Many unaware that most immigrants in the U.S. are here legally

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media contact: Olivia O'Hea, 202-419-4372, oohea@pewresearch.org


Shifting Public Views on Legal Immigration into the U.S.
Many unaware that most immigrants in the U.S. are here legally

WASHINGTON, D.C. (June 28, 2018) – While there has been considerable attention on illegal immigration into the U.S. recently, opinions about legal immigration have undergone a long-term change. Support for increasing the level of legal immigration has risen, while the share saying legal immigration should decrease has fallen, according to a new national survey by Pew Research Center. 

The survey finds that 38% say legal immigration into the United States should be kept at its present level, while 32% say it should be increased and 24% say it should be decreased. 

Since 2001, the share of Americans who favor increased legal immigration into the U.S. has risen 22 percentage points (from 10% to 32%), while the share who support a decrease has declined 29 points (from 53% to 24%). 

The shift is mostly driven by changing views among Democrats. The share of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents who say legal immigration into the U.S. should be increased has doubled since 2006, from 20% to 40%. 

Republicans’ views also have changed, though more modestly. The share of Republicans and Republican leaners who say legal immigration should be decreased has fallen 10 percentage points since 2006, from 43% to 33%. 

Still, about twice as many Republicans (33%) as Democrats (16%) support cutting legal immigration into the U.S. 

The new survey, which was largely conducted before the crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border involving immigrant children being separated from their parents, finds deep and persistent partisan divisions in a number of attitudes toward immigrants, as well as widespread misperceptions among the public overall about the share of the immigrant population in the U.S. that is in this country illegally: 

Fewer than half of Americans know that most immigrants in the U.S. are here legally. Just 45% of Americans say that most immigrants living in the U.S. are here legally; 35% say most immigrants are in the country illegally, while 6% volunteer that about half are here legally and half illegally and 13% say they don’t know. In 2015, the most recent year for which data is available, lawful immigrants accounted for about three-quarters of the foreign-born population in the United States. 

Most feel sympathy toward unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. Nearly-seven-in-ten (69%) are very or somewhat sympathetic toward immigrants who are in the United States illegally. That view has changed little since 2014, when a surge of unaccompanied children from Central America attempted to enter the U.S. at the border. An overwhelming share of Democrats (86%) say they are sympathetic toward immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally, compared with about half of Republicans (48%). 

Fewer say granting legal status to unauthorized immigrants is a “reward.” Just 27% of Americans say that giving people who are in the U.S. illegally a way to gain legal status is like rewarding them for doing something wrong. More than twice as many (67%) say they don’t think of it this way. Since 2015, the share saying that providing legal status for those in the U.S. illegally is akin to a “reward” for doing something wrong has declined 9 percentage points. 

Most Americans do not think undocumented immigrants are more likely to commit serious crimes.Large majorities of Americans say that undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. are not more likely than U.S. citizens to commit serious crimes (65% say this) and that undocumented immigrants mostly fill jobs citizens don’t want (71% say this). These opinions, which also are divided along partisan lines, are virtually unchanged since 2016. 

Most people who encounter immigrants who do not speak English well aren’t bothered by this. Most Americans say they often (47%) or sometimes (27%) come into contact with immigrants who speak little or no English. Among those who say this, just 26% say it bothers them, while 73% say it does not. The share saying they are bothered by immigrants speaking little or no English has declined by 12 percentage points since 2006 (from 38% to 26%) and 19 points since 1993 (from 45%). 

The survey was conducted June 5-12 among 2,002 adults. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 2.6 percentage points for results based on the full sample.

Read the report:http://www.people-press.org/2018/06/28/shifting-public-views-on-legal-immigration-into-the-u-s


For more information or to arrange an interview, please contact Olivia O'Hea at oohea@pewresearch.org or 202-419-4372.

Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It does not take policy positions. The Center is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts, its primary funder. Subscribe to our daily and weekly email newsletters or follow us on our Fact Tank blog.

Asylum Officer Removed from Interview

Matthew Kolken had an asylum officer removed from adjudicating his client's application after she prohibited him from asking clarifying questions in violation of the regulations that specifically provide for attorney participation. A demand was made to speak to a supervisor, who corrected the asylum officer, and the officer was removed from presiding over the interview.  A new hearing will be scheduled.

Practice pointer: do not allow adjudicating officers to dictate your level of participation in proceedings.  You aren't there to act as a stenographer.

Border Patrol Arrests of Families and Children Are Lower

Via Syracuse University's TRAC:

While there is a distinct month-to-month seasonality in the number of families and unaccompanied children picked up by the Border Patrol attempting to enter the country between official ports of entry, there is nothing particularly unusual about the number that have been arrested so far this year.

Because the age of each individual is recorded in these detailed data, it is now possible to separately track the number of adults arriving with children over the past three and a half years. While numbers have increased in recent months, they are far from reaching record levels. A time series graph displaying the number of adults arriving with children is shown in Figure 1.

In fact, the number of adults apprehended with children so far during FY 2018 (23,162) is still 14.5 percent lower than the number of adults arrested with children during the same seven-month period in FY 2017 (27,080). The number of unaccompanied children arrested by the Border Patrol this year is also down as compared with the same period during FY 2017.
Further, in April 2018, the same month that Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the "zero tolerance" enforcement policy in response to the alleged crisis on the border, there were a total of 4,537 adults arriving with children, a relatively small number compared to the 24,876 adults arrested without children that same month.


Click here for more of the report.

Formerly Incarcerated Families Call on Governor Wolf to #ShutDownBerks

Via the Shut Down Berks Coalition:

Today we want to center and amplify the voices of those who have always been the driving force of the campaign. The families who have been affected by the Berks County Detention Center.

They are the experts of this prison and their message is clear. No family, no person, no child should be incarcerated at Berks or any other family detention center. That is why Governor Tom Wolf must #ShutDownBerks NOW!

Listen to their messages right at the links below and share with your networks. A huge thank you to Michelle Angela Ortiz/ Artist for her ongoing work with these families and for these videos.

About the Families

Sofia - Sofia was detained at the Berks County Detention Center with her 14 year old son for 648 days.



Lorena - Lorena was detained at the Berks County Detention Center with her 3 year old son for 663 days.Delmy - Delmy was detained at the Berks County Detention Center with her 7 year old son for 754 days.



Waddah - Waddah was detained at the Berks County Detention Center with his 14 year old daughter for 6 months. 



These videos are apart of the Familias Separadas Project, a project created by artist MichelleAngela Ortiz. The project is a series of temporary site-specific public art works mark locations and documents stories of immigrant families affected by detention and deportations in Pennsylvania. Ortiz is currently working on Phase 2 of her project. Since March 2017, Ortiz has interviewed mothers and children formerly detained for close to 2 years at the Berks Detention Center.

The three mothers featured were part of the fourteen families that were detained at Berks for more than 2 years. During their time in detention the mothers organized labor and hunger strikes as they fought for their freedom. 10 families were deported back to their home country returning to the violence they were fleeing, and 4 families were released in the United States still fighting against their possible deportation and living through the trauma of being detained.

We want to thank these families for their unending strength and commitment to all of those seeking freedom. It is a honor to have them share their stories with us. 

In Solidarity, 
The Shut Down Berks Coalition

The Shut Down Berks Coalition is a group of organizations, grassroots groups, churches and individuals fighting to close the Berks family prison in Pennsylvania and end the practice of imprisoning immigrant families in the U.S.

Asylum Seekers File Class Action Suit to be Reunited with their Children

For Immediate Release
June 25th, 2018
Contact:
Matt Adams, Legal Director, NWIRP
206-957-8611, matt@nwirp.org
Jorge L. Barón, Executive Director, NWIRP
206-957-8609, jorge@nwirp.org

Seattle, WA – Three women who were forcibly separated from their children by immigration officials when they entered the United States to seek asylum filed a lawsuit today in Seattle, Washington, on behalf of themselves and dozens of other separated families. The lawsuit seeks an order requiring immigration officials to immediately reunite the separated children with their parents and also challenges the government’s failure to move forward with their asylum claims. Northwest Immigrant Rights Project (NWIRP) filed the suit in federal district court on behalf of the separated families.

The three women are part of a group of over two hundred asylum-seekers who were transferred from immigration detention centers in Texas to a prison in Washington State while waiting for immigration officials to begin processing their claims. Around fifty of the group originally arrived with children who were taken away from them by immigration officials without any explanation. They have not seen their children in over a month and some have not even been able to talk to their children by phone.

The three women have also yet to have a “credible fear interview,” the first stage of review for their asylum claims, despite the fact that each of them has already been detained by immigration officials for over a month.

The President issued an Executive Order on June 20, purporting to end his family separation policy, but this Executive Order does not address the families that have already been separated and instead directs immigration officials to detain any families that now enter the United States seeking asylum.
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit include:

Ibis Guzman, who fled Honduras with her five-year-old son after receiving death threats. She was separated from her child in Texas after asking to apply for asylum. Ms. Guzman’s son was sent to a facility in San Antonio, Texas, and she has not been able to see or talk to him for more than a month.

Blanca Orantes, who escaped El Salvador after threats to her eight-year-old son, only to have Border Patrol take her boy away from her when she approached them asking to apply for asylum. Ms. Orantes’s son was sent to a facility in Kingston, New York, and she has not seen him for over a month, and has only recently been provided a phone number to reach him.

Yolany Padilla, who left Honduras with her six-year-old son to seek protection in the United States. She was separated from him by immigration officials in Texas, despite informing them they were afraid to return to their home country. The immigration officials sent the boy to a facility in New York, and Ms. Padilla has not seen him since. She has only been able to talk to him once, about a month after their separation.

The suit was filed on behalf of these three women but they will be asking the court for permission to represent all parents separated from their children who are detained in Washington State.

“My son is all that I have,” said Blanca Orantes. “Every day I am not with him, I feel that I am dying inside. I need to be reunited with him immediately.”

“The executive order falsely claims that Congress is required to change the law to avoid tearing children apart from their parents, but it is indisputable that this abomination was created by the President,” said Matt Adams, legal director for NWIRP. “The Trump administration’s policy on family separation blatantly violates fundamental constitutional rights as well as the most basic principles of human dignity.”

The three plaintiffs are currently being detained either at the Federal Detention Center (FDC) in SeaTac, Washington, or the Northwest Detention Center (NWDC) in Tacoma, Washington.
To see a copy of the complaint filed in federal court, click here.

Victims of Immigration Crime Enforcement (VOICE) Quarterly Report

Take this for what it's worth:

Overview 

U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) protects America from the cross-border crime and illegal immigration that threaten national security and public safety. To carry out that mission, Ice focuses on smart immigration enforcement, preventing terrorism, and combating transnational criminal threats. The agency has an annual budget of approximately $6 billion, primarily devoted to three operational directorates—Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO), Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), and the Office of the Principal Legal Advisor (OPLA). A fourth directorate—Management and Administration (M&A)—supports the three operational branches to advance the Ice mission.

• ERO upholds U.S. immigration law at, within, and beyond our borders. ERO’s work is critical to the enforcement of immigration law against those who present a danger to our national security,are a threat to public safety, or who otherwise undermine the integrity of our immigration system.
• HSI is the principal investigative component within the Department of Homeland Security(DHS), which conducts transnational criminal investigations that protect the United States against threats to national security and brings to justice those seeking to exploit U.S. customs and immigration laws worldwide.
• OPLA is the largest legal program in DHS and serves as the exclusive representative of DHS inimmigration removal proceedings before the Executive Office for Immigration Review, litigatingall removal cases including those against criminal aliens, terrorists, and human rights abusers.

The Executive Order titled Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States directed Ice's Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement Office (VOICE) to create quarterly reports studying the effects of the victimization by criminal aliens present in the United States.

This report provides anonymized case studies to depict the types of victims assisted by the VOICE Office since it launched on April 26, 2017, through September 30, 2017.The VOICE Office has several key objectives that include:

• Using a victim-centered approach to acknowledge and support victims and their families;
• Promoting awareness of available services to crime victims; and
• Building collaborative partnerships with community stakeholders assisting victims.

ICE established a toll-free hotline staffed with operators who triage calls to ensure victims receive the support they need. The number is 1-855-48-VOICE or 1-855-488-6423.

The type of assistance the VOICE Office offers includes:

• Establishing local contacts to help with unique victim requests;
• Linking victims with ICE Community Relations Officers (CROs) who serve as local representatives to help victims understand the immigration enforcement and removal process;
• Providing access to social service professionals who are able to refer victims to local resources and direct service providers;
• Assisting individuals in signing up to receive automated custody status information through the DHS-Victim Information and Notification Exchange (DHS-VINE); and
• To the extent permitted by law or policy, providing information about the offender, including the offender's immigration status and custody status, and answering questions and concerns regarding immigration enforcement.

Click here for the report.

Supreme Court Rules 8-1 For Immigrants in Statutory Eligibility Case

PEREIRA v. SESSIONS, 585 U. S. ____ (2018): 8-1 Decision. 

Held: A putative notice to appear that fails to designate the specifictime or place of the noncitizen’s removal proceedings is not a “noticeto appear under §1229(a),” and so does not trigger the stop-time rule.Pp. 7–20.

(a) The Court need not resort to Chevron deference, for the unambiguous statutory text alone is enough to resolve this case. Under the stop-time rule, “any period of . . . continuous physical presence” is“deemed to end . . . when the alien is served a notice to appear under section 1229(a).” 8 U. S. C. §1229b(d)(1). By expressly referencing§1229(a), the statute specifies where to look to find out what “notice to appear” means. Section 1229(a), in turn, clarifies that the type of notice “referred to as a ‘notice to appear’ ” throughout the statutory section is a “written notice . . . specifying,” as relevant here, “[t]he time and place at which the [removal] proceedings will be held.”§1229(a)(1)(G)(i). Thus, to trigger the stop-time rule, the Government must serve a notice to appear that, at the very least,“specif[ies]” the “time and place” of the removal hearing.

The Government and dissent point out that the stop-time rule refers broadly to a notice to appear under “§1229(a)”—which includes paragraph (1), as well as paragraphs (2) and (3). But that does not matter, because only paragraph (1) bears on the meaning of a “notice to appear.” If anything, paragraph (2), which allows for a “change or postponement” of the proceedings to a “new time and place,”§1229(a)(2)(A)(i), bolsters the Court’s interpretation of the statute because the provision presumes that the Government has already served a “notice to appear” that specified a time and place as required by §1229(a)(1)(G)(i). Another neighboring provision, §1229(b)(1),lends further support for the view that a “notice to appear” must specify the time and place of removal proceedings to trigger the stop time rule. Section 1229(b)(1) gives a noncitizen “the opportunity to secure counsel before the first [removal] hearing date” by mandating that such “hearing date shall not be scheduled earlier than 10 days after the service of the notice to appear.” For that provision to have any meaning, the “notice to appear” must specify the time and place that the noncitizen, and his counsel, must appear at the removal proceedings.Finally, common sense reinforces the conclusion that a notice that does not specify when and where to appear for a removal proceeding is not a “notice to appear” that triggers the stop-time rule.After all, an essential function of a “notice to appear” is to provide noncitizens “notice” of the information (i.e., the “time” and “place”)that would enable them “to appear” at the removal hearing in the first place. Without conveying such information, the Government cannot reasonably expect noncitizens to appear for their removal proceedings.Pp. 7–13.

(b) The Government and the dissent advance a litany of counterarguments,all of which are unpersuasive. To begin, the Government mistakenly argues that §1229(a) is not definitional. That is wrong.Section 1229(a) speaks in definitional terms, requiring that a notice to appear specify, among other things, the “time and place at which the proceedings will be held.” As such, the dissent is misguided in arguing that a defective notice to appear, which fails to specify time and-place information, is still a notice to appear for purposes of the stop-time rule. Equally unavailing is the Government’s (and the dissent’s)attempt to generate ambiguity in the statute based on the word “under.” In light of the plain language and statutory context,the word “under,” as used in the stop-time rule, clearly means “in accordance with” or “according to” because it connects the stop-time trigger in §1229b(d)(1) to a “notice to appear” that specifies the enumerated time-and-place information. The Government fares no better in arguing that surrounding statutory provisions reinforce its preferred reading of the stop-time rule, as none of those provisions supports its a textual interpretation. Unable to root its reading in the statutory text, the Government and dissent raise a number of practical concerns, but those concerns are meritless and do not justify de-parting from the statute’s clear text. In a final attempt to salvage itsa textual interpretation, the Government turns to the alleged statutory purpose and legislative history of the stop-time rule. Even for those who consider statutory purpose and legislative history, however,neither supports the Government’s position. Requiring the Government to furnish time-and-place information in a notice to appear is entirely consistent with Congress’ stated objective of preventing noncitizens from exploiting administrative delays to accumulate lengthier periods of continuous precedent. Pp. 13–20.

866 F. 3d 1, reversed and remanded.

SOTOMAYOR, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS,C. J., and KENNEDY, THOMAS, GINSBURG, BREYER, KAGAN, and GORSUCH,JJ., joined. KENNEDY, J., filed a concurring opinion. ALITO, J., filed a dissenting opinion.