Tag: Obama and immigration

500 Groups Launch Campaign Against Obama's Expansion of Immigration Enforcement Program

Over 500 local and national advocacy groups have promised to “voice their discontent” in coming months with the Obama administration’s continuation of 287(g), a Bush-era program that allows local police to enforce U.S. immigration laws.

Day Laborer Arrested by Phoenix PD

A day laborer is arrested by Phoenix police. (Photo: A.J. Alexander)

The groups sent a two-page letter (plus 13 pages of signatures) to President Obama last week, asking him “to immediately terminate the 287(g) program operated by the Department of Homeland Security.” The letter will be followed by “vigils, marches and other activities across the country,” said the National Immigration Law Center in a press release.

The 287(g) program — named for a section of the Immigration and Nationality Act — has been heavily criticized for leading to racial profiling and creating a climate of fear in immigrant communities.

“The Obama administration has responded to documented violations within the 287(g) program by expanding it and creating an illusory complaint process,” said Marielena Hincapié, executive director of the center, in the statement. “Ostracizing potential victims of and witnesses to crime and providing them with a disincentive to trust the authorities will make all our communities less safe.”

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New York Immigrant Advocates Launch Campaign to End ICE’s Presence in Local Jails

By Maibe Gonzalez Fuentes, FI2W contributor
Pro-immigrant activist Humberto De La Cruz holds a copy of the letter advocates will send to the New York City council, during the press conference at Judson Memorial Church in Manhattan. (Photo: Maibe Gonzalez Fuentes)

Pro-immigrant activist Humberto De La Cruz holds a copy of the letter advocates will send to the New York City council, during the press conference at Judson Memorial Church in Manhattan. (Photo: Maibe Gonzalez Fuentes)

Saidah Mohammed, an 18-year-old from Brooklyn, New York, hasn’t seen her boyfriend, Jaun Pierre, for over a year. He’s being detained while he awaits deportation to his native Jamaica, an island he hasn’t visited since his parents brought him to the U.S., settling in Brooklyn some 10 years ago.

Jaun, 19, has spent the past 11 months in immigration detention. Before that he spent months detained on a minor charge in New York City’s Rikers Island prison. It was while he was a prisoner at Rikers that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents caught Jaun. His lawyer advised him to plead guilty to charges stemming from a fight he was allegedly involved in without informing him that such a plea would set grounds for deportation. Now proceedings are underway to return Jaun to Jamaica, away from his parents, siblings, friends and Saidah. (*In response to a reader’s comment, this paragraph was edited for clarity.)

Saidah told her boyfriend’s story through tears at a press conference Tuesday in New York where advocates and religious groups launched a new campaign to end the presence of ICE at the city’s jails.

Advocates called on New York City’s government to pass legislation that would preclude ICE from accessing detainees’ place of birth information prior to conviction. A bill drafted by the groups and sponsored by Council Member Eric Gioia will be introduced in the City Council next week.

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News Analysis: ICE Chief Promises Efficiency, Continued Tough Enforcement of Immigration Laws

On his first visit to Los Angeles, three months after becoming the chief of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), assistant secretary for Homeland Security John Morton said all his agency wants to do is become more efficient.

“We will try to apply immigration laws in a tough, smart and thoughtful manner,” said Morton to a small group of reporters invited to meet him last week as part of his tour of Southern California.

He said that if people expected ICE to stop doing its job, they would be disappointed. “That is not the point”, said Morton, who is a career prosecutor.

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Ambivalence After White House Immigration Reform Meeting Featuring Obama and Napolitano

Obama keeps revving the immigration reform engine, advocates want to take it for a spin already. (Photo: The White House)

Obama keeps revving the immigration reform engine, advocates want to take it for a spin already. (Photo: The White House)

The second White House meeting on immigration reform under President Barack Obama went well. Or did it? It depends on whom you ask.

Much like the overall situation since Obama took office, the meeting left room for conflicting interpretations: some came out thinking the president is committed to passing immigration reform despite his overloaded agenda, others emerged with a sense that Obama and Homeland Security Sec. Janet Napolitano need to start backing up their promises with action.

A glass half-full example: Politico‘s headline, “Obama addresses immigration reform,” when all the president did was show up at the meeting to give a brief pep talk.

Glass half-empty: The Wall Street Journal’s take, “Some Hear More PR, Less Policy at White House Immigration Meeting.”

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Even WSJ Wants Immigration Reform, But Obama's ICE Chief Stresses Enforcement

While even such a conservative stalwart as The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page asks for comprehensive immigration reform and a stop to the Bush-era enforcement-only approach, the Obama administration’s chief of immigration enforcement has reiterated this week the government’s commitment to a hard-line approach.

At the same time, Homeland Security secretary Janet Napolitano will host a meeting on immigration Thursday at the White House “with advocates, religious groups, businesses and law enforcers,” The Associated Press reported.

These latest developments seem to continue the Obama administration’s pattern of talking about reform while acting on enforcement.

John Morton, ICE chief - Photo: ice.gov

John Morton, ICE chief. (Photo: ice.gov)

“We will try to apply immigration laws in a tough, smart and thoughtful manner,”* said John Morton, assistant secretary of Homeland Security for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), during a visit to Los Angeles, according to a Spanish-language article in La Opinión by Feet in 2 Worlds contributor Pilar Marrero.

Morton signaled there will not be a stop to immigration raids.

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Activists See Reversal, Even Betrayal, in Obama's Postponement of Immigration Reform Bill

President Barack Obama has now made official something that had looked more and more likely ever since he took office: that, because he has too much to deal with, immigration reform won’t happen this year. For pro-immigration and Hispanic advocates, this is a clear backtracking on the president’s campaign promise and, while some try to keep a hopeful outlook, others are starting to use the “B” word: betrayal.

“This is a reversal of his campaign promise to pass immigration reform in 2009,” wrote Christine Neumann-Ortiz, executive director of Wisconsin nonprofit Voces de la Frontera in the Huffington Post. “Patience for 2010 is hard to come by when the new administration persists with an enforcement-only strategy that Obama criticized during the campaign trail.

“Both represent a betrayal to Latino voters who were a key constituency in delivering the presidency and a majority of Democrats to the U.S. Congress.

A week before the presidential election, Obama told La Opinión he was "committed" to putting together "a recipe" for immigration reform "starting in my first year" in the presidency.

A week before the presidential election, Obama told La Opinión he was "committed" to putting together "a recipe" for immigration reform "starting in my first year" in the presidency.

Obama never promised to pass an immigration bill in 2009; he always talked about dealing with the issue in 2009. (Anxious voters probably did not stop to weigh the nuance in his carefully chosen words.) But in addition to the matter of Congress passing (or not) a reform bill, advocates are starting to conclude that the candidate who ran on “Hope” and “Change” is not that different from his predecessor in the White House, whose approach to immigration was about strict enforcement and constant talk of the war on terror.

Responding to comments by Homeland Security Sec. Janet Napolitano, Joshua Hoyt, executive director of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, told The New York Times, “She’s increasing enforcement of laws that President Obama and she have both said are broken, and the result is going to be a lot of human misery.”

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Disappointment in Mexico as Obama Says Immigration Reform Will Have to Wait

Obama and Calderón had a bilateral meeting on Sunday in Guadalajara. (Photo: Alfredo Guerrero/Mexican Presidency)

Obama and Calderón had a bilateral meeting on Sunday in Guadalajara. (Photo: Alfredo Guerrero/Mexican Presidency - Click to visit Flickr page)

The summit of the “Three Amigos” (the presidents of the U.S., Mexico and Canada) in Guadalajara brought no good news for Mexicans on the immigration front. The headline in Monday’s Mexico City newspaper El Universal summed it up: “Neither immigration reform nor does Canada eliminate visas.” At a press conference at the summit President Obama said that Congressional action on immigration reform will have to wait until next year.

With a raging drug war south of the border, trade controversies and the U.S. Congress occupied with other matters, Mexican President Felipe Calderón apparently did not even intend to push the issue of immigration with his American counterpart, Barack Obama, in their private meeting on Sunday.

Also at the summit, Canada, which recently started requiring all Mexican visitors to obtain a visa, said it has no intention of going back on that decision, which has incensed Mexicans, already sensitive on the issue.

According to El Universal, Obama told Calderón that the White House has a full plate right now, which makes it impossible to deal with an immigration reform bill.

The Mexican ambassador to the U.S., Arturo Sarukhán, narrated the encounter, saying Obama told Calderón that “if the rest of the legislative agenda in the U.S., in Congress, moves in the right direction, space could open up between November and March. But evidently, right now, the immigration reform bill is not ready at this time to be introduced in Congress.” (more…)

Obama Pushes Immigration Reform to 2010, Jokes About Being Called "an Illegal Immigrant"

Obama talked at the White House with Hispanic media reporters. (Photo: The White House)

Obama talked at the White House with Hispanic media reporters. (Photo: The White House)

Another Friday afternoon statement from the White House means another bit of bad news for immigration reform advocates. This time, President Barack Obama met with correspondents from Hispanic media outlets and said he expects Congress to deal with immigration early next year.

The new statement pushes Obama farther away from his commitment to deal with the issue during his first year in office — a promise he made to Latino voters he badly needed to carry some swing states in the 2008 election.

On Friday, Obama met with a group of 10 reporters including representatives of wire services Notimex (Mexico), Reuters and EFE, and from Los Angeles newspaper La Opinión. Although he said he didn’t know if the bill would get enough votes, he said he expects Congress to deal with immigration reform by “early next year.”

For this, Obama said a bill should be drafted by the end of 2009.

“Now, will we be able to mobilize the votes to pass something? That I can’t predict,” he said, according to Notimex.

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Changes Announced for Immigration Detention System, But Are They Enough?

After years of criticism by immigrant advocates and numerous scathing reports from national and international organizations, the Obama administration is making some changes to the immigration detention system.  The changes were announced on Thursday by Immigration and Customs Enforcement on its website.

Amnesty International criticizes immigration detention in the U.S. - Photo: Amnesty International/Steven Rubin

Immigrant detainees. (Photo: Amnesty International/Steven Rubin)

One measure getting a positive reaction from advocates is the discontinuation of  the practice of keeping families at the T. Don Hutto detention facility in Texas. But other changes to the system that houses more than 30,000 people on any given day are seen by some as more of a reorganization than an actual overhaul.  They include the creation of a new supervisory office to “design and plan” the detention system; the appointment of detention managers to supervise the 23 biggest facilities in the country; and the establishment of an Office of Detention Oversight.

In addition, ICE says it will create two “advisory groups” with advocacy organizations, which will deal with “general policies and practices,” on the one hand, and detainee health care, on the other.

Advocates already expressed some misgivings about the changes, announced as “major reforms” by ICE.

“…(W)ithout independently enforceable standards, a reduction in beds, or basic due process before people are locked up, it is hard to see how the government’s proposed overhaul of the immigration detention system is anything other than a reorganization or renaming of what was in place before,” Vanita Gupta, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer, told The New York Times.

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News Analysis: Rift Between Obama and (Former) Supporters in Pro-Immigration Camp Out in the Open

You promised us change, not more of the same, Rubiela Arias sign said at a New York protest against Janet Napolitano - Photo: Maibe Gonzalez Fuentes.

"You promised us change, not more of the same," Rubiela Arias' sign said at a New York protest against Janet Napolitano. (Photo: Maibe Gonzalez Fuentes.)

After June’s meeting on immigration reform between President Barack Obama and members of Congress, pro-immigrant activists were hoping for a new push towards what they thought was a shared goal.

So far, what they’ve gotten is an energetic effort by the administration to continue, expand and bolster Bush-era immigration policies criticized as insensitive, racist and ineffective.

“We are expanding enforcement, but I think in the right way,” Homeland Security Sec. Janet Napolitano told The New York Times in an interview for a story published Monday.

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