NIJC, Sept. 20, 2024 "The U.S. government spends over three billion a year on the largest immigration detention apparatus in the world to detain and deport people who have lived in the U.S. for...
Heritage Foundation v. DHS "In this Freedom of Information Act case, Plaintiffs seek the disclosure by the Department of Homeland Security of certain immigration records relating to the Duke of...
In pending litigation in federal district court in Alexandria, Virginia, USCIS Asylum Division Chief John L. Lafferty provided this sworn declaration dated July 26, 2024.
IRHTP, PLS, Sept. 2024 "Consistent complaints over the last twenty-five years reveal a disturbing pattern of systemic abuse and mistreatment of ICE detainees at Plymouth County Correctional Facility...
DHS, Sept. 24, 2024 "Today, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas, in consultation with Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, designated Qatar into the Visa Waiver Program (VWP)....
"The day the little girls in pink saw their cases dismissed, at the insistence of ICE and over Sims' clear frustration, most of the kids got what they asked for. In fact, after that long morning of hearings, a few lawyers mentioned how smoothly their cases had gone, and a couple wondered whether the presence of two reporters played a role. A reporter from The Dallas Morning News had been in the gallery that morning too, and word had spread through the courthouse.
It spread to Washington, too. The next week, I called the courthouse. The court's administrator, once happy to provide Sims' hearing schedule, refused. She'd been ordered to forward my request to press officers at the Justice Department, she said.
Eventually the Justice Department obliged, identifying a few upcoming cases. But by the time the next hearing arrived, the news had already swept through immigration lawyers' offices across the city: Sims was off the juvenile docket. With no explanation, the Justice Department had reassigned those cases to a different judge.
Officials declined to say why, but lawyers in town have a hunch. Not long before reporters started showing up in Sims' courtroom, the American Immigration Lawyers Association, a national trade group, had filed a complaint with Sims' bosses. Then, in January, at least two private attorneys sent complaints of their own, identifying a handful of juveniles whom Sims had ordered removed over the objection of ICE.
Whatever motivated the change, it was no small undertaking. Practically overnight, hundreds of cases were moved from Sims' docket. That included, to the delight of many lawyers, cases already in progress. It included the case of Jose, the Honduran twin who was living under a deportation order after showing up late to his hearing.
After Sims ordered Jose removed, his attorney had filed a motion to reopen the case, pleading with the judge to not punish the boy for his own mistake. But before Sims got a chance to rule on it, the case was moved to a different judge. That judge promptly reopened the case. Then he terminated it." - Joe Tone and Obed Manuel, Dallas Observer, Apr. 10, 2014.