US

July 16, 2019 – Prosecutions for sex trafficking of children under a law used against financier Jeffrey Epstein last week are down 26.7 percent over the past fiscal year, according to the latest available data from the Justice Department. This is the second year in a row that prosecutions for sex trafficking of children under […]

WASHINGTON, DC, June 15, 2019 – Today, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice announced new regulations, effective July 16, 2019, that will prevent migrants on the southern border from seeking asylum in the United States when they have not applied for protection in a third country through which they transited first. […]

Washington, DC, July 15, 2019  – The Trump administration on July 15, 2019 announced a new rule that effectively bars from asylum nearly anyone who crosses the southern US border after traveling through a third country, Human Rights Watch said today. “The Trump administration’s new rule shows breathtaking disregard for US obligations toward asylum seekers,” […]

Washington D.C., July 15, 2019 – The U.S. Department of State will host the second annual Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom this week in Washington, D.C., where leaders from government, civil society, and religious groups around the world will convene to discuss the state of religious freedom today, and concrete ways to preserve these freedoms in the […]

WASHINGTON, D.C. July 15, 2019 – U.S. Senators Kamala D. Harris (D-CA) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) on Friday joined Senator Mazie K. Hirono (D-HI) and 19 of their colleagues in sending a letter to Dr. James Reilly, the Director of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), to express their concern over recent reports that USGS will […]

WASHINGTON, DC, July 15, 2019 – The US government published a new interim rule that would prevent anyone at the US southern border who has traveled through another country on the way to the United States from seeking asylum here. This new rule would prevent anyone other than people from Mexico or Canada from seeking asylum […]

July 15, 2019 – Dear Democratic Colleague, On Sunday, it was a sign to us that the Catholic Gospel reading was that of the Good Samaritan, where Jesus teaches us to love our neighbors as ourselves and treat them with mercy.  Trump’s ICE raids this weekend are the opposite of mercy.  We have been monitoring […]

July 9, 2019 – The American Civil Liberties Union along with Brooklyn Defender Services (BDS), created “We Have Rights,” a national immigrant empowerment campaign to inform immigrant communities of what to do when interacting with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The campaign centers around four animated videos available in seven languages: English, Spanish, Arabic, Mandarin, Russian, […]

Aug. 8, 2018 – In this paper for the Journal on Migration and Human Security, Donald Kerwin and Robert Warren offer a demographic analysis of the potential impact on US families and children of large-scale deportation of US undocumented residents. Here are some of the key findings: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This paper provides a statistical portrait […]

Washington, D.C. (July 12, 2019)—Today, Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, the Chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Reform, released a staff report summarizing data obtained in response to subpoenas the Committee issued regarding the Trump Administration’s child separation policy.  The staff report states: “The information obtained by the Committee indicates that the Trump Administration’s decision to separate […]

July 12, 2019 – Every day, hundreds of non-English speaking immigrants show up to court for initial hearings where they will see an immigration judge for the first time. But due to a new policy, many immigrants will lose the help of dedicated court interpreters to ensure they understand what’s going on in the hearing. […]

WASHINGTON, July 12, 2019 – Today, Congresswoman Barbara Lee released the following statement after the U.S. House of Representatives voted to repeal the 2002 Authorization for the Use of Military Force:  “Congress took a historic step today to stop our endless wars. The House just passed my amendment to repeal the outdated 2002 Iraq Authorization […]

NEW YORK, July 11, 2019 — In anticipation of the Trump administration’s threatened mass arrest of thousands of families and children, four immigration legal aid nonprofit organizations filed a lawsuit today to protect those refugees. The groups, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Southern California, New York Civil Liberties Union, and the […]

Washington, DC, July 11, 2019 – United States officials are separating migrant children from their families at the border, causing severe and lasting harm, Human Rights Watch said today. The US House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Reform will hold hearings on the government’s family separation policy on July 12, 2019. Human Rights Watch […]

WASHINGTON, July 11, 2019 – Leading civil rights organizations held a telephone press briefing today to discuss Trump’s remarks regarding the citizenship question on the 2020 Census. “Trump has begrudgingly accepted what the Supreme Court, census experts, and three federal courts have told him – he cannot weaponize the 2020 Census by adding a citizenship […]

WASHINGTON, DC, July 11, 2019 – On a press call today, representatives from the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), the American Bar Association (ABA), the National Association of Immigration Judges (NAIJ), and the Federal Bar Association (FBA) discussed the need for an immigration court system that is independent of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). […]

WASHINGTON, July 9, 2019 — Like many around the world and in the United States, Refugees International is shocked and gravely concerned by numerous recent revelations, frequently from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) itself, of inhumane detention conditions for asylum seekers, including children. A recent report by the DHS’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) documented […]

NEW YORK, July 9, 2019 — Affirming an earlier ruling of a federal district court, a unanimous panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held today that President Trump’s practice of blocking critics from his Twitter account violates the First Amendment. The decision comes in a case filed by the Knight […]

WASHINGTON, July 9, 2019 — A new U.S. Environmental Protection Agency rule gives Trump administration appointees dangerous and unlawful new power to curb the public release of crucial environmental records, nonprofit conservation and transparency organizations warned today. In today’s letter to the EPA, the Environmental Integrity Project, Center for Biological Diversity and more than a […]

WASHINGTON, July 9, 2019 — Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) unveiled a concurrent resolution today to declare the climate crisis an emergency warranting a “massive-scale mobilization to halt, reverse and address” its consequences. “With an unhinged climate denier in the White House, it’s on Congress to steer […]