orales Lopez v. Garland (unpub.) "[W]e agree with her overarching point: the IJ and the BIA improperly determined that Morales Lopez did not make a sufficient showing of past persecution and a well-founded fear of future persecution. ... Morales... Read More
Arita-Deras v. Wilkinson "Maria Del Refugio Arita-Deras, a native and citizen of Honduras, petitions for review of a final order of removal entered by the Board of Immigration Appeals (the Board). The Board affirmed an immigration judge’s... Read More
Argueta Diaz de Gomez v. Wilkinson "Diaz de Gomez claims that she received repeated death threats from a gang in Guatemala after she and her family witnessed a mass killing by gang members and refused to acquiesce to the gang’s extortion... Read More
Melissa del Bosque, ProPublica, July 8, 2019 "With scant public notice, federal immigration officials are relying on databases run by foreign police and militaries to check whether migrants crossing the United States border have gang affiliations... Read More
W.G.A. v. Sessions - "In 2015, tattooed members of the Mara 18 gang held a gun to petitioner W.G.A.’s head and threatened to kill him. The Mara 18—also known as the “Calle 18,” “Barrio 18,” or “Eighteenth... Read More
Jeffrey S. Chase, June 3, 2018 - "When Attorney General Jeff Sessions issues his decision in Matter of A-B- (the case he certified to himself to decide whether “being a victim of private criminal activity” can constitute a particular... Read More
Alice Speri, The Intercept, Feb. 11, 2018 - "The path from school to immigration detention usually goes like this: A teenager, often recently resettled in the United States, gets into some sort of trouble at school. Sometimes, as in Dennis’s... Read More
Prof. Jon Bauer writes: "In a case handled by UConn Law School’s Asylum and Human Rights Clinic , a Hartford immigration judge granted asylum to R-G- , a young Salvadoran man who faced death threats from gangs in Honduras and El Salvador. R... Read More
Court Establishes Nationwide Class, Orders Trump Administration to Allow Immediate Hearings ACLU, Nov. 22, 2017 - "The American Civil Liberties Union and co-counsel Cooley LLP, and Holly S. Cooper, co-director of the UC Davis Immigration Law Clinic... Read More
"As [OIL] now concedes, both the BIA and the IJ mistakenly concluded that Perez could have continued his social activism provided he paid extortion money to the gang members. But that erroneous finding conflated Perez's testimony that the gang... Read More
Christie Thompson, Marshall Project, Aug. 28, 2017 - "In 2011, then 19-year-old Luis Vicente Pedrote-Salinas was leaving a relative’s house and getting into his car when he was stopped by Chicago police. Officers found an unopened can of beer... Read More
Official Headnote: Malicious vandalism in violation of section 594(a) of the California Penal Code with a gang enhancement under section 186.22(d) of the California Penal Code, which requires that the underlying offense be committed for the benefit of... Read More
"Aquino offered evidence that MS-13 subsequently killed his cousin, Vidal, and had previously killed his uncle, both of whom were members of Mara 18. We cannot agree with the Government’s characterization of this evidence as describing nothing... Read More
"To permanently stem this flow of children, we must address the complex root causes of violence in Honduras, as well as the demand for illegal drugs in the United States that is fueling that violence. In the meantime, however, we must recognize this... Read More
A Pulitzer Prize winning author who followed the treacherous trip of a young Honduran boy to the United States said many of the children crossing the border today are refugees and should be treated as such. Sonia Nazario, who won the Pulitzer for a 2002... Read More