Judge Emmet G. Sullivan of the US District Court for the District of Columbia halted the deportation in progress of a mother and daughter this week, and threatened to hold Attorney General Jeff Sessions in contempt due to the fact that court proceedings appealing their deportation were in progress. An attorney for the ACLU, which filed a lawsuit on August 7, 2018 challenging the Department of Justice's recent policy change that aims to fast track the removal of asylum seekers who do not pass their credible fear interviews, and eliminates gang and domestic violence as grounds for seeking asylum in the US, received a notice in the middle of a hearing on the case before Judge Sullivan that the mother and daughter were on a deportation flight to El Salvador.
Articles Posted in Immigration
Judge Dana Sabraw strongly rejected the Trump Administration's recent argument that the ACLU and other immigrants' rights advocates should be responsible for locating the more than 450 immigrant parents the administration deported after separating them from their children earlier this year. The judge said it is "100%" the government's responsibility to locate and reunite deported parents with their children, and stated that if it fails to do so, it will have "permanently orphaned" the children it separated from them.
Earlier this week, a group of people whose visa applications were not approved under the current administration’s travel ban filed a lawsuit against Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and various government agencies. The lawsuit, Emami v. Nielsen, was filed in the Northern District of California, and plaintiffs come from all five of the Muslim-majority countries affected by the ban: Somalia, Yemen, Iran, Syria, and Libya.
In a status update filed Monday, the federal government informed the court that has ordered it to reunite over 2,500 separated children with their parents by July 26 in a class action filed by the ACLU seeking reunification of separated immigrant families, that over 460 parents of separated children over the age of 5 may have already been deported without their children. The government has continued to state that any parent who has left the country had the opportunity to bring their child with them, but advocacy groups question whether parents deported under those circumstances understood their options.
In October, Canada is set to legalize the recreational use of marijuana nationwide. Legalization theoretically could mean that American consumers could cross the border to consume marijuana in Canada and possibly bring it back to the U.S., but in reality this is unlikely to happen, at least for now. While some states…
U.S. District Judge John Mendez rejected the administration's request for a preliminary injunction on three California laws that were passed last year.
On Tuesday, June 26, 2018, United States District Judge Dana M. Sabraw of the Southern District of California granted the American Civil Liberties Union's request for a preliminary injunction seeking to reunite children affected by the Trump Administration's "zero-tolerance" immigration policy.
In its pending class action on behalf of separated immigrant families, the ACLU has filed a proposal that would require the Trump administration to reunify the families it has separated under its "zero tolerance" immigration enforcement policy within a month. The proposal would also require reunification within 10 days for children younger than 5; phone contact between parents and children within 7 days; a halt on separations unless there is clear evidence of danger to the child; and a prohibition on deporting parents without their children unless the parent knowingly and voluntarily waives the right to reunification before deportation.
The zero tolerance immigration policy that has led to separating refugee parents from children at the U.S.-Mexico border faces its first legal challenge from a Guatemalan asylee.
A group of large law firms and non-profits have created a nationwide coalition aimed at reuniting immigrant families separated under the Trump administration's "zero tolerance" policy. The coalition's effort has been named Project Corazon, and it will establish a system for parents to confidentially seek legal support in learning the whereabouts of their children. It is estimated that over 2,300 children have been taken from their parents since the administration's policy was implemented this spring.
