My friend Morgan Smith wrote this note about the Rio Grande in July 2024. Learn more about Morgan here , here and here .
J.A.M. v. USA "The Court holds that Oscar is entitled to a much lower, but still notable award of $175,000 because he was somewhat older at the time of the incident, was detained for about half...
Path2Papers, July 17, 2024 " What are the policy changes the Biden administration is implementing regarding temporary work visas? On June 18, 2024, the Biden administration announced a policy...
DOJ, July 18, 2024 "The Justice Department has filed a lawsuit against Southwest Key Programs Inc. (Southwest Key), a Texas-based nonprofit that provides housing to unaccompanied children who are...
Jeanne Kuang, CalMatters, July 18, 2024 "Even with all the industries where Californians went on strike during last year’s “hot labor summer,” some of the most active sites of...
United States Senate, PERMANENT SUBCOMMITTEE ON INVESTIGATIONS, Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Aug. 15, 2018 - "Since 2015, the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations has conducted extensive oversight of federal government programs designed to care for children who enter the United States without a parent or legal guardian and ensure they are not trafficked or abused. Although the Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) and Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) have taken incremental steps toward improving the care of these children—called unaccompanied alien children (“UACs”) under federal law—they still do not take sufficient responsibility for guarding their safety and ensuring they appear at their immigration court proceedings.
Most significantly, no agency claims any legal responsibility for the children’s well-being once HHS places them with sponsors—including sponsors who are not their parents or legal guardians—and no agency makes any effort to ensure UACs placed with sponsors appear at their immigration court proceedings. And while DHS and HHS recently completed a Joint Concept of Operations (“JCO”)—some 17 months after it was due—the JCO only addresses current policy and fails to address any of the recommendations for improving the UAC system offered by the Subcommittee or the Government Accountability Office (“GAO”). Thus the JCO is largely a recitation of the status quo, and does little to offer hope that federal agencies are working effectively to improve UAC safety and ensure that the immigration system is functioning properly.
HHS, DHS, and the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) have taken some modest steps in the right direction, but major deficiencies persist that leave the children at significant risk for trafficking and abuse and undermine our immigration system. This report documents the Subcommittee’s findings over the past two and a half years since its initial hearing and report on UACs."