Enforcement

The enforcement of immigration laws is a complex and hotly-debated topic. Learn more about the costs of immigration enforcement and the ways in which the U.S. can enforce our immigration laws humanely and in a manner that ensures due process.

Recent Features

All Enforcement Content

October 7, 2015

This week, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) released its long-awaited, new National Standards on Transport, Escort, Detention and Search (TEDS), which govern the transfer of individuals in...

October 6, 2015

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) may finally be devoting more of its immigration enforcement resources to deporting people who represent a real threat to public safety. According to a...

September 30, 2015

Justice was served on September 23, when a federal grand jury indicted Border Patrol agent Lonnie Swartz for the second-degree murder of 16-year-old José Antonio Elena Rodríguez in Nogales, Mexico...

September 28, 2015

Related Content: Lack of CBP Accountability in Responding to Complaints of Abuse Deported migrants suffer a range of abuses at the hands of Custom and Border Patrol agents, according to a new Kino...

September 24, 2015

Last week, the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) announced changes to the regulations governing legal representation in immigration court and at the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA...

September 23, 2015

Related Content: The Effectiveness of Alternatives to Detention for Asylum Seekers. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) recently announced a pilot case management program as an alternative...

September 18, 2015

Related Content: Family Detention Resource Page This week, the drumbeat to end family detention got louder when the United States Commission on Civil Rights (the Commission) released a report...

September 17, 2015

A federal judge in Arizona issued a decision on September 4, which some say signals the end of years of legal challenges against Arizona’s SB 1070 law. For the most part, the law has been gutted,...

September 14, 2015

The heated political rhetoric so far in the 2016 presidential campaign has often been at the expense of immigrants. And the policy solutions put forth by some candidates have centered around...

September 9, 2015

  On Friday evening, just before the Labor Day weekend, the government released five mothers and their five children, ranging in age from three to seventeen years old, from the South Texas...

July 23, 2018

The cost of the Trump administration’s family separation policy continues to skyrocket. In order to finance its self-made crisis, the administration has dipped into funds that were reserved for...

July 19, 2018

Among the many questions presented by the separation of immigrant families at the border is whether detained parents are being coerced into signing paperwork ensuring their deportation. Without...

July 18, 2018

In its latest attack on asylum seekers, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) issued new guidance to asylum officers that will make it much harder for victims of domestic violence and...

July 17, 2018

As thousands of asylum-seeking parents were separated from their children in recent months, the Trump administration actively portrayed them as law breakers who must be prosecuted and punished for...

With the end of prosecutorial discretion under the Trump administration, noncitizens living in the United States with a removal order face quick, and almost certain deportation unless they have...

July 16, 2018

President Trump wasted no time after assuming office in signing three executive orders which fundamentally changed the nature of immigration enforcement in the United States: Border Security and...

July 11, 2018

After being order last month by a federal judge to reunite the thousands of children it had separated from their parents under the “zero tolerance” policy, the Trump administration said it would...

July 10, 2018

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) consistently fails to conduct adequate inspections of its detention facilities or to follow up on recommended corrections at facilities that are...

The American Immigration Council filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with ICE and CBP on October 13, 2017, seeking data on enforcement actions and outcomes since January 2016. With this data, the Council will be able to assess who is being targeted for removal and what the consequences are of the current enforcement framework.
July 9, 2018
Leaders of several immigrant and human rights organizations were invited for the first time under the Trump administration to meet with Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen.