By The Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington

The machinery of mass deportation, through which millions are separated from their families and communities, is hidden in plain sight. Each year, Immigration and Customs Enforcement removes tens of thousands of people from the US on private charter flights operated out of airports across the country, including Boeing Field in King County. Reports have surfaced of egregious human rights abuses on some flights, and violations of immigrants' rights to due process are routine. Using the Freedom of Information Act, UW student researchers and the UW Center for Human Rights obtained ICE's national database tracking these flights, and are following the money to document the corporations and municipalities that profit from ICE Air's deportation flights.

Seattle: The Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington 2019

By David Hausman

The US government maintains that local sanctuary policies prevent deportations of violent criminals and increase crime. This report tests those claims by combining Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deportation data and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) crime data with data on the implementation dates of sanctuary policies between 2010 and 2015. Sanctuary policies reduced deportations of people who were fingerprinted by states or counties by about one-third. Those policies also changed the composition of deportations, reducing deportations of people with no criminal convictions by half—without affecting deportations of people with violent convictions. Sanctuary policies also had no detectable effect on crime rates. These findings suggest that sanctuary policies, although effective at reducing deportations, do not threaten public safety.

PNAS,  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 117(44):27262–7.  2020.

By Melanie Gower, Georgina Sturge 

The Home Secretary has a duty to make a deportation order in respect of nonBritish or Irish citizens who have been convicted of an offence in the UK and sentenced to at least 12 months’ imprisonment, unless certain exceptions apply. He also has discretionary powers to deport non-British citizens if he considers it to be “conducive to the public good”. Deportation of foreign national offenders is a longstanding government priority. The Home Office considers for deportation all foreign nationals convicted of a crime in the UK and given a prison sentence. Foreign national offenders can be removed from the country before the end of their prison sentence by way of a prisoner transfer agreement, or through the Early Removal Scheme or Tariff-Expired Removal Scheme. They can receive money to help them to resettle in their home country through the Facilitated Return Scheme. As of the end of June 2023, there were at least 10,321 foreign nationals in prison in England and Wales, out of a total prison population of 85,851. Over half of foreign prisoners were European and, overall, the most common nationalities were Albanian, Polish, Romanian, Irish, and Jamaican. There were 11,769 foreign national offenders subject to deportation action living in the community, as of 30 September 2022.

A report of an inspection by the Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration published in June 2023 was critical of the Home Office’s handling of foreign national offender cases. It found that the Early Removal Scheme and the Facilitated Return Scheme were not being administered effectively. The Government says it has made good progress removing foreign national offenders from prisons and the community, pointing to a 19% increase in overall foreign national offender returns in the 12-month period to September 2023 (3,577 people). Up until that point, the number of foreign national offenders returned on an annual basis had been falling since 2016, when 6,437 individuals were returned. 

London: UK Parliament, The House of Commons Library , 2024. 11p

By Ariel G. Ruiz Soto, Rodrigo Dominguez-Villegas, Luis Argueta and Randy Capps

As U.S. deportations to Mexico continue at substantial levels and the numbers returned by both the U.S. and Mexican governments to El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras are increasing, it has become more urgent for countries in the region to develop successful reception and reintegration programs that meet the diverse needs of returning migrants.

Between fiscal years 2012-18, the United States carried out approximately 1.8 million repatriations of Mexican migrants, and the United States and Mexico together accomplished 1.4 million returns of migrants from the three Northern Triangle countries.

Drawing on fieldwork and interviews with government officials, researchers, representatives of civil-society and international organizations, as well as returning migrants, this report highlights promising reintegration strategies and pressing challenges. Mexico and the three Northern Triangle countries exhibit different levels of capacity and degrees of implementation in their reception and reintegration programs. While most deported migrants now receive basic reception services, their access to reintegration services is somewhat more mixed. Among the challenges: Difficulty obtaining the official ID that allows returning migrants to access these services, limited awareness and geographic distribution of services, difficulty matching returning migrants’ skills with labor-market needs, and barriers to reintegration posed by social stigmatization and employment discrimination.

The report offers a range of recommendations to governments and others, including: Prepare migrants for reintegration prior to their return, even before deportation; issue primary ID documents from abroad or upon reception; and ensure reintegration services tap into returning migrants' cultural roots. Improving reception and reintegration services represents a long-term investment for both destination and origin countries, the authors conclude, holding the potential to reduce re-migration while enabling countries of origin to benefit from the skills and assets migrants have acquired abroad.

Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute, 2019. 43p.

https://www.migrationpolicy.org/sites/default/files/publications/MPI-ReceptionReintegration-FinalWeb.pdf

At the Breaking Point: Rethinking the U.S. Immigration Court System

By Muzaffar Chishti, Doris Meissner, Stephen Yale-Loehr, Kathleen Bush-Joseph and Christopher Levesque

With a backlog of nearly 2 million cases, the U.S. immigration court system is in crisis. Many cases now take years to adjudicate, with asylum seekers, for example, waiting four years on average for their initial hearing and longer for a final decision. Serious concerns have also been raised about the quality of court decisions.

These twin issues of caseload quantity and decision quality have wide-ranging roots, from long-standing operational challenges in the courts to new crises in the Americas that have intensified humanitarian protection needs and other migration pressures. The courts' dysfunction has had severe knock-on effects for other parts of the nation’s immigration infrastructure, including notably the immigration enforcement and asylum systems.

This report takes stock of the many challenges facing the immigration courts and outlines recommendations that would advance the goal of delivering decisions that are both timely and fair. It explores issues including court caseload and personnel levels, docket management strategies, the use of technology in the courts, and access to representation. Importantly, the report focuses on changes that can be accomplished administratively—a necessity in a time when Congress has proven itself unlikely to tackle significant immigration matters.

Washington, DC:Migration Policy Institute, 2023. 51p.

https://www.migrationpolicy.org/sites/default/files/publications/mpi-courts-report-2023_final.pdf

Betting on Legality: Latin American and Caribbean Responses to the Venezuelan Displacement Crisis

By Luciana Gandini and Andrew Selee

More than half, and as many as two-thirds, of the estimated 6.4 million displaced Venezuelans who have settled in Latin America and the Caribbean since 2016 have been granted legal status in their host country. Most of the receiving countries in the region have responded with pragmatic measures that offer some form of legal status as well as the right to access the labor market, basic education, and emergency health care. The measures implemented are uneven and often not fully institutionalized, but they have been surprisingly generalized for a region with limited experience with large-scale immigration.

This report explores the response to Venezuelan displacement in the 15 principal host countries in Latin America and the Caribbean between 2016 and 2022. It examines the reach of different mechanisms for providing legal status and humanitarian protection—asylum systems, mobility and residence agreements, regular visas, and regularization campaigns that offer temporary status—and offers estimates of the share of Venezuelans in each country who have obtained legal status.

The report also considers the trend of governments coupling measures to provide legal status with new visa requirements that have made it increasingly difficult for more Venezuelans to arrive, pushing some into irregular migration channels. Finally, the report looks at variations in Venezuelans’ access to education and health care across the 15 countries.

Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute, 2023. 55p.

https://www.migrationpolicy.org/sites/default/files/publications/mpi-venezuelans-legal-status-2023_eng_final.pdf

Migration Narratives in Northern Central America: How Competing Stories Shape Policy and Public Opinion in Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador

By Ariel G. Ruiz Soto, Natalia Banulescu-Bogdan, Aaron Clark-Ginsberg, Alejandra Lopez and Alejandro Vélez Salas

The stories told within a society about migration and migrants paint a rich picture of how its members view the opportunities and challenges associated with the movement of people, and through what lenses. These migration narratives both inform policymaking and shape the public’s reaction to government policy, affecting the policies’ chances of achieving their goals.

While El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras are primarily known for emigration to the United States and Mexico, these northern Central American countries have seen notable changes in migration trends in recent years. The number of migrants from South America and the Caribbean who transit through these countries on their way north has increased, as has the number of Central Americans returning to their countries of origin.

This report presents the findings of research conducted by the Migration Policy Institute, RAND Corporation, Metropolitan Group, and National Immigration Forum, comparing migration narratives within El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras—as well as a selection of migration narratives from Mexico and the United States that relate to Central America—over the 2018–22 period. The study explores how these narratives about emigration, transit migration, return, and other issues intersect, how they contradict or compound each other, and how they influence critical policy debates and decisions in the region.

Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute, 2023. 49p.

https://www.migrationpolicy.org/sites/default/files/publications/CentAm-MigrationNarratives-2023_final.pdf

Inhumane and Counterproductive: Asylum Ban Inflicts Mounting Harm

By

Christina Asencio

Rebecca Gendelman

Five months after the Biden administration initiated its new bar on asylum, the policy continues to strand vulnerable people in places where they are targets of widespread kidnapping, torture, and violent assaults. People seeking asylum are forced to risk their lives waiting in danger in Mexico for one of the limited CBP One appointments or risk suffering the ban’s punitive asylum denials or wrongful returns to harm and persecution if they attempt to seek protection at a port of entry or cross outside ports of entry without a CBP One appointment. The targeting of migrants and asylum seekers waiting for these appointments has risen sharply recently, driving many people to cross the border in urgent search of safety. Humanitarian workers assisting asylum seekers forced to wait in Mexico are also facing alarming—and increasing—risks as well.

This harmful bar on asylum (the “asylum ban”) is a new iteration of similar transit and entry bans promulgated by the Trump administration that federal courts repeatedly struck down because they violated U.S. law. A federal district court ruled in July that the Biden asylum ban is unlawful, but it remains in place while on appeal. The asylum ban renders nearly all asylum seekers who traveled through another country on their way to the U.S. southern border ineligible for asylum due to their transit routes and/or manner of entry unless they (1) applied for and were denied asylum in one of those countries (regardless of their safety there), or (2) managed to secure one of the asylum ban’s limited “pre-scheduled” appointments to enter at an official port of entry. To try to get a U.S. port of entry appointment, people seeking asylum (as well as other migrants who are not seeking asylum) are left to struggle to obtain an appointment via CBP One, a smartphone app that operates much like a daily lottery and is plagued by deficiencies that impede equitable access.

Not only does the asylum ban violate both U.S. and international law, but it has generated strong and diverse opposition from faith groups, Holocaust survivors, major unions, civil rights organizations, members of the president’s political party and other key Biden administration allies. President Biden should honor his campaign promise to end such restrictions by bringing this harmful policy—which his administration has pledged is only temporary—to its end now. Every day that it is left in place, it endangers refugees’ lives and subverts refugee law.

Instead, the Biden administration should double down on some of the effective, humane, and legal policies that it has already initiated or announced, and reject those that punish, ban, and block people seeking asylum, contrary to core tenets of international refugee protection. Key steps include to: quickly ramp up plans to expand regional refugee resettlement, strengthen the administration’s pivotal parole initiatives, increase critical aid to address regional protection gaps driving many to flee north, urgently increase support for safe shelter and other dire needs of people waiting in Mexico, uphold fundamental human rights in regional migration coordination, maximize access to asylum at ports of entry, properly staff asylum and immigration court adjudications, and improve and restart use of the Biden administration’s new asylum processing rule to help adjudicate a greater number of asylum cases more efficiently.

New York: Human Rights First, 2023. 67p.

https://humanrightsfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Inhumane-and-Counterproductive-final-report.pdf

Digital Border Governance: A Human Rights Based Approach

By Lorna McGregor and Petra Molnar

In an era where digital technologies are increasingly integrated into migration processes, these technologies are reshaping border governance in a manner that impacts the human rights of people on the move and communities worldwide. As we navigate these evolving dynamics, it becomes paramount to address the potential harms the use of digital technologies poses to human rights, while also harnessing the opportunities they offer to facilitate safe and dignified migration. This collaborative study, conducted by the UN Human Rights Office and the University of Essex, analyses the human rights implications of specific border technologies. It provides recommendations for States and stakeholders on how to take a human rights-based approach in ensuring the use of digital technologies at borders aligns with international human rights law and standards. The study draws from a collective body of expertise, research, and evidence, as well as extensive interviews and collaborative meetings with experts.

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights , 2023. 26p.

By Xavier Becerra, et al.

As the California Department of Justice (Cal DOJ) issues its second report under Assembly Bill 103 (2017) (AB 103) about the conditions within locked facilities housing immigration detainees in California, the nation is in the midst of a struggle to control and prevent outbreaks of COVID-19. Detainees and staff in immigration detention facilities are particularly vulnerable due to the congregate nature of detention, and all parties connected to immigration detention—U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), facility leadership and staff, off-site community hospitals, advocates, federal courts, and immigration detainees themselves—have been forced to respond to the crisis. Cal DOJ’s AB 103 review of the three immigration detention facilities featured in this report took place before the COVID-19 pandemic began, and insights gained from these and prior facility reviews prompted Attorney General Xavier Becerra to write to the Acting Secretary for Homeland Security on April 13, 2020, urging the release of immigration detainees and the adoption of safety protocols to minimize the spread of COVID-19. Nonetheless, while the average number of immigrants in ICE’s adult detention facilities across the nation decreased from 37,876 detainees in February 2020 to 19,989 detainees in September 2020, the overall average length of detention significantly increased during the same period from an average of 56.1 days to 91.3 days. This report presents Cal DOJ’s findings with respect to three privately-operated detention facilities: (1) the Adelanto ICE Processing Center (Adelanto), operated by The GEO Group, Inc.: (Geo Group); (2) the Imperial Regional Detention Facility (Imperial), operated by Management Training Corporation (MTC); and (3) the Otay Mesa Detention Center (Otay Mesa), operated by CoreCivic. Cal DOJ staff, along with correctional, medical, and mental health experts, toured each facility; interviewed staff and detainees; and reviewed and analyzed logs, policies, detainee records, and other documents to develop an understanding of the conditions of confinement and standard of care and due process provided to detainees at each facility. In addition, Cal DOJ administered two attorney surveys to analyze barriers and facilitation of due process in each of the three facilities, as well as the impact COVID-19 has had on detainees and their counsel.

San Francisco: California Office of the Attorney General, 2021. 160p.

By Abigail Andrews And the students of the Mexican Migration Field Research Program

The world is changing so fast that it's hard to know how to think about what we ought to do. We barely have time to reflect on how scientific advances will affect our lives before they're upon us. New kinds of dilemma are springing up. Can robots be held responsible for their actions? Will artificial intelligence be able to predict criminal activity? Is the future gender-fluid? Should we strive to become post-human? Should we use drugs to improve our intimate relationships — or to reduce crime? Our intuitions about questions like these are often both weak and confused. David Edmonds has put together a philosophical task force to get to grips with these challenges. Twenty-nine philosophers present provocative and engaging pieces about aspects of life today, and life tomorrow — birth and death, health and medicine, brain and body, personal relationships, wrongdoing and justice, the internet, animals, and the environment. The future won't look the same when you've finished this book.

Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2023.

By Thomas Pearson

This dissertation consists of three chapters concerning migration and immigration policy. The first chapter studies how increased U.S. deportations affect Mexican labor markets using variation in migrant networks and Secure Communities (SC), a policy which expanded local immigration enforcement. I show that in the short run, deportations increase return migration and decrease monthly earnings for local Mexicans with less than a high school degree. Deportations also increase net outflows within Mexico and emigration to the U.S. The negative short run effects are not driven by falls in remittance income or increases in crime as deportations increase both the share of households receiving remittances and the total amount received and they do not affect homicide rates. The results instead point to increased labor market competition as a result of return migration. Lastly, I show that the negative short run effects of this labor supply shock are larger in localities with worse infrastructure and less access to the financial sector. These results help explain the large negative effects on earnings as many migrants return to less developed regions where these frictions are prevalent. The second chapter studies how immigration status affects crime reporting and victimization. I focus on Deferred Action for Early Childhood Arrivals (DACA), a policy that temporarily protects youth from deportation and provides work authorization. For identification, I compare likely undocumented immigrants around the policy's age eligibility cut-off over time. DACA eligibility of the victim increased the likelihood that the crime was reported to the police, which is consistent with DACA reducing fears of deportation. DACA eligibility also decreased victimization rates for women. Overall, the results suggest that immigrant legalization increases engagement with police and reduces the likelihood of victimization. …

Boston: Boston University, 2022. 255p.

By Antonella Bandiera, Lelys Dinarte, Sandra Rozo, Carlos Schmidt-Padilla, Micaela Sviatschi, Hernan. Winkler    

  Can repatriation inflows impact firm behavior in origin countries? This paper examines this question in the context of repatriation inflows from the United States and Mexico to El Salvador. The paper combines a rich longitudinal data set covering all formal firms in El Salvador with individual-level data on all registered repatriations from 2010 to 2017. The empirical strategy combines variation in the municipality of birth of individuals repatriated over 1995–2002—before a significant change in deportation policies—with annual variation in aggregate inflows of repatriations to El Salvador. The findings show that repatriations have large negative effects on the average wages of formal workers. This is mainly driven by formal firms in sectors that face more intense competition from the informal sector, which deportees are more likely to join. Repatriation inflows also reduce total employment among formal firms in those sectors. Given that most deportees spend less than a month abroad, these findings suggest that the experience of being detained and deported can have strong negative effects not only on the deportees, but also on their receiving communities.  

  Policy Research Working Paper 9521. Washington, DC: The World Bank, 2021. 39p.

By Nicole Vidal & Bryony Nisbet

  This study builds an understanding of the quantity and quality of refugees’ social networks, and their role in influencing public perceptions and engagement with the police. It applies the Social Connections Mapping Tool (SCMT) methodology, combined with in-depth interviews with refugees, asylum-seekers, police personnel, and associated services to identify refugee and asylum-seeker experiences, trust and confidence with Police Scotland and associated services. Findings: • Visibility, trust & confidence: Some participants had limited knowledge of Police Scotland or how to contact them. Confidence in Police Scotland is good despite negative experiences in their countries of origin. Most agreed increased police visibility is important. • Resources & Engagement: Officers recognised the importance of engaging with refugees and asylum-seekers but highlighted the challenge of operational demands and resourcing. • Language: Limited English language makes engaging with the police difficult, and ineffective interpretation and translation impacts on trust and confidence in the service. Police personnel agreed that language barriers can increase call and response times. • Gender: Efforts are being made to improve the gender imbalance in the police workforce. • Racism and hate crime: There was a general concern surrounding racism both at the hands of the community and the police, exacerbated by anecdotal accounts from others. Recommendations: • Engage with refugees and asylum-seekers to gain familiarity of their social networks. • Increase community support and empower communities to develop solutions to problems. • Utilise police officers’ cultural insights to assist with understanding community issues. • Equip all officers with community policing information and resources (e.g. cultural awareness training, working with interpreters, agreeing methods to support inclusion). • Enlist support of refugee-related organisations, local community organisations and/or faithbased organisations; these can serve as a bridge between the police and communities. • Work with the wider community to encourage knowledge sharing and mutual understand  

Edinburgh: Queen Margaret University, 2023. 53p.

By James Feigenbaum, Jesse Baker and Austin Brooksby  

  This paper provides a macroeconomic perspective on the costs and benefits of two very different immigration policy changes—mass deportation and legalization—in comparison to the status quo of allowing illegal immigrants to broadly remain in the country under precarious circumstances. A macroeconomic analysis can capture the economy-wide impact of immigration policies on wages, employment, the government budget, and the stock of productive capital. To provide intuition, the paper begins with a simple analysis before adding layers of complexity that capture how immigration affects the economy. Although the results are sensitive to the assumptions used in the analysis, we find that over a broad range of parameters mass deportation creates worse economic outcomes for US citizens relative to both the status quo and to a policy providing for legalization.  

Logan, UT: The Center for Growth and Opportunity at Utah State University, 2020. 18p.

By Mizue Aizeki, Ghita Schwarz, Jane Shim, and Samah Sisay

Cruel by Design: Voices of Resistance from Immigration Detention, a report by the Immigrant Defense Project and the Center for Constitutional Rights, shows how the harms associated with ICE detention practices are embedded in the structures of the immigration control regime rather than a manifestation of a broken system. In doing so, it offers a summary of U.S. detention laws to illustrate how the system is designed to make it as easy as possible for the federal government to exclude and deport people. It also shows how the detention system deploys multiple tactics to undermine the ability of individuals to fight deportation. In addition, the report highlights the stories of people who’ve been held in ICE detention, and their resistance and resilience in the face of a draconian system. Piecemeal reforms alone will not be sufficient for remedying the cruelty of this system. What is ultimately required is far-reaching transformation, one aimed at ending detention as a tool of the U.S. regime of exclusion.

New York: Immigrant Defense Project and Center for Constitutional Rights, 2022.  49p.

By Rudy Schulkind

The introduction of automatic deportation for so called ‘foreign criminals’ convicted and sentenced to 12 months or more under the UK Borders Act 2007 (unless certain exceptions apply including the right to a private and family life), followed by further provisions in 20121 and 20142 , has led to an increasingly strident regime that makes it mandatory to separate a child from a parent. That is, so long as any harm that is caused to the child, parent or partner is not ‘excessive’. In the case of children, these provisions are relied upon by the Home Office and the courts to override the government’s statutory duty to promote and safeguard the welfare of children. Through our legal casework BID has witnessed first-hand the devastating impact this regime is having on families and communities. We have undertaken this research so that we can shine a light on this cruel and inhuman policy. Our research is primarily based on interviews with fathers facing deportation from the UK. It is the words of those directly affected that form the substance of the report. The testimonies of the fathers we spoke to are powerful and often heart-breaking, and paint a picture of an entirely broken system that cannot be in the public interest. Section 1 of the report examines the sprawling impact of the deportation system, from the individuals punished permanently and given no second chance because they don’t have a British passport, to the children and families treated as collateral damage. Families were placed in extreme practical, financial and emotional hardship by extended periods of uncertainty under the constant threat that family life will be brought to a permanent end. Not only were the fathers we interviewed prevented from working, they faced repeated periods of detention that were traumatic for the entire family and placed an even greater practical burden on the mother. A particular focus of this section is the devastating impact deportation has on children. In the interviews we carried out, fathers facing deportation reported their children developing anxiety; crying constantly; unable to let their dad out of their sight; withdrawing from everything; loss of appetite; difficulty sleeping; having nightmares; and in one particularly serious case self-harm and attempted suicide. In addition to these testimonies we present evidence of recent academic insights about enforced parental separation in a number of different contexts. Somewhat unsurprisingly the evidence  overwhelmingly finds that being forcibly and permanently separated from a parent generally has severe consequences for a child’s wellbeing and long-term development. Section 2 of the report concerns access to justice. The removal of legal aid and successive legislative changes have had a particularly detrimental effect on people seeking to appeal deportation. Interviewees explained the myriad interlocking barriers to justice they had been forced to confront. These include the complexity of immigration law and the prohibitive cost of private representation, as well as practical obstacles for those deprived of their liberty. The frequent and excessive use of detention, itself an injustice, leads to additional practical barriers to challenging deportation, particularly where this takes place in a prison. The first-hand evidence from our interviews reflect a dysfunctional system designed to make it practically impossible to even access a fair hearing. Alongside this we also present evidence from our own Exceptional Case Funding (ECF) project. We have found the ECF scheme to be unnecessarily burdensome and entirely inaccessible to unrepresented individuals. 

London: Bail for Immigration Detainees, 2021. 40p.

By  Wendy Edelberg and Tara Watson 

This policy proposal is a proposal from the author(s). As emphasized in The Hamilton Project’s original strategy paper, the Project was designed in part to provide a forum for leading thinkers across the nation to put forward innovative and potentially important economic policy ideas that share the Project’s broad goals of promoting economic growth, broad-based participation in growth, and economic security. The author(s) are invited to express their own ideas in policy proposals , whether or not the Project’s staff or advisory council agrees with the specific proposals. This policy proposal is offered in that spirit.  

  Immigration is good for the US economy and for the fiscal picture at the federal level, but some local areas experience adverse fiscal impacts when new immigrants arrive. Edelberg and Watson propose a transparent system for redistributing resources from the federal government to these localities. Local areas would receive $2,500 annually for each adult immigrant who arrived to the US within the past five years without a college degree—those more likely to generate negative fiscal flows at the subnational level. The funds would take the form of unrestricted transfers to local educational agencies through the existing Impact Aid program and to Federally Qualified Health Centers. This support would help to offset educational, health, and other costs to local areas associated with immigrant inflows, and more equitably share the overall fiscal and economic benefits of immigration.   

Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution and The Hamilton Project , 2022.   26p.

By Elizabeth G. Kennedy and Alison Parker,, et al.

The US is deporting Salvadorans to death and abuse. Deported to Danger identifies 138 cases of Salvadorans who, since 2013, were killed after deportation from the United States and more than 70 others who were beaten, sexually assaulted, extorted, or tortured. People deported to El Salvador are sometimes targeted by the same abusers they originally fled—such as gangs or former intimate partners—or are targeted for reasons, such as their status as a deportee, their neighborhood of origin, or perceived wealth, that US government officials should take into account when deciding their eligibility for asylum or other protection from deportation. US authorities should strengthen, not further weaken, asylum protections, ensuring that all asylum-seekers receive dignified treatment via procedures that ensure full and fair consideration of their claims. Human Rights Watch also urges the United States to take a step further and offer “complementary protection” to anyone, including Salvadorans, facing a real risk of serious harm upon return. Instead of closing the door on Salvadorans and others fleeing their homelands, the US should ensure their protection.

New York: Human Rights Watch, 2020. 123p.

By Tom K. Wong, S. Deborah Kang, Carolina Valdivia, Josefina Espino, Michelle Gonzalez and Elia Peralta

Previous research shows that the day-to-day behaviors of undocumented immigrants are significantly affected when local law enforcement officials do the work of federal immigration enforcement. One such behavior, which has been widely discussed in debates over so-called sanctuary policies, is that undocumented immigrants are less likely to report crimes to the police when local law enforcement officials work with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on federal immigration enforcement. However, the mechanism that explains this relationship, which is decreased trust in law enforcement, has not yet been systematically tested. Do undocumented immigrants become less trusting of police officers and sheriffs when local law enforcement officials work with ICE on federal immigration enforcement? To answer this question, we embedded an experiment that varied the interior immigration enforcement context in a survey (n = 512) drawn from a probability-based sample of undocumented immigrants. When local law enforcement officials work with ICE on federal immigration enforcement, respondents are statistically significantly less likely to say that they trust that police officers and sheriffs will keep them, their families, and their communities safe, protect the confidentiality of witnesses to crimes even if they are undocumented, protect the rights of all people, including undocumented immigrants, equally, and protect undocumented immigrants from abuse or discrimination.

La Jolla, CA: U.S. Immigration Policy Center, University of San Diego, 2019. 21p.

By Andrea Guttin

The Criminal Alien Program (CAP) is a program administered by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that screens inmates in prisons and jails, identifies deportable non-citizens, and places them into deportation proceedings. In this Special Report, The Criminal Alien Program: Immigration Enforcement in Travis County, Texas, author Andrea Guttin, Esq., provides a brief history and background on the CAP program. Guttin also includes a case study of CAP implementation in Travis County, Texas, which finds that the program has a negative impact on communities because it increases the community’s fear of reporting crime to police, is costly, and may encourage racial profiling.

La Jolla, CA: Immigration Policy Center, 2010. 23p.

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By Annie Laurie Hines and Giovanni Peri

This paper analyzes the impact of immigrant deportations on local crime and police efficiency. Our identification relies on increases in the deportation rate driven by the introduction of the Secure Communities (SC) program, an immigration enforcement program based on local-federal cooperation which was rolled out across counties between 2008 and 2013. We instrument for the deportation rate by interacting the introduction of SC with the local presence of likely undocumented in 2005, prior to the introduction of SC. We document a surge in local deportation rates under SC, and we show that deportations increased the most in counties with a large undocumented population. We find that SC-driven increases in deportation rates did not reduce crime rates for violent offenses or property offenses. Our estimates are small and precise, so we can rule out meaningful effects. We do not find evidence that SC increased either police effectiveness in solving crimes or local police resources. Finally, we do not find effects of deportations on the local employment of unskilled citizens or on local firm creation

Bonn, Germany: IZA - Institute of Labor Economics, 2019. 42p.

By Steve Cohen

This book is a searing critique of today's immigration systems. Former barrister Steve Cohen declares that these systems are deeply flawed, and takes a fresh look at the ethical and political problems that surround this controversial subject. Cohen proposes that current immigration controls are so inherently racist and irrational that they require the creative dystopian ideas contained within George Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-Four" to adequately describe them. He seeks to understand the irrationality of these controls - complete with their own brand of newspeak, doublethink, memory holes and thought police - and undertakes an incisive critique of immigration controls, revealing the nightmare world in which refugees, migrants and immigrants find themselves. The book also scrutinizes the latest developments in UK immigration legislation and compares and contrasts the UK experience with that of other countries. "Deportation is Freedom!" is a lively yet thought-provoking read that will captivate anyone who cares about the immigration systems that are shaping our world today. It will be of particular interest to social workers, lawyers, social policy makers and all people politically engaged in immigration campaigning.

London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2016. 224p.

Edited by Bryan Roberts , Cecilia Menjívar and Nestor P. Rodríguez

This volume focuses on recent experiences of return migration to Mexico and Central America from the United States. For most of the twentieth century, return migration to the US was a normal part of the migration process from Mexico and Central America, typically resulting in the eventual permanent settlement of migrants in the US. In recent years, however, such migration has become involuntary, as a growing proportion of return migration is taking place through formal orders of deportation. This book discusses return migration to Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, addressing different reasons for return, whether voluntary or involuntary, and highlighting the unique challenges faced by returnees to each region. Particular emphasis is placed on the lack of government and institutional policies in place for returning migrants who wish to attain work, training, or shelter in their home countries. Finally, the authors take a look at the phenomenon of migrants who can never return because they have disappeared during the migration process. Through its multinational focus, diverse thematic outlook, and use of ethnographic and survey methods, this volume provides an original contribution to the topic of return migration and broadens the scope of the literature currently available.

Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2017. 187p.

By Antje Ellermann

In this comparative study of the contemporary politics of deportation in Germany and the United States, Antje Ellermann analyzes the capacity of the liberal democratic state to control individuals within its borders. The book grapples with the question of why, in the 1990s, Germany responded to vociferous public demands for stricter immigration control by passing and implementing far-reaching policy reforms, while the United States failed to effectively respond to a comparable public mandate. Drawing on extensive field interviews, Ellermann finds that these cross-national differences reflect institutionally determined variations in socially coercive state capacity. By tracing the politics of deportation across the evolution of the policy cycle, beginning with anti-immigrant populist backlash and ending in the expulsion of migrants by deportation bureaucrats, Ellermann is also able to show that the conditions underlying state capacity systematically vary across policy stages. Whereas the ability to make socially coercive law is contingent on strong institutional linkages between the public and legislators, the capacity for implementation depends on the political insulation of bureaucrats.

Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009. 214p.