Matthew Kolken on Deportation And Removal

District Court Judge Stays Removal of Five Bi-National Couples Pending Constitutional Challenge of the Defense of Marriage Act

Chief U.S. District Judge Carol Bagley Amon, of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, has done what the Obama administration to date has been unwilling to do: issue a stay of removal of the immigrant spouses of five separate United States citizens in same-sex marriages.  Judge Amon was nominated to the federal bench by President George H.W. Bush in 1990. 

The following background information about the five couples named in the suit was taken directly from the Immigration Equality website:

• Edwin Blesch and his South African spouse, Tim Smulian. Edwin and Tim, who have been together for more than 13 years, were married in South Africa in August 2007.  While their marriage is honored by Edwin’s home state of New York, their green card petition was denied on March 14, 2012. They reside in Orient, New York.
• Frances Herbert and her spouse, Takako Ueda, who is originally from Japan.  Frances and Takako, who have known each other for 22 years, were married in April 2011. Their petition for a green card was denied on December 1, 2011.  They reside in Dummerston, Vermont.
• Heather Morgan and her spouse, Maria del Mar Verdugo, a native of Spain.  Heather and Mar have known each other for 14 years.  They were married, in New York, in August 2011 and have a pending green card petition, which is expected to be denied. They reside in New York City.
• Santiago Ortiz and his spouse, Pablo Garcia, a native of Venezuela. Santiago, a Puerto Rican American, met Pablo in 1991 and registered as domestic partners in 1993. In May 2011, they were married in Connecticut. The couple have filed a green card petition, which is expected to be denied.  They reside in Elmhurst, New York
• Kelli Ryan and her spouse, Lucy Truman, a native of the United Kingdom.  Kelli and Lucy have been a couple for more than 11 years and entered into a civil union in July 2006.  They were married in March 2010 in Connecticut. Their petition for a green card was denied on March 27, 2012. They reside in Sandy Hook, Connecticut.

The lawsuit filed on April 2, 2012, argues that the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) signed into law by President Clinton is violative of the equal protection clause under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, and that "[s]olely because of DOMA and its unconstitutional discrimination against same-sex couples, these Plaintiffs are being denied the immigration rights afforded to other similarly situated binational couples." The unfortunate fact remains that the Obama administration continues to enforce DOMA in the immigration context denying immigrant petitions filed by United States citizens on behalf of their same-sex spouses.  

President Obama's recent announcement that he has "evolved" on the issue of marriage equality is little more than political pandering in an election year, as his official position on gay marriage is that he will permit each individual State to decide the issue. If a State elects to abridge the constitutional rights of gay couples by enacting legislation that prohibits same sex marriage, President Obama doesn’t intend to take any affirmative action to counter their decision. Would the President’s position be any different if a State enacted laws prohibiting interracial marriage?

The analogy is not so misplaced, as same sex couples find themselves facing the same legal obstacles that were once applied in this country to interracial couples through the enactment of miscegenation laws that criminalized interracial marriage.

Point being, President Obama’s position of inaction is little more than acquiescence, and willful acceptance of legalized discrimination. It is both shameful and cowardly, is simply not good enough, and certainly is not “evolved” enough.

Here is the reality about this President. He is more concerned about losing the battleground States of Colorado, North Carolina, Ohio, and Virginia this November than taking bold affirmative steps to protect the millions of Americans in this country that continue to be denied true marriage equality.

Nowhere is this more evident than in his enforcement of the United States immigration law.

National Immigrant Youth Alliance Infiltrates Deportation Detention Center - Calls for Release of All Low-Priority Detainees

Taken from DREAMActivist.org:

Over the course of the last month, as the National Immigrant Youth Alliance, we have been working hard to infiltrate into select detention centers around the country to see what is really happening.

On June 17th, 2011, President Obama, through ICE director John Morton, issued a memorandum outlining his administration's enforcement priorities. These priorities specifically called for the use of discretion in many low-priority deportation cases. Just like many other promises by this administration, our organizers inside of the detention center have discovered that the Obama administration is still deporting the same people it promises not to deport.

Our organizers have seen first hand countless cases of:

-- DREAM Act eligible youth;
-- Individuals with no criminal record;
-- Individuals clearly detained because of racial profiling tactics used by police and border patrol, including the detention of passengers in vehicles;
-- Individuals with pending U visa / VAWA applications;
-- Individuals with extreme medical conditions;

Pretty much you name it and we've seen it. Many of those detained have been at this facility for 5 to 9 months, with others detained more than 20 months.

For each day an individual is detained at this facility tax-payers, you, are paying a private company (GEO group) about $166 to keep our loved ones locked up. That's over $40,000 on average for low-priority cases that could just be administratively closed, as the Presidents administration promised it was doing.

Therefore we are asking for a full and complete review of each detainee at the Broward Detention center and that all low-priority detainees immediately be released and their cases administratively closed

Click here to sign the petition that demands a full and immediate review of all detainees at the Broward Transitional Center and the release of anyone who meets the criteria of the June 17th, 2011 low-priority discretion memo as laid out by John Morton, Director of ICE.

Shocking Video Shows More than a Dozen Border Patrol Agents Beating a Helpless Mexican Immigrant to Death

 

The video above documents a barbaric incident that occurred in May 2010. It reveals the vicious beating of a man that was encountered while attempting to reenter the United States without authorization so that he could be reunited with his five United States citizen children.

The man, Anastasio Hernández Rojas, was 32-years-old at the time and did not survive the attack by Border Patrol officers. You can see him being repeatedly beaten by batons, kicks, by punches, as well as being tasered for what eyewitnesses claim to be almost thirty-minutes. Hernández Rojas can be heard pleading for his life while he was handcuffed on the ground.

The San Diego police department investigation resulted in the determination that the Border Patrol's actions were justified because of claims that Hernández Rojas was resisting arrest. An eyewitness to the attack, Humberto Navarrete, has come forward stating unequivocally that Hernández Rojas was not resisting, and was pleading for his life while the officers employed excessive force against a helpless man.

The video further contradicts these claims as it shows that Hernández Rojas was both handcuffed and hogtied during the attack. The agents confiscated phones of witnesses in the area in an attempt to cover their tracks, but three separate videos of the attack have been uncovered.

So you may ask what has the Obama Administration done in the last two years to correct this human rights violation committed by their own agents?

The answer predictably is NOTHING.

The Obama administration has not even gone so far as to ask for copies of the videos of the incident, or to speak to the three eyewitnesses, as the Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security have closed and sealed their investigation, entirely accepting the San Diego police department's report. Case closed.

More "Change" you can believe in.

Report: In New York 87% of cases of individuals with U.S. citizen children have resulted in deportation

The New York University School of Law Immigrant Rights Clinic and Families for Freedom have released a report entitled: “Insecure Communities, Devastated Families: New Data on Immigrant Detention and Deportation Practices in New York City.”  

From the summary:

In the wake of growing deportation programs such as the recently-activated “Secure Communities” initiative, this new report sheds light on the precise ways in which current detention and deportation practices are wreaking havoc on New York City immigrants and their communities. The deportation system is devastating families by not only threatening to exile their loved ones, but also often forcing immigrants to fight their cases for years while locked up in far-away immigration jails.

The Obama administration attempted to block the release of information relating to its deportation programs, demanding payment of over $1.3 million in fees to turn over data that was requested in a Freedom of Information Act request.  A lawsuit had to be filed in federal district court against the administration.  The lawsuit was settled in May of 2011, which resulted in the release of the information that formed the basis for the report.

From the released data it was discovered that ICE detains and deports thousands of immigrant New Yorkers every year.  Specifically:

• From October 2005 through December 2010, ICE apprehended over 34,000 New Yorkers.
• Since 2008, ICE has detained well over 7,000 New Yorkers each year.
• From 2008 to 2010, ICE averaged 7,417 apprehensions per year, nearly a 60% increase since 2006, the first full year covered by the data.
• 91% of New Yorkers detained by ICE are deported.

The report also found that:

• The parents of at least 7,111 U.S. citizen children were deported during this same period.
• The parents of at least 10,208 U.S. citizen children were detained without bond.
• At least 7,186 New Yorkers detained by ICE had U.S. citizen children.
• 87% of cases of individuals with U.S. citizen children have resulted in deportation.
• New Yorkers are transferred to far-away detention facilities, outside of New York and New Jersey, at alarming rates. Those who are transferred almost never obtain relief from deportation.

The report describes the New York City criminal justice as "a pipeline" to detention and deportation.  When encountered, 4 out of 5 New Yorkers are held in immigration custody without bond being set.  When bond is set, it is in an amount that is unreasonably high as only 45% of individuals who have bond set are able to pay it (75% of all bonds are $5,000 or more and 35% of all bonds are $10,000 or more).    Less than 1% are released on their own recognizance without having to pay a bond.

Here is the kicker, statistics show that ICE had the ability to favorably exercise discretion and set bond in 91% of all reported cases, but despite having that ability over 31,000 New Yorkers were held without bond.

And this is the very reason I do not hold out much hope for the most recent DREAMer prosecutorial discretion initiative.  It all hinges on a favorable exercise of prosecutorial discretion, which statistics repeatedly reveal is not being exercised to the benefit of immigrants.

Click here to read the full report.

Latest Prosecutorial Discretion Statistics: Only 1.9% Received Favorable Exercise

TRAC has come out with the latest statistics from the Obama administration's prosecutorial discretion intiative under last year's Morton Memo.  

Here is what they found:

As of June 28, 2012 a total of 5,684 cases were closed under a special Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) program announced in August 2011. The stated goal of the program is to reduce the massive backlog of pending matters in the Immigration Courts by identifying those that could be dismissed or put on hold through the exercise of prosecutorial discretion (PD). The number of PD closures was up from 4,585 cases closed as of the end of May; however, it still amounted to only 1.9 percent of the 298,173 cases that had been pending before the Immigration Courts as of the end of last September.

Of the 5,684 total administrative closures only 294 (5%) were granted to individuals that did not have legal representation.  So the reality is that if you want the Obama administration to help you with your deportation case, you better have an experienced immigration attorney.

Click here to read the report.

Does the Obama Administration impose "illegal, cruel, and unusual punishments" on immigrants in effort to win the war on illegal immigration?

John Larson of PBS' "Need to Know" conducted a five month investigation of an alleged pattern of abuse of immigrants committed on the Southern Border by Border Patrol agents and officers.  Such alleged atrocities include physical abuse, sexual assault, torture, and the denial of food, water, and medical attention.

A former Border Patrol whistle-blower summarizes the problem: "Here we have an entire federal agency that's permitted to mistreat foreign nationals."  

You really need to watch this.

Watch Crossing the Line on PBS. See more from Need To Know.

Number of Pending Deportations Reaches All-Time High

Looks like the Obama administration is already well on their way to reach their 400,000 deportations quota for Fiscal Year 2013, which incidentally doesn't even begin until this October.

TRAC reports that by the end of June 2012 the number of pending deportation cases before the Immigration Courts has reached a new all-time high of 314,147.  The Obama administration's aggressive deportation campaign has resulted in a 5.6% increase of backlogged deportations since September 2011, which is an astounding 20% increase from what was seen at the end of FY 2010.

Obama apologists would have you believe that most pending deportations are criminals that have been caught due to the President's "smart immigration enforcement" directive that allegedly prioritizes the deportation of criminal aliens.

And they would be wrong.

To this end, TRAC has determined that through the end of June 2012 only 7.9% of the 314,147 pending deportation cases involve individuals charged with criminal grounds of removal, actions adverse to national security, or aiding terrorism. This is a decrease from the number of pending criminal deportations in fiscal year 2011 (8.3%), and fiscal year 2010 (9.1%).

In fact, according TRAC's nonpartisan and unbiased evaluation of the statistics, the vast majority of pending deportation cases DO NOT involve criminals.  To the contrary, most people facing deportation are only charged with immigration violations, which are civil and not criminal in nature.  Examples include entering the country illegally, entering legally but overstaying a visa, or violating other procedural requirements of the immigration law, i.e., failing to maintain a full course of study at a University.

Instead, statistics reveal that under Barack Obama pending noncriminal deportations have risen sharply over the last three years: 236,415 in FY 2010; 270,159 at the end of September 2011; to 286,159 during 2012.

So when you hear President Obama saying that his administration is engaging in "smart immigration enforcement by targeting criminal aliens" the statistics clearly prove that he is lying to you.

And by the way, what do you think is going to happen to all the DREAMers that apply for deferred action when their application is denied in the exercise of prosecutorial discretion.  Needless to say, there are potentially another 800,000 soon to be instituted deportation cases created by individuals that voluntarily get in queue for the Obama deportation grinder.

Here is the bottom line, if President Obama is really serious about wanting to put an end to the deportation of DREAMers a good start would be to 1. actually stop deporting DREAMers, and 2. to sign an executive order that has the full force of law and removes discretion from the prosecutors.

And parenthetically, maybe it is about time that Obama includes "immigration" as an important issue on his campaign website.  His opponent has.

Just a thought.

Report: Children Bear Greatest Burden of Obama's Deportation Policy

University of Albany researcher Joanna Dreby has issued a report entitled: "The Burden of Deportation on Children in Mexican Immigrant Families" that has been published in the most recent edition of The Journal of Marriage and Family.

This is what she had to say about the effect on children of President Obama's 400,000 deportations per year mandate: 

“Children are aware of social status differences at very young ages, they may not understand immigration, but they understand that U.S. policies today target immigrants, people who are their friends, neighbors and members of their families.  U.S. citizen children today are growing up afraid of the authorities, who can potentially tear their families apart.  They are associating a stigma with immigration, even though they are the children of immigrants.  This is a very sad direction for a country that prides itself on being a nation of immigrants." 

Here is the abstract from the article:

In 2011, a record number of foreign-born individuals were detained and removed from the United States. This article looks at the impact enforcement policies have had on Mexican families more broadly and children specifically. Drawing on interviews with 91 parents and 110 children in 80 households, the author suggests that, similar to the injury pyramid used by public health professionals, a deportation pyramid best depicts the burden of deportation on children. At the top of the pyramid are instances that have had the most severe consequences on children's daily lives: families in which a deportation has led to permanent family dissolution. But enforcement policies have had the greatest impact on children at the bottom of the pyramid. Regardless of legal status or their family members' involvement with immigration authorities, children in Mexican immigrant households describe fear about their family stability and confusion over the impact legality has on their lives.

I suggest that you supplement any cancellation of removal application that you may file with a copy of this report.

Obama Administration Sued for Continued Enforcement of Defense of Marriage Act in the Immigration Context

Jane DeLeon has been in a relationship with Irma Rodriguez for 20 years.  In 2008 the couple was married. Their relationship is as real as anyone's, but not to the Obama administration who is moving to deport Deleon for the single reason that she is not married to a man.

The Obama administration denied DeLeon’s Form I-601 Application for Waiver of Grounds of Inadmissibility solely because DeLeon has entered into a same-sex marriage and § 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act, 1 U.S.C. § 7, defines “marriage” under federal law as “only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife.”

DeLeon has taken action, filing suit in the United States District Court for the Central District of California, Western Division.  The suit argues that the Obama administration violated the substantive due process and equal protection guarantees of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution and 8 U.S.C. § 1152(a)(2), which prohibits discrimination in the issuance of visas based upon a petitioner’s or an immigrant visa beneficiary’s “sex.” 

The suit requests class-action designation to include all members of lawful marriages whom the Department of Homeland Security, pursuant to § 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act, 1 U.S.C. § 7, refuses to recognize as spouses for purposes of conferring lawful status and related benefits under the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. §§ 1101 et seq.

Click here to read the full text of the suit.

Obama Administration's next target may be Sanctuary Cities

It has been reported that ICE Director John Morton has asked Attorney General Holder to take legal action against Cook County, Illinois for their failure to deliver undocumented immigrants to ICE for deportation.  Cook County currently is not utilizing the Secure Communities fingerprint sharing (a.k.a. racial profiling) program.

Director Morton has stated that: “Right now, it’s not a question of Cook County releasing some individuals to us,” “They are releasing no individuals to us, including very violent offenders, and I just don’t think that’s good policy.”

It has been further reported that DHS Secretary Napolitano is also "fed up" with Cook County, and is pushing for legal action that would require the County to comply.

One option also being considered is to withhold federal aid allocated to counties that hold criminal aliens in State jails.  Cook county is one of the top ten recipients nationwide receiving $13 million since 2008.

Ranking Democrat Rep. Henry Cuellar is on board:  “They cannot say, you know, we don’t want you to do Secure Communities, but then at the same time they’re requesting federal dollars for holding those prisoners.”

In related news, Morton prepared written testimony for a House Committee on Homeland Security, Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security hearing titled “Building a Secure Community: How Can DHS Better Leverage State and Local Partnerships?” 

Morton indicated that ICE has caused confusion by failing to properly explain how the Secure Communities program works.  Apparently, it wasn't properly conveyed that the Obama administration is using Secure Communities as a tool to deport people of color that have never been charged with any crime and to detain U.S. citizens in maximum security prisons using bogus immigration detainers.

Morton's remarks include statements that ICE takes seriously complaints raised about civil rights violations related to Secure Communities.

Director Morton, if you are reading, you can officially consider this blog as an ongoing complaint.  

Please check back often.

And incidentally, it was nice seeing you in Buffalo yesterday.  I hope you enjoyed your visit.