• 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

  • Arizona police preparing to begin implementing SB 1070

    Anticipating at least a partially favorable decision from the U.S. Supreme Court on Arizona’s SB 1070 immigration bill, Governor Jan Brewer has issued an executive order instructing police officers across the state to familiarize themselves with the provisions of the law and prepare to begin to implement it; the Court decision is expected before the end of June

  • Why the perception persists that undocumented immigrants cause more crime

    Undocumented immigrants in the United States do not commit more crimes than native-born Americans, yet the perception persists that they do; researchers found that the belief that undocumented immigrants cause crime was due in part to the perceived population size of the immigrant community overall: if individuals perceive undocumented immigrants to be a larger proportion in the population, they are going to perceive undocumented immigrants as posing a higher level of criminal threat

  • CPB’s translation assistance to other agencies questioned

    An alliance of immigration advocacy groups says that the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has an agenda of its own when it provides translation assistance to other law enforcement agencies and participate in 911 dispatch activities along the U.S.-Canada border: to question individuals about their immigration status and, in many cases, initiate removal proceedings

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  • Biometric data collection in U.S. immigrant communities and beyond

    DHS takes approximately 300,000 fingerprints per day from non-U.S. citizens crossing the border into the United States, and it collects biometrics from noncitizens applying for immigration benefits and from immigrants who have been detained; in addition, state and local law enforcement officers regularly collect fingerprints and DNA, as well as face prints and even iris scans

  • Young undocumented immigrants in U.S. face obstacles, difficult futures

    Undocumented Latino youth who migrate to the United States face futures clouded by limited rights and the constant fear of deportation, a new study finds; “Rites of passage common to American youth — getting a driver’s license, traveling, working and applying to college — are either denied, unattainable or dangerous to pursue for undocumented immigrants,” said one of the authors of the study

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  • New approach to U.S. border security

    CBP has unveiled a new approach to securing the U.S.-Mexico border; the new strategy puts less emphasis on technology, and more on risk analysis; the Border Patrol believes it now knows enough about those who try to cross the border to begin imposing more serious consequences on almost everyone the agency catches; in January the Border Patrol expanded its Consequence Delivery System to the entire border, dividing border crossers into seven categories, ranging from first-time offenders to people with criminal records

  • 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

  • Supreme Court hears arguments on Arizona immigration law

    The U.S. Supreme Court yesterday heard arguments about the tough Arizona immigration law, known as SB107; the case highlights a fundamental disagreements over the precise balance of power between the states and the national government; the judges appeared skeptical of the administration’s arguments; the Arizona case may occasion a redrawing by the Supreme Court of established boundaries between the federal government and the states on immigration enforcement

  • Increasing effectiveness of border patrols by making them random

    A new study finds that combining historical data on illegal border crossings with unpredictability and randomness of patrols would be the most effective approach to increase interdiction of illegal border crossers

  • 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

  • Arizona's illegal immigrant population takes a downward turn

    The number of illegal immigrants in Arizona has declined in recent years, according to U.S. census data

  • SFO launches program to battle human traffickers

    San Francisco International Airport is now home to the first program in the nation that trains airport personnel in identifying and stopping human traffickers

  • U.S. citizenship determined by unreliable civics test

    New study finds that the fate of nearly half a million immigrants hoping for U.S. citizenship may have been determined randomly, at least in part; to be awarded citizenship, immigrants must correctly answer six of ten questions on the verbally administered civics portion of the U.S. Naturalization Test, but researchers argue that the high-stakes civics test is not a reliable measure of civics knowledge

  • No racial profiling, abuse by Secure Communities

    The Earl Warren Institute at the University of California, Berkeley Law School claimed that DHS Secure Communities program suffers from a disturbing pattern of abuse of authority by ICE, including wrongful arrests of thousands of U.S. citizens, a pattern of racial profiling against Latinos, and denial of due process for aliens in removal proceedings; a new study by the Center for Immigration Studies says this is not the case