'I'm Getting Arrested' Smartphone App For Undocumented Immigrants Under Way

A group of pro-immigrant rights activists in Arizona aim to develop a smartphone application that would help immigrants notify friends, family and their attorney if they are detained and arrested during a traffic stop.

Arizona was the first state to pass a law to make it a crime to be an undocumented immigrant (SB 1070), leading to an increased crackdown and climate of fear among immigrants. A recent Department of Justice investigation on racial profiling of Latinos by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office found that Latinos were four to nine times more likely to be pulled over in a traffic stop than non-Latinos.

“When someone gets pulled over the first thing to worry about is the family,” said Lydia Guzman, the president of the nonprofit Respect/Respeto.

For years, the nonprofit’s emergency hotline has monitored cases of possible civil rights violations against Latinos by local law enforcement, provided information about rights, and tracked down missing family members in immigration custody after undocumented drivers are detained.

“It’s difficult. We try to get all of this information from them to reach their family, while at the same time we’re trying to advise them about their rights,” she said.

It was Guzman’s experience with Respect/Respeto and the increased crackdown on undocumented immigrants by local police using state laws that inspired her friend Todd Landfried, a spokesperson for Arizona Employers for Immigration Reform, to come up with an idea for a smartphone app that could do what the group does and more.

The app will allow users to notify family, friends, attorneys and even their consulate when they get pulled over by law enforcement or when they are facing an emergency situation that puts their safety or civil rights at risk.

With the touch of a button, Landfried says, the “Emergency Alert and Personal Protection” app will send a pre-set list of people information about the person’s location using GPS technology and date and time of the incident. The app will also have an option to record audio and video, which is a common function on most mobile phones, but it will take it a step further by sending the audio and video to a “web interface” where the data can be stored and accessed by lawyers, for example.

It will also inform them, in English and Spanish, of their civil rights if they are arrested during a traffic stop; for example, reminding them that they have the right to remain silent and have an attorney present during questioning.

Guzman says the app could help people make split-second decisions at a crucial moment about who to call and how to get help. She says it would also provide immigrant advocates a starting point to search for undocumented immigrants once they are in the detention system – a search that can sometimes take days.

In order to take the app from idea to reality, Landfried and Guzman recently launched a 30-day crowdfunding campaign to support the development of the app. If they reach their goal of raising $225,000, they will work with a software developer to have the app ready by July. Donors would get the app, which will cost about $2, for free.

The app is similar to the “I’m Getting Arrested” app that launched in response to the arrests of protestors involved in the Occupy movement. Landfried and Guzman say their app would be designed to specifically address the situation of undocumented immigrants pulled over in traffic stops. They say it would consolidate functions on the phone to allow users to document, store and send photos, audio and video to web interface that can be used to document racial profiling or violations of civil liberties.

Landfried says he believes Latinos are well-positioned to make use of such an app based on recent trends of Latinos’ usage of smartphones.

According to a 2010 Nielsen Company report, 45 percent of Hispanic mobile users have a smartphone compared to just over a quarter of white mobile users.

Landfried and Guzman say they hope the app can be a tool for tracking statistics of potential instances of racial profiling.

“Keeping in mind you have to protect the attorney-client privilege,” Landfried said. “If data was made anonymous, we can track how many times people hit the button for traffic stops and they can fill in later what the outcome was.”

“This is about protecting people. Everybody has rights, whether you like it or not,” he said.

Source: http://www.hispanicallyspeakingnews.com/notitas-de-noticias/details/im-getting-arrested-app-aims-to-help-drivers/14510/

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Mwangi will continue to be held at the Otero detention facility in New Mexico until a final order of removal is entered against him

By ANTONY KARANJA tgkaranja@jambonewspot.com

A Kenyan man will continue to be in the custody of the Department of Homeland Security after a United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit dismissed his petition for a writ of habeaus corpus. 

Simon Chege Mwangi had lodged an appeal against a ruling by a US District Court in New Mexico dismissing his petition for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2241.

Habeaus Corpus is a legal action which has the force of a court order which may compel a prisoner who is unlawfully detained to be released or to be arraigned before a court and the detaining authority to prove before the court that the detention is lawful.

Mwangi came to the US in 2004 and overstayed his visa. He was arrested in 2008 and charged with domestic abuse and was subsequently detained by the DHS for remaining in this country without authorization. He has been in detention since November 2008.

The Kenyan national was subsequently placed in removal proceedings where he admitted he was removable but however applied for asylum, restriction on removal, and relief under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). An immigration judge however denied his applications and ordered him to be removed to Kenya after he testified that he had been a member of the Mungiki sect, which is devoted to “eliminating the western style of life within the country of Kenya.

Mwangi indicated that as a member of this sect, he had participated in robberies, beatings, and forcing women to submit to female genital mutilation. The immigration judge ruled that Mwangi was not eligible for any type of relief  as he had engaged in acts of persecution. Mr. Mwangi appealed to the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”), which affirmed the denial of asylum and restriction on removal but remanded to the IJ for further consideration of Mr. Mwangi’s CAT claim.

During removal proceedings, an immigration judge may grant relief allowing an immigrant to remain in the US and apply to be a legal resident if certain requirements are met. However, anyone who has participated in the persecution of persons is not eligible for any relief and is permanently barred for entering the US.

Mwangi was challenging his detention saying that is indefinite and therefore violates his due process rights making it unconstitutional.

He is being held at the Otero detention facility in New Mexico.

The Department of Homeland  Security is finalizing its plan for a biometric data system to track when  immigrants leave the United  States and will present it to Congress within “weeks,” a top department  official told a House Homeland Security subcommittee Tuesday.

An exit system to track who is leaving the country  and when has been sought since before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. DHS  officials, including Secretary Janet  Napolitano, have agreed with the need for such a program but have previously  said it would be too costly.

John Cohen, the department’s deputy counter  terrorism coordinator, did not discuss the cost in his testimony about the  problem of immigrants who overstay visas. He said the department’s report to  Congress will explain how DHS plans to better determine who has overstayed their  visa.

The criminal case against Amine El Khalifi, 29, of  Alexandria, Va., accused in an alleged bomb plot against the U.S. Capitol, has  renewed the debate about how the U.S. government — a decade after the terror  attacks of 2001 — routinely fails to track millions of foreign visitors who  remain in the country longer than they are allowed. El Khalifi was arrested in a  parking lot, wearing what he thought was an explosive-laden suicide vest. He had  been living illegally in the United States for 12 years.

The Obama administration doesn’t consider deporting  people whose only offense is overstaying a visa a priority. It has focused  immigration enforcement efforts on people who have committed serious crimes or  are considered a threat to public or national security.

Cohen said improvements in how data from immigrants  is collected and stored has made it easier for law enforcement to identify visa  overstays and determine if they pose a threat to national security or public  safety.

Rep. Candice Miller, R-Mich., who led Tuesday’s  hearing, said El Khalifi “follows a long line of terrorists, including several  of the 9/11 hijackers, who overstayed their visa and went on to conduct terror  attacks.” His tourist visa expired the same year he arrived from his native Morocco as a  teenager in 1999.

She said 36 people who overstayed visas have been  convicted of terrorism related charges since 2001.

“We have to recognize that we do have this problem,”  Miller said. “The truth is, in the 40 percentile of all the illegal (immigrants)  are in this country on expired visas. They came in right through the front  door.”

El Khalifi, who is charged with attempting to use a  weapon of mass destruction, never came to the attention of federal law  enforcement agencies even after a series of minor run-ins with police in  northern Virginia from 2002 to 2006, including disobeying a traffic sign and  speeding. Programs that could have identified him if he had been jailed by local  authorities, including the Security Communities program that shares fingerprints  from local jails with the FBI,  were not in place at the time.

The Moroccan national didn’t face a felony charge –  possession of marijuana with intent to distribute — until last September, about  nine months after he became the target of the FBI probe related to the alleged  plot to destroy the Capitol. He has waived his right to a preliminary  hearing.

El Khalifi, unemployed when he was arrested last  month, is one of an estimated millions of illegal immigrants who came to the  United States with a government-issued visa and never left. He never applied to  become a U.S. citizen.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency  responsible for deporting illegal immigrants, has routinely combed through visa  records to try to identify people who have overstayed their welcome and deport  those considered threats to the community or national security.

Cohen said Tuesday that more than 37,000 people who  overstayed visas were deported from 2009 to 2011

Last year, ICE reviewed a backlog of about 1.6  million suspected overstay cases involving people who had come to the U.S. since  2004. The Homeland Security Department said the review concluded that about half  of those people have either left the country or applied to change their  immigration status. Of the remaining half, the cases of about 2,700 people were  given further review. ICE officials have not said how many of those people were  deemed a national security threat or were otherwise considered priority for  deportation.

For the more than 797,000 others whose cases were  not reviewed further, DHS officials said their overstay status was noted in  electronic files in case any of them commit crimes in the future or otherwise  become a priority to be deported.

Visa overstays have long been a concern of lawmakers  and law enforcement. Some estimates suggest that as many as half of the  country’s estimated 11 million illegal immigrants have overstayed visas.

But finding illegal immigrants who, like El Khalifi,  came to the United States before biometric data was collected and records were  computerized around 2004 — and who overstayed visas but haven’t committed a  crime — can be difficult, if not impossible.

“It’s very difficult to find those individuals, and  those individuals aren’t priorities until they commit a crime,” said Julie Myers  Wood, who was head of ICE from 2006 to 2008.

James Ziglar, who was head of the old Immigration  and Naturalization Service from 2001 until it was folded into DHS in 2002, said  immigration authorities made efforts to locate immigrants thought to be a threat  to national security after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. But simply having  overstayed a visa wouldn’t have made illegal immigrants like El Khalifi a  priority.

“We were certainly focused on trying to find bad  people and connecting the dots with the Department of State and their visa  records,” Ziglar said. “I doubt very seriously he (El Khalifi) would have come  up on the radar. He might have if you kept drilling down further and further  just because of where he was from. But he would not have been, I think, an  earlier target, just because there were more suspicious types.”

Read more:  FOX NEWS

A group of deported men ride in the back of a Grupos Beta pickup through Mexicali, Mexico. Grupos Beta is a government migrant protection organization. (Don Bartletti, Los Angeles Times / September 20, 2011)

The number of deportation cases filed by federal immigration officials dropped by nearly a third in the first three months of the fiscal year, according to a report by the Syracuse University Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.

The drop recorded in the last three months of 2011 may reflect the Obama administration’s plan to focus its deportation efforts by weighing a variety of discretionary factors, including whether the person is a veteran, came to the U.S. as a child or is a college student, according to the report. But experts said it’s too soon to say if deportations overall will decline.

From October through December, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement initiated 39,331 deportation cases in immigration court, down from 58,639 the previous quarter, the report says. Filings are typically lower during the holiday months, but even adjusted for the seasonal drop-off the numbers are significantly lower, according to the authors.

Immigration officials said they have not had the opportunity to review the data to verify their accuracy but added that the numbers don’t fully encompass the ways in which a person can be deported. The report, said ICE spokeswoman Gillian Christensen, is focused only on submissions for deportations made to immigration courts.

“It ignores the fact that ICE regularly removes individuals without going through formal [immigration court] proceedings utilizing voluntary, administrative, expedited and stipulated removals as well the reinstatement of old removal orders,” she said.

From October through early February, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement removed 121,780 people from the country, according to the agency.
Immigration officials said a review of 300,000 deportation cases announced by the Obama administration in August is well underway and tens of thousands of cases have been reviewed.

Congress has provided enough funds for the ICE to deport about 400,000 people annually, and the administration has said it intends to focus those resources on cases deemed high-priority, including those involving national security, serious felons, individuals with lengthy criminal records, known gang members and others who pose a threat to public safety.

“We’re being smart about how we enforce the law. We’re doing it in a way that makes sense and in a way that uses tax dollars effectively,” said ICE spokeswoman Barbara Gonzalez. “Law enforcement has to have set priorities because the American public doesn’t want us to just arrest the first 400,000 people we can remove. Why arrest the first 400,000 people when you can arrest those who are threats to the community?”

The proportion of filings during the period that sought deportation on grounds of alleged criminal activity was 14%, down from nearly 16% in the first quarter of fiscal year 2011. Those numbers led the report’s authors to say there is little evidence cases are being better targeted toward serious criminals. But agency officials strongly disputed that notion as based on incomplete data.

“As it has done in past reports, this report focuses only on the technical reasons why an individual is legally removable from the US and ignores the criminal history that triggered the decision to seek the person’s removal,” Christensen said.

The number of convicted criminals deported by the agency nearly doubled last year. So far, 52% of those removed this fiscal year are convicted criminals, Christensen said.

The report’s analysis is based on case records obtained by the data research center under a Freedom of Information Act request made to the Executive Office for Immigration Review, which administers the nation’s immigration courts.

Some immigration attorneys said they have started to see a change in the types of cases the government pursues.
“It’s too early for me to say it’s a trend,” said Carl Shusterman, a Los Angeles-based immigration attorney and former trial attorney for the Immigration and Naturalization Service. “But it is something I didn’t necessarily get in the past.

“Before, if you had these Dream Act students and we wanted to keep them in the U.S., I’d have to go to a congressman and beg for a private bill. Now I can just go to a deportation officer who has the case and say, ‘You know this person falls within these prosecutorial discretion guidelines. You don’t really want to deport them, do you?’ And they’ll agree with you. That is a sea change.”

Source: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-deportation-drop-20120224,0,5847742.story?track=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+latimes%2Fnews%2Flocal+%28L.A.+Times+-+California+|+Local+News%29

A controversial program that lets U.S. immigration officials check the citizenship status of people who have been arrested is being expanded to include Baltimore despite objections from Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and immigrant advocates.

The Secure Communities program, which began in 2008 and is being phased in nationwide, lets federal immigration officials review fingerprints collected when people are booked. The review will start in Baltimore and Montgomery County on Wednesday, according to a Department of Homeland Security letter obtained by The Baltimore Sun.

The decision prompted an outcry from some local officials, who have little control over the process and complained about a lack of notification from the federal government. Immigrant advocates and officials in other states have argued that the program hurts the relationship between Hispanic communities and police, making it harder to solve crimes in those neighborhoods.

The move comes as Rawlings-Blake has made it a priority to increase the city’s population by 22,000 people — or 3.5 percent — over a decade, in part by courting foreign-born residents.

“I am extremely disheartened by this recent decision to implement the program in Baltimore and the manner in which it is being carried out,” Rawlings-Blake wrote in a recent letter to Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director John Morton.

Supporters counter that it is reasonable to check the residency status of someone arrested for a crime, particularly given the Obama administration’s focus on deporting illegal aliens accused of committing other crimes.

State Del. Pat McDonough, a Baltimore County Republican who supports the Secure Communities program, said it has value in addition to identifying illegal immigrants. “A number of offenders have been released on bail and fled,” he said, adding that under the program, they would instead be turned over to immigration officials. “It’s a victory for public safety and it’s a victory for victims.”

In a statement, Immigration and Customs Enforcement said the program “has demonstrated its effectiveness in transforming immigration enforcement to a focus on criminal offenders” and that in two years time it has “dramatically increased the removal of convicted criminals.”

Because the change involves sharing of information between two federal agencies, local officials and those arrested will notice no difference when the program takes effect. Local jail officials already send fingerprints to the FBI. Under the program, the FBI transmits those fingerprints to Homeland Security, which checks them against its own database.

Local Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials are notified if something looks awry in that check.

Baltimore’s Central Booking and Intake Center is run by the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services. A spokesman, Mark Vernarelli, confirmed the state agency received notification of the change from the Homeland Security Department, but said it “doesn’t change anything that we do.”

Anthony Guglielmi, a spokesman for the Baltimore Police Department, said, “It’ll be business as usual.”

The effort, already under way in other Maryland counties, has resulted in 162,940 deportations nationwide and 670 from the state since 2008, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement data. The agency expects to have every jurisdiction in the nation under the program by the end of 2013.

Immigrant advocates such as Casa de Maryland say the program is frequently scooping up for deportation illegal immigrants who have committed only minor offenses. In Maryland, 25 percent of those deported were convicted of felonies, according to the government data.

The rest had misdemeanor records, overstayed a visa or disobeyed a previous deportation order.

“There are millions of children in the United States right now — many of whom are citizens — who are at risk of becoming orphans” because of the program, said Casa de Maryland’s organizing director, Gustavo Andrade.

Casa de Maryland will hold a series of events Wednesday to “call on our leaders here in Maryland to try to do everything in their power to mitigate the terrible effects,” Andrade said.

The federal program began under President George W. Bush but has expanded under President Barack Obama. The expansion comes at the same time that the Obama White House has given immigration prosecutors more latitude to suspend deportation cases in situations where an illegal immigrant has not committed a crime and has a strong connection to the community.

Baltimore was one of two pilot cities in which prosecutors conducted an expedited review of backlogged immigration cases to determine which could be suspended.

The Secure Communities program has met with resistance in other states. New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, a Democrat, said last year that he was withdrawing from the program, but federal officials insist that participation is mandatory.

People arrested in Prince George’s County have been reviewed under the program since 2009. Scott Peterson, a spokesman for County Executive Rushern L. Baker III, said it “has been a controversial program in the county and the Baker administration has continued to [study] our legal options.”

In Baltimore, Rawlings-Blake met with ICE officials last year to “express our concerns about the program and how it would impact Baltimore’s immigrant communities” and wrote in the letter that she had been assured the agency would not begin implementation before holding discussions with local immigrant groups.

The mayor said she was taken by surprise when a “junior staff member” received an e-mail last week notifying the city of the decision to start the program on Wednesday.

“We recognize that the City of Baltimore plays no role in the implementation of the program,” she wrote, “and I have no control over ICE’s actions.”

Source: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/breaking/bs-md-secure-communities-20120221,0,5685656.story?page=2

Some Latinos and Democratic lawmakers are upset at the Republican proposal to  deny child tax credits to undocumented immigrants.

The proposal, which would require people who claim the federal credit to have Social  Security numbers to prove they’re legal workers, is being offered as a way  to help pay for extending the Social Security tax cut for most American  wage-earners. It would trim federal spending by about $10 billion over a  decade.

Senate Majority Leader Harry  Reid of Nevada says the proposal unfairly goes after the children of poor  Hispanic workers. Such kids often are U.S. citizens, even when their parents  aren’t, because they were born in this country.

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Says Leticia Miranda, senior policy adviser of the National Council of La  Raza: “People who are making close to the minimum  wage and are raising children in this country — and we’re asking them to pay  for the payroll tax cut?” She says, “It’s outrageous and it’s crazy.”

On the other side, Republicans and some Democrats say what’s crazy is even  having a debate over whether the government should be cutting checks to people  who have sneaked into the country illegally. It’s hard to imagine there isn’t a  healthy majority, even in the Democratic-controlled Senate, to stop the practice — if it’s actually brought to a vote.

“We have rules about tax credits and benefits, and it seems to me they need  to be applied fairly and across the board,” said Democrat Sen. Claire  McCaskill, who is facing a difficult re-election bid in Missouri. “If there  are rules, they need to be enforced. I think it’s just that simple. I don’t  think it’s complicated.”

Undocumented immigrants have been barred from other refundable tax credits — in which low-income workers not only don’t owe income taxes but receive payments  from the government — such as the earned income tax credit. Such credits are a  popular anti-poverty tool in part because a recipient has to hold a job to  receive the benefit.

But a 1997 law enacting a $500 per-child tax credit doesn’t specifically  exclude undocumented immigrants from collecting. It was significantly expanded  in 2001 to gradually reach $1,000, and rules were eased so that many more people  could get it on a refundable basis. It was made more generous in 2009 so that  more taxpayers could claim the credit or claim a larger amount. The expanded  credit is slated to expire at the end of the year along with other Bush-era tax  cuts and return to $500 per child, though it’s commonly assumed that it will  remain up to $1,000 per child.

“Although the law prohibits aliens residing without authorization in the  United States from receiving most federal public benefits, an increasing number  of these individuals are filing tax returns claiming this refundable credit,”  Rep. Sam Johnson, R-Texas, said when the House debated the payroll tax cut  measure in December. “Illegal immigrants bilked $4.2 billion from the U.S.  taxpayers (in 2010). I think that it’s time that we fixed it.”

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The situation has Democrats in a box. If they fight the GOP effort to cut  back payments of the tax credit, they’ll be favoring the delivery of refunds to  people who not only don’t owe income taxes but aren’t supposed to be in the  country in the first place.

What’s more, closing the loophole would raise real money — an estimated $10  billion over 10 years under the approach favored by House Republicans.

The Treasury Department says that in the 2010 filing year more than $4  billion in child credit refunds went to 2.3 million people who filed tax returns  but didn’t have Social Security numbers proving they were citizens or legal  workers. That’s a four-fold increase over five years earlier.

On the other side are politically influential Hispanic groups, a key  Democratic-friendly constituency. Opponents of tightening eligibility for the  child tax credit point out that six of every seven affected families are  Hispanic, with an average household income of about $21,000. Tax credits of up  to $1,000 per child and make a huge difference at such income levels.

Hispanics point out that in many instances the tax credit goes to workers who  aren’t citizens but whose children are — because they’ve been born in the  country and therefore have Social Security numbers of their own. They say such  children should reap the benefit of the tax credit just like other children in  comparable economic circumstances.

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“I just think the child tax credit is working just fine and there’s no need  to punish children,” Sen. Reid said last week. “We’re supposed to try to be  helping them.”

One option under consideration is to require tax filers to supply a Social  Security number for the child when claiming the tax credit instead of requiring  that at least one of the parents possess one. That would respond to criticism  that the GOP proposal is unfair to the citizen children of undocumented  immigrants.

“We’re not in favor of fraudulent payments or payments that shouldn’t be  made, but we don’t want to create obstacles to supporting low-income families  who are trying to care for their children,” said Sen. Dick  Durbin, D-Ill. “Even though the parent doesn’t have a Social Security  number, they could still be entitled under their tax return, for a child tax  credit.”

Congress needs to find about $160 billion between now and the end of the  month to cover the costs of extending through Dec. 31 a Social Security tax cut  averaging about $20 a week for 160 million workers, federal unemployment  benefits for the long-term jobless and unreduced Medicare fees for doctors. All  are now due to expire Feb. 29

Source: http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/politics/2012/02/09/republicans-target-tax-credits-for-undocumented-immigrants/#ixzz1m2zL3v9R

An organization of young immigrants here is seeking to educate and organize undocumented students in Texas and the country in general so that they know their rights and the opportunities that are open to them.

The San Antonio Immigrant Youth Movement is made up mostly of university students whose immigration status in the United States is irregular, given that most of them were brought to this country illegally by their parents when they were children.

According to SAIYM’s Claudia Sanchez, who attends the University of Texas at San Antonio, the undocumented immigrants who are currently pursuing university studies have lived the majority of their lives in the United States and have their family in this country.

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“They consider themselves to be U.S. citizens and they deserve the opportunity to give back to this country the many things they’ve been given and contribute to the economy, and to continue contributing to their community as they’re currently doing,” Sanchez said.

“Many of them have shown that they have goals, that they want to carry out many projects and because of the fact that they do not have their documents in order their dreams have been halted,” added the student, who two years ago participated in a 39-day hunger strike.

One of the aims of SAIYM is to convince lawmakers of the importance of the DREAM Act, the initiative that would allow students who entered the country as children to legalize their status.

Although Texas since 2005 has permitted undocumented students to pay in-state tuition at public universities, Sanchez believes that in this election year the rhetoric attacking this and other benefits will intensify.

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“Besides, on the national level, the candidate leading in the Republican primaries, Mitt Romney, has already said that he’s not going to support the DREAM Act,” Sanchez said.

“We’re not going to allow them to attack the Latino community or young people. Despite the fact that many Hispanics cannot vote, they can denounce the politicians who’re contending for a public post so that there are reactions,” she added.

William Wise, a student and also a SAIYM leader, said it is irresponsible not to demand a rapid solution to the situation of the thousands of university students who have graduated or will graduate in the coming months and will not be able to pursue their professions because of their immigration status.

“Therefore, it’s important for undocumented people to be those who start to complain, who stand up, so that the public knows what is happening in the country, so they don’t discriminate and take the initiative to seek methods that help the students,” Wise said.

SAIYM and five other organizations have formed the Texas Dream Alliance, which gathers institutions that are fighting for the rights of undocumented students.

Source: http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/community/2012/02/07/texas-latino-youth-unite-to-aid-undocumented-students/#ixzz1lieB0skm

The Texas Department of Public Safety’s classification of licenses for some legal residents as “limited term” documents is drawing criticism from some who claim the department is going against stated policy.

The documents in question are being issued to some after proving they are in the country legally when applying for driver’s licenses or state identification cards. The label “limited term” is at the top of the applicant’s license. The DPS states on its website that it issues such licenses upon “verification of temporary lawful presence in the U.S.” and that the licenses expire “when the period of lawful presence expires.”

But critics say that isn’t consistent with a policy stating that all licenses and ID cards should be in the same format.

In 2008, the DPS enacted a policy requiring proof of legal status before receiving state-issued licenses. It was challenged in courts after plaintiffs said the department acted without legislative authority. Part of the lawsuit argued that issuing a different license to noncitizens — a vertical document that read “temporary visitor” across the top in bold lettering — was discriminatory.

“We had stories about people that weren’t able to get credit, they weren’t able to get a bank account, weren’t able to or had problems registering for school, at the university,” said David Hinojosa, an attorney for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. In June, MALDEF successfully argued for an injunction against the DPS policy, alleging it acted outside its scope of authority.

The amendment stated, however, that licenses “must be in the same format, have the same appearance and orientation; and contain the same type of information.” Some interpreted that to mean that DPS would stop issuing a different license to noncitizens.

When asked to explain the difference between the phrases “temporary visitor” and “limited term,” Tom Vinger, the department’s assistant chief of public affairs, said he could not get the information to The Texas Tribune by deadline.

MALDEF says it has been prompted to submit an open-records request to the department after hearing complaints that the DPS is issuing the licenses with the “limited term” designation in red lettering.

“It’s our understanding that the law, as it was written, did not allow them to change the appearance of the licenses,” Hinojosa said. “But there might be some wording that could be ambiguous.”

Hinojosa is also questioning whether some DPS offices are interpreting the rules differently, or whether there are some “rogue” officials in the department that are continuing the practice despite the language in the bill.

“I don’t know if their attorneys actually know, that’s one of the things that we have to investigate,” he said.

Expiration dates have also been an issue. The amendment authorizes the DPS to determine expiration dates for noncitizens based on when an immigration document expires. If the immigration document does not have an expiration date, the department may issue an ID or license that expires annually.

Karla Reséndiz, a University of Texas graduate who was recently granted permanent residency status, also called a green card, said her current license expires when her green card does, two years from now. But Ricardo, a Dallas legal resident who asked his last name not be used, said his expiration date was moved up after a review of more than one document. He is in Texas legally with an H1B visa, a specialty document for certain professionals, which he said must be renewed every three years. But his expiration date was based on his I-94 document, an arrival and departure record that a legal immigrant must fill out when leaving or returning to the U.S., which, Ricardo said, expires sooner.

When asked what form the DPS uses to determine an expiration date and why, Vinger referred to the department’s Temporary Visitor Issuance Guide. (The guide states that applicants with an H1B visa will be an issued an expiration date consistent with their I-94, but it gives no explanation as to why that is the case.)

Asked why an H1B holder’s expiration date on that document could differ from that on an I-94 form, Rick Pauza, a public affairs specialist with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said several factors could affect the duration of an I-94 form.

“An officer must take into account the totality of the information, entry documentation presented and specific circumstances with an applicant for admission to the U.S. and process the person accordingly,” he said.

Source: http://www.texastribune.org/immigration-in-texas/immigration/limited-term-drivers-licenses-stirring-controversy/

Raúl and Judy Cárdenas playing with their 8-year-old daughter, Pamela, in their home in Denver.

DENVER — Prosecutors have completed a lightning review ordered by the Obama administration of virtually all 7,900 deportation cases before the immigration court here, identifying more than 1,000 foreigners who pose no security risk and allowing them to remain in the United States.

In a test run of the first comprehensive docket review ever undertaken in the nation’s immigration courts, 16 prosecutors, laboring long days and weekends since Dec. 5, read through looming stacks of paper files to meet a mid-January deadline laid down by Washington.

According to official results obtained by The New York Times, 16 percent of all those facing deportation in Denver — 1,301 immigrants — will receive offers from prosecutors to close their cases after they pass criminal background checks. Department of Homeland Security officials plan to extend the review in coming months to all of about 300,000 cases before the country’s immigration courts.

The administration’s effort to apply prosecutorial discretion to halt tens of thousands of deportations is a major departure for prosecutors and enforcement agents, and was generally welcomed by immigrant organizations. But the administration is not offering any positive legal status to illegal immigrants permitted to stay. Many will be left in an indefinite limbo where they cannot work or obtain driver’s licenses and may struggle to subsist, lawyers said.

“They will be in immigration purgatory,” said Hans Meyer, an immigration lawyer in Denver.

The immigration court review is part of a broad effort by the administration, as President Obama heads into his re-election campaign, to ease the impact of enforcement on immigrant and Latino communities by stopping some deportations while also reducing huge backlogs swamping the courts.

Among other measures, federal officials this month proposed streamlining the procedures by which illegal immigrants with American family members apply for legal residency.

Based on a loose projection of results from pilot projects here and in Baltimore, about 39,000 immigrants nationwide could see their deportations suspended. Although only a fraction of nearly 400,000 deportations in each of the past three years, the numbers would be high enough to be felt across the country, administration officials said, and could show that Mr. Obama had heard increasingly bitter complaints from immigrant groups about families separated by removals since he took office.

Despite the immense workload that immigration prosecutors here suddenly faced, they said they liked their newfound flexibility in pursuing cases — more like the routine practice of their peers in criminal courts. Each minor case they close opens up time on the court’s jammed calendar for an immigration judge to expel a convicted sex offender or gang member, prosecutors said.

“It makes us feel good to know that some of these low-priority cases will be placed at the back burner,” said Corina Almeida, who, as chief counsel for Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Denver, is the senior prosecutor here. “These cases free up others to move to the front of the line: the egregious offenders, those who thumb their noses at the system or commit fraud.”

Administration officials are trying to thread a needle, refocusing immigration enforcement while fending off Republicans, who say Mr. Obama is doing an end run around Congress to give amnesty to illegal immigrants.

“These actions strain the constitutional separation of powers and defy the will of the American people,” Representative Elton Gallegly, the Republican from California who is chairman of the House Judiciary immigration subcommittee, said of the prosecutorial discretion policy.

Under a policy unveiled in June by John Morton, the director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, the agency’s officers are asked to be more discriminating with its resources, using prosecutorial discretion to hasten deportations of criminals while avoiding illegal immigrants charged only with civil violations who have strong family bonds in the country.

“If the only thing they did is enter illegally, they have established ties, they have U.S. citizen children, they are productive members of society, they have no criminal records, it makes prosecutors feel good when you know you can do something,” Ms. Almeida said. “They don’t have to worry about someone knocking on their door.”

But as the pilot project unfolded here, lawyers grew frustrated as it became clear that most illegal immigrants would not receive work authorization and that without new status, they would not be able to obtain driver’s licenses or financial aid for college.

Among the first to benefit under the Denver review was a student from Mexico whose parents had brought him to Colorado when he was 9. Jesús Gerardo Noriega, now 21, was put in deportation proceedings after a local traffic officer pulled him over for a burned-out license plate light. A 2006 Colorado law requires state and local police to report any suspected illegal immigrant to ICE.

Mr. Noriega met the standard for prosecutorial discretion in several ways: his parents are legal residents, and his three brothers are American citizens. He applied for residency, but his papers are stalled in the system. He graduated from high school and wants to go to college — to study automotive engineering to design energy-efficient cars, he specified.

Mr. Noriega was arrested 12 days before he would have completed 10 years living in the United States, when he would have become eligible to have his deportation canceled definitively, his lawyer, Mr. Meyer, said.

“My parents didn’t want me sent back, and they wanted to see me again,” Mr. Noriega said, recalling the days when he was detained. “We’ve always been a close family, and having your son put in jail and taken away from you definitely brought sadness and depression to the house.”

He learned just before the holidays that his deportation had been suspended. “I thought it must have been a miracle,” Mr. Noriega said.

But he is worried that without being able to work or drive, he cannot enroll in the courses he needs for the automotive degree.

“It definitely is a step forward,” he said. “But at the same time. I don’t think it’s a solution.”

Administration officials said they were going as far as they could under existing laws and would continue to press Congress for legislation giving legal status to illegal immigrants.

After being chosen for discretion, an immigrant must pass background checks against federal criminal and national security databases. Then ICE prosecutors offer to file a joint motion with the immigrant to close the deportation case. If both sides agree, the approval of an immigration judge is relatively quick.

The deportation then becomes a “sleeping beauty,” one ICE prosecutor said; it is closed and off the docket, but in theory it can be reopened at any time.

Judges and court administrators here were cheered by the prospect of reduced backlogs. With six immigration judges handling on average more than 1,300 cases each, the Denver courts are among the most clogged in the nation, and immigrants wait as long as 18 months for a hearing.