Migrant Courts Get More Latitude
The San Antonio Express News reports that Chief Immigration Judge Brian O’Leary has encouraged colleagues to consider a landmark ruling which allows them to close deportation cases over the objection of prosecutors. With immigration courts still backlogged more than a year after the Obama administration launched a policy to close certain deportation cases, Judge O’Leary is encouraging judges to take matters into their own hands. The recommendation to consider closing cases despite the government’s objection came in a memo in which O’Leary lamented the backlog in the nation’s immigration courts. To deal with the backlog, O’ Leary wrote that judges can administratively close cases even when ICE prosecutors object. Administratively closing a case means a judge stets it aside and takes it off the docket, but it can be reopened at any time.
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/article/Migrant-courts-get-more-latitude-4356389.php
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Georgia Won’t Appeal Decision Against Immigration Law
The Atlanta Journal Constitution reports that the Georgia Attorney General’s office confirmed Monday that the state will not appeal a federal court’s decision against the part of a Georgia immigration law that would punish people who knowingly transport or harbor illegal immigrants while committing other crimes. In August, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the immigration measure is pre-empted by federal law, which already prohibits such activities. Georgia was facing a deadline this week to decide whether to appeal the 11th Circuit Court’s decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.
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U.S. Supreme Court Ruling Affects Many Immigrant Convicts in South Florida
The Miami Herald reports that a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling blocked appeals for hundreds of Florida residents convicted in the past of crimes for which they could be deported. In Chaidez v. United States, the Supreme Court ruled that immigrants convicted of crimes before 2010 cannot appeal their cases if their criminal defense lawyers did not properly warn them of deportation. The decision followed up on the court’s 2010 ruling which threw out the conviction of military veteran Jose Padilla, whose lawyer failed to warn him that he faced deportation to his native Honduras if he pleaded guilty to marijuana smuggling in Kentucky.
After the ruling in Padilla v. Kentucky, thousands of convicted immigrants—fearing deportation—asked lower courts across the country to throw out their convictions. That included Roselva Chaidez, a longtime U.S. resident from Mexico convicted in Chicago of auto insurance fraud. However, seven of the nine justices agreed that the Padilla ruling established “new law” but was not legally “retroactive.” Under federal law, non-citizens convicted of an “aggravated felony” can be deported. The U.S. Attorney General’s Office had also argued that applying Padilla retroactively “would be overwhelming to the administration of justice” –flooding the courts with thousands of cases, most of them so old that witnesses or evidence in the cases have disappeared.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/02/20/3244718/us-supreme-court-ruling-affects.html
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US Ruling May Hurt Dreamers’ License Case
Capitol Media Services reports that a federal judge has blocked deferred action recipients from arguing in court that they are being harmed by the refusal of Arizona Governor Jan Brewer to let them have drivers’ licenses. Judge David Campbell agreed to a request by the plaintiffs that they should not be questioned about how they obtained work or are driving as the issue is irrelevant to their legal claims of being denied equal rights. However, the Judge Campbell said the challengers cannot have it both ways. “Plaintiffs will not be permitted to argue that they were forced to drive or work illegally and that they are irreparably harmed by the inability to work or drive illegally,” the judge wrote.
The ruling is significant because one of the lawsuits filed late last year by the challengers is states that Governor Brewer’s order “severely frustrates their ability to obtain employment and achieve economic self-sufficiency.”
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Former Immigration Worker Indicted in Fraudulent Documents Scheme Run by Fort Lee, NJ Man
NJ.com reports that a California man was indicted Friday for his alleged role in a Bergen County, NJ-based fraudulent document scheme that helped undocumented South Koreans live in the U.S. A grand jury convened in U.S. District Court in Newark, New Jersey to indict Martin Trejo, 45, of Rialto, California on charges of conspiracy to steal government property and conspiracy to transport stolen property in interstate commerce. According to U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman, Trejo was a contract employee with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration, who used his position to steal blank I-797 forms. The forms are used to verify a person’s legal right to reside in the country when applying for a driver’s license or other form of government-issued identification. Trejo is currently free on bail and awaiting trial.
http://www.nj.com/bergen/index.ssf/2013/01/former_immigration_worker_in
dicted_in_fraudulent_documents_scheme_run_by_fort_lee_man.html
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Judge OKs Deal on Oklahoma Immigration Law
The Oklahoman reports that a federal judge upheld a block on two provisions in the Oklahoma Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act of 2007, ending a lengthy legal battle over an anti-illegal immigration law described by many as one of the harshest in the nation. A third provision, which requires contractors working for public entities to use electronic employment authorization services such as E-Verify, was upheld in the judgment.
http://newsok.com/judge-oks-deal-on-oklahoma-immigration-law/article/3739010
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