Border Enforcement

The immigration laws and regulations provide some avenues to apply for lawful status from within the U.S. or to seek relief from deportation.  The eligibility requirements for these benefits and relief can be stringent, and the immigration agencies often adopt overly restrictive interpretations of the requirements.  Learn about advocacy and litigation that has been and can be undertaken to ensure that noncitizens have a fair chance to apply for the benefits and relief for which they are eligible.  

Recent Features

All Border Enforcement Content

November 8, 2017

The nominee to be the next Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Kirstjen Nielsen, had her confirmation hearing before senators on Wednesday, during which she promised to largely...

November 2, 2017

Border apprehensions, which is the main indicator used to examine how many people are attempting to enter the United States are at record lows not seen since the 1970s. A September report released...

October 30, 2017

Much has been said about Rosa María Hernández, the latest target of the Trump administration’s immigration policies. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has the responsibility and...

October 24, 2017

The Trump administration’s pick for the next Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Acting Commissioner Kevin McAleenan, appeared before the Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday...

October 17, 2017

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has a long track record of operating in the dark, with little transparency and accountability.  The most recent examples come from the agency’s failure to...

October 10, 2017

The White House released its Immigration Principles and Policies late Sunday night, providing an outline of the Trump administration’s proposals on immigration. The principles were sent to...

October 5, 2017

In an effort to fulfill the harsh requirements of the immigration executive order released during the Trump administration’s first week in office, the House Homeland Security Committee passed the...

September 20, 2017

U.S. immigration officials have a long history of overstepping the boundaries of their legal authority and violating the constitutional and other legal rights of migrants at the Southwest border....

September 18, 2017

The Trump administration has repeatedly called for increased security along the United States southern border with Mexico, but a new report released earlier this month from the Department of...

August 18, 2017

The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) recently released a report calling into question the need for 10,000 additional Immigration and Customs Enforcement (...

October 24, 2019

Federal immigration officials are beginning to expand their use of surveillance technology to collect information on immigrants. As officials gather more tools in their arsenal—from DNA collection...

October 24, 2019
Media reports today indicate that the government has initiated a new pilot program in El Paso, Texas to rush the review of sensitive asylum cases. The reported program, called “Prompt Asylum Case Review,” forces families to navigate the asylum process while detained in the custody of U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
October 23, 2019

Rape, violence, kidnapping, and lack of basic health care is, unfortunately, a reality for hundreds of asylum seekers subjected to the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) or “Remain in Mexico”...

October 18, 2019

President Trump has made the construction of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border a cornerstone of his presidency. To date, not a single mile of new barriers has been erected. But the Trump...

This lawsuit seeks to uncover information about the government’s troubling new practice of employing U.S. Custom and Border Protection officers to screen asylum seekers.
October 2, 2019
The American Immigration Council and Tahirih Justice Center filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit in federal court to compel the government to release records about the Trump administration’s troubling new practice of allowing U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers to screen individuals seeking asylum in the United States. The lawsuit seeks these documents to shed light on changes to the asylum screening process, CBP’s role in conducting interviews and making determinations regarding an asylum seeker’s “credible fear” of persecution, and the measures taken by CBP, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and the Department of Homeland Security to implement this new practice.
September 26, 2019
Immigrant rights attorneys moved to block the Trump administration’s Asylum Ban from affecting tens of thousands of migrants who have already attempted to access the U.S. asylum process before the ban was implemented. With limited exceptions, the Asylum Ban prohibits anyone who traveled through a third country and did not seek protection there from obtaining asylum here. The request filed today is in the ongoing case challenging the Trump administration’s policy of turning back asylum seekers at ports of entry on the U.S.-Mexico border, including the “metering” policy.
September 23, 2019

In the Trump administration’s rush to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, 22 archaeological sites could be damaged or entirely destroyed. This warning comes from an internal National Park...

September 20, 2019

Five mothers and their children sued the U.S. government on Thursday for forcibly separating them in 2018. The five families are among the thousands of parents and young children who were split...

September 19, 2019

In summer 2018, the Trump administration attempted to deter asylum-seeking families from coming to the United States by separating children from their parents at the southern border. It was...

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