Matthew Kolken on Deportation And Removal

CNN Report: The Next Legal Steps in Arizona

"Beth Karas from Tru TV explains the process of appealing the ruling of on Arizona's immigration law." -CNN.com

Judge Blocks Portions of Arizona Immigration Law

Board of Immigration Appeals Decision regarding establishing eligibility for adjustment of status

The Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) has just reaffirmed its previous decision in Matter of Areguillin, 17 I&N Dec. 308 (BIA 1980). 

The BIA held that: For purposes of establishing eligibility for adjustment of status under section 245(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1255(a) (2006), an alien seeking to show that he or she has been “admitted” to the United States pursuant to section 101(a)(13)(A) of the Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(13)(A) (2006), need only prove procedural regularity in his or her entry, which does not require the alien to be questioned by immigration authorities or be admitted in a particular status. See Matter of Graciela QUILANTAN, 25 I&N Dec. 285 (BIA 2010).

President Obama has been too busy deporting immigrants to address immigration reform

The first eighteen months of the Obama Presidency have come and gone, and the President has yet to address immigration reform.  That being said, the President has assured us that he WILL address immigration reform.  Not now, but soon. So we should all just be patient.  Our time will come.  Not now, but soon. 

What the President means by "soon" is not in 2010.  No, no, not in 2010.  There is an election in 2010, and Nancy Pelosi must shield her Democrats from any more controversial votes before the mid-term elections or risk losing the House.  As for Harry Reid, he is hanging on by a thread in Nevada, so you can forget about the Senate taking the lead. 

No, soon means some time in 2011, or maybe in 2012.  Well, not in 2012.  There is a big election in 2012, and we all know what happens if you address immigration reform in an election year (see 2010).  As for 2011, keep your fingers crossed that the Democrats don't lose the House or you can forget about it.

In fairness, President Obama hasn't had the time to address immigration reform in his first year in office.  He has obviously been very busy since getting elected.

Busy deporting more undocumented immigrants than George W. Bush did in any single year in office...

Busy covering up abuses of immigrant detainees...

...and busy raiding businesses that employ United States citizen workers, and also provide jobs to the very people who are patiently waiting for him to make immigration reform a "top priority" (as promised).

I don't know about you but I have had enough of being patient.  As an attorney in the trenches of the immigration war I have had enough of having to tell a parent, spouse, or child that their family member is getting deported because of the Obama administration's mandate to deport 400,000 people in Fiscal Year 2010.

I'm tired of having to explain to my clients that the President has turned his back to the Hispanic electorate after he got their votes because their family isn't important enough to be a "top priority" (as he promised).

In most instances the people President Obama has deported must wait 10 years before they will be eligible to return to the United States. Should their United States citizen family members just be patient while their family is destroyed by the deportation of their loved-one?  Should a child just be patient while they grow up without their mother or father?  Should innocent children who have known no other country but the United States be patient and put their dream of an education on hold while the President decides what "soon" is.

The time for being patient has come and gone like a broken Obama campaign promise.

There is no single campaign promise that President Obama has broken that has more of an impact on the immediate daily lives of Americans, because for every one of the estimated 11 million undocumented aliens in this Country there are countless U.S. citizens who will lose their parent, spouse, or child to deportation. 

If people only understood the importance of immigrants to the financial security of the United States they would not be so dismissive of the issue of comprehensive immigration reform, and they would not callously ask for our patience.  If only they could see that immigrants are people.

Soon is now Mr. President.

We have lost our patience.

Courts Differ About Retroactive Effect of High Court Counsel Ruling

Looks like the United States Supreme Court wasn't clear enough in their decision in Padilla v. Kentucky(pdf).  In Padilla, 130 S. Ct. 1473 (2010), the Court ruled that a criminal defendant must be advised by their lawyer of the immigration consequences of entering a plea of guilty, and that a failure to inform constitutes ineffective assistance of counsel.

Noeleen G. Walder, of the New York Law Journal has reported that Manhattan Criminal Court Judge Abraham Clott  has declined to give retroactive effect to Padilla, "at least with respect to a misdemeanor conviction."

Judge Clott ruled that: "This Court concludes that in Padilla the Supreme Court announced a new rule of criminal procedure rather than applied settled law to a new set of facts and that the Padilla rule is not a 'watershed' change that must be applied retroactively to cases on collateral review," People v. Kabre, 2002NY029321, 2003NY021859, 2004NY017122.

Conversely, Bronx Criminal Court Judge Lynn R. Kotler ruled that it did.  See People v. Bennett, 2010 WL 2089266.

Apparently, the Supreme Court has more work to do.

Click here to read the entire New York Law Journal article.

CNN Report: Americans wrongfully deported

"Researchers say that every day, an American is wrongfully deported, and some worry the problem could get worse." -CNN.com

Would you ask this man for his papers?

The following ACLU video perfectly illustrates why the Arizona Immigration law (SB 1070) is an unconstitutional abridgment, and must be stopped. 

What Happens in Arizona, Stops in Arizona:

"Would you ask this man for his papers? Why? Because of the color of his skin? Because of the language he's speaking? Because he's doing yard work?

The fact is, there is no way to tell who is documented and who is not. If SB 1070 is allowed to go into effect, American citizens WILL be subjected to racial profiling. People in this country legally will be stopped, interrogated and harassed simply because of what they look like or the language they are speaking.

That's not right and it's not constitutional. Help us protect the constitution. Help us stop SB 1070. What Happens in Arizona, Stops in Arizona." - ACLU Videos

Deportations Increase under Obama administration

Who remembers this:

Sounded pretty good huh?

Well, we are 18 months into the Obama Presidency, and all I can say is: "Where's the beef?!?!"

The Washington Post has just reported the following:

"The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency expects to deport about 400,000 people this fiscal year, nearly 10 percent above the Bush administration's 2008 total and 25 percent more than were deported in 2007. The pace of company audits has roughly quadrupled since President George W. Bush's final year in office." 

ICE director John Morton issued a June 30 memorandum that instructs that parents caring for children or the infirm should be detained only in unusual cases.  Rhetorical question: how is a parent supposed to care for his/her United States citizen child when their job was just taken away from them by the President through a workforce raid.

Didn't this President say that he stood for job CREATION?

If this isn't the WTF moment of 2010 I don't know what is.  It is simply incomprehensible to me that President Obama can look an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the eye, and from one side of his mouth tell them that he intends to put an end to the destruction of their families, and then from the other side turn around and pledge to deport more undocumented immigrants than his predecessor.  Make that any President in the history of the United States.

Simply astounding.

Plain and simply, I'm tired of being lied to by this President.  I would rather he come clean with the fact that his administration has no intention to seriously address comprehensive immigration reform. Not in 2010, not in 2011, not ever.  I would at least respect his honesty.

Other than a few brave Representatives (i.e., Congressman Gutierrez, ILL.), the Democrats are petrified of immigration reform with the November elections threatening incumbents.  That, coupled with Obama's plummeting approval ratings, has resulted in the death of CIR in 2010.  If the Republicans make any significant gains in the House as predicted it is unlikely that we will see immigration reform in Obama's first term. 

If this is the case, rather than blaming the GOP for the lack of any meaningful movement on CIR, the President should look to his broken campaign promise to address immigration reform in his first year in office as the real reason for CIR's demise.

Shame on you Mr. President, for insulting our intelligence with your empty promises, half-truths, and record deportations.

Many people have claimed that 2012 will be end the end of the world...

I am predicting that it will be the end of the failed Obama presidency.

Deportation by Default

Human Rights Watch has released a 98-page report that documents the plight of mentally ill immigrants that are caged in the immigration detention system.  The report is entitled Deportation by Default: Mental Disability, Unfair Hearings, and Indefinite Detention.

The following is a synapses:

"This 98-page report says that immigrants with mental disabilities are often unjustifiably detained for years on end, sometimes with no legal limits. The report documents case after case in which people with mental disabilities were prevented from making claims against deportation – including claims of US citizenship – because they were unable to represent themselves. Some of the people interviewed for the report did not know their own names, were delusional, could not tell time, or did not know that deportation meant removal from the United States."

Read the report.

Arizona Immigration Law Tested

"The Arizona immigration law came under new legal scrutiny in a packed courtroom Thursday as a federal judge considered whether the crackdown should take effect next week. Seven opponents of the law were arrested outside the courthouse. (July 22)" -Associated Press