- Last week, USCIS released a policy memo which could have significant impacts on those already in the United States who seek to adjust status to that of a Lawful Permanent Resident, a process that has been common and routine for decades. Adjustment of status has always been discretionary, but the new memo tips the scales against granting adjustment, meaning many people might have to leave the country for consular processing, which in turn risks a 10 year bar to returning. While the policy memo is fairly vague on a number of points, we know that policies like this are largely meant to cause fear and confusion in our communities and discourage people from following legal pathways to permanent status. Advocates across the country are still trying to understand the impact that this memo has, and MIRA encourages anyone who might be seeking to adjust status to consult with a reputable attorney before taking any action.
- Trump’s immigration courts are trying to speed up the deportation process by rescheduling people for “Mega Masters” – hearings with up to 100 people at a time – often with little notice. This new tactic has already started at the Boston and Chelmsford immigration courts and is scheduled to expand across the country. Many of those whose cases are rescheduled are receiving little to no notice of their schedule change and will almost certainly be ordered removed in absentia once they miss their court hearings. These Mega Masters are targeting people with hearings originally scheduled for 2027-2029; anyone with a hearing scheduled in the next few years should be checking their online accounts regularly to make sure they do not miss any changes. For more information and best practices, please see MIRA’s Immigration Court Update.
- What started as a hunger strike by people in detention over inhumane conditions has escalated into violent clashes with protestors outside the Delaney Hall detention facility in New Jersey. The hunger strike began last Friday as detainees protested against rotten food and other unsanitary conditions as well as dangerous medical treatment, especially for women at the facility. Several of the strikers have been threatened with retaliation, and protests outside the facility turned violent on Monday as DHS was transferring one of the leaders of the strike to another New Jersey facility. Protestors who tried to stop the transfer were hit with batons and pepper spray; Sen. Andy Kim of New Jersey was also hit with pepper spray as he tried to deescalate a conflict just after completing an oversight visit. Other members of Congress have also made oversight visits since the start of the strike, with Sen. Corey Booker of New Jersey saying afterwards that he wants Congress to be able to, “shine more of a light on how this president’s immigration policies are violating our collective values as a nation.” Delaney Hall is a for-profit facility run by the GEO Group and has had a history of conflict in the short time since it reopened for immigration detention last year.
- While many eyes are focused on Delaney Hall and the violent protests there, others are seeing growing evidence of a pattern and practice of serious human rights violations in civil detention facilities. The Associated Press has noted a stark increase in detainee suicides under Trump, with one doctor who has studied the issue telling the outlet that, “[s]omething is profoundly wrong from any kind of public health or mental health perspective.” Suicides in ICE detention this fiscal year have already reached a record with 3 months to go, and ⅕ of those who have died in ICE custody since January have died by suicide. While many of those other deaths are from natural causes, medical experts say that many of those would have been preventable with timely care. According to the AP, the current suicide rate stands at 18.1/100K detainees, the previous record was 17.8/100K, which occured during the pandemic and also under Trump’s watch.
- In response to the New Jersey protests, DHS is not talking about improving conditions for detainees. Instead, DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin is reviving an idea he first floated a few months ago to punish “sanctuary cities” by taking away immigration processing from their airports, effectively turning many of the nation’s busiest international airports into domestic airports. Critics of the idea note that such a plan would be a massive disruption to travel while providing no tangible impact on immigration enforcement.
- Meanwhile, the administration’s legal attacks on protestors keep failing in courtrooms across the country. The latest defeat for the administration came last week when a federal judge in Chicago dismissed all charges against the remaining four defendants of the “Broadview Six” who had been charged in October following protests at the Broadview ICE Detention Center. The Broadview Six had originally been charged in a conspiracy in connection to the protest, two of whom had their charges dropped in March, and the government abandoned their conspiracy charges against the other four the following month. Any final charges were dropped last week after the judge overseeing the case found evidence of serious prosecutorial misconduct. During the closed door hearing last Thursday, Judge April Perry noted that she had, “read hundreds, if not thousands, of grand jury transcripts involving prosecutors who are the most junior of prosecutors to several U.S. Attorneys who appeared before the grand jury. I have never seen the types of prosecutorial behavior before a grand jury that I saw in those transcripts.” Judge Perry is considering both releasing the grand jury transcripts in full as well as sanctions against the DOJ attorneys involved.