EOIR Announces More Secure Toll-Free Number to Obtain Court Immigration Case Information

FALLS Church, Va. – The Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) announced today the launch of a new, upgraded automated case information system, which is designed to assist respondents and their representatives and families in learning the current status of their proceedings. The toll-free number, 1-800-898-7180, has not changed, but a new local number, 240-314-1500, is in service. The system becomes effective August 23, 2010, and callers will need to be prepared to enter both the alien registration number and the date of the respondent’s charging document.

6th Circuit reopens Iraqi woman's asylum case
"A federal appeals court has revived a woman's asylum case after concluding that bad lawyering may have cost her a shot at living in the United States to avoid feared persecution in Iraq or the United Arab Emirates." NLJ, Aug. 3, 2010.

Americans Mistakenly Deported
"Researchers say that every day, an American is wrongfully deported, and some worry the problem could get worse." CNN video, July 26, 2010

http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2010/07/25/nr.lemon.americans.deported.cnn

Online Detainee Locator System
"Use this page to locate a detainee who is currently in ICE custody, or who was released from ICE custody for any reason within the last 60 days."

CINCINNATI- On Tuesday, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) began using a new biometric information sharing capability in Hamilton County that helps federal immigration officials identify aliens, both lawfully and unlawfully present in the United States, who are booked into local law enforcement’s custody for a crime. This capability is part of Secure Communities-ICE’s comprehensive strategy to improve and modernize the identification and removal of criminal aliens from the United States.

Previously, fingerprint-based biometric records were taken of individuals charged with a crime and booked into custody and checked for criminal history information against the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS). Now, through enhanced information sharing between DOJ and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), fingerprint information submitted through the state to the FBI will be automatically checked against both the FBI criminal history records in IAFIS and the biometrics-based immigration records in DHS’s Automated Biometric Identification System (IDENT).

If fingerprints match those of someone in DHS’s biometric system, the new automated process notifies ICE. ICE evaluates each case to determine the individual’s immigration status and takes appropriate enforcement action. This includes aliens who are in lawful status and those who are present without lawful authority. Once identified through fingerprint matching, ICE will respond with a priority placed on aliens convicted of the most serious offenses first-such as those with convictions for major drug offenses, murder, rape and kidnapping.

“The Secure Communities strategy provides ICE with an effective tool to identify criminal aliens in local custody,” said Secure Communities Executive Director David Venturella. “Enhancing public safety is at the core of ICE’s mission. Our goal is to use biometric information sharing to remove criminal aliens, preventing them from being released back into the community, with little or no additional burden on our law enforcement partners.”

With the expansion of the biometric information sharing capability to Hamilton, ICE is now using it in five Ohio jurisdictions, including Butler, Cuyahoga, Franklin and Montgomery counties. Across the country, ICE is using this capability in 467 jurisdictions in 26 states. ICE expects to make it available in jurisdictions nationwide by 2013.

“The ability for local law enforcement to run fingerprints against the ICE database is a critical tool in protecting our streets and neighborhoods,” Hamilton County Sheriff Simon L. Leis, Jr., said. “Aliens illegally in our country committing crimes in our communities is unacceptable. We are happy to work with ICE to identify those illegal aliens in a streamlined fashion and expedite their removal.”

Since ICE began using this enhanced information sharing capability in October 2008, immigration officers have removed from the United States more than 9,800 criminal aliens convicted of Level 1 crimes, such as murder, rape and kidnapping. Additionally, ICE has removed more than 24,800 criminal aliens convicted of Level 2 and 3 crimes, including burglary and serious property crimes, which account for the majority of crimes committed by aliens. ICE does not regard aliens charged with, but not yet convicted of crimes, as “criminal aliens.” Instead, a “criminal alien” is an alien convicted of a crime. In accordance with the Immigration and Nationality Act, ICE continues to take action on aliens subject to removal as resources permit.

The IDENT system is maintained by DHS’s US-VISIT program and IAFIS is maintained by the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS).

“US VISIT is proud to support ICE, helping provide decision makers with comprehensive, reliable information when and where they need it,” said US-VISIT Director Robert Mocny. “By enhancing the interoperability of DHS’s and the FBI’s biometric systems, we are able to give federal, state and local decision makers information that helps them better protect our communities and our nation.”

“Under this plan, ICE will be utilizing FBI system enhancements that allow improved information sharing at the state and local law enforcement level based on positive identification of incarcerated criminal aliens,” said Daniel D. Roberts, assistant director of the FBI’s CJIS Division. “Additionally, ICE and the FBI are working together to take advantage of the strong relationships already forged between the FBI and state and local law enforcement necessary to assist ICE in achieving its goals.”

“The Executive Office for Immigration Review offices in Falls Church, VA, the Board of Immigration Appeals, and all immigration courts will be closed on Monday, July 5, 2010, in observance of Independence Day. On Wednesday, June 30, 2010, and Thursday, July 1, 2010, the immigration courts at Port Isabel, Texas, and Harlingen, Texas, and the hearing location at Willacy, Texas, will be closed due to Hurricane Alex. On Friday, July 2, 2010, and Tuesday, July 6, 2010, the immigration courts at Port Isabel, Texas, and Harlingen, Texas, and the hearing location at Willacy, Texas, will be open, but no detained hearings will be held. All detained hearings scheduled during these time frames will be rescheduled and the immigration court will send notices to the affected parties. The non-detained docket, including non-detained juveniles, for Harlingen will proceed as scheduled beginning July 6, 2010.”

USSC remands 14 cases per Carachuri-Rosendo
“In each of the 14 cases, the court said the petition for a writ of certiorari was granted, the judgment vacated and the case remanded to district appeals court from which it came “for further consideration in light of Carachuri-Rosendo vs. Holder.”" UPI, June 21, 2010.

By Andrew Becker
Thursday, June 17, 2010; B03
The Washington Post

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will realign its duties to promote criminal investigations over immigrant deportation, officials have announced.

By streamlining and renaming several offices, officials hope to highlight the agency’s counterterrorism, money laundering and other complex criminal investigations and in the process “re-brand” ICE, turning the public — and political — spotlight away from its immigration work.

ICE Assistant Secretary John Morton said that immigration enforcement remains a top priority but that the intention of the image makeover is to show the agency’s “true face.”

“Public perception is dominated by civil immigration enforcement responsibilities, even though half of the agency is devoted to something else,” Morton said recently after announcing the changes to ICE employees. “We’re not going to get away from immigration. It’s very important from a national security perspective.”

The realignment also aims to address ICE’s identity crisis, which the agency has struggled with for years. Morton said in an e-mail to employees that one of his priorities “was to give a clearer sense of identity and focus.”

The agency will have a new reporting alignment with three main directorates: investigations, immigration and management. ICE will consolidate its civil immigration duties into a new Enforcement and Removal Operations division. The office, formerly known as detention and removal operations, took the brunt of criticism.

Immigration advocates have expressed skepticism about an agency trying to rehabilitate its image without first making substantive changes. They say ICE is stricter than it was under the previous administration with enforcement, and problems persist with immigration detention. Most of the $5.5 billion in discretionary funds for ICE’s 2011 budget request pays for efforts to lock up and deport immigrants.

“ICE has more than a branding problem. You can’t rebrand yourself out of a misallocation of resources,” said Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum. Noorani hopes “ICE is doing stuff about stopping terrorists,” he said, “but the public doesn’t know about it. The public only knows ICE is going after immigrants.”

Worksite raids and neighborhood sweeps that targeted illegal immigrants have helped shape ICE’s image. The agency is hounded, too, by reports of poor treatment of noncitizens in ICE custody and allegations that the agency’s rigid policies break up immigrant families. The agency has faced criticism over medical care for detainees, hiding the truth about deaths in detention and setting quotas for deportations.

In recent months, the White House has hosted several meetings with immigration advocates frustrated with ICE. The Obama administration has vowed to reform the nation’s immigration detention system.

Efforts to overhaul the detention network, which locks up about 30,000 immigrants nightly in hundreds of federal, contract and local jails nationwide, have hit snags. Shortly after the reforms were announced last year, the first director of the new office to oversee the changes left the agency.

Moreover, there’s a fundamental inconsistency as the administration pursues immigration reform while ICE still deports 1,100 people daily, said Marshall Fitz, director of immigration policy at the Center for American Progress

“Obama is the face of promise and also the face of deportations,” he said. “ICE can make all the policy changes they want at the headquarters level, but out in the field is a different story.”

Liberals aren’t alone in raising concerns. Conservatives and ICE’s own agents have blasted the agency over immigration enforcement, saying that the agency isn’t tough enough. They say the “realignment” signals a further shift in the Obama administration’s approach to immigration.

“Far too much is at stake for ICE to neglect every tool at their disposal for the sake of rebranding their image,” said Rep. Harold Rogers (Ky.), the ranking Republican on the House Appropriations subcommittee for homeland security.

Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Tex.), chairman of the House Homeland Security subcommittee on the border, maritime and global counterterrorism, said ICE needs additional funding as more special agents are needed to investigate border crimes. About 20 percent of ICE’s resources are dedicated to the border, Morton said.

But conservatives remain unsatisfied with such efforts, which have led to Arizona’s controversial law SB1070 and calls for more Border Patrol agents. Obama has said he will send up to 1,200 National Guard troops to the border.

Morton said the realigned agency will continue to conduct criminal immigration investigations, such as worksite enforcement, national security and visa abuse.

But, according to the agency’s 2011 congressional budget request, ICE projects that 80 percent of detained immigrants will be criminals, captured by fugitive teams or found in prisons and jails. The rest will primarily come from apprehensions of illegal border crossers. Last year, only 6 percent of the detainee population was booked by ICE’s office of investigations.

To burnish the agency’s image, ICE officials are considering a strategy that has helped the FBI for years: the aid of Hollywood and other venues of popular culture. Timothy Calkins, a marketing professor at Northwestern University, said such efforts could be squandered if internal problems aren’t addressed.

“Public relations is such an important part of branding,” he said. “They could go out and say ‘we do all this cool stuff’ with ad campaigns, and a Hollywood push, but if stories that come out don’t support that, the rebranding program isn’t going to work.”

Andrew Becker is a reporter for the nonprofit Center for Investigative Reporting in Berkeley, Calif.