Lawmakers and immigration groups are calling on the Obama administration to grant special status that would protect Haitian immigrants in the USA from deportation and allow them to work legally. That would be a step beyond what the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has announced that Haitian deportations would be halted “for the time being”. Immigration officials said, about 30,000 Haitians now in the United States are facing deportation orders. The DHS can grant Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to people from countries experiencing civil war, natural disaster or some other catastrophe.

For complete information, please click: Special status will halt deportations from U.S.

According to the statement issued by Matt Chandler, Deputy Press Secretary, Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano and Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) Assistant Secretary John Morton have temporarily halted all removal of Haiti in the wake of earthquake there. ICE continues to closely monitoring the situation.

For complete information, please click: Statement by Deputy Press Secretary Matt Chandler

The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) has issued a report on Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) practices for determining the age of individuals in its custody, focusing on the use of dental or skeletal radiographs. The report was prepared at the request of the House Appropriations Committee wherein the OIG was asked to report on any cases in which ICE used bone and dental forensics in 2008-09. In its report, the OIG concluded that ICE recognizes the limits of radiographs and strives to obtain additional information when making age determinations, however recommended the ICE to track age determinations data better; update guidance for field offices; and ensure that radiographic exam results include all required information and are properly documented.

For complete information, please click: Age Determination Practices for Unaccompanied Alien Children in ICE Custody

A lawsuit filed by a now-deceased man over inappropriate medical care while he was in the custody of U.S. immigration officials in San Diego is set to go before the U.S. Supreme Court. Franciso Castaneda, an immigrant from El Salvador, died in February 2008 after a battle with penile cancer. Castaneda had sought medical care for symptoms while in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at a contract detention facility in San Diego and later at an agency facility in the Los Angeles area. He filed suit against the government and various individual federal medical officials and providers in November 2007, alleging he was denied appropriate medical attention for a painful lesion on his penis for almost a year, though various doctors within the detention system recommended a biopsy. Shortly after Castaneda’s death, family members were substituted as plaintiffs in the lawsuit. Last spring, the federal government acknowledged that there had been medical negligence. Attorney representing Castaneda’s family said “This is also a deliberate indifference case, deliberately refusing this guy medical care, which is a constitutional violation.”

For detailed information, please read: Supreme Court to Hear Detainee Care Case

A Connecticut city in the country allows municipal IDs to all its residents regardless of immigration status. These municipal identification cards that allowed undocumented persons to access to city services and to open bank accounts. But reports of harassments and racial profiling show that not everyone agrees with the premise of a sanctuary city. Reporter Aswini Amburajan reports that a catholic priest was arrested and charged while looking into immigrant harassment reports.

For more information, please click: A Troubled Sanctuary

The impact of undocumented foreign individuals in U.S. on its economy and work force is a controversial subject, and the debate is complicated. The Immigration Policy Center (IPC) argues that U.S. can no longer pursue a deportation-only policy that ignores economic reality. It asks a question as to what can the U.S. realistically afford to do with the roughly 12 million unauthorized immigrants, and how can the U.S. best tap them as workers, consumers, and taxpayers as a force for economic recovery. According to one estimate, the legalization of nation’s 12 million unauthorized immigrants is now an economic necessity, as this would ensure that all workers are paying into the tax system, and allow newly legalized immigrants to earn higher wages and pay more in taxes, spend more in businesses and invest more in U.S. communities would recover the economy.

For more information, please click: Immigration Reform As Economic Stimulus

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers are reporting that more people are trying to enter the United States without proper documents. The number of people caught with fraudulent, fake or purchased documents, according to the CBP statistics, has increased 19 percent from about 23,500 in 2006 to more than 28,000 in 2008. Warren Burr, director of the fraudulent document unit in Virginia, estimates 90 percent of cases involve imposters with legitimate paperwork, such as U.S passports, green cards and border crossing cards that belongs to someone else. According to the data, during the 2008 fiscal year, the U.S. government reported 1,803 new immigration prosecutions for fraud and misuse of visas and other documents, that is up 194 from 2001, when the government reported 614 such prosecutions. In the first seven months of the 2009 fiscal year, prosecutions for fraudulent documents were up 39 percent from last year. El Paso director William Molaski says an increase in the number of U.S. Border Patrol agents and the completion of longer stretchers of border fences have prompted more illegal immigrants to try to sneak through.

For more information please click: More caught at border with other people’s documents

In yet another revelation, immigrant advocates say immigration authorities have begun deportation proceedings against an estimated 13,000 inmates held at the Rikers Island penal complex in New York since 2004. Disclosing it to the media, a coalition of advocacy group says they have obtained the data through a Freedom of Information Act request. The groups plan to release their findings that demonstrate how the city’s Department of Correction works with federal immigration authorities at a news conference shortly. In response to the advocacy groups claims, the Department of Correction says it gives information about newly-admitted foreign-born inmates to federal immigration officers but does not provide information about immigration status. Usually, the Riker policy predates a broader federal effort to identify and deport illegal immigrants in local jails.

For complete information, please click Feds Sought to Deport 13000 Inmates from Rikers

Vigilant Border Patrol agents have arrested 23 Mexican nationals who illegally reached the San Diego coastline by sea. After spotting the vessel, described as a panga boat, the Border Patrol agents with the assistance of Carlsbad police officers quickly apprehended the subjects. The illegal aliens were taken into Border Patrol custody and sent to a Border Patrol station for processing.  The United States Coast Guard and CBP Air and Marine units conducted a search of the area but were unable to locate the vessel. This coordinated, multi-agency effort demonstrates enhanced capabilities to maintain a bolstered enforcement posture along the coastal border in the San Diego region.

For detailed information, please read: U.S. Border Patrol Agents Nabs 23 Illegal Aliens

The grim violations of human rights in detention system are still far from over. Scores of foreigners locked up on civil immigration violations and awaiting deportation are neither criminals nor accused of any crime, but you’d never know it from the way they are treated. Scattered across a network of 350 local and state jails, private, for-profit prisons and a handful of federal facilities, more than 30,000 detainees are held on any given day in conditions that range from adequate to dirty, deplorable and dangerous. The system, which houses five times the number of detainees it did in the early 1990s, is riddled with violations of the federal government’s own standards for detention. Recognizing that the problems with the status quo are serious, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the agency that oversees the detention system, recently announced an overhaul. John Morton, the new director of ICE, said that the driving principle of the reform would be to create “a truly civil detention system” in which the federal government itself will build and manage some new facilities and professional monitors will be stationed permanently in others.

For detailed information, please read: Scores of Locked Up Immigrants Entangle in Detention Mess