• The changes to the U.S. deportation policy

    Last Friday, 15 June 2012, DHS announced what analysts regard as the most significant immigration action in more than two decades; the executive action aims to stop – or defer — the deportation of undocumented youth; individuals cannot yet file for consideration for deferred action under the new policy until the protocols and procedures are announced, which DHS must do within sixty days

  • Critics slam administration’s “minor offenses” deportation stance

    Critics if the administration’s immigration policies slam the administration’s last week announcement that it will no longer initiate enforcement actions against deportable aliens identified by the Secure Communities program who have committed minor criminal offenses

  • ICE deported 47,000 parents who had least one U.S. citizen child

    Between 1 January 2011and 30 June 2011, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deported 46,686 parents who had at least one U.S. citizen child; more than 5,100 children of immigrants have ended up in foster care because their parents had either been detained or deported; if the second half of 2011 saw the same rate of deportations, there would be 100,000 kids who are U.S. citizens who had parents deported, and about 15,000 would end up in foster care

  • DHS: more than 1,600 deportation cases should be closed

    As part of the Obama administration’s ongoing efforts to shift its immigration policy to deporting dangerous illegal immigrants, last week DHS officials recommended canceling deportation proceedings against more than 1,600 illegal immigrants in Denver and Baltimore who were not deemed a threat

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  • ICE union slows Obama’s deportation policy shift

    An internal disagreement within DHS is hampering the implementation of President Obama’s new immigration strategy which focuses primarily on deporting immigrants convicted of violent crimes

  • DHS IG critical of ICE deportation review process

    DHS Inspector General’s report on U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (ICE) handling of the review process of 300,000 pending deportation cases offers ammunition to critics of the administration’s immigration policies

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  • Congressional Hispanic Caucus moves against Alabama immigration law

    Representative Luis Gutierrez (D – Illinois) is stepping up his attacks against Alabama’s immigration law by seeking to enlist DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano; this week Gutierrez and other members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus met with Secretary Napolitano to request that top federal immigration officials make it clear that immigration enforcement is a federal matter and out of states’ jurisdiction

  • DHS will provide immigration data demanded by House Republicans

    The Obama administration has agreed to provide information requested by House Republicans regarding its Secure Communities program and the process it uses to determine which illegal immigrants should be deported

  • DHS launches wide-ranging review of immigration court cases

    DHS said it will begin reviewing about 300,000 deportation proceedings to implement prosecutorial discretion measures laid out in a June 2011 ICE memo. The review is intended to allow overburdened immigration judges to focus on deporting foreigners who committed serious crimes or pose national security risks.

  • DHS will comply with subpoena regarding non-deported aliens

    House Republicans want to know how the Obama administration decides which aliens to deport and which aliens to allow to remain in the United States. DHS says it will comply with a congressional subpoena seeking DHS records on the issue.

  • ICE deports record 400,000 immigrants

    This week federal immigration officials announced that it had deported nearly 400,000 people in the last fiscal year, the largest number of deportations in history

  • Congressman arrested for immigration protest

    On Tuesday a U.S. lawmaker was arrested for organizing a sit-in in front of the White House; Representative Luis Gutierrez (D-Illinois), a staunch advocate for immigration reform, led a protest outside the White House to demand that President Barack Obama stop deporting undocumented immigrants

  • FY2010 sees record alien removal from U.S.

    In fiscal year 2010 DHS set a record for overall removals of illegal aliens, with more than 392,000 removals nationwide; half of those removed — more than 195,000 — were convicted criminals; the fiscal year 2010 statistics represent increases of more than 23,000 removals overall and 81,000 criminal removals compared to fiscal year 2008 — a more than 70 percent increase in removal of criminal aliens from the Bush administration

  • U.S. federal prosecutions of immigrants hits all-time high

    U.S. federal prosecutions of immigrants soared to new levels this spring; the 4,145 cases referred to federal prosecutors in March and April was the largest number for any two-month stretch in the last five years; the number of illegal immigrants in the United States has fallen — as of January 2009, an estimated 10.8 million people were in the country illegally, one million less than the 2007 — but deportations have been increasing, climbing from 185,944 in 2007 to 387,790 last year