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Your weekly summary from the Council
LATEST ANALYSIS
MAKE A YEAR-END GIFT
FACTS YOU SHOULD KNOW
- The Pentagon estimates President-elect Biden will save the United States $2.6 billion if he halts construction on the U.S.-Mexico border wall when he takes office. This would free up critical money that President Trump siphoned from defense budgets for the wall. As this fact sheet explains, the wall is an incredibly costly—and ineffective—way to manage migration at our southern border.
Read more: The High Cost and Diminishing Returns of a Border Wall
ACROSS THE NATION
- The American Immigration Council, along with our partners, won our case against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) on Thursday. The first-of-its-kind Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) class action case challenged the agencies’ systemic failure to provide people with their immigration files—or “A-Files”—within 30 days.
Now, the federal district court has ordered ICE and USCIS to immediately address the backlog of requests for these critical files. The Council litigated this case with our partners, the National Immigration Litigation Alliance, the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, and the Law Offices of Stacy Tolchin.
Read More: District Court Orders Immigration Agencies to Produce Immigration Case Files in First of Its Kind Class Action
LIMITED EDITION MERCHANDISE
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“The court’s ruling [on the immigration files—or "A-Files"—backlog] brings justice to immigrants who have long suffered from immigrant agencies’ violation of FOIA, a statute that provides the only practical avenue for immigrants to access their own immigration records. It is past time agencies properly funded and implemented FOIA.”
– Emily Creighton, legal director, transparency at the American Immigration Council
FURTHER READING
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