly/2clLZuP)

Overcrowding and impaired border security could result from closures, said recent internal memos seen by Reuters, written by agents at U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), both DHS agencies.

Debate within the DHS over the matter comes amid criticism of privately run prisons and migrant detention centers for being less safe than government-run facilities. Citing such concerns, the U.S. Department of Justice said on Aug. 18 it would phase out its use of private prisons.

That announcement hammered the stock prices of the companies that dominate the for-profit prison business. Shares of Corrections Corporation of America <CXW.N> and GEO Group Inc <GEO.N> have fallen 41 percent and 25 percent respectively since the start of this year.

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson told an advisory council on Aug. 29 to review whether ICE should follow the Justice Department’s lead and phase out private facilities.

The Homeland Security Advisory Council is expected to make a recommendation on whether ICE should end its use of private migrant detention centers to Johnson by Nov. 30.

BIG IMPACT

The impact of such a step could be much more marked for migrant detention centers than for prisons, given that a much greater proportion of migrants are detained in private facilities.

The Justice Department’s Bureau of Prisons holds 16 percent of federal inmates in private penitentiaries, while that figure is 73 percent for migrants in detention.

As of August, there were 182 adult migrant detention facilities. Many are in the border states of Texas and Arizona, though others are in the interior of the country, in states like Indiana and Pennsylvania. Most people they hold are originally from Central America and other countries with land access to the U.S. southern border.

CBP arrests and holds migrants temporarily before they are transferred to ICE custody for a court hearing to determine whether they should be deported. CBP is not considering ending private contracts at its facilities, but some of its agents have warned of delays if ICE has less space available to take migrants.

One DHS official who asked to speak on the condition of anonymity because of the divisive nature of the topic, said ending private detention for migrants would require Congress to spend millions more dollars because government-run operations are more costly.

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has said she would end all private detention facilities if elected. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has said he would enforce the U.S. border with Mexico by building a wall.

FLUCTUATING MIGRANT FLOWS

Unlike federal prisoners who may be locked up for many years, migrants are typically detained for short periods, about 27 days on average. After that, they are either deported or released to await trial.

Rehabilitation is a key goal in the prison system, but it is not a feature in migrant detention centers, an ICE official said.

Before Johnson’s announcement on private prisons, ICE had defended its decision to continue using private centers. A spokeswoman for ICE told Reuters that they allow the agency to adjust quickly to fluctuating trends in migrant flows.

For example, Corrections Corporation of America was able to build a center in Dilley, Texas, within four months in 2014 to hold Central American women and children who began coming across the border by the thousands in an unforeseen surge.

Immigrant rights advocates have criticized private detention facilities for years, saying they hold people in inhumane conditions and restrict their access to lawyers.

“Private detention facilities often hold immigrants in well-documented appalling and inhumane conditions where abuse and neglect are rampant,” said U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, in a statement after Johnson’s announcement.

(Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Bill Rigby)

Discrimination against Muslims an affront of American values: Obama

President Obama shaking hands with guests after discrimination speech

By Ayesha Rascoe

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama on Thursday praised the contributions of Muslim immigrants to the United States, saying any effort to discriminate against the Islamic faith plays into the hands of terrorists.

“Muslim Americans are as patriotic, as integrated, as American as any other members of the American family,” Obama said at a White House reception to celebrate the Muslim Eid al-Fitr holiday.

“Whether your family has been here for generations or you’re a new arrival, you’re an essential part of the fabric of our country,” he said.

The Obama administration has faced criticism for its plan to admit as many as 10,000 Syrian refugees to the United States this year, with some Republicans warning that violent militants could enter the country posing as refugees.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump had proposed a temporary ban on Muslims entering the country after a Muslim American and his wife killed 14 people in San Bernardino, California, last year.

While not naming Trump specifically, Obama said that discriminatory policies against Muslims are an affront the “values that already make our nation great.”

Trump, who will be giving his official acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention on Thursday night, has used “make America great again” as his campaign slogan.

“Singling out Muslim Americans, moreover, feeds the lie of terrorists like ISIL, that the West is somehow at war with a religion that includes over a billion adherents,” Obama said, using an acronym for the Islamic State militant group. “That’s not smart national security.”

(Reporting by Ayesha Rascoe; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

UK police say almost 6,200 hate crimes in month after Brexit vote

LONDON (Reuters) – British police said on Friday there had been almost 6,200 hate crimes reported in the last month following the vote to leave the European Union in a referendum where immigration had been a key issue.

In the four weeks from June 16, police forces across the country said 6,193 offences had been reported, with the most common crimes being harassment, assault and other violence such as verbal abuse or spitting.

Britons voted on June 23 to exit the EU following bitter and deeply divisive campaigning in which the control of immigration was one of the main arguments of those who supported leaving the bloc. Since the result was declared, Muslims and Eastern Europeans say they have been particularly targeted.

The latest figures showed there were 3001 offences in the first two weeks of July, down 6 percent compared to the previous fortnight but still 20 percent higher than the same period last year.

“Following increases in hate crime seen after the EU referendum, police forces have been taking a robust approach to these crimes and we are pleased to see the numbers of incidents have begun to fall,” Mark Hamilton, the National Police Chiefs’ Council spokesman on hate crimes.

“Clearly any hate crime is unacceptable and these numbers are still far too high.”

Critics of the “Leave” campaign say its focus on immigration helped stoke xenophobia and racism, an accusation its leaders reject. A week before the vote, opposition Labour lawmaker Jo Cox, a strong supporter of remaining in the EU, was shot and stabbed to death in her constituency in northern England.

(Reporting by Michael Holden; editing by Giles Elgood)

Split U.S. Supreme Court blocks Obama immigration plan

Immigration activists at Supreme Court

By Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday blocked President Barack Obama’s plan to spare millions of immigrants in the country illegally from deportation in a split ruling that heartened political foes who had accused him of overstepping his powers.

The 4-4 ruling, coming seven months before Obama’s term in office ends, marked the latest success that his Republican adversaries have had in thwarting a major policy initiative of the Democratic president. Obama had hoped that overhauling the U.S. immigration system and resolving the fate of the estimated 11 million people in the country illegally would be part of his presidential legacy.

The ruling is likely to further amplify the role that the immigration issue will play in the run-up to the Nov. 8 presidential election in which voters will pick Obama’s successor. It also leaves in legal limbo the roughly 4 million people Obama’s action was meant to help.

Obama unveiled his plan in November 2014. It was quickly challenged in court by Republican-governed Texas and 25 other states that argued that Obama overstepped the powers granted to him by the U.S. Constitution by infringing upon the authority of Congress. His unilateral executive action bypassed the Republican-led Congress.

Because the court was split, a 2015 lower-court ruling invalidating Obama’s plan was left in place. The plan never was implemented because the lower courts had blocked it.

The plan was tailored to let roughly 4 million people – those who have lived illegally in the United States at least since 2010, have no criminal record and have children who are U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents – get into a program that shields them from deportation and supplies work permits.

A split ruling was possible because the court was down to eight justices, four liberals and four conservatives, after conservative justice Antonin Scalia died in February. The Republican-led Senate has refused to act on Obama’s nomination of appeals court judge Merrick Garland to replace Scalia.

In an appearance at the White House after the ruling, Obama expressed frustration at the court’s inability to issue a decisive ruling on the merits of the case and at Senate Republicans for “willfully” keeping the court shorthanded.

“I think it is heartbreaking for the millions of immigrants who made their lives here, who’ve raised families here, who hope for the opportunity to work, pay taxes, serve in our military, and fully contribute to this country we all love in an open way,” Obama said.

Obama said the U.S. immigration system has been broken for two decades and that this ruling set it back even further.

The issue of illegal immigration has featured prominently in the presidential campaign. Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, has called for deportation of all illegal immigrants – most of them from Mexico and other Latin American countries – and building a wall along the Mexican border.

The court did not reveal how each justice voted in the ruling, but it was possible the four liberals backed Obama and the four conservatives backed the states.

The court appeared divided along ideological lines during oral arguments on April 18, with liberals indicating support for the administration and conservative opposed.

‘MAJOR SETBACK’

The nation’s top elected Republican, U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, and others in his party welcomed the ruling.

“This is a major setback to President Obama’s attempts to expand executive power, and a victory for those who believe in the separation of powers and the rule of law,” said Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican.

The Constitution assigns certain powers to the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the federal government.

The split decision set no nationwide legal precedent on presidential power or immigration law. The ruling indicates that any major immigration policy change that would address the long-term situation of illegal immigrants would have to be enacted by Congress.

“We feel that justice has turned its back on millions of immigrants who, much like our founding fathers and mothers, sought a better future for themselves and their children and yet continue to live in the shadows without the respect and dignity that they deserve,” said Jorge-Mario Cabrera, a spokesman for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles.

The Obama administration could ask the high court to rehear the case, as losing parties in two other cases in which the court has split 4-4 have done. The court has not yet acted on those other petitions.

The Supreme Court decision does not affect a separate 2012 program aimed at protecting people brought to the United States as children from deportation, which Texas and the other states did not challenge.

Obama took the action after House Republicans killed bipartisan immigration legislation, billed as the biggest overhaul of U.S. laws on the matter in decades and providing a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, that was passed by the Senate in 2013.

Maya Ledezma, an immigrant from Mexico who lives in Maryland, said would have been eligible for Obama’s program because she has lived in the United States for more than a decade and has an 8-year-old daughter who is a U.S. citizen.

“My life would have changed if the vote had been favorable,” she said through a translator during a rally outside the Supreme Court.

Republicans have been critical of Obama’s use of executive action to get around Congress on immigration policy and other issues such as gun control and healthcare.

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton criticized the ruling for “throwing millions of families across our country into a state of uncertainty.” Trump said the ruling “blocked one of the most unconstitutional actions ever undertaken by a president.”

(Additional reporting by Ayesha Rascoe and Emily Stephenson in Washington and Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles)

Supreme Court agrees to hear immigrant detention dispute

Supreme Court building

By Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday agreed to decide whether immigrants detained for more than six months by the U.S. government while deportation proceedings take place are eligible for a hearing in which they can argue for their release.

The decision by the justices to hear a case focusing on the rights of people flagged for deportation comes during a presidential election campaign in which immigration has been a hot topic.

The court agreed to hear an Obama administration appeal of an October 2015 ruling by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that upheld a lower-court injunction requiring a hearing after six months of detention.

The long-running class action litigation brought by the American Civil Liberties Union includes some immigrants who were held at the border when seeking illegal entry into the United States and others, including legal permanent residents, who have been convicted of crimes.

If the immigrants were granted a bond hearing, the government would have to show they are flight risks or a danger to the community in order for the detention to continue.

The Justice Department said in court papers that the appeals court decision was “fundamentally wrong” because it dramatically expanded the number of people eligible for hearings and set a high bar for the government to argue that a detainee should not be released.

The ACLU responded in its court papers that the government had exaggerated the impact of the court injunction, which has been in place since 2012 and applies only to immigrants in the Los Angeles area.

Since it has been in effect, there has been “no evidence of adverse effects on immigration enforcement,” the ACLU lawyers said.

The court will hear oral arguments and decide the case during its next term, which starts in October and ends in June 2017.

In one of the biggest cases of its current term, the Supreme Court is due to decide by the end of the month whether to reinstate President Barack Obama’s 2014 executive action to shield millions of immigrants in the country illegally from deportation. The plan was blocked by lower courts.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Will Dunham)

EU makes it easier to suspend visa-free travel amid immigration worries

A barbed wire is seen in front of a European Union flag at an immigration reception centre in Bicske

By Gabriela Baczynska

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – European Union ministers on Friday backed making it easier and faster to suspend visa waiver with third countries and said relaxing travel rules for more states was not imminent amid deepening public concern about immigration into the bloc.

The EU is in politically sensitive talks with Ankara on easier travel requirements for Turks seeking to visit Europe for up to three months and with no right to work.

The 28-nation bloc is planning the concession as part of a deal whereby Turkey helps curb the influx of migrants and refugees to Europe. But some EU states are anxious about opening up to a mainly Muslim nation of 79 million people.

To assuage such concerns, the EU is beefing up a mechanism that allows it to suspend visa waiver with any of some 60 countries that have such agreements in place. The plan, endorsed by 28 EU interior ministers on Friday, enjoys backing in the European Parliament, which must sign off on it as well.

“Visa liberalization has great advantages for the EU and third countries,” said Klaas Dijkhoff, migration minister for the Netherlands, which now holds the bloc’s rotating presidency.

“Yet we need… to make sure that visa liberalization cannot be abused. I’m pleased that we agreed today on a mechanism that makes it easier to act against abuse.”

As well as Turkey, the EU is currently working on lifting visas for citizens of Ukraine, Georgia and Kosovo. Countries which already enjoy such travel benefits include Japan, the United States, South Korea, Venezuela, Israel and Canada.

NO MORE VISA LIBERALIZATION SOON?

German interior minister, Thomas de Maziere, said the EU should not grant visa-free travel to more countries until the suspension mechanism is in place. His French colleague, Bernard Cazeneuve, said more relaxed travel rules for the four countries were not a matter “of the coming weeks and months”.

Dijkhoff said the 28 ministers agreed that the four candidates must meet all criteria given to them by the EU to enjoy visa-free travel and that, while they were capable of eventually doing so, that was not the case yet.

In proposing extending the EU visa-waiver program to the four countries, the bloc’s executive European Commission said Ukraine, Georgia and Kosovo had already fulfilled their requirements, while Turkey was due to meet them by end-June.

But diplomats from EU states differ on whether that is the case, with most agreeing though that at least Georgia has done its homework in full.

Visa liberalization for Turkey, a key puzzle in the broader migration collaboration, has now been pushed back to July or, more likely, the autumn, sources told Reuters.

The new safety mechanism cuts to two months from six now the period after which a country can seek to suspend visa-waiver if it sees a sharp rise in overstays, asylum requests or readmission refusals from a non-EU state that has had travel rules relaxed.

The changes would apply to the countries of Europe’s free-travel Schengen zone, which comprises most EU states and several non-EU ones, such as Norway. Britain and Ireland are not part of the Schengen area and would not be affected. Immigration is a top issue in Britain’s June 23 vote on whether to leave the EU.

(Additional reporting by Tom Koerkemeier, Editing by Ralph Boulton)

Court lifts Court Order against Sheriff Arpaio’s Raids in Arizona

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio listens to U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speak at a campaign rally in Marshalltown

(Reuters) – A federal appeals court on Monday lifted a court order blocking Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s use of workplace raids to enforce Arizona laws that make it a crime for illegal immigrants to use stolen identities to obtain work.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said a lower court judge erred in imposing a preliminary injunction in January 2015 against Arpaio’s and Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery’s enforcement of Arizona’s identity theft laws.

Since 2008, Arpaio’s workplace raids had led to the arrests of more than 700 undocumented workers for identity theft.

The raids had become a signature initiative for Arpaio, who bills himself as “America’s toughest sheriff.”

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Alan Crosby)

Outmoded U.S. immigration system poses security risk, study shows

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. immigration authorities’ lack of progress in automating their systems is compromising border security, making it more difficult to process people seeking to get into the country, a report said on Tuesday.

“We may be admitting individuals who wish to do us harm, or who do not meet the requirements for a visa,” John Roth, the Inspector General for the Department of Homeland Security, told a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing.

The report from Roth’s office, released on Tuesday, said immigration officials expect it will take $1 billion and another three years, 11 years into the effort, to move from a paper-based system to automated benefit processing.

U.S. lawmakers have been calling for a tighter visa system since the November Paris attacks and December San Bernardino shootings. In Paris, some of the militants were Europeans radicalized after visiting Syria, and a California attacker had been admitted on a fiance visa.

They want to ensure that potential militants cannot enter the United States under programs, such as the “visa waiver” granted citizens of most western countries.

Roth told the Senate Homeland Security Committee that workers processing millions of applications for immigrant benefits work with a system “more suited to an office environment from 1950 rather than 2016.”

He said some green cards and other immigration documents had been mailed to wrong addresses, or printed with incorrect names, which meant they could have fallen into the wrong hands.

The poor quality of electronic data that is kept makes it more difficult to engage in data matching, to root out fraud and identify security risks, Roth said.

Shipping, storing and handling over 20 million immigrant files costs more than $300 million a year, he added.

The report also said the EB-5 visa program, which admits investors who spend $500,000 or $1 million in the United States, depending on the area, may not be subject to close enough scrutiny to ensure Americans’ safety.

The current system also allows “known human traffickers” to use work and fiance visas to bring victims into the country, the report said.

Republican Senator Ron Johnson, the committee’s chairman, said the modernization was too slow and expensive. “It should not take years and years and billions and billions of dollars,” he said.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Marguerita Choy and Alan Crosby)

Even with court’s approval, Obama’s immigration plan faces hurdles

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – If the U.S. Supreme Court endorses a key immigration initiative of President Barack Obama protecting more than 4 million illegal immigrants from deportation, his administration could face a surge of applicants and little time to process them before he leaves office in January 2017.

Obama announced the action in November 2014 but it has never gone into effect, being put on hold by a federal judge in Texas in February 2015. The plan was designed to help illegal immigrant parents of children who are U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents. It would protect them from deportation and give them work authorization.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday said it would decide whether Obama acted lawfully in creating the program by executive order, bypassing a gridlocked Congress. If Obama wins when the court rules by the end of June, his administration would have just seven months to implement the program.

Obama’s victory could be short-lived because the next president, set to be elected in November, would have the final say on whether to keep the program in place.

Democrats including presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton have embraced Obama’s plan. Republican presidential candidates including businessman Donald Trump and Texas Senator Ted Cruz have assailed it. Cruz said on Tuesday if elected he would rescind Obama’s order on the first day of his presidency.

An earlier immigration program that gave similar relief to children of illegal immigrants who grew up in the United States showed that such policies take time to implement. Launched in June 2012, it took two months to put in place.

After that, there were almost 408,000 applications in the first six months of the program, according to government numbers. By January 2013, only 154,000 applications had been approved. More than 700,000 people have since benefited from the program.

The government has been able to do nothing to prepare while Obama’s executive action has been on hold. In the injunction that halted the plan, U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen specifically said the administration was barred from “implementing any and all aspects or phases” of the program.

A Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman said the federal government is complying with the injunction.

Immigration advocates said they are preparing for a new effort to educate potential applicants about the program. They forecast much higher numbers than those who applied to the earlier 2012 program, largely because many more are eligible.

“There is no way the administration can process the projected volume of people that would be eligible,” said Gregory Chen, director of advocacy for the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

The new program is likely to present additional bureaucratic problems, legal experts say, in part due to the larger pool of eligible people but also because of the specific nature of the applicants. Both programs require proof of continued residency in the United States.

For younger people, this is easier to prove as usually they can cite school records, immigration experts say. For older people, who often do not speak English, it can be harder to provide necessary documentation. Women who do not work could find it especially difficult.

“It’s going to be a little bit more tricky for some applicants,” said Adonia Simpson, managing attorney for the Esperanza Center, an immigrant resource center run by Catholic Charities in Baltimore. In some cases, approval will be delayed while the government asks for additional evidence, she added.

Criticism of Obama’s actions by Republican candidates could also deter some people from applying, Simpson said. In her group’s discussions with immigrants, “we make it very clear that this is an executive action that could be changed,” she said.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Additional reporting by Richard Cowan and Julia Edwards; Editing by Will Dunham)