Federal Judge Partially Blocks Biden’s Deportation Enforcement Priorities
A federal judge has halted in part a Biden administration policy that directed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers to prioritize arresting and removing immigrants who posed a threat to public safety or national security, or had only recently entered the country without authorization. The partial injunction of the enforcement priorities means that more immigrants in the U.S. are now potentially subject to detention and deportation.
In the order issued on Tuesday, Judge Michael Newman of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio partially blocked the guidelines issued by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) last September, which had made clear that an individual’s lack of immigration status alone was not a reason for arrest or deportation.
The decision applies to cases in which the immigrant already has a final order of removal, meaning an immigration judge decided the immigrant cannot stay in the United States and has ordered the immigrant to leave, or the immigrant is subject to mandatory detention under U.S. immigration laws.
Biden Administration Ends Expanded Expedited Removal Policy
The Biden administration on Monday formally ended the Trump-era expedited removal policy, which allowed Immigration and Customs (ICE) officers to arrest and deport undocumented immigrants anywhere in the country who were unable to prove that they had been in the U.S. continuously for two or more years, without a hearing in front of an immigration judge.
Before it was expanded in 2019, DHS used expedited removal to arrest and then deport certained undocumented immigrants who were within 100 air miles of the U.S. border, to those who arrived by sea, and those who had not yet been physically present in the U.S. for 14 days.
The expanded expedited removal policy was suspended by the Biden administration in October 2021. This week’s formal rescission returns the policy to its pre-2019 state.
Biden Administration Pledges Humanitarian Aid and to Welcome up to 100,000 Ukrainians
The Biden administration announced plans Thursday to welcome up to 100,000 Ukrainians and other refugees fleeing the violence during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The pledge also includes $1 billion in new humanitarian aid in response to the largest refugee crisis in Europe since the end of the second world war.
More than 3.6 million people have fled Ukraine since Russia’s invasion last month, while just 690 Ukrainians have entered the U.S. as refugees since October 2021. Only seven Ukrainian refugees were resettled in the United States in the first two weeks of March.
President Joe Biden raised the refugee admissions cap last October to 125,000 people for fiscal year 2022, which runs from October 2021 through September 2022. The administration does not anticipate needing to raise that cap to accommodate this week’s announcement, expecting many Ukrainians to choose to remain in Europe, close to their home country.
Others will be able to enter the U.S. based on relationships to U.S. citizens and permanent residents. The Migration Policy Institute estimates that about 355,000 Ukrainian immigrants already live in the United States.
One Third of Immigration Court Cases Are Children, 40% of Those Are Toddlers
Almost one third of all new cases in U.S. immigration courts are children under the age of 18, and of those cases, 40% are toddlers under the age of 4, according to a new report released last week.
Since the fiscal year (FY) began in October 2021, nearly one in eight Notices to Appear in immigration court were issued to children under age 5. These toddlers make up 12% of all immigration cases so far in FY2022.
The data gathered by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), a nonpartisan data gathering and analysis organization at Syracuse University, showed that over 310,000 new immigration court cases have been started so far this fiscal year, with nearly 82,000 of those against children under age 18. Nearly 33,000 were under age 5.
Confirmation Hearings of Supreme Court Nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson
Confirmation hearings for President Joe Biden’s Supreme Court nominee, Ketanji Brown Jackson, began Monday, March 21. During these hearings, which ended yesterday, members of the Senate Judiciary Committee questioned Judge Jackson to determine her qualifications and approach to hearing and deciding legal disputes, before a vote of the full Senate to consent or decline her nomination.
Jackson has served as a federal judge since 2013, before which she had a distinguished legal career spanning both government service and private law practice. During her time as a federal judge, Jackson issued four rulings related to immigration, with mixed results for immigrants.
Jackson is widely hailed for her fair and even-handed application of federal law, and notably does not use terms such as “illegals” or “aliens” when referring to immigrants, indicating her respect for the dignity and humanity of the plaintiffs in her court.
Despite the tense and sometimes offensive tenor of the confirmation hearings, Jackson is generally expected to be confirmed by the Senate. Lawmakers hope to complete her confirmation process before the Senate break starting April 8.
IPCC Report: Tens of Millions of People Could Become Climate Refugees
A long-awaited report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a group of scientists convened by the United Nations, paints a dire picture, warning that extreme weather is accelerating faster than expected and its effects are more deadly and widespread than previously believed.
According to the report, more than 3 billion people live in areas vulnerable to climate hazards, some of which will fail to adapt to a warmer world, forcing millions to flee. Since 2008, roughly 20 million people per year have been displaced, mostly driven out by storms and floods. Most climate migration will take place within a country’s borders rather than internationally, the report found.
Regions most affected so far are south, east, and south-east Asia followed by sub-Saharan Africa. As the earth gets hotter, migration will continue to increase, found the report. But it cautions that predicting the number of people who will be forced to move and which countries will be most affected isn’t an exact science.
“Climate-related migration is expected to increase, although the drivers and outcomes are highly context specific and insufficient evidence exists to estimate numbers of climate-related migrants now and in the future.”