Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)

Activists chant in front of the US Supreme Court in Washington, DC, on June 18, 2020. Signs read, "Here to Stay" and "Home Is Here."

The President and Immigration Law Series: Executive Power Beyond Enforcement

Nicholas Espiritu cautions that presidential power goes beyond enforcement - and neither bureaucratic nor constitutional safeguards are sufficient to check these quasi-legislative…

Oct. 12, 2020 Nicholas Espíritu

The Statue of Liberty is viewed from the rooftop of the new Statue of Liberty Museum, May 13, 2019 on Liberty Island in New York City.

The President and Immigration Law: Introduction to a Just Security Series

In order to develop a meaningful reform agenda, it is essential to understand how the U.S. immigration system and the president’s prominent role within it came to be. In a new…

Oct. 12, 2020 Cristina Rodríguez and Adam Cox

Cell room doors are seen at the Caroline Detention Facility in Bowling Green, Virginia, on August 13, 2018. - A former regional jail, the facility has been contracted by the US Department of Homeland Security Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to house undocumented adult immigrant detainees.

The U.S. Bears International Responsibility for Forced Sterilization of Women in ICE Detention

A sterilization performed without the patient’s prior, full, free, and informed consent is a human rights violation.

Sep. 29, 2020 Lisa Reinsberg and Sarah Paoletti

People cross a street with cars. There are more street lights than seems needed for such a small street. There are numbers and waves of circles overlaid the image.

New Technologies, New Problems – Troubling Surveillance Trends in America

The rapid advent of powerful digital surveillance technologies raises questions about the U.S. ability to maintain a balance between security and citizens' rights. Several troubling…

Aug. 6, 2020 Steven Feldstein and David Wong

Asylum seekers in face masks wait to enter a US port of entry.

There is No Public Health Rationale for a Categorical Ban on Asylum Seekers

"We asked six infectious disease epidemiology experts to respond to the CDC's public health justifications for closing the border to asylum seekers." Their unanimous response:…

Apr. 17, 2020 Joanna Naples-Mitchell

Demonstrators holds up placards and banners while demonstrating, asking for Yahya Jammeh, the former President of the Gambia, to be brought to justice, in Banjul on January 25, 2020. One of the signs says, "No Place for Enforced Disappearance in Gambia."

Senators Call for Prosecution of Gambian Paramilitary Fighter in US Custody

Rare opportunity to criminally prosecute a person implicated in extremely grave human rights abuses in a U.S. court.

Feb. 21, 2020 Randle DeFalco

Honduran father Juan and his six-year-old son Anthony walk on their way to attend Sunday Mass on September 9, 2018 in Oakland, California. They fled their country and crossed the U.S. border at a lawful port of entry in Brownsville, Texas seeking asylum. They were soon separated and spent the next 85 days apart in detention. Juan was sent to Tulsa, Oklahoma, while his son was sent to a detention shelter New York. Juan said it took six weeks from the time of separation until he was able to make a phone call to his son.

Assessing the Legal Landscape of Family Separation in the Immigration Context

Former Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen was interviewed this week as part of FORTUNE’s “Most Powerful Women Summit” in Washington. Nielsen, who seemed nonplussed…

Oct. 25, 2019 Carrie Cordero, Heidi Li Feldman and 1 more

Protestors led by a coalition of interfaith religious leaders demonstrate against US immigration policy that separates parents from their children, June 23, 2018 outside the Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego, California. A sign reads, “Stop caging families,” and many protestors wear shirts reading, “& Vote.”

Fear and Loathing on the Border: A First-Hand Look at the Travesty

Far from the loophole-ridden sieve described by the administration, the asylum system we saw was a Kafka-esque labyrinth designed to punish migrants who dare to exercise their…

Sep. 13, 2019 Ambassador Donald Steinberg

An ICE agent with U.S. Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and police lights in the background.

If National Security Was Driving Immigration Arrests, Employers Would be Charged Too

Since 2014, across the country, there have been no more than 200 prosecutions for alleged violations of 8 U.S.C. § 1324a, the law that makes hiring undocumented immigrants illegal.

Sep. 12, 2019 Brian Owsley

This picture taken on April 19, 2018 shows commuters on mopeds along a street in central Ho Chi Minh City.

Protections Fall for Vietnamese Immigrants as Trump Pushes Deportations

The Trump administration has reinterpreted a 2008 agreement with Vietnam in multiple ways to expand the categories of refugees it can deport. The effort appears to have affected…

Aug. 29, 2019 Charles Dunst

Undocumented immigrants sit on the dirt, handcuffed together, as they wait to be transported to a central processing center shortly after crossing the border from Mexico into the United States on Monday, March 26, 2018 in the Rio Grande Valley Sector near McAllen, Texas.

Criminal Prosecutions and Illegal Entry: A Deeper Dive

A look at how laws that criminalize entry and reentry into the U.S. actually work in practice and how they have been used to punish asylum seekers and migrants in violation of…

Jul. 18, 2019 Eleanor Acer

The logos of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security are seen on computer terminals in a training room of the Cyber Crimes Center of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement October 13, 2009 in Fairfax, Virginia.

Homeland Security’s Intelligence Overreach: Two Cases Illustrate Risks to Civil Society

The Department of Homeland Security is deploying its intelligence apparatus against activists, journalists, and human rights lawyers, with no guard rails against abuse in place.…

Mar. 8, 2019 Faiza Patel