Humanitarian Protection

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.

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June 24, 2015

On June 24, 2015, the Department of Homeland Security announced that it designated Nepal for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) based on the conditions resulting from the devastating earthquake in...

June 23, 2015

25 years ago, the Board of Immigration Appeals held that people fleeing persecution based on their sexual orientation are eligible for asylum. Just months later, President George H.W. Bush lifted...

May 8, 2015

In 2009, the Obama Administration ended family detention at the infamous T. Don Hutto jail in Texas and cut the number of immigrants in family detention to less than a hundred. However, after the...

May 4, 2015

One form of humanitarian assistance the United States can offer to Nepal, a country now recovering from the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that flattened buildings and killed more than 7,000 people, is...

April 10, 2015

Family reunification has stood as a central pillar of the U.S. immigration system, dating back to 1965. Despite this, a new study by researchers Maria Enchautegui and Cecilia Menjivar shows that...

February 6, 2015

Since the government began “prioritizing” the deportation of unaccompanied children and mothers with children last summer, legal service providers and other court observers across the country have...

October 2, 2014

By Dree Collopy, partner at Benach Ragland LLP. The inhumanity of family detention and the danger of short-changing basic due process protections are on full display in the detention center in...

December 19, 2013

A recent settlement agreement in a class action lawsuit brought on behalf of thousands of asylum seekers is removing obstacles they faced in obtaining work documents while they pursue their asylum...

January 7, 2019

The American Immigration Council and the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) submitted a joint comment opposing the “Interim Final Rule: Aliens Subject to a Bar on Entry Under...

January 2, 2019

In early December, seven-year-old Guatemalan Jakelin Caal died within hours after coming into the custody of Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Her tragic death brought renewed attention to the...

December 21, 2018

2018 proved that the only thing you can predict about the Trump administration’s immigration policy is it’s unpredictable. On Wednesday, two separate court decisions dealt blows to the Trump...

December 20, 2018
The new policy would require many individuals seeking protection in the United States, including children and other vulnerable individuals, to remain in Mexico until their asylum claim is decided by an overwhelmingly backlogged U.S. immigration court system, potentially spending months or even years in life-threatening conditions.
December 17, 2018

In a year marked by the Trump administration’s cruel attempts to deter asylum-seeking families from coming to the United States, the news that a child had died in immigration custody appears to be...

December 14, 2018

A federal court in Seattle on Tuesday permitted a case challenging unlawful delays in asylum screening interviews and bond hearings for asylum seekers to move forward over the government’s...

December 13, 2018
A federal district court in Seattle, Washington issued an order rejecting the government’s arguments that recent asylum seekers who enter the United States without immigration status are not entitled to constitutional protections.
December 4, 2018

New estimates indicate that the number of undocumented immigrants in the United States continues a decade-long decline, standing at about 10.7 million as of 2016 (down from 12.2 million in 2007)....

December 3, 2018

Following Jeff Sessions’ resignation as Attorney General, President Trump named Matthew Whitaker to replace him—a move that has already inspired multiple lawsuits that contend the designation was...

December 3, 2018
The American Immigration Council and other immigrant rights organizations filed a legal brief on Friday that explains why President Donald Trump’s designation of Matthew G. Whitaker as acting attorney general is unlawful. As a result, the brief asserts, Whitaker lacks the authority to decide a critical immigration case.

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