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February 06, 2025

FLASH: Judge Coughenour grants Preliminary Injunction in WA v. Trump!

Links will be posted when available.

February 06, 2025

ICE Games Google to Create a "Mirage of Mass Deportations"

Dara Kerr, The Guardian, Feb. 6, 2025 "US immigration is gaming Google to create a mirage of mass deportations ... Thousands of press releases about decade-old enforcement actions topped search results, all updated with a timestamp from after Trump’s inauguration ... In almost every state, at least one press release from ICE’s website appeared in Google’s top results. Nebraska, for example, surfaced...

February 06, 2025

Expert: Trump Can't Deport Americans to El Salvador

PHILIP MARCELO, MARCOS ALEMÁN, Associated Press, February 4, 2025 "El Salvador has offered to take in people deported from the U.S. for entering the country illegally and to house some of the country’s violent criminals — even if they’re American citizens. ... [A]ccording to Stephen Yale-Loehr, an immigration law expert and retired Cornell Law School professor, “So, just as President...

February 05, 2025

TRAC is Back!

tracreports.org "Our trac.syr.edu public website has migrated to a new home. We have migrated the main areas, including all of our immigration reports and immigration data tools that were on our public website, but we are still working on migrating some areas which prove to be more challenging. These will take a bit more time to get up and running properly. So expect to encounter broken links, and some things not...

February 05, 2025

The Most Indefensible Aspects of DOJ’s Briefs in the Birthright Citizenship Cases

Prof. Marty Lederman, Feb. 4, 2025 "The function of this article ... is merely to draw attention to two remarkable things about DOJ’s argument on the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment, both of which demonstrate how seriously the Department’s professional standards have already been compromised in the first two weeks of the administration. DOJ’s Failure to Square Its Reading With Binding...

February 05, 2025

Nationwide Injunction Blocks Trump's Birthright Citizenship EO

Zach Schonfeld, The Hill, Feb. 5, 2025 "A federal judge Wednesday furthered a block of President Trump’s executive order preventing the children of migrants without legal status from receiving birthright citizenship. U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman at the conclusion of a hearing in Greenbelt said Trump’s order “runs counter to our nation’s 250-year history of citizenship by birth”...

February 04, 2025

Expert: ICE May Target Anyone, Not Just "Criminals"

Marnie Eisenstadt, syracuse.com, Feb. 03, 2025 "The caravan was spotted first at the Byrne Dairy: a silver SUV and two black ones. Inside rode a team of at least five armed agents, wearing vests that said “ICE” and “HSI.” They spent the day knocking on doors throughout the Hispanic neighborhoods in Geneva, a small Finger Lakes city that is home to hundreds of Mexican and Guatemalan immigrants...

February 02, 2025

Noem Set to Revoke TPS for 300K+ Venezuelans

New York Times, Feb. 2, 2025 (gift link) "The Trump administration has revoked Temporary Protected Status, or T.P.S., for more than 300,000 Venezuelans in the United States, leaving the population vulnerable to potential deportation in the coming months, according to government documents obtained by The New York Times. ... This time, the administration has decided to make the changes more immediate. Those under...

February 01, 2025

Immigration Economics

My friend Prof. Byron Gangnes just gave a talk. Here are his findings.

February 01, 2025

DACA Discrimination Lawsuit Settled

MALDEF, Jan. 27, 2025 "A federal judge granted final approval Thursday of a class-action settlement between First Tech Credit Union and recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and other immigrants who were denied full consideration for credit because of their immigration status. MALDEF (Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund) represents DACA recipients and other immigrants who...

January 31, 2025

ICE Arrests, Detains American Citizens...For Speaking Spanish

Chris Walker, Truthout, Jan. 30, 2025 "A family of U.S. citizens in Milwaukee was recently detained by U.S. officials who questioned their immigration status after hearing them speak Spanish — the latest incident of racial profiling amid the Trump administration’s anti-immigration crackdown across the country. A relative of the family told reporters that his detained family members were born in Puerto...

January 31, 2025

ANOTHER GOP PURGE OF BIA JUDGES AS TRUMP REMOVES AT LEAST 9 GARLAND APPOINTEES

Hon. Paul W. Schmidt, Jan. 30, 2025 " Courtside has learned that the following eight Garland-appointed BIA Appellate Immigration Judges have been “reassigned” to staff positions: Geller, LeMelle, Kludt, Reilly, Brown, Nahas, Clark, and Borkowski. A ninth, unidentified AIJ was placed on “administrative leave.” The reassignments of these key quasi-judicial officials appears to be related to...

January 31, 2025

Round Table Pushes Back Against EOIR LOP Termination

Round Table, Jan. 30, 2025 "...We are greatly concerned with the Department of Justice’s sudden termination of EOIR’s Legal Orientation Program (LOP). The LOP was created over 20 years ago, under President George W. Bush, with bipartisan support from Congress. In our many decades of experience on the bench, we found the LOP to contribute considerably to the efficiency of the detained Immigration Courts...

January 30, 2025

Experts: Trump Team Honing "Travel Ban" Chops

Nicole Narea, Vox News, Jan. 30, 2025 "Within days of taking office in 2017, President Donald Trump implemented a blanket ban on entry from seven Muslim-majority countries. It was met with furious pushback, public outcry, and a string of defeats in court. This time around, despite signing an initial barrage of executive orders, Trump has not implemented a travel ban. But that doesn’t mean it’s not coming...

January 30, 2025

Unpacking President Trump’s New Immigration Orders: A Road Map for Mobility Professionals

Angelo A. Paparelli, Jan. 29, 2025 "On January 20, 2025, President Trump issued 26 Executive Orders and additional actions focused on immigration enforcement, with significant impacts on legal, employment-based immigration. The directives include stricter vetting processes, potential delays in visa processing, and heightened scrutiny for foreign workers, especially those from countries facing visa bans. This vetting...

January 30, 2025

Should Trump’s Lawyers Implementing Policies That Hurt Immigrants be Concerned About Violating Their Ethical Obligations?

Cyrus D. Mehta and Kaitlyn Box, Jan. 28, 2025 "On January 23, 2025, Acting Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Benjamine C. Huffman issued a memorandum entitled “Guidance Regarding How to Exercise Enforcement Discretion”, which directs ICE to take the following action: (1) For any alien DHS is aware of who is amenable to expedited removal but to whom expedited removal has not been...

January 28, 2025

ICE Arrests Asylum Applicant With Work Permit, Ankle Monitor at Church; Quakers File Suit

WSB-TV, Jan. 28, 2025 "Kenia Colindres thought she’d be safe going to church like she did with her family every Sunday. However, this past Sunday, her life changed when US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrested her husband, Wilson Rogelio Velasquez Cruz, during service at Iglesia Fuente de Vida in Tucker." Mark Wingfield, Jan. 27, 2025 "One day after federal immigration agents...

January 27, 2025

More Birthright Citizenship News

Cyrus D. Mehta and Kaitlyn Box "On January 20, 2025, Inauguration Day, Donald Trump signed an executive order entitled “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship”, which interprets the language “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” in the Fourteenth Amendment to mean that U.S. citizenship does not extend to individuals born in the United States: 1. when that person’s...

January 27, 2025

"The Sheriff Grows Fat"

“In 1903 a journalist for Collier’s magazine wrote, “The sheriff grows fat on this sort of boarding house and is eager to get all the Chinese boarders he can find….[N]ine-tenths of the $4 per week he gets in clear profit.” The article was about the fact that the federal government then paid New York county jails $4 per week to imprison accused Chinese immigration violators, caught attempting...

January 26, 2025

DOJ Blocks Immigration Court LOPs

Laura Romero, ABC News, Jan. 23, 2025 "The Department of Justice, under new leadership following the inauguration of Donald Trump, has told legal service providers who receive federal funding to stop providing legal orientation and other work intended to support immigrants at immigration courts. In a memo obtained by ABC News, the DOJ ordered all such legal providers on Wednesday to "stop work immediately"...

January 26, 2025

"Unfathomably Cruel" Actions by Trump Threaten Refugees

US refugee group funding suspended under Trump aid pause - Ted Hesson, Reuters, Jan. 25, 2025 Exclusive: Flights halted for Afghans approved for special US visas, advocate and official say - Jonathan Landay, Reuters, Jan. 25, 2025 IRAP Explainer : "IRAP has written an explainer providing an in-depth overview of the recent suspension of the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) following the January 20, 2025...

January 25, 2025

Joint Statement From Thirteen State Attorneys General: State And Local Law Enforcement Cannot Be Commandeered For Federal Immigration Enforcement

Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell, Jan. 23, 2025 "Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell, along with the attorneys general of California, New York, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Vermont, Minnesota, and Washington, today issued a joint statement addressing a memorandum from a Trump political appointee at the U.S. Department of Justice addressing...

January 25, 2025

Expert on Trump Deportations: "It's Not Going To Be Millions"

Nicole Narea, Vox, Jan. 25, 2025 “We’re not going to see a significant increase in actual deportations this year, even with the Trump administration’s best efforts, simply for logistical and financial reasons,” said Stephen Yale-Loehr , a [former] professor of immigration law practice at Cornell Law School. “There will be some increase in actual deportations this year, but it’s not...

January 24, 2025

Newark Mayor: ICE Raided Business Without a Warrant, Detained U.S. Citizens

Steve Strunsky, NJ.com, Jan. 24, 2025 "U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents carried out a raid on a Newark business Thursday, detaining non-citizens and citizens alike, the city’s mayor and the agency confirmed. ... Newark Mayor Ras J. Baraka issued a statement late Thursday afternoon denouncing the raid as an “egregious act” conducted without a warrant and in violation of the Fourth...

January 23, 2025

Hospitals Say They Won’t Turn Patients Away

Vanessa G. Sánchez, Daniel Chang, KFF Health News, January 23, 2025 "California is advising health care providers not to write down patients’ immigration status on bills and medical records and telling them they don’t have to assist federal agents in arrests. Some Massachusetts hospitals and clinics are posting privacy rights in emergency and waiting rooms in Spanish and other languages. ......