Tag Archives: Immigration

Split U.S. Supreme Court blocks Obama immigration plan

Immigration activists at Supreme Court

By Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday blocked President Barack Obama’s plan to spare millions of immigrants in the country illegally from deportation in a split ruling that heartened political foes who had accused him of overstepping his powers.

The 4-4 ruling, coming seven months before Obama’s term in office ends, marked the latest success that his Republican adversaries have had in thwarting a major policy initiative of the Democratic president. Obama had hoped that overhauling the U.S. immigration system and resolving the fate of the estimated 11 million people in the country illegally would be part of his presidential legacy.

The ruling is likely to further amplify the role that the immigration issue will play in the run-up to the Nov. 8 presidential election in which voters will pick Obama’s successor. It also leaves in legal limbo the roughly 4 million people Obama’s action was meant to help.

Obama unveiled his plan in November 2014. It was quickly challenged in court by Republican-governed Texas and 25 other states that argued that Obama overstepped the powers granted to him by the U.S. Constitution by infringing upon the authority of Congress. His unilateral executive action bypassed the Republican-led Congress.

Because the court was split, a 2015 lower-court ruling invalidating Obama’s plan was left in place. The plan never was implemented because the lower courts had blocked it.

The plan was tailored to let roughly 4 million people – those who have lived illegally in the United States at least since 2010, have no criminal record and have children who are U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents – get into a program that shields them from deportation and supplies work permits.

A split ruling was possible because the court was down to eight justices, four liberals and four conservatives, after conservative justice Antonin Scalia died in February. The Republican-led Senate has refused to act on Obama’s nomination of appeals court judge Merrick Garland to replace Scalia.

In an appearance at the White House after the ruling, Obama expressed frustration at the court’s inability to issue a decisive ruling on the merits of the case and at Senate Republicans for “willfully” keeping the court shorthanded.

“I think it is heartbreaking for the millions of immigrants who made their lives here, who’ve raised families here, who hope for the opportunity to work, pay taxes, serve in our military, and fully contribute to this country we all love in an open way,” Obama said.

Obama said the U.S. immigration system has been broken for two decades and that this ruling set it back even further.

The issue of illegal immigration has featured prominently in the presidential campaign. Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, has called for deportation of all illegal immigrants – most of them from Mexico and other Latin American countries – and building a wall along the Mexican border.

The court did not reveal how each justice voted in the ruling, but it was possible the four liberals backed Obama and the four conservatives backed the states.

The court appeared divided along ideological lines during oral arguments on April 18, with liberals indicating support for the administration and conservative opposed.

‘MAJOR SETBACK’

The nation’s top elected Republican, U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, and others in his party welcomed the ruling.

“This is a major setback to President Obama’s attempts to expand executive power, and a victory for those who believe in the separation of powers and the rule of law,” said Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican.

The Constitution assigns certain powers to the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the federal government.

The split decision set no nationwide legal precedent on presidential power or immigration law. The ruling indicates that any major immigration policy change that would address the long-term situation of illegal immigrants would have to be enacted by Congress.

“We feel that justice has turned its back on millions of immigrants who, much like our founding fathers and mothers, sought a better future for themselves and their children and yet continue to live in the shadows without the respect and dignity that they deserve,” said Jorge-Mario Cabrera, a spokesman for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles.

The Obama administration could ask the high court to rehear the case, as losing parties in two other cases in which the court has split 4-4 have done. The court has not yet acted on those other petitions.

The Supreme Court decision does not affect a separate 2012 program aimed at protecting people brought to the United States as children from deportation, which Texas and the other states did not challenge.

Obama took the action after House Republicans killed bipartisan immigration legislation, billed as the biggest overhaul of U.S. laws on the matter in decades and providing a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, that was passed by the Senate in 2013.

Maya Ledezma, an immigrant from Mexico who lives in Maryland, said would have been eligible for Obama’s program because she has lived in the United States for more than a decade and has an 8-year-old daughter who is a U.S. citizen.

“My life would have changed if the vote had been favorable,” she said through a translator during a rally outside the Supreme Court.

Republicans have been critical of Obama’s use of executive action to get around Congress on immigration policy and other issues such as gun control and healthcare.

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton criticized the ruling for “throwing millions of families across our country into a state of uncertainty.” Trump said the ruling “blocked one of the most unconstitutional actions ever undertaken by a president.”

(Additional reporting by Ayesha Rascoe and Emily Stephenson in Washington and Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles)

Supreme Court agrees to hear immigrant detention dispute

Supreme Court building

By Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday agreed to decide whether immigrants detained for more than six months by the U.S. government while deportation proceedings take place are eligible for a hearing in which they can argue for their release.

The decision by the justices to hear a case focusing on the rights of people flagged for deportation comes during a presidential election campaign in which immigration has been a hot topic.

The court agreed to hear an Obama administration appeal of an October 2015 ruling by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that upheld a lower-court injunction requiring a hearing after six months of detention.

The long-running class action litigation brought by the American Civil Liberties Union includes some immigrants who were held at the border when seeking illegal entry into the United States and others, including legal permanent residents, who have been convicted of crimes.

If the immigrants were granted a bond hearing, the government would have to show they are flight risks or a danger to the community in order for the detention to continue.

The Justice Department said in court papers that the appeals court decision was “fundamentally wrong” because it dramatically expanded the number of people eligible for hearings and set a high bar for the government to argue that a detainee should not be released.

The ACLU responded in its court papers that the government had exaggerated the impact of the court injunction, which has been in place since 2012 and applies only to immigrants in the Los Angeles area.

Since it has been in effect, there has been “no evidence of adverse effects on immigration enforcement,” the ACLU lawyers said.

The court will hear oral arguments and decide the case during its next term, which starts in October and ends in June 2017.

In one of the biggest cases of its current term, the Supreme Court is due to decide by the end of the month whether to reinstate President Barack Obama’s 2014 executive action to shield millions of immigrants in the country illegally from deportation. The plan was blocked by lower courts.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Will Dunham)

EU makes it easier to suspend visa-free travel amid immigration worries

A barbed wire is seen in front of a European Union flag at an immigration reception centre in Bicske

By Gabriela Baczynska

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – European Union ministers on Friday backed making it easier and faster to suspend visa waiver with third countries and said relaxing travel rules for more states was not imminent amid deepening public concern about immigration into the bloc.

The EU is in politically sensitive talks with Ankara on easier travel requirements for Turks seeking to visit Europe for up to three months and with no right to work.

The 28-nation bloc is planning the concession as part of a deal whereby Turkey helps curb the influx of migrants and refugees to Europe. But some EU states are anxious about opening up to a mainly Muslim nation of 79 million people.

To assuage such concerns, the EU is beefing up a mechanism that allows it to suspend visa waiver with any of some 60 countries that have such agreements in place. The plan, endorsed by 28 EU interior ministers on Friday, enjoys backing in the European Parliament, which must sign off on it as well.

“Visa liberalization has great advantages for the EU and third countries,” said Klaas Dijkhoff, migration minister for the Netherlands, which now holds the bloc’s rotating presidency.

“Yet we need… to make sure that visa liberalization cannot be abused. I’m pleased that we agreed today on a mechanism that makes it easier to act against abuse.”

As well as Turkey, the EU is currently working on lifting visas for citizens of Ukraine, Georgia and Kosovo. Countries which already enjoy such travel benefits include Japan, the United States, South Korea, Venezuela, Israel and Canada.

NO MORE VISA LIBERALIZATION SOON?

German interior minister, Thomas de Maziere, said the EU should not grant visa-free travel to more countries until the suspension mechanism is in place. His French colleague, Bernard Cazeneuve, said more relaxed travel rules for the four countries were not a matter “of the coming weeks and months”.

Dijkhoff said the 28 ministers agreed that the four candidates must meet all criteria given to them by the EU to enjoy visa-free travel and that, while they were capable of eventually doing so, that was not the case yet.

In proposing extending the EU visa-waiver program to the four countries, the bloc’s executive European Commission said Ukraine, Georgia and Kosovo had already fulfilled their requirements, while Turkey was due to meet them by end-June.

But diplomats from EU states differ on whether that is the case, with most agreeing though that at least Georgia has done its homework in full.

Visa liberalization for Turkey, a key puzzle in the broader migration collaboration, has now been pushed back to July or, more likely, the autumn, sources told Reuters.

The new safety mechanism cuts to two months from six now the period after which a country can seek to suspend visa-waiver if it sees a sharp rise in overstays, asylum requests or readmission refusals from a non-EU state that has had travel rules relaxed.

The changes would apply to the countries of Europe’s free-travel Schengen zone, which comprises most EU states and several non-EU ones, such as Norway. Britain and Ireland are not part of the Schengen area and would not be affected. Immigration is a top issue in Britain’s June 23 vote on whether to leave the EU.

(Additional reporting by Tom Koerkemeier, Editing by Ralph Boulton)

Court lifts Court Order against Sheriff Arpaio’s Raids in Arizona

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio listens to U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speak at a campaign rally in Marshalltown

(Reuters) – A federal appeals court on Monday lifted a court order blocking Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s use of workplace raids to enforce Arizona laws that make it a crime for illegal immigrants to use stolen identities to obtain work.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said a lower court judge erred in imposing a preliminary injunction in January 2015 against Arpaio’s and Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery’s enforcement of Arizona’s identity theft laws.

Since 2008, Arpaio’s workplace raids had led to the arrests of more than 700 undocumented workers for identity theft.

The raids had become a signature initiative for Arpaio, who bills himself as “America’s toughest sheriff.”

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Alan Crosby)

Outmoded U.S. immigration system poses security risk, study shows

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. immigration authorities’ lack of progress in automating their systems is compromising border security, making it more difficult to process people seeking to get into the country, a report said on Tuesday.

“We may be admitting individuals who wish to do us harm, or who do not meet the requirements for a visa,” John Roth, the Inspector General for the Department of Homeland Security, told a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing.

The report from Roth’s office, released on Tuesday, said immigration officials expect it will take $1 billion and another three years, 11 years into the effort, to move from a paper-based system to automated benefit processing.

U.S. lawmakers have been calling for a tighter visa system since the November Paris attacks and December San Bernardino shootings. In Paris, some of the militants were Europeans radicalized after visiting Syria, and a California attacker had been admitted on a fiance visa.

They want to ensure that potential militants cannot enter the United States under programs, such as the “visa waiver” granted citizens of most western countries.

Roth told the Senate Homeland Security Committee that workers processing millions of applications for immigrant benefits work with a system “more suited to an office environment from 1950 rather than 2016.”

He said some green cards and other immigration documents had been mailed to wrong addresses, or printed with incorrect names, which meant they could have fallen into the wrong hands.

The poor quality of electronic data that is kept makes it more difficult to engage in data matching, to root out fraud and identify security risks, Roth said.

Shipping, storing and handling over 20 million immigrant files costs more than $300 million a year, he added.

The report also said the EB-5 visa program, which admits investors who spend $500,000 or $1 million in the United States, depending on the area, may not be subject to close enough scrutiny to ensure Americans’ safety.

The current system also allows “known human traffickers” to use work and fiance visas to bring victims into the country, the report said.

Republican Senator Ron Johnson, the committee’s chairman, said the modernization was too slow and expensive. “It should not take years and years and billions and billions of dollars,” he said.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Marguerita Choy and Alan Crosby)

Even with court’s approval, Obama’s immigration plan faces hurdles

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – If the U.S. Supreme Court endorses a key immigration initiative of President Barack Obama protecting more than 4 million illegal immigrants from deportation, his administration could face a surge of applicants and little time to process them before he leaves office in January 2017.

Obama announced the action in November 2014 but it has never gone into effect, being put on hold by a federal judge in Texas in February 2015. The plan was designed to help illegal immigrant parents of children who are U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents. It would protect them from deportation and give them work authorization.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday said it would decide whether Obama acted lawfully in creating the program by executive order, bypassing a gridlocked Congress. If Obama wins when the court rules by the end of June, his administration would have just seven months to implement the program.

Obama’s victory could be short-lived because the next president, set to be elected in November, would have the final say on whether to keep the program in place.

Democrats including presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton have embraced Obama’s plan. Republican presidential candidates including businessman Donald Trump and Texas Senator Ted Cruz have assailed it. Cruz said on Tuesday if elected he would rescind Obama’s order on the first day of his presidency.

An earlier immigration program that gave similar relief to children of illegal immigrants who grew up in the United States showed that such policies take time to implement. Launched in June 2012, it took two months to put in place.

After that, there were almost 408,000 applications in the first six months of the program, according to government numbers. By January 2013, only 154,000 applications had been approved. More than 700,000 people have since benefited from the program.

The government has been able to do nothing to prepare while Obama’s executive action has been on hold. In the injunction that halted the plan, U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen specifically said the administration was barred from “implementing any and all aspects or phases” of the program.

A Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman said the federal government is complying with the injunction.

Immigration advocates said they are preparing for a new effort to educate potential applicants about the program. They forecast much higher numbers than those who applied to the earlier 2012 program, largely because many more are eligible.

“There is no way the administration can process the projected volume of people that would be eligible,” said Gregory Chen, director of advocacy for the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

The new program is likely to present additional bureaucratic problems, legal experts say, in part due to the larger pool of eligible people but also because of the specific nature of the applicants. Both programs require proof of continued residency in the United States.

For younger people, this is easier to prove as usually they can cite school records, immigration experts say. For older people, who often do not speak English, it can be harder to provide necessary documentation. Women who do not work could find it especially difficult.

“It’s going to be a little bit more tricky for some applicants,” said Adonia Simpson, managing attorney for the Esperanza Center, an immigrant resource center run by Catholic Charities in Baltimore. In some cases, approval will be delayed while the government asks for additional evidence, she added.

Criticism of Obama’s actions by Republican candidates could also deter some people from applying, Simpson said. In her group’s discussions with immigrants, “we make it very clear that this is an executive action that could be changed,” she said.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Additional reporting by Richard Cowan and Julia Edwards; Editing by Will Dunham)

Supreme Court to decide major case on Obama immigration plan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday paved the way for a major ruling on the limits of presidential powers, agreeing to decide the legality of President Barack Obama’s unilateral action to shield more than 4 million illegal immigrants from deportation.

The court agreed to hear Obama’s bid to resurrect his plan, undertaken in 2014 through executive action bypassing the Republican-led Congress, that was blocked last year by lower courts after Texas and 25 other Republican-governed states sued to stop it. A ruling is due by the end of June.

The case is not the first time Obama has asked the Supreme Court to rescue a major initiative. The court in 2012 and 2015 rejected conservative challenges to his signature healthcare law.

The White House expressed confidence the court would now deem as lawful Obama’s immigration action, which was crafted to let millions of illegal immigrants whose children are American citizens or lawful permanent residents to get into a program that protects them from deportation and supplies work permits.

Texas and the other states contend Obama exceeded his presidential powers and usurped the authority of Congress. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, said courts have long recognized the limits to presidential authority.

“The court should affirm what President Obama said himself on more than 20 occasions: that he cannot unilaterally rewrite congressional laws and circumvent the people’s representatives,” Paxton said.

The nine justices will review a November ruling by the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that upheld a February 2015 decision by U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen in Brownsville, a city along the Texas border with Mexico, to halt Obama’s action.

With some of his major legislative initiatives suffocated by Republican lawmakers, the Democratic president has resorted to executive action to get around Congress on issues including immigration, gun control and the Obamacare law. The most recent executive action came this month when he acted unilaterally to expand background checks for certain gun purchases.

His executive actions have antagonized Republicans who accuse him of unlawfully taking actions by executive fiat that only Congress can perform.

The case raises several legal issues, including whether states have legal standing to sue the U.S. government over decisions on how to enforce federal laws.

‘FAITHFULLY EXECUTED’

The high court added a separate question on whether the president’s action violated a provision of the U.S. Constitution that requires the president to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”

The Obama administration called the president’s action mere guidance to immigration officials on how to exercise discretion given by Congress on how to enforce immigration laws.

Obama’s action was “consistent with the actions taken by presidents of both parties, the laws passed by Congress and the decisions of the Supreme Court,” White House spokeswoman Brandi Hoffine said.

Those eligible for Obama’s program, directed at illegal immigrants with no criminal record, would be able to work legally and receive some federal benefits. States were not required to provide any benefits. His order expanded on a 2012 program that provided similar relief for people who became illegal immigrants as children.

The case could have repercussions beyond immigration because it would set a precedent for the circumstances under which states can sue the federal government over a range of executive actions. Future presidents, Republican or Democratic, could face new constraints if the states win.

The case is one of the most important the Supreme Court will decide during its current term, along with a challenge to a restrictive Texas abortion law.

If the court sides with Obama, he would have until his term ends in January 2017 to implement the immigration plan. With the U.S. presidential election looming in November, it would be up to the next president to decide whether to keep it in place.

Obama’s action came after a bipartisan immigration policy overhaul bill passed by the Senate died in the House of Representatives.

The immigration issue has driven a wedge between Hispanics, an increasingly important voting bloc, and Republicans, many of whom have offered tough words about illegal immigrants. Most of the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants are Hispanics, coming from Mexico and other Latin American countries.

The ruling is due just months before the presidential election. The two leading Democratic presidential hopefuls, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, said on Tuesday the court should uphold Obama’s action. Republican candidates Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio said as president they would undo Obama’s immigration moves.

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid said Obama’s executive action relied on well-established constitutional authority.

He said he recently met with the illegal immigrant parents of U.S citizens and lawful permanent residents, saying that “these law-abiding men and women continue to live in constant fear of being separated from their children. These families must be allowed to step out of the shadows and fully contribute to the country that they love and call home.”

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Additional reporting by Roberta Rampton, Richard Cowan and Julia Edwards; Editing by Will Dunham)

Number of European Migrants, Refugees Now Officially Tops 1 Million

More than 1 million migrants and refugees traveled to Europe in 2015, according to data released Tuesday by the International Office of Migration (IOM).

The office placed the approximate total of refugee and migrant arrivals in Europe at 1,005,504 through Monday. The office said it was the highest flow of displaced people since World War II.

The overwhelming majority of the migrants and refugees arrived by sea, according to the IOM. Approximately 97 percent (971,289) traveled that way, while only 34,215 journeyed by land.
Most of the new arrivals were from South Asia, Africa and Syria, where an ongoing civil war has forced millions of people to flee their homes and travel to other countries in search of new lives.

The data was announced days after a United Nations Refugee Agency report indicated the number of displaced people around the globe likely “far surpassed” 60 million, a record total. That U.N. report covers refugees, asylum seekers and so-called internally displaced people, or those who have been forced to flee their homes but were still currently living in their countries.

The surge in migrant and refugee arrivals has become a contested political issue in Europe, with widespread debate about policies and security. In a joint statement with the IOM, the United Nations Refugee Agency described Europe’s initial reaction to the arrivals as “chaotic,” with thousands of refugees traveling through Greece only to be unable to cross certain borders, but noted “a more coordinated European response is beginning to take shape.”

Still, there remain some concerns about the arrival of refugees — particularly from Syria, the most common place of origin for refugees — as one of the men behind the Nov. 13 terrorist attacks in Paris had a forged Syrian passport, fueling concerns that he was posing as a refugee.

“As anti-foreigner sentiments escalate in some quarters, it is important to recognize the positive contributions that refugees and migrants make to the societies in which they live and also honor core European values: protecting lives, upholding human rights and promoting tolerance and diversity,” U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said in a statement.

The United Nations reported that 50 percent of the refugees arriving in Europe were traveling from Syria. Another 20 percent were from Afghanistan and another 7 percent came from Iraq.

The IOM reported 3,692 refugees were killed on their journeys, about 400 more than 2014. The IOM’s director general, William Lacy Swing, called for improvements to the migration process.

“Migration must be legal, safe and secure for all – both for the migrants themselves and the countries that will become their new homes,” Swing said in a statement.

For the First Time in Four Decades, More Mexican Immigrants Leave U.S. Than Enter

The Pew Research Center reported Thursday that more Mexican immigrants are crossing the border to leave the U.S. rather than enter it.

USA Today states that an estimated 870,000 Mexican immigrants entered the United States from 2009 to 2014, but 1 million returned to Mexico, including American-born children. The reasons for the historic shift include reuniting with family, the Great Recession in the United States that made looking for a job extremely difficult, tighter border security, and the fact that Mexico’s economy is improving, according to Mark Hugo Lopez, the director of Hispanic research at the center.

Deportation also has a hand in these statistics, but only 14% of the 1 million were deported.

And while a lot of Mexican immigrants reportedly stated that family was the main reason for leaving, Dowell Myers, a public policy professor at the University of Southern California, told CBS News that the lack of jobs in the United States is the main reason for Mexican immigrants to leave, not family.

“It’s not like all of a sudden they decided they missed their mothers,” Myers said. “The fact is, our recovery from the Great Recession has been miserable. It’s been miserable for everyone.”

While the recover for the U.S. economy has been sluggish, Mexico has thrived over the recent years compared to the tailspins it saw in the 1980’s and 90’s. Inflation is manageable, the peso is stable, and the northern half of the country has boomed with manufacturing centers thanks to the North American Free Trade Agreement. The manufacturing plants produce cars, heavy equipment, and airplanes.

In another twist, CBS News reports that Border Patrol arrested more non-Mexicans than Mexicans in 2014 due to more Central Americans fleeing violence in their countries and seeking asylum in the United States.

Illegal Albanian Immigrants Show Signs Of Ebola

Albanian officials are downplaying the fact that five of 40 illegal immigrants caught sneaking into the country on Thursday are showing signs of being infected with Ebola.

Officials say that the immigrants arrived from Eritrea by sneaking into Europe through Greece.  The immigrants have been taken into quarantine at a hospital about 85 miles from Italy’s closest port.

The revelation of the possible infections comes hours after finding out that one person in Montenegro has been forced into quarantine with symptoms of Ebola.  The person reportedly had entered legally into Montenegro from a West African nation.

European nations are starting to announce steps to protect their countries from Ebola.  Serbia has announced 21-day medical surveillance for anyone who enters the country from Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea or Nigeria.

Guinea has declared a nationwide public health emergency because of the current outbreak.  Liberia announced they have obtained doses of the experimental Ebola drug ZMapp and have started giving it to victims.