Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc.

By: Allison Posner

CLINIC welcomes the Obama Administration’s August 18^th announcement that the Departments of Homeland Security and Justice will be working together to re-assess and prioritize the hundreds of thousands of pending removal cases.  In addition to providing temporary relief from imminent deportation to those individuals whose cases will be administratively closed,  this interagency review will cut into the severe backlog that plagues our immigration court system, reducing the wait times for individual cases to be adjudicated. 

By: Hiroko Kusuda, Helen Chen, and James Porter

On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina made landfall in Southeast Louisiana ravaging parishes, towns, and cities across the Gulf Coast.  When the levees broke that protected the city of New Orleans from the surrounding waterways, 80% of the city wound up under water.  The city has begun to rebound with the population at 90% of its pre-Katrina numbers.   This year, CLINIC had its annual convening in downtown New Orleans, and it was a major success.

By: James Porter

This July was one of the hottest on record across the country.  Also hot in July was immigration, thanks in part to the continued focus on Arizona’s immigration law.  The Obama administration’s challenge of Arizona’s law saw part of it overturned, while the rest went into effect at the end of the month.  Additionally, President Obama gave his first major speech on immigration to mixed reviews from those on either side of the debate.  Overall, the month certainly saw an increase in anti-immigrant rhetoric such as a list of supposed undocumented immigrants that was sent to government officials in Utah.  As we rapidly head towards mid-term elections in the fall, it will be interesting to see what role immigration will play.  These stories and more were the most read immigration related news items for July.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has finally released the results of a months-long review of its detention system. The report and its recommendations support what advocates have said for years: DHS should stop operating its immigration detention system like the criminal justice system.

In October 2008, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raided a poultry plant in Greenville, SC. More than 300 individuals were arrested and a humanitarian and legal crisis erupted.