There isn't much landscaping work in Rockland County during the winter, so the Jornaleros Project rents space from a church where day laborers can stay indoors, find warm clothes, and pass the time taking English classes. During the rest of the year, the project often advises workers on how to...

With his civil rights legacy in jeopardy, New York Gov. David Paterson has released a new Secure Communities Memorandum of Agreement (MOA).

On his second to last day in office, Paterson said in a press release that "advocates have raised valid concerns, which is why I instructed my staff to...

Can counties opt-out of a controversial immigration enforcement partnership after a state agrees to participate? In three recent meetings, ICE had the same message.

"They said no," said Eileen Hirst, Chief of Staff for the San Francisco Sheriff Department.

Secure Communities Director David Venturella flew to California on...

In his new film about the largest immigration raid in US history, acclaimed director Luis Argueta attempts to "create a new narrative about immigrants." A recent screening of abUSed: The Postville Raid in New York City offered a glimpse of how this can work.

Most of the 389...

When a single-mother of three got into a car accident while driving without a license in Hayward, California, she met a fate common to undocumented immigrants.

"A police officer told me he needed to take me to the police department where my fingerprints would be taken,...

Editor's note: The memo was actually dated June 2010. Another memo was removed from the new ICE website.

"This program is revolutionary"

Sheriff Bud E. Cox
Davis County, Utah

ICE has revamped its website, and one of the first things I noticed...

A non-partisan research center recently accused the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) of withholding data about a "controversial aspect of a key responsibility of the federal government: what is it doing and not doing to enforce the nation's immigration laws." Their experience is all too familiar.

"ICE...

The controversial Secure Communities program that shares local arrest data with federal immigration agents is set to expand nationwide by 2013. It is already active in 574 local jurisdictions across 30 states. But that leaves 20 more states and hundreds more counties yet to sign-up. As opponents push for a...

Last Thursday federal officials released a memo called "Setting the Record Straight" that outlines for the first time how local police can opt-out of sharing arrest data with immigration authorities via enrollment in the "Secure Communities" program. But so far, the process exists only on paper.

The memo...

The question of how and whether local police should enforce federal immigration laws was a major topic this week at an unprecedented gathering of police chiefs from 27 major cities.

The conference took place in New York City - though no local police officials attended. It was convened by the...

Despite concern that police involvement in immigration enforcement hurts public safety, the Obama administration announced today it has expanded a program that relies on such collaboration to all 25 counties on the Southwest border.

Some compare the program, called "Secure Communities," to Arizona's controversial SB 1070 law. The entire states...

This week's Supreme Court order banning automatic deportation of immigrants for minor drug offenses could impact thousands of of lawful permanent residents who were mislabeled as aggravated felons.

"It would make me happy if I could return to Chicago," Martin Escobar told Deportation Nation by phone...

After the Jan. 12 earthquake that devastated Haiti, Dr. Melissa Barber received a call asking her to help treat people left injured and living in squalid conditions.

"There was no question," said Barber, 30, who was born and raised in the Bronx and worked in quality assessment at St. Barnabas...

Despite a U.S. Supreme Court ban, Texas has continued to send mentally retarded criminals to death row. Will a Mexican immigrant's case correct this injustice?

This is an excerpt from the full length report, "Cracked." Read the full story on The Texas Observer website.

Floresbinda Plata...

As Texas reopens its execution chamber after a Thanksgiving break, the first man set to die may be mentally retarded. A 2002 Supreme Court ruling bans the execution of mentally retarded prisoners. But after years of being represented by a discredited attorney who ruined any chance for an appeal based...

In earnings reports released this week the nation's two largest private prison operators cited "significant growth opportunities" for detaining immigrants, driven largely by the Obama administration's emphasis on detaining "criminal aliens."

The GEO Group - an international private prison operator that draws about 75 percent of its revenue from...

On the same day that Corrections Corporation of America opened a new 500-bed immigrant detention center, Homeland Security officials released a highly anticipated review of detention centers. Accompanied by recommendations and next steps, the review promises better federal oversight and health care in the largely outsourced network of...

On the heels of Immigration and Custom Enforcement's announcement that it will stop holding children in Corrections Corporation of America's T. Don Hutto detention center, the nation's largest private prison provider assured investors that they still expect plenty of business from the federal government.

"In some respects there may...

President Obama has tried to split the difference between comprehensive immigration-reform advocates and law-and-order types. But for immigrants in detention, not much has changed since the Bush era.

Maria del Carmen Garcia-Martinez recently emerged from an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) holding cell in Maricopa County, Arizona, with her arm...

Anywhere from 50 to 100 detainees at the sprawling Port Isabel Processing Center in Los Fresos, Texas, stopped eating last Wednesday in an effort to draw attention to extended detention that they say violates their right to due process.

One of the detainees on hunger strike - Rama Carty...