| Your weekly summary from the Council. |
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For over a century, the U.S. has applied the principle of jus soli, or birthplace-based citizenship, to grant American citizenship to anyone born on U.S. territory. Over the past few decades, anti-immigrant politicians have advocated to deny birthright citizenship, primarily to children of undocumented immigrants. |
This year’s eighth annual Global Talent Chamber Network (GTCN) Convening served as a critical reminder that business leaders across the country continue to push for immigrant inclusion and find common ground on the issues businesses care about: modernizing an outdated immigration system to better meet the needs of the local, state, and national economies. |
Are you an attorney looking for a way to provide pro bono legal support to people working on their immigration cases? Or someone who could volunteer as an interpreter for those attorneys? Consider joining our Immigration Justice Campaign. We give volunteer attorneys all the help they need to take on immigration cases—whether or not they’ve ever worked on one before. |
Correction: Our Oct. 13 newsletter incorrectly identified the number of individuals who are eligible for DACA. In 2022, a total of 1,127,100 people met the criteria for DACA, including, not in addition to, active DACA recipients. As of December 31, 2023, there were 530,110 active DACA recipients in the country.
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Since at least 2016, U.S. Customs and Border Protection has used its Turnback Policy, also known as “metering,” to deny vulnerable people the right to pursue asylum claims, using misrepresentation, threats, abuse, metering, and coercion to send people back into harm’s way.
In 2017, the American Immigration Council, along with partner organizations, sued CBP on behalf of Al Otro Lado and impacted asylum seekers. This week, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed that the policy was unlawful.
This fact sheet from the American Immigration Council provides an overview of the practice known as “metering,” which has been used by CBP to turn away thousands of people who come to ports of entry seeking protection and asylum in the United States. The Council and partners continue to fight against new versions of the Turnback Policy, suing the government again in 2023 on behalf of Al Otro Lado and Haitian Bridge Alliance.
Read more: Metering and Asylum Turnbacks
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U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) owns approximately 200 facilities across the United States where it detains immigrants with pending removal proceedings.
One of the most notorious is the Torrance County Detention Facility, located in rural New Mexico. Its reputation for inhumane living conditions and lack of due process are well-known. Despite this, in September 2021, ICE placed over 100 Haitian migrants into Torrance while they awaited removal proceedings, many of whom had been victims of Border Patrol’s aggressive tactics trying to stop them from crossing the border near Del Rio, Texas. For months, the media continued to report on a variety of obstacles Haitians endured in detention including inadequate access to legal counsel.
Due to the increase in complaints from individuals being held at Torrance, the American Immigration Council sought information about the barriers to due process Haitians face, as well as details about the overall treatment of Haitian nationals at Torrance.
In this new interactive report, the Council provides an analysis of what we discovered about Torrance and the treatment of migrants held there. The report also discovered inherent flaws with ICE’s data collection practices, which make it difficult to assess the true impact of detention on racial and ethnic minorities.
Read more: Torrance County Detention Facility’s Troubling Role in Detaining Haitian Migrants During the 2021 Del Rio Incident |
“Because of the critical role that undocumented immigrants play in the U.S. economy—as workers, as entrepreneurs, taxpayers, and consumers—they are the folks who have really helped grow our economy.” |
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