My friend Morgan Smith wrote this note about the Rio Grande in July 2024. Learn more about Morgan here , here and here .
J.A.M. v. USA "The Court holds that Oscar is entitled to a much lower, but still notable award of $175,000 because he was somewhat older at the time of the incident, was detained for about half...
Path2Papers, July 17, 2024 " What are the policy changes the Biden administration is implementing regarding temporary work visas? On June 18, 2024, the Biden administration announced a policy...
DOJ, July 18, 2024 "The Justice Department has filed a lawsuit against Southwest Key Programs Inc. (Southwest Key), a Texas-based nonprofit that provides housing to unaccompanied children who are...
Jeanne Kuang, CalMatters, July 18, 2024 "Even with all the industries where Californians went on strike during last year’s “hot labor summer,” some of the most active sites of...
"The chief of the asylum division at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has told asylum officers that immigrants who make a "credible fear" claim, the first step in the asylum process, must have a "significant possibility" of winning an asylum case before a judge. In a Feb. 28 memo, the official, John Lafferty, said in order to meet that standard immigrants have to "demonstrate a substantial and realistic possibility of succeeding in court." The memo, which updates an officer training course lesson plan, does not substantially change the standard for how the immigration agency handles such cases. The same language was used to describe the standard to win a full hearing before an immigration judge as far back as 2008, according to the USCIS website. Lafferty wrote that the there were concerns that the standard was not always being met in recent cases. ... The National Immigrant Youth Alliance, an immigrant advocacy group that has staged several protests along the border that have included young immigrants seeking asylum, released the memo to the news media Thursday. ... David Bennion, a lawyer who works with the immigrant youth alliance, said multiple asylum cases in San Diego recently have been denied since the memo was issued internally at USCIS. He described the denials as "retaliation" for the group's advocacy activities. Carlos Spector, an El Paso, Texas, immigration lawyer who represents dozens of asylum seekers, said the memo's instructions convert asylum officers into immigration judges. "The message here is: You are now empowered to send people back," Spector said." Alicia Caldwell, E.J. Tamara, Elliot Spagat, and Juan Carlos Llorca, Associated Press, Apr. 19, 2014.