Immigration law

Three former immigration judges have challenged the assertion by a Justice Department official that 3-year-olds and 4-year-olds can represent themselves in court and don't have a right to a lawyer in deportation proceedings, The Washington Post's Jerry Markon reports.

The judges made their argument in a brief filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which is hearing an appeal on whether immigrant children are entitled to taxpayer-funded attorneys. The judges wrote in their brief "'children are simply incapable of representing themselves in immigration proceedings. Absent effective representation for a child, it is impossible for anyone in an immigration court — including the Immigration Judge — to investigate and develop the child’s case to a degree that would permit the fair adjudication that due process requires,"' Markon reports.

The American Civil Liberties Union and other groups are trying to get the government to provide appointed counsel to every indigent child in immigration court proceedings, but the Justice Department is opposing their lawsuit.

Jack H. Weil,  an assistant chief immigration judge in the Justice Department office that sets and oversees policies for the nation’s 58 immigration courts, was offered as an expert witness in the lawsuit by the Justice Department. According to the Post, Weil said in a deposition in the lawsuit that "'I’ve taught immigration law literally to 3-year-olds and 4-year-olds. It takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of patience. They get it. It’s not the most efficient, but it can be done.”'

Earlier this month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled that an immigration law that treats mothers and fathers differently in determining whether their children may claim U.S. citizenship is unconstitutional, Reuters' Joseph Ax reports.

The law requires unwed fathers who are U.S. citizens to spend at least five years residing in the U.S. before they can confer citizenship to children born out of country, out of wedlock and to a mother who is not a U.S. citizen. In contrast, unwed U.S. mothers only must reside in the U.S. for a year for their children to be able to obtain American citizenship.

The future of three of President Barack Obama's signature policies rest in the hands of federal judges: health care, immigration and climate change, the Washington Post's David Nakamura and Juliet Eilperin report. "'We’re getting used to getting sued,'” John Podesta, White House counselor, said last week.

U.S. District Judge Andrew S. Hanen ruled Monday that the administration's deferred-deportation program should not move forward while a lawsuit brought by 26 states is pending; the judge found that the executive action on immigration doesn't comply with the rulemaking process of the Administrative Procedure Act.

On March 4, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a case in which the plaintiffs argue that Obamacare does not authorize subsidies to low-income people buying healthcare insurance policies on the federally run insurance exchange. And in April, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit will hear cases challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s right to use the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions from power plants.

Executive action by President Barack Obama is giving more relief to immigrants living illegally in the United States, including stopping deportations that take undocumented parents away from their American-born kids. But the downside to the plan is that families with parents back home or older children living in their home countries can't be reunited except for "brief emergency trips," The Washington Post's Pamela Constable reports: "Now, hundreds of thousands of undocumented families who left children or parents behind are in a special bind. They may still be tempted to arrange illegal cross-border visits, but they have more to lose now if they get caught, because it would jeopardize their new legal status and their ability to support the children they have here."

Undocumented immigrants can only leave the country if they apply for an emergency travel document called "advanced parole," but the applications often are denied at the full discretion of immigration officials, Constable further reports. The definition for "humanitarian" travel includes family funerals, but not family reunions.

The Washington Post's Juliet Eilperin and Jerry Markon report that the reason parents of "dreamer" children, who had been brought into the country illegally and had been granted temporary relief under the president’s 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, weren't included in President Obama's executive action protecting many immigrants from deportation is because " lawyers from the Department of Homeland Security, the Justice Department and the White House examined the legal arguments and decided against it." The reasons the governmental lawyers gave for not including parents of "dreamers" were: "First, even though DACA recipients are not being deported at the moment, 'they unquestionably lack lawful status in the United States.' Second, doing so 'would represent a significant departure from deferred action programs that Congress has implicitly approved in the past.'"

The Los Angeles Times' David G. Savage reports that President Obama's use of executive action to shield immigrants from deportation won't just raise the ire of Congressional Republicans: "By claiming the power to forge ahead based on his executive authority, the president may well lose the one conservative he still really needs: Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr." Savage wonders if Obama's immigration action could influence how Roberts views the latest challenge to the Affordable Care Act: "At issue is whether the administration must abide by one provision in the healthcare law, which says subsidies may be paid to those who enrolled in state health exchanges, or whether the president can extend those benefits to include people who signed up on the federally run exchange."

The Arizona Republic reports that flood of Central American migrants, including unaccompanied minors and families with children, has dropped down "back to being nearly invisible." The number of unaccompanied children apprehended by the Border Patrol feel by 77 percent from June.

Last spring, smugglers promoted the idea that children crossing the border before the end of June would get a free permit to stay in the United States, the Republic reports. But now the governments of the United States, Honduras, Guatemala and El Savador have mounted campaigns to warn that families and children will actually be deported.

The Washington Post has a compelling feature of Nora Sandigo, who is a guardian to hundreds of U.S. children born to undocumented immigrants who are subject to deportation. Sandigo began caring for the U.S.-citizen children of deported parents five years ago and she has become "Miami's most popular solution to a growing problem in immigration enforcement affecting what the government refers to as 'mixed-status families.'" When legal guardians are named to protect the childrens' legal interests, they can stay with relatives or friends who are in the country illegally.

The Obama administration is going to start a program to provide lawyers for youths under the age of 16 facing deportation: 100 lawyers and paralegals will be funded with $2 million in grants, the New York Times reports. The surge in providing counsel reflects a "surge of unaccompanied children that has overwhelmed border officials as well the nation’s family and immigration court systems," the Times reports.

Advocates said the intiative will only hlep a fraction of the children appearing for deportation hearings.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor said this week that the reason she uses the term "undocumented immigrants" instead of "illegal alien" is that "labeling immigrants criminals seem[s] insulting to her," the Associated Press report. Sotomayor further said: "'I think people then paint those individuals as something less than worthy human beings and it changes the conversation,'" the AP also reports.