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Justice officials express new concerns about Alabama immigration law


By Terry Frieden, CNN Justice Producer

updated 9:53 AM EST, Tue November 29, 2011


STORY HIGHLIGHTS
"The more we hear, the more concerned we are," says a federal official
Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez cites reports of school absences
He said some employers may be using the law as an excuse not to pay workers

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Top Justice Department officials met with Alabama business groups and community leaders in Birmingham Monday to express concern about what the officials consider the negative implications of the state's new immigration law.

"The more we hear, the more concerned we are about the impact of Alabama's immigration law on a wide range of federal rights," said Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez, the chief federal enforcer of civil rights.

Perez cited continuing reports of children dropping out of school or being chronically absent from school, possibly as a result of their immigration status.

The 39 school districts for which he requested detailed enrollment and attendance data are cooperating with the federal officials, Perez said.

He warned, however, that other problems have surfaced, raising concerns. He said certain employers may be using the law as an excuse not to pay workers. He said he is receiving reports of racial profiling in which individuals are "being stopped simply because of their appearance."


Alabama's immigration law under fire


Alabama's immigration battle not over yet
Perez also said Justice officials are increasingly concerned that some victims of domestic violence are being driven further underground because they no longer see courts as a safe haven.

The assistant attorney general also noted concern about access to housing free from discrimination.

Assistant Attorney General Tony West, who leads the Justice Department's Civil Division, told Alabama community leaders he will continue to challenge state immigration laws that preempt federal authority to enforce federal statutes.

"In bringing these lawsuits the Justice Department isn't just trying to vindicate an important legal principle called preemption; we're also deeply concerned about the real-world implications a patchwork of state immigration laws has," West said.

To date, the Justice Department has challenged immigrations laws passed in Arizona, Alabama, South Carolina and Utah. All are currently before federal courts.

West said the Justice Department continues to review state immigration-laws passed in Indiana and Georgia, but has not yet filed suit against those

 

U.S. to Review Cases Seeking Deportations

By JULIA PRESTON

Published: November 17, 2011

 

 

 

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The Department of Homeland Security will begin a review on Thursday of all deportation cases before the immigration courts and start a nationwide training program for enforcement agents and prosecuting lawyers, with the goal of speeding deportations of convicted criminals and halting those of many illegal immigrants with no criminal record.

 

 

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The accelerated triage of the court docket — about 300,000 cases — is intended to allow severely overburdened immigration judges to focus on deporting foreigners who committed serious crimes or pose national security risks, Homeland Security officials said. Taken together, the review and the training, which will instruct immigration agents on closing deportations that fall outside the department’s priorities, are designed to bring sweeping changes to the immigration courts and to enforcement strategies of field agents nationwide.

According to a document obtained by The New York Times, Homeland Security officials will issue guidelines on Thursday to begin the training program and the first stages of the court caseload review. Both are efforts to put into practice a policy senior officials had announced in June, to encourage immigration agents to use prosecutorial discretion when deciding whether to pursue a deportation.

The policy, described in a June 17 memorandum by John Morton, the director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, suggested that the Obama administration would scale back deportations of illegal immigrants who were young students, military service members, elderly people or close family of American citizens, among others. While the announcement raised excited expectations in Latino and other immigrant communities, until now the policy has been applied spottily, deepening disillusionment with President Obama in those communities.

The Obama administration has removed high numbers of illegal immigrants, nearly 400,000 in each of the last three years. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Mr. Morton said those numbers would not decrease, but they wanted agents and courts to focus on deporting the worst offenders, including national security risks, criminal convicts and those who repeatedly violate immigration laws. Many immigration offenses, including being present in the United States without legal status, are civil violations; they are not crimes.

Administration officials have flexibility to transform immigration court procedures because those courts are part of the Justice Department in the executive branch, not part of the federal judiciary. Central to the plan is giving more power to immigration agency lawyers — the equivalent of prosecutors in the federal court system — to decide which deportation cases to press.

“We are empowering the attorneys nationally to make them more like federal prosecutors, who decide what cases to bring,” said a senior Homeland Security official, who asked not to be named because the policy has not been formally announced.

In the first stage of the court docket review, which will begin on Thursday, immigration agency lawyers will examine all new cases just arriving in immigration courts nationwide, with an eye to closing cases that are low-priority according to the Morton memorandum, before they advance into the court system.

At the same time, immigrants identified as high priority will see their cases put onto an expedited calendar for judges to order their deportations, Homeland Security officials said.

The goal is to “reduce inefficiencies that delay the removal of criminal aliens and other priority cases by preventing new low priority cases from clogging the immigration court dockets,” the Homeland Security document said. Officials said the first stage was an “initial test run” that would be completed by Jan. 13.

The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a research group that analyzes immigration court data, reported in September that the backlog before the nation’s 59 immigration courts was at “a new all-time high.”

In a second stage, to begin Dec. 4, the Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department will start six-week pilot projects in the immigration courts in Baltimore and Denver, in which teams of immigration agency lawyers will comb through the current dockets of those courts. They will focus on cases of immigrants who have been arrested for deportation, but who are not being held in detention while their cases proceed.

Immigrants who are deemed to qualify for prosecutorial discretion will have their cases closed, but not dismissed, officials said. That means that agents could re-open the deportations at any time if the immigrants commit a crime or a new immigration violation. Immigrants whose cases are closed will be allowed to remain in the United States, but they will be in legal limbo, without any positive immigration status.

The pilot projects will also end on Jan. 13, and then officials will decide how to expand the program to all immigration courts nationwide early next year.

Also on Thursday, Homeland Security officials will introduce a training program based on scenarios that could arise in enforcement operations, which every Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent must complete by mid-January. The goal is to instruct agents, many of whom have expressed doubts about Mr. Morton’s policy, to apply the prosecutorial discretion criteria.

The approach of deporting some illegal immigrants but not others requires a deep change in the mentality of the agents, who have long operated on the principle that any violation was good cause for deportation.

Republicans in Congress have denounced the new deportations policy, accusing the Obama administration of trying an end-run around Congress by granting de facto amnesty to illegal immigrants. Representative Lamar Smith, a Republican from Texas who is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said the prosecutorial discretion policy had the “specific purpose of overruling or preventing orders of removal for illegal immigrants.”

Administration officials said they would proceed case by case using existing legal authorities, and had no plans to exempt any large group of illegal immigrants from deportation.

 

 

 

¿Quién merece una suspensión de  deportación?

El abogado de inmigración Enrique González habló sobre la suspensión de algunas deportaciones.

Fuente: Despierta América / Univision





El anuncio de Obama sobre política de deportaciones no se trata de un programa de Amnistía


La Asociación Americana de Abogados de Inmigración (AILA) advirtió a la población inmigrante indocumentada que la reciente medida adoptada por el gobierno federal y que afecta la política de deportaciones "no se trata de una amnistía", y recomendó estar atentos a posibles estafas por parte de tramitadores o notarios que realizan trámites no autorizados.

La semana pasada el gobierno anunció su intención de aplazar por tiempo indefinido la deportación de ciertos inmigrantes sin autorización para estar en el país, que tengan una orden de deportación vigente y que carezcan de antecedentes penales, quienes podrían tener la posibilidad de solicitar un permiso de trabajo siempre y cuando cumplan con una serie de otros requisitos.

El gobierno también advirtió que la medida es discrecional, afecta o impacta a aproximadamente 300 mil indocumentados en proceso de deportación y que cada caso será revisado minuciosamente por las Cortes de Inmigración.

Pero AILA apuntó que no existe una manera "segura" de calificar para ser beneficiario del anuncio hecho por el Departamento de Seguridad Nacional (DHS), y que tampoco existe una garantía de que un caso será considerado por las autoridades para ser revisado.

Consulte un abogado con licencia

Añadió que antes de dar un paso, los inmigrantes que crean que pueden acceder al beneficio deben primero consultar con un abogado autorizado con licencia para ejercer la ley de inmigración estadounidense, y que por nada se ponga en contacto con las autoridades de inmigración, porque "puede ser arrestado y puesto en proceso de deportación".

"Sólo un abogado de inmigración con licencia para ejercer puede evaluar su caso y brindarle un consejo legal adecuado, e informarle acerca de sus derechos", subrayó AILA.

En el caso de los notarios o tramitadores migratorios, AILA dijo que se debe "tener cuidado" y advirtió que el anuncio en el cambio de política sobre deportaciones se pueden generar situaciones de estafas y diversos otros tipos de fraudes notariales que afectan severamente a la comunidad inmigrante de Estados Unidos.

En Estados Unidos viven alrededor de 11 millones de indocumentados, según datos del DHS y del Pew Hispanic Center (un grupo de Washington que estudia los movimientos migratorios). Unos 300 mil de ellos, que tienen órdenes de deportación reunirían los requisitos para que una corte de inmigración revise sus casos.

No es una "amnistía"

El anuncio del gobierno "no se trata de un programa de Amnistía, no otorga estatus legal de permanencia a ningún indocumentado y los extranjeros sin papeles no deben inscribirse en las oficinas del servicio de inmigración para calificar a algún tipo de beneficio", dijo AILA.

La Asociación de Abogados de Inmigración reiteró además que el anuncio hecho por la Administración la semana pasada enfatizó que no proporciona ninguna vía para que los indocumentados presenten una solicitud de autorización de empleo (permiso de trabajo) ni tampoco representa una nueva forma para quedarse legalmente en Estados Unidos.

El anuncio solamente aplica o afecta a aquellos casos que ya están en el sistema (de las cortes de inmigración), tienen una orden de deportación, carecen de antecedentes criminales, no representan una amenaza para la seguridad nacional y que por el elevado número de casos existentes (unos 300 mil) obstruyen los procesos.

AILA explicó además que con la nueva política el gobierno anunció la creación de un grupo de trabajo integrado por funcionarios de alto nivel de los departamentos de Seguridad Nacional (DHS) y Justicia, quienes procederán a la revisión de todos los casos pendientes ante las cortes de inmigración y tendrán autoridad para cerrar o cancelar aquellos que califiquen como de "baja prioridad".

No hay nada escrito

Los casos calificados como de "alta prioridad” (por el tipo de delitos que aparezcan en la hoja de antecedentes) serán procesados de forma inmediata. Aunque el comunicado del 18 de agosto provee una lista genérica de ejemplos donde se debe ejercer discreción favorable para cerrar un caso, AILA advierte que no existe ningún tipo de garantía respecto a qué tipo de casos pudieran ser cerrados ya que dicha decisión esta a la discreción del oficial particular asignado a cada caso. "Nadie puede opinar al respecto; sólo las autoridades de inmigración pueden tomar tomarán esa decisión", escribió AILA en una lista de recomendaciones.

AILA dijo que el gobierno de Obama deberá desarrollar directrices para que funcionarios y agentes del servicio de inmigración (USCIS), la agencia encargadas de vigilar las fronteras (CBP) y la agencia que ejecuta las deportaciones (ICE) sepan qué casos serán puestos en procesos de deportación y cuáles no, así como definir cómo y en qué casos se usará la discreción.

Advirtió incluso que el anuncio hecho por el DHS el pasado 18 de agosto es premilitar y que a la fecha el gobierno no ha implementado ninguna medida, "los detalles sobre cómo funcionará el proceso de revisión o cómo un individuo puede presentar su caso para consideración todavía no han sido determinados".

Sabio consejo

"La mejor decisión por ahora es consultar con un abogado que tenga licencia del estado para ejercer la ley de inmigración. Una alternativa puede ser consultar el directorio de la Asociación Americana de Abogados de Inmigración (AILA)", dijo la entidad.

En cuanto a solicitudes para presentar un caso, AILA dijo que "no hay no hay ningún formulario" y tampoco “ninguna cuota que pagar”, y que próximamente el gobierno irá dando a conocer las formas en cómo se deberá proceder.

Recomendó visitar la página de la Oficina de Ciudadanía y Servicios de Inmigración (USCIS) y el sitio de AILA (www.aila.org) para encontrar un abogado que lo represente o más información sobre el tema.


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© 2011 Univision Communications Inc.
* Esta información tiene el único fin de educar e informar. No tome acción alguna o deje de tomarla sobre la base de este contenido. No le recomendamos abstenerse de pedir consejo a un abogado. Por favor revise las Declaraciones Generales del Portal de Univision

• by Julian Aguilar in the Texas Herald
• 9/22/2011

A task force created to help overhaul a controversial deportation program instead witnessed five of its 19 members resign last week, another sign the Obama administration’s immigration policy remains politically problematic for him at a time when courting Latinos is crucial to his re-election.

On Friday, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Task Force on Secure Communities released its report evaluating the interagency operation that determines if immigrants arrested by local police are deportable under federal immigration laws. The task force recommended that the federal government re-evaluate its mission to focus deportation efforts on criminal aliens, not illegal immigrants arrested for minor traffic violations or noncriminal misdemeanors.

Homeland Security created the task force in June in response to widespread criticism of the Secure Communities program. Launched in 2008, the Secure Communities program was touted as a way to ferret out and deport criminal aliens here in the U.S. legally and illegally.

Immigrant and civil rights’ groups have accused the government of misleading the public about the program’s intent and say it has been used far more broadly to deport immigrants. Critics of Secure Communities say it has helped the Obama administration ramp up the number of deportations and is part of the reason why the government is currently on pace to prosecute more illegal immigrants in three years for illegal entry or illegal reentry than President George W. Bush did in his eight-year term.