Ex-Immigration Official: Children Facing Deportation Deserve Lawyers
Newsmax reports that immigration rights advocates are speaking out against the way federal government handles child immigrants confronting deportation. Since there are no public defenders in the current U.S. immigration system, immigrants must find and pay for their own lawyers during removal cases, regardless of age. Julie Myers Wood, former head of USCIS, and Wendy Young, president of Kids in Need of Defense, commented that child immigrants face an unfair advantage and should be furnished with a lawyer to represent them in court. They claim that many unaccompanied immigrant children are “fleeing violence, extreme poverty, abuse, or abandonment” in their home countries. Some “innovative approaches” to helping illegally present immigrant children are already being pursued, such as a “public-private partnership model that facilitates the pro bono representation of unaccompanied children by attorneys in law firms, corporations, and law school.” This alone isn’t enough, according to Wood and Young.
A provision providing lawyers to represent children was included in the Senate’s immigration reform bill.
http://www.newsmax.com/US/immigration-children-deportationlawyers/2013/09/23/id/527209
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USCIS Update on ABT Settlement Agreement
In May 2013, USCIS announced that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Department of Justice had agreed to settle a nationwide class action lawsuit (B.H. et al. v. United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, et al., 11-2108 (aka, the ABT Class Action)) challenging the denial of work authorization to asylum seekers who have been waiting six months or more for a decision on their applications. The settlement stipulated that certain individuals who intend to file an asylum application (or who have already filed an asylum application) are entitled to new procedures relating to the crediting of time toward eligibility for employment authorization.
Following a court ordered fairness hearing in September 2013, a new class action notice and the revised settlement agreement has been posted. To read more about these updates, visit the Legal Settlement Notices page on the USCIS website.
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9th Circuit Refuses to Lift Injunction of Immigration Law
The Associated Press reports that a federal appeals court upheld an injunction against a portion of Arizona’s SB1070 rendering the transportation or harboring of illegally present immigration a criminal offense. The ban was in effect from late July 2010 until September 2012, when a federal judge in Phoenix blocked its enforcement. The court described the stipulation as “vague” and “pre-empted by federal law.”
http://azcapitoltimes.com/news/2013/10/08/9th-circuit-refuses-to-lift-injunction-of-immigration-law/
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