The Orlando Sentinel reported today that the U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement (USICE) deported about 392,000 foreign nationals in Fiscal Year (FY) 2010 which ran from October 1, 2009 through September 30, 2010. According to USICE officials, about 195,000 of the individuals deported were criminal aliens.  That was about a 70% increase from compared to FY 2008.  This record number of deportations was the result [...]

Congress recently passed the Border Security Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2010. It was was passed by the House of Representatives on July 28, 2010 and then by the Senate on August 5, 2010.  The bill will be forwarded to the President and he is expected to sign it into law. Out of the $ 540 million that was authorized by Congress, the U.S. Customs [...]

The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) has recently published a delayed update of the poverty guidelines for the remainder of 2010.  The poverty guidelines are usually published every year in late January or early February. The reason for the delayed update of this year’s poverty guidelines was due to legislation enacted in late 2009 and [...]

The New York Times reported yesterday that while the U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement (USICE) has been deporting record numbers of criminal aliens, the agency has been less focused on deporting undocumented immigrant students that were brought to the U.S. by their parents when they were children. In cases where immigrant students were identified and apprehended by immigration officials, the students were released from USICE custody and their [...]

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (USICE) announced recently that it has implemented the Online Detainee Locator System (ODLS).  ODLS is a web-based system that will allow family members, attorneys, and other concerned individuals to locate foreign nationals that are known or believed to be in DHS custody. The ODLS is a centralized system in which detainee information is updated in [...]

The Los Angeles Times reported today that a three judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit granted Ms. Lesly Perdomo’s petition for review and ordered that her case be remanded to the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) to consider whether Guatemalan women constitute a “particular social group” and as such, be eligible for political asylum.  The court also ordered [...]

The U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcment (USICE) reported today that agents arrested the owners and employees yesterday of 5 Arizona commercial shuttle transportation companies based on a year long investigation to identify and apprehend perpetrators of human smuggling.  Over 800 agents and officers from various federal, state and local law enforcement agencies carried out the arrests. The arrests were the result of the USICE’s heightened internal enforcement [...]

The New York Times reported yesterday that Texas Appleseed, a public interest law center and Akin Gump, a corporate law firm co-wrote a report that is scheduled to be released today concerning the due process rights of disabled immigrant detainees facing deportation. The report shows that the detainees, mostly from New York and other areas in the northeast, even some from mental [...]

The Houson Chronicle reported that siblings Emilio and Analia Maya, are facing deportation after working as confidential informants (CI’s) for the U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement (USICE). The siblings came from Argentina in the late 1990′s and settled in Saugerties, NY.  A small town in upstate New York by the Catskill Mountains.  Over the years, the pair worked blue collar jobs [...]

The Los Angeles Times reported today that dozens of foreign national confidential informants (CI) who have helped federal law enforcement agencies such as the U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), have said that they have been led to believe that federal agencies would help them get permanent residence (green cards) in exchange for their cooperation in undercover investigations, [...]