Immigration
The Most Prosecuted Federal Offense in America: A Primer on the Criminalization of Border Crossing
Overview
Andrew Patterson is a second-year J.D. student at Harvard Law School. Before law school, he served on active duty in the United States Marine Corps. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Chicago in Near Eastern languages and civilizations.
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Overview
The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington ordered the government to provide bond hearings to asylum seekers who were apprehended crossing the border irregularly and whose asylum claims were found viable by an asylum officer, temporarily halting a directive from Attorney General William Barr that would have denied these persons hearings where they can seek release from imprisonment.
The Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) program has faced a great deal of criticism since the Trump administration unveiled the policy, colloquially known as Remain in Mexico, in January 2019. Now, the policy is facing public condemnation from within the Department of Homeland Security itself. A union representing asylum officers, the front-line adjudicators of humanitarian claims, filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Wednesday criticizing the MPP program.
Asylum seekers who have passed their credible fear interviews—those whom immigration officers find have viable asylum claims—may no longer have access to an important protection against prolonged imprisonment.
A federal court issued a preliminary injunction against the administration’s policy of making asylum seekers wait in Mexico pending the resolution of their cases. The decision prevents the government from implementing or expanding the policy, effective Friday, April 12.
In the latest salvo in a long debate over the use of video teleconferencing (VTC) technology in immigration courts, several legal aid organizations filed a class-action lawsuit on Feb. 12 in New York challenging the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) practice of denying in-person hearings to immigrants.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) recently released memos roughly outlining its plan to make asylum seekers wait in Mexico for immigration court hearings, which it calls the Migrant Protection Protocols. On Jan.