With pressure from both advocates and members of Congress mounting over the past several weeks, immigration officials announced yesterday plans to release at least six immigrant mothers from a Texas detention facility. “The women now eligible for bond had previous requests for release denied by U.S. Immigration and Customs...
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Yesterday, in the U.S. Senate, a subcommittee led by Alabama Senator Richard Shelby voted to block the Obama Administration’s request to ensure that children fleeing violence in Central America have access to legal representation when they receive their day in immigration court. While subcommittee votes don’t usually generate a...
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Today, Senate Democrats sent a letter to DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson urging him to “end the practice of presumptive detention of families.” “While these mothers and children wait their turn before an immigration judge, there are many alternatives to detention that are more humane, cost-efficient, and will keep families...
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Elise Foley from Huffington Post reports on the case of an Honduran teenager, who fled gang violence, settled in with a new family – and is now being forced back to Honduras by the Department of Homeland Security: In 2011, a then-14-year-old orphan fled Honduras for the U.S., fearful...
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Opponents of immigration reform were quick to pounce on recent statistics that 70% of adults with children who made it to the border and were then released pending a court date, failed to report to immigration offices. But that doesn’t mean they’re missing their court dates, as the Wall Street Journal...
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Commentators are outraged at this story that appeared yesterday in the Boston Globe, about instances where the US is allowing certain immigrant parents to stay — but deporting their children. In moves that underscore how completely dysfunctional the US immigration system is, the US has for years granted temporary protected...
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The Daily Show’s news correspondent Michael Che sat down with one of the mainstays of the anti-immigrant movement — Jim Gilchrist of the Minutemen — in a segment that aired last night. As Gilchrist talked about the children at the border in terms of invasion and apocalypse, Che had...
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Yesterday, forty national faith leaders delivered a succinct, one-sentence message to President Obama urging him not to compromise the lives of children fleeing violence in any future executive action. With new reports of Honduran children being killed following their deportation from the US and Mexico, the short message underscores...
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As we’ve written about many times before, the US response to children fleeing violence and arriving at our borders has not always been welcoming. In fact, the latest trend among opponents of immigration reform has been to document what “happens” after these children are processed and sent to temporary...
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Tens of thousands of children have fled Central America, seeking safe haven from gang warfare and violence in neighboring countries and in the United States. Unfortunately, the US response to those who have arrived at our borders has been less than welcoming, and children have been screamed at by...
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