Looking forward to seeing who wins the Super Bowl and whether it’s Bad Bunny.
U.S. attorney's offices across the country are stretched amid the administration’s immigration crackdown, report Sadie Gurman and Hannah Critchfield of The Wall Street Journal.
In a recent court filing, Minnesota’s U.S. attorney wrote that he "has been forced to shift its already limited resources from other pressing and important priorities."
Several judges have expressed their discontent with the Justice Department as they continue to miss deadlines or fail to comply with court orders.
"Having what you feel are too many detainees, too many cases, too many deadlines, and not enough infrastructure to keep up with it all, is not a defense to continued detention," a U.S. district judge said during a hearing this week.
Sarah N. Lynch and Jonah Kaplan of CBS News home in on habeas corpus petitions, which have spiked since a September immigration-court ruling that the government could indefinitely detain many immigrants with pending removal proceedings.
Meanwhile, the Justice Department has hired another 33 immigration judges, 30 of whom have military backgrounds and 27 of whom are temporary, after firing more than 100 over the past year, reports Nate Raymond of Reuters.
Welcome to Friday’s edition of The Forum Daily. I'm Dan Gordon, and the great Forum Daily team also includes Jillian Clark, Nicci Mattey, Malaika Onyia, Luisa Sinisterra and Clara Villatoro. If you have a story to share from your own community, please send it to me at [email protected].
(LACK OF) PRECISION — Department of Homeland Security officials repeatedly have said that immigration enforcement was prioritizing threats to public safety. But often it hasn’t, as border "czar" Tom Homan now seems to be acknowledging, reports Grayson Logue of The Dispatch. "Targeted enforcement operations should happen across the nation," Homan said last week. Separately he said, "Moving forward, ICE will be conducting targeted immigration enforcement operations like ICE has traditionally done for decades."
PARALLELS — Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, say the president’s immigration crackdown "stirs memories of the broken and divided country they left behind," reports Dan Horn of the Cincinnati Enquirer. "Americans need to decide what kind of country we want to be," said the Rev. Carl Ruby, pastor at Central Christian Church [and a onetime Forum mobilizer]. In Florida, Haitians with Temporary Protected Status (TPS) aren’t able to renew driver's licenses, reports Chelsea Jones of CBS News Miami. State officials say they’re awaiting DHS guidance following a TPS court ruling.
LAWFULLY RESETTLED REFUGEES — The federal government is appealing a judge’s ruling temporarily blocking its policy of revetting lawfully resettled refugees, reports Susan Du of The Minnesota Star Tribune. A Justice Department lawyer argued that refugees without a green card after a year are to be returned to federal custody. But a lawyer representing Minnesota refugees argued that many applied for green cards promptly and can’t control how quickly applications are processed. The policy’s implementation "reminds [refugees] of what they fled," Jennifer Ludden and Marisa Peñaloza of NPR report.
BUSINESS TROUBLES — Immigration enforcement has led to a decline in South Texas’ construction industry, reports David Martin Davies of Texas Public Radio. Rep. Monica de La Cruz (R) called it a crisis and plans to act, report Steve Taylor and Dayna Reyes of the Rio Grande Guardian. Meanwhile, this week the Small Business Administration announced policy guidance that would exclude green card holders from loans, reports Katherine Hapgood of Politico. The decision will limit small business and job growth, Small Business Majority founder and CEO John Arensmeyer said.
P.S. Speaking of business, Minnesota community members and organizations are finding new ways to support immigrant-owned small businesses in difficult times, reports Frederick Melo of the Pioneer Press.
