Austin Fisher, Source NM, Dec. 8, 2023 "When human waste flooded part of a U.S. immigration prison in central New Mexico last month, guards ordered incarcerated people to clean it up with their...
The Lever, Dec. 8, 2023 "As the country’s immigration agency ponders a significant expansion of its vast, troubled immigrant surveillance regime, private prison companies are telling investors...
Seth Freed Wessler, New York Times, Dec. 6, 2023 "People intercepted at sea, even in U.S. waters, have fewer rights than those who come by land. “Asylum does not apply at sea,” a Coast...
Alina Hernandez, Tulane University, Dec. 5, 2023 "A new report co-authored by Tulane Law’s Immigrant Rights Clinic shows that more than 100,000 abused or abandoned immigrant youths are in...
Bipartisan Policy Center, Dec. 5, 2023 "In this week’s episode, BPC host Jack Malde chats with four distinguished immigration scholars at Cornell Law School on their new white paper “Immigration...
Phaedra Haywood, Santa Fe New Mexican, Oct. 28, 2023
"A Santa Fe County church known for its use of a hallucinogenic tea has filed a federal lawsuit against the Homeland Security secretary, alleging the agency’s failure to process immigration forms for the group’s leader violates his religious rights. Jose Carlos Garcia oversees nine U.S. congregations of Centro Espírita Beneficente União do Vegetal — better known as UDV. His official title is general representative mestre, according to the complaint, filed in U.S. District Court. The job requires Garcia to attend meetings, officiate religious services and mentor lower-level leaders around the world, the complaint states. “It is of essential importance to [Garcia’s] free exercise of religion that he be able to travel freely to attend to these essential religious activities,” the complaint states. It alleges U.S. Customs and Border Protection recently has been “unnecessarily confronting and delaying” Garcia’s and his wife’s entry to the U.S. at airports and demanding to see reentry permits. The Garcias applied for reentry permits Jan. 3, the complaint says, but the petitions are still pending. The permits allow permanent residents to return to the U.S. after traveling abroad for up to two years without obtaining a visa. Recently, the pair were told they might not be allowed back in the U.S. without the permits if they leave again. The couple, who have been permanent residents of the U.S. since December 2019, are among many people in recent years who have asked the U.S. District Court in Albuquerque for help getting immigration paperwork processed in a timely manner by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Dozens of similar complaints have been filed since 2021, according to online court records. Court filings show voluntary dismissal of many of the cases, indicating they might have been resolved within months. Among the complaints: