9/11

 

Fear of Another 9/11 Continues to Drive US Immigration Policy 20 Years Later

The September 11th terrorist attacks not only led to the tragic deaths of 2,977 people, they fundamentally changed the nature of immigration law and policy in the United States.

Since 9/11, the U.S. government has viewed every non-U.S. citizen seeking to enter the country as a potential threat. Foreign tourists and students, temporary workers, permanent immigrants, refugees, asylum seekers, and undocumented immigrants are all now evaluated first and foremost through the lens of national security.

The goal of preventing foreign terrorists from ever again mounting an attack within the United States is certainly understandable. But politicians have used the fear of another terrorist attack to justify harsh immigration policies that stereotype and dehumanize any non-citizen who wants to visit, work, or live in the United States. This often comes at great cost to civil liberties and with little value to counterintelligence. And while the anti-immigrant policies of the Trump administration were particularly egregious in this regard, no presidential administration of the past 20 years has managed to move beyond the fear-driven policies of the post-9/11 era.

The single-minded focus on security after 9/11 was exemplified best by the decision in 2002 to dissolve the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and assign its functions to the newly created Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The primary mission of DHS was to prevent another terrorist attack on U.S. soil.

Immigration Prevention

 California Law Would Prevent Transfers From Local Law Enforcement to ICE Custody

Proposed legislation in California that would further limit the state’s involvement in immigration detention has made progress toward becoming law. The VISION Act would prevent transfers to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody of people who are released from state or local custody. The bill passed the state assembly in June and is now expected to pass the state Senate in the coming days.

If passed, the law would ensure that people granted release from criminal custody are free to return to their community. Each year, 1,500 immigrants who earn their release from California prisons are transferred to ICE custody. The law would apply to any release, regardless of whether it is due to a completed sentence, a parole grant, dropped charges, or a judge’s order.

80% of California voters supports ending these transfers, which until now have not been covered by the state’s “sanctuary policy.” In 2017, California passed the California Values Act, which limited law enforcement cooperation with ICE. However, amendments added to the bill made exceptions for people who had one of 800 specific convictions and for people in the state prison system.

ICE frequently issues requests—called detainers—to law enforcement, asking them to hold individuals that ICE believes to be deportable until the agency can take custody of them. A person could be deportable because they are undocumented or because they have committed a crime that violates the requirements of their immigration status, such as a green card. If law enforcement cooperates with a detainer, they hold the person up to 48 hours past the time when they would have otherwise released them.

Public Defenders

 New Illinois Law Allows Public Defenders to Represent Immigrants Facing Deportation

Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker signed a law in August that would allow the Cook County Public Defender to represent immigrants in the Chicago immigration court. The law is part of a movement to expand access to legal representation for people facing deportation. It comes on the heels of another pro-immigrant Illinois law that disallows immigration detention in the state.

A person charged with a jailable crime has the right to a free attorney if they cannot afford one. Often that free lawyer is a public defender paid for by the state. But a person facing deportation does not have a right to a free lawyer in most cases. If an immigrant cannot afford a lawyer and cannot find a legal services provider who is able to take his case, he will have to fight against deportation alone. This involves navigating laws that are often described as “byzantine” and as complex as the U.S. tax code.  

Having a lawyer can mean the difference between getting legal status in the United States and being forced to leave. A 2015 study showed that for nondetained immigrants, people with lawyers were nearly five times more likely to obtain immigration relief than those without (63% of those with representation obtain relief versus 13% of those without representation obtain relief). Among detained immigrants, people with lawyers were twice as likely to obtain relief than without lawyers (49% of those with representation are able to obtain relief whereas only 23% of those without representation are able to obtain relief).

Population Growth

 

People of Color Made Up All of the United States’ Population Growth in the Last 10 Years

Demographers have known for decades that the United States is well on its way to becoming a predominantly multi-racial and multi-ethnic society. New data from the 2020 Census reveals how rapidly that transformation is taking place.

Increasing numbers of people identify racially as either Asian or multi-racial. Growing numbers of people identify ethnically as Latino (which can include people of any race). Meanwhile, the number who identify as non-Latino white-only has begun to decrease for the first time in U.S. history.

These trends should serve as a warning to politicians who rely on racist and xenophobic rhetoric to exploit the unease that many native-born, non-Latino whites feel about these demographic changes. Politicians who encourage fear of immigrants and minorities are playing to a shrinking base. Meanwhile, the number of Americans who come from minority or immigrant backgrounds continues to grow.

(The Census Bureau cautions that some of the differences between the results of the 2010 census and the 2020 census reflect improvements that were made in how race and ethnicity were measured in the 2020 census.)

The new data, as summarized by the Census Bureau and analyzed by The Brookings Institution, highlights several important demographic trends.

Ending Immigration Detention?

 

New Illinois Law Expected to Go Furthest Toward Ending Immigration Detention in the US

A new Illinois law limiting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention is expected to effectively end detention in the state by next year. The law goes further than those that have limited detention in other states.

On August 2, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker signed SB 667, known as the Illinois Way Forward Act. The law prohibits local governments from signing new contracts with ICE and requires existing contracts to end by 2022. All three detention centers in Illinois are county jails that contract beds to ICE, which will no longer be allowed. The law still permits ICE to operate its own detention centers, but it does not currently have any in the state.

ICE uses several types of contracts to detain the tens of thousands of people in its custody around the country. Most people in ICE detention are held in facilities owned by private prison companies or local governments. ICE owns a small number of facilities directly.

Other states have taken steps to end detention but will do so on a longer timeline. In 2019, California’s AB 32 similarly ordered the phasing out of private detention. However, ICE quickly secured long-term renewals of four contracts before the bill went into effect, allowing these facilities to continue operating through 2034.

Pull Over?

Texas’ Order to Pull Over Vehicles Carrying Migrants Likely Violates the Constitution, Judge Rules

A federal judge on Tuesday dealt an important blow to Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s flawed plan to stop migrants from entering and traveling through Texas.

Governor Abbott issued an executive order on July 28 that prohibited anyone other than law enforcement officials from transporting people who had been detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). The order also authorized Texas Department of Public Safety officers to stop anyone they believed was violating this order and impound their vehicle.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) swiftly sued the State of Texas to stop the order from taking effect. U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone’s decision granting a temporary restraining order (TRO) states that the DOJ is likely to win the lawsuit that seeks to revoke Gov. Abbott’s executive order because it conflicts with federal law and violates the U.S. Constitution by regulating the operations of the federal government. The TRO, which stops Texas from implementing the order while the lawsuit continues, will be in effect at least until August 13. The parties will then go back to court for a more extensive presentation of the facts. But this decision does not bode well for Gov. Abbott.

In its complaint, the DOJ explains exactly how Gov. Abbott’s order conflicts with the federal government’s operations at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Congress has given the federal government—not the states—the power to oversee the administration of federal immigration laws. This power includes the authority to arrest, detain, remove—and when needed—transport noncitizens.

In-Depth Look at ICE

 

Government Documents Provide In-Depth Look at ICE’s Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic

In response to a lawsuit and a successful motion for a preliminary injunction, the Council and the Immigrant Legal Defense (ILD) secured multiple productions of government documents that illustrate ICE’s chaotic response to COVID-19 in ICE detention. The documents also detail widespread changes ICE was forced to implement following a court order in Fraihat v. ICE, a case challenging detention conditions and lack of medical treatment for individuals in ICE jails around the country. Following an injunction in Fraihat, ICE was forced to address various deficiencies in its response to COVID-19.  

The records obtained through FOIA demonstrate ICE’s confusion in its early response to the COVID-19 outbreak. For example, correspondence from the Committee on Appropriations to DHS officials demonstrates the Committee’s uncertainty and concern about ICE’s slow response at the outset of the pandemic. The documents also provide insight into the agency’s decision to continue removing individuals from the United States during the pandemic.

Also among the documents is pre-pandemic agency guidance regarding outbreaks of infectious diseases, records depicting ICE’s early response to COVID-19, and the pervasive impact of the pandemic on ICE operations and staff.

Finally, records reveal ICE’s expansive overhaul of its own COVID-19 response following the court’s injunction in Fraihat v. ICE. In Fraihat, a federal judge issued an order on April 20, 2020 requiring ICE to establish a process to identify and track people in ICE custody with relevant “Risk Factors”; conduct custody redeterminations for any detained people with Risk Factors; update internal ICE protocols for responding to the pandemic; and ensure that the order be implemented at every detention facility in the United States, among other actions.