Gabe Ortiz

Affected individuals and groups continue to demand the Biden administration and Democrats fulfill their promise to deliver legalization, on Wednesday installing hundreds of enlarged green cards in front of the U.S. Capitol. The 400 placards, which read in part “United States of America Permanent Resident,” symbolized 400,000 Temporary Protected Status (TPS) holders and families who need permanent relief.

Joe Biden’s criminal justice reform platform pledged to “end the federal government’s use of private prisons,” saying that if he were to be elected president, he would “make clear that the federal government should not use private facilities for any detention, including detention of undocumented immigrants.

The largest Latino civil rights organization in the U.S. announced last week that it’s cutting off ties with Facebook, following a recent whistleblower report confirming the social media giant intentionally puts profits over combatting the lies and hate speech rampant on its platforms. The group calls the report “the last straw.

Immigrant and Latino workers in Wisconsin plan to hold a statewide strike on Monday, Oct. 11, to both highlight the vital economic contributions of these communities and to continue calling on the Biden administration and congressional Democrats to deliver on their promise to pass a pathway to citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants.

Republican governors whose states continue to be hard hit by COVID-19 infections have been diligently working … at demonizing asylum-seekers at the southern border. Nine right-wing governors joined Gov. Greg Abbott for a photo op in south Texas on Wednesday. There, they were armed “with an array of military vehicles in the background,” USA Today reported.

A senior State Department official authored a memo slamming the continued use of the anti-asylum Title 42 policy, calling it “illegal,” “inhumane,” and “simply not worthy of this administration that I so strongly support.” The Washington Post reports that Harold Koh, who served in the Office of the Legal Adviser, left his position on Friday.

In a rare joint statement issued this week, four United Nations (U.N.) agencies appealed on “countries in the Americas” to “uphold the fundamental human rights of Haitians” and urged nations to “refrain” from deporting vulnerable people “without proper assessment of their individual protection needs.” 

“The U.N.

The Biden administration has announced a new policy that is set to provide government-funded legal help to vulnerable asylum-seeking children in a number of U.S. cities, BuzzFeed News reports. This is a significant initiative: Unlike in criminal court, people in immigration court aren’t guaranteed an attorney. This includes most unaccompanied children, who have had to appear in court alone.

New Jersey has made major steps in dismantling mass Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention in the state, most notably the new law banning new contracts. Just this month, Hudson County also said it would be ending its ICE agreement. But rather than just releasing immigrants, immigration officials have been engaged in a steady campaign of transferring them elsewhere, sometimes to remote regions, and in the dead of night. Both of the state’s U.S.

Desperate to both get through a Republican primary and not talk about his disastrous COVID-19 response, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott claimed earlier this past summer that he would finish the previous president’s stupid border wall. This week, he claimed he built it … or something he’d like to call a wall. Abbott on Tuesday touted a “steel wall” consisting of state-owned cars lined up along the Rio Grande.

In a one-page press release Friday, a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) watchdog said that U.S. Border Patrol (USBP) officials failed to conduct “regular and frequent physical checks as required” on Carlos Gregorio Hernández Vásquez, a 16-year-old Indigenous child from Guatemala who died alone while in U.S. custody in May 2019.

Last week, the Supreme Court’s right-wing justices issued a stunning, unsigned order that forces the Biden administration to revive the previous administration’s cruel and unlawful Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) policy or Remain in Mexico. Now, more than 100 organizations are calling on the Biden administration to take “all necessary legal steps” to attempt again to end the policy, including issuing a new memo.

Nearly 70 legislators led by anti-war stalwart Barbara Lee and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are calling on the Biden administration to raise the refugee cap for the 2022 fiscal year, citing “vulnerable Afghans who are in grave danger following the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan.” President Joe Biden has previously pledged to raise the cap to 125,000 in the next full fiscal year. Currently its 62,500. Legislators are calling on him to raise it to at least 200,000.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in May that the Georgia facility where immigrant women abused by a notorious gynecologist were held would be shuttered. It was a momentous victory for both immigrants and their advocates, who had been calling for the Irwin County Detention Center’s closure as part of justice for women traumatized by Dr. Mahendra Amin.

With the stroke of a pen, New Jersey has become the fifth state in the nation to severely limit or outright ban federal immigration detention. Advocates across the state (and country) celebrated when Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy on Friday signed a historic bill that bans new Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) contracts in the state and prohibits the renewal of existing agreements.

An appeals court late Thursday left in place a ruling that orders the Biden administration to restart the previous administration’s inhumane and unlawful Remain in Mexico policy. Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, appointed by the previous administration, had last week ruled in favor of a Republican-led lawsuit, though he paused his decision for seven days, and the Biden administration very quickly appealed.

Following months of pleas from advocates including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Biden administration has escalated efforts to vaccinate detained immigrants against COVID-19. CBS News reports that 22,000 people in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody have received at least one dose, “a 167% increase from early July, when 8,221 doses had been administered.

The Biden administration this week issued a directive instructing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to not target the undocumented immigrant victims of crime, barring “exceptional circumstances.”

The guidance instructs agents to refrain from sweeping up immigrants protected by special U-visas aiding the undocumented immigrant victims of crime, or are in the process of applying for one.

Following the advancement early Monday of an ambitious and historic budget resolution that includes funding for a pathway to citizenship for undocumented communities, dozens of leading organizations—including the American Federation of Teachers, MoveOn, and the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund—are calling on legislators to remain firm and ensure legalization is passed through the reconciliation process.

A new report released on the second anniversary of mass immigration raids that targeted nearly 700 poultry plant workers in Mississippi reveals that while an estimated 230 workers were deported in the aftermath of the sweeps and hundreds of others who are still here continue struggling, no high-level poultry corporation executive faced charges.

Domestic workers continue to struggle with joblessness more than a year into the novel coronavirus pandemic, new findings reveal. The survey, conducted by La Alianza for National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA) Labs, reached Spanish-speaking domestic workers over the course of July and found that nearly 30% of respondents reported a week with zero hours worked that month. That number increased compared to findings from May and June.

Democratic Sens. Sherrod Brown and Alex Padilla are leading a call urging the Labor Department to establish a much-needed permanent federal heat stress standard. Legislators say that the department had previously announced it was adding it to the spring agenda. But as record summer heat has contributed to the deaths of farmworkers, senators say the danger facing workers is “at a pressure point.

Families forcibly separated at the southern border by the previous administration have already experienced trauma on top of trauma. Being ripped apart without so much as a chance to say goodbye. The months—often years—of separation. The danger that caused them to flee their homes in the first place.

Back in 2019, Illinois became first in the nation to ban private immigration detention facilities. Now, Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker has signed into law further legislation that effectively ends immigration detention in the state. The Illinois Way Forward Act mandates local jails end their contracts with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) by next year, and prohibits the renewal of any existing agreements.

The U.S. Senate on Friday confirmed President Joe Biden’s nominee to lead U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). Ur Jaddou, a daughter of Mexican and Iraqi immigrants, becomes the first woman to head the agency, and its first Senate-confirmed director in more than two years, Roll Call reports.

The U.S. House of Representatives by an overwhelming vote of 407-16 passed bipartisan legislation that authorizes thousands more special visas for Afghan allies, and speeds up the application process. The ALLIES Act, introduced by the Honoring Our Promises Working Group last month, increases the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) cap by 8,000 visas, among a number of important provisions.

The official version of a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) watchdog report obtained by BuzzFeed News last month confirms that officials at a privately operated prison failed to provide sufficient medical attention to an immigrant experiencing chest and arm pain. While 51-year-old Anthony Jones was given medication (reportedly aspirin) and an electrocardiogram, he was not sent to a hospital.

The mainstream media has a big anti-immigrant problem. Following President Joe Biden unveiling his immigration overhaul package earlier this year, a number of major outlets quoted extremist groups on the proposal as if these organizations held any legitimacy. In one example, Media Matters found that NPR quoted or cited the groups in three different instances during a two-day period.

Attorney General Merrick Garland on Thursday restored the ability for immigration judges to press pause on the certain deportations, including cases considered low priority or where an immigrant has a petition pending and shouldn’t be deported while that’s decided. The decision, which reverses policy by Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, could significantly slash the immigration backlog, the American Immigration Lawyers Association said.

Rep. Mike Quigley of Illinois is again leading a call urging Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to end the detention of transgender people and people with HIV. A letter, addressed to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Sec. Alejandro Mayorakas and acting ICE Director Tae Johnson, is signed by a number of progressive champions and joined by nearly 70 organizations.