Free Republic

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Thursday appealed a judge's ruling that halted the abrupt deportation of 1,400 Iraqi nationals nationwide, including 114 from Metro Detroit. Nearly all of the Iraqi nationals, who are now waiting to learn their fates in detention centers, have outstanding and, in many cases, long-dormant deportation orders stemming from prior criminal convictions. "The criminal history of these aliens includes convictions for homicide, rape, aggravated assault, drug trafficking, sex assault and many other types of offenses," Acting ICE Director Thomas D. Homan said in a statement after the deportation sweeps. Each of the detainees had been...

The Resistance wants a showdown with Donald Trump, and looks like it will get its wish soon. Our Democrats would make California a “sanctuary state,” setting up a confrontation with the federal government over fundamental questions of who gets to enter the country, who gets to stay and how the rules will be enforced. Meantime, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra on Wednesday announced the state is suing the Trump administration yet again. This time, California wants to block the president’s proposed border wall on the grounds that it would be bad for the environment. Since when does the environment trump...

Wal-Mart Stores Inc, Target Corp and PepsiCo Inc on Wednesday joined an expanded group of nearly 800 companies calling in a letter for U.S. legislation to protect immigrants brought into the country illegally by their parents from deportation, according to organizer FWD.us. A group of businesses less than half the size and weighted toward technology companies sent a similar letter in August, before President Donald Trump said he would end the program. Both letters were spearheaded by FWD.us, a pro-immigration group co-founded by Facebook Inc Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg.

Undocumented immigrants are shunning California in favor of Texas, with the Lone Star State’s undocumented population growing nearly five times as fast as California’s, new federal data show. About 2.9 million undocumented immigrants lived in California during 2014, according to new estimates from the Department of Homeland Security. The undocumented population in California grew steadily from 2000 to 2008, dropped sharply during the 2007 recession, rose again and remained essentially flat from 2011 to 2014. Overall, California’s unauthorized immigrant population grew by 16 percent from 2000 through 2014. The undocumented population in Texas, by comparison, grew by 75 percent from...

Places of worship and private charities in Texas and Florida are playing a pivotal role in the recovery effort from hurricanes Harvey and Irma because so many storm victims are immigrants in the country illegally – and therefore ineligible for federal disaster aid. FEMA rules allow people in the country illegally to apply for disaster aid on behalf of children under 18 years old with legal status, but many worry about the government sharing information with immigration authorities. Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston is hosting workshops for immigrants to explain FEMA eligibility and answer other questions.

Rasmea Odeh was deported Tuesday. The 70-year-old Palestinian immigrant, whose U.S. citizenship was revoked by Immigration and Customs Enforcement for not disclosing having served time as a prisoner in Israel, didn’t cry until the end, only after ICE refused her huge crowd of supporters entry into the airport. Before that, Odeh was staunchly defiant, the etched lines of her set countenance only occasionally twitching during a three-hour O’Hare Airport send-off for the political activist who became symbolic of a cause — Palestine liberation — her case gaining notoriety worldwide. “Up until this very moment, I didn’t believe they will throw...

Though the administration has begun to put supports in place for undocumented students affected by President Donald Trump’s decision to end a program that shielded them from deportation, some say SIU is lagging behind other Illinois universities. “Since the undocumented body of students is smaller [here], the urgency is lower,” said Martha Osornio, an undocumented student and a senior studying cinema and photography from Chicago. “Other universities are all doing workshops and things to help their larger populations of undocumented students.” The University of Illinois system’s flagship campus has a website dedicated to providing resources for undocumented students, open.illinois.edu. Here,...

The Tompkins County Immigrant Rights Coalition launched a rapid response network and hotline for immigrants last week in an effort to “stand in solidarity with undocumented immigrants.” Volunteers who are part of the network will respond to calls from people in the area if they are being pursued by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and are facing arrest, detention or deportation. When called, a team of volunteers will arrive at the scene or otherwise document the event, including a description of the persons arrested, the identification of law enforcement agencies present at the arrest, the location where the person...

In Minnesota, more than 6,200 individuals have been granted DACA status. A similar number might have qualified for the program but never applied. And some, like 29-year-old Alejandra Cruz, were never eligible. She was 20 when she entered the United States, and DACA covers only those who arrived before reaching age 16. The vulnerability that DACA recipients are feeling is familiar territory to her, though she insists she is not afraid. "This country depends on the immigrant community," she said. "And this country needs to recognize that." She doesn't usually volunteer that she's undocumented and not enrolled in DACA, but...

A Palestinian convicted terrorist with a decades-old record of bombings in Jerusalem will be deported from Chicago to Jordan on Tuesday, her spokesman said. Supporters and community activists plan to gather at O’Hare Airport’s international terminal before Rasmea Odeh, 70, departs for Jordan, said Hatem Abudayyeh, coordinator of her defense committee. Odeh pleaded guilty in April to concealing her convictions when she applied for US citizenship in Detroit in 2004. Her record would have disqualified her from entering the US a decade earlier. In 1970, Odeh was convicted of two bombings in Jerusalem, including one that killed two young men...

....What happens when you deport people who spent their formative years in the United States? Scholars who have documented the consequences of deporting people who grew up in the United States compare the pratice to “violent dismemberment,” calling it “destructive and inhumane” and “tragic.” Deportees who grew up in the United States experience their arrival to Mexico as such a profound loss that they often compare it to death. Thoughts of suicide are markedly higher among deportees with strong ties to the U.S. than among the rest of the deported population. Deported Dreamers also face social stigma in Mexico. They...

Chanting pro-immigrant slogans — “All of us or none of us,” “Democrats deport” and “We are not a bargaining chip” — more than 60 young people overwhelmed a Monday news conference that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi had organized on her home turf in San Francisco to urge passage of the DREAM Act to protect immigrants who were brought to the country as children. After nearly an hour of boisterous chanting from the group, which called itself “Undocumented Youth,” Pelosi and fellow House Democrats Barbara Lee of Oakland and Jared Huffman of San Rafael packed up and left the carefully...

Widening earlier claims of immigration fraud at the Tesla factory, a recently unsealed whistleblower suit says several other major automakers, including Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Volkswagen, illegally used foreign construction workers to build their U.S. factories. The charges expand on an investigation by this news organization last year into foreign construction workers building Tesla’s paint shop in Fremont. The federal suit charges that the carmakers used hundreds of Eastern European workers on suspect visas hired through subcontractors for the German company Eisenmann. The investigation, “The Hidden Workforce Expanding Tesla’s Factory,” and court documents revealed at least 140 foreign workers on questionable...

San Diego attorney Dulce Garcia has regularly defended clients in immigration court. Now, she is the one seeking legal relief. Brought to the United States illegally by her parents as a child, Garcia is one of six immigrants who sued the Trump administration on Monday over its decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. Garcia’s case, filed in San Francisco federal court, is the first to be brought by DACA recipients. The daughter of a hotel housekeeper and a welder, Garcia arrived in Southern California from Mexico at the age of 4. Garcia decided to become an attorney...

On Friday night, the City of College Park, Maryland reversed its city council decision that allowed non-citizens of the U.S., including illegal aliens, the right to vote. This was due to council conveniently forgetting that such massive changes to the College Park City Charter require the vote of a supermajority on council as opposed to a simple majority. Ironically, the law that mandated a supermajority to pass changes to the city charter was enacted just this summer while the proposal to allow illegals and other non-citizens to vote, and was passed 4-3, was voted on only a few months later...

Federal immigration authorities said Friday that they were tracking a young immigrant when San Francisco police allege he shot and killed a popular community activist last month. Erick Garcia-Pineda, 18, was detained in December and released from custody in April pending deportation. ICE says the sheriff's department ignored a request to block his release from jail. San Francisco's "sanctuary city" policy bars the sheriff from cooperating with immigration officials unless they are seeking suspects convicted or charged with violent crimes.

A year ago Luis Alberto Mendez was an able-bodied immigrant from Mexico who worked as a carpenter. He had suffered from depression, but his lawyer said he had gotten the symptoms under control with medication. He was also undocumented. Today Mendez is a quadriplegic who is confined to his brother’s home in San Jose. He needs constant care and has no money. He blames Sacramento County and the U.S. government, and he’s suing them both. Mendez, 37, is a native of Mexico who does not dispute that he was in the United States illegally in 2016. When agents detained him,...

Nancy Pelosi said she trusted President Donald Trump’s sincerity in working to protect so-called Dreamers. “When we’re talking about this legislation to protect the Dreamers, yes I do trust that the president is sincere in understanding that the public supports that overwhelmingly, the public supports not sending these young people back,” Pelosi told reporters.

The children of deported adults could continue to go to school in California under a bill state lawmakers sent to Gov. Jerry Brown on Wednesday. State law currently requires students between the ages of 6 and 18 to attend public school in the district where their parent or legal guardian resides. If parents are deported, their children often follow. Sen. Ricardo Lara (D) who introduced the bill, cites reports that show many U.S.-born children who move to Mexico to join their parents are not able to speak Spanish well enough to integrate into society or succeed in school. Lara, the...

Mexico has pledged to help undocumented immigrant youth living in the United States transition to life in the Latin American country in response to Donald Trump’s decision to end DACA. The Mexican government will create programs that provide mental health services, offer financial aid and facilitate the transfer of education credits, according to Foreign Relations Secretary Luis Videgaray. Officials also plan to create a job recruitment program for recent arrivals. “With each ‘dreamer’ who returns to Mexico, Mexico wins,” Videgaray said. “What is relevant is not which country wins here. What is relevant here is what the ‘dreamers’ want.” As...