Illegal immigrant sheltered at church gets deportation stay

Daniel Neyoy Ruiz, right, his wife, Karla Neyoy, left, and volunteer Kat Sinclair, who has been living with the family in the sanctuary nearly every day at Southside Presbyterian Church, embrace after Neyoy Ruiz was given a stay in his deportation case.

An undocumented immigrant who has been living in sanctuary with his wife and son at Southside Presbyterian Church since May 13 has received a stay in his deportation case.

Even as he enjoyed lunch at a nearby restaurant Monday, Daniel Neyoy Ruiz said he couldn’t believe he could now safely leave the church grounds and return home.

“I still don’t believe it, but I’ve got the paper here to prove it,” he said, reaching for his pocket.

The document, a stay of deportation, means the government has agreed to not enforce the order of removal for one year. In the meantime, Neyoy Ruiz can obtain a work permit and later apply to renew the stay.

Attorney Margo Cowan said she received word midafternoon that Immigration and Customs Enforcement had approved her client’s petition. She rushed to the church to share the news.

“When she told me, I just began to cry,” Neyoy Ruiz said. “We were all crying there at the church. I’m very happy to be free again and be able to continue living my life.”

Cowan said that while she is pleased with the outcome in this case, Neyoy Ruiz represents the thousands of illegal immigrants who are in the United States without legal status.

“This really is a historic moment, and we call on the administration to stop issuing these final orders of removal for people who have earned the right to stay here,” she said.
Neyoy Ruiz and his wife, Karla, came to the U.S. in 2000 and have an American-born son who is 13.
His deportation case began in 2011 after he was stopped on Interstate 19 by a state Department of Public Safety officer because his car’s exhaust was emitting smoke. Immigration officials were called after he could not show he was in the country legally.
Neyoy Ruiz was granted sanctuary by Southside Presbyterian, the birthplace of the sanctuary movement in the early 1980s, after ICE initially declined to close his case or grant him a stay of deportation.
In a statement, ICE said that after conducting a further review, it had granted Neyoy-Ruiz a one-year stay of removal and would re-evaluate the case to determine next steps at the end of that period.
Cowan said it was a combination of voices that finally made the government reconsider. She said people had sent hundreds of emails and letters to government officials, and that Bishop Gerald Kicanas, leader of the Tucson Catholic Diocese, as well as U.S. Reps. Raúl Grijalva and Ron Barber had supported their cause.
Although Karla Neyoy was thankful her family’s ordeal was over, she said their time at Southside Presbyterian not only kept them together, it made her family stronger — and larger.
“We value our family much more now, what we’re willing to do for each other,” she said. “And in these 26 days we have found new sisters, friends, aunts and mothers here. We have formed a new family with them.”

El liderato demócrata en el Congreso le interesa más jugar a la política con la reforma que buscar una manera de pasarla

Tanto el presidente Obama como el liderato republicano del Congreso nos dicen que existe una "pequeña ventana" de tiempo para que se apruebe una reforma migratoria en la Cámara de Representantes. Y tienen razón. Si la Cámara no pasa un proyecto de reforma antes del receso del Congreso en agosto, es prácticamente imposible que se apruebe algo este año. Recordemos que a partir de septiembre los miembros de la Cámara estarán enfocados casi exclusivamente en las elecciones de noviembre.

Pero, ¿existe realmente la voluntad política en ambos partidos para hacer algo en estos dos o tres meses que nos quedan, o es esta "ventana" más bien una ilusión creada por los políticos de ambos partidos y la reforma ya está muerta? Como optimista que soy, no me atrevería a decir que la reforma está muerta, pero siendo objetivo, debo decir que definitivamente agoniza.

Basado en mi observación de cómo este tema se ha estado desarrollando en el Congreso durante los pasados meses, he llegado a la conclusión de que en estos momentos no hay un esfuerzo auténtico por parte de demócratas y republicanos para empujar un proyecto de ley de inmigración.

La Casa Blanca continúa estando totalmente ausente de toda negociación. El presidente, como ya es costumbre, sigue dando discursos sobre la importancia de que la Cámara pase una reforma, imponiendo por supuesto toda responsabilidad para que esto suceda en los republicanos, pero no ejerce su liderato como jefe de gobierno para forjar un consenso bipartidista que adelante la discusión.

El liderato demócrata del Congreso tampoco está hablando con los republicanos. Por mucho que digan Nancy Pelosi y comparsa que la reforma migratoria es el tema más importante que enfrenta el Congreso, estos no están abiertos a llegar a un acuerdo con el liderato republicano. No olvidemos que el año pasado el congresista demócrata Xavier Becerra, bajo instrucciones de Pelosi, hizo todo lo que pudo para asegurarse de que no prosperaranlos esfuerzos del grupo bipartidista de ocho congresistas que estaba negociando una reforma. Por la continuas objeciones de Becerra este grupo terminó disolviéndose.

Es evidente que al liderato demócrata en el Congreso le interesa más jugar a la política con la reforma que buscar una manera de pasarla. Prefieren incluso que la administración tome acción ejecutiva para impedir la deportación de los indocumentados a que se apruebe legislación que les dé un status legal.

Muchos demócratas piensan que si la Cámara no pasa un proyecto de inmigración, los votantes latinos culparán solamente a los republicanos y saldrán a votar en grandes números en contra de ellos en noviembre, ayudando a evitar que los republicanos amplíen su mayoría en la Cámara y retomen el Senado. Hasta ahí ha llegado el cinismo y la politiquería barata en Washington.

Los republicanos, sin embargo, no son inmunes a este mal. Aunque el líder de la Cámara de Representantes John Boehner asegura que quiere atender el tema migratorio, la mayoría de la bancada republicana se rehúsa a abordarlo este año porque pudiera antagonizar a su base más conservadora y poner en riesgo sus posibilidades de tomar el Senado de los demócratas. Y la débil excusa que dan para no actuar es que no confían que el presidente vaya a hacer cumplir la ley que pasen. Entonces,¿para qué pasar cualquier ley mientras Obama sea presidente? Cierren el Congreso y váyanse a sus casas.

Boehner, por otra parte, no está haciendo un acercamiento serio a los miembros de su delegación para convencerlos de que es importante discutir el tema este año. No se está reuniendo con ellos individualmente para conseguir su apoyo. Sus esfuerzos, como los de Obama y Pelosi, quedan finalmente en meras declaraciones públicas.

No quiere decir todo esto que no haya ningún tipo de discusión sobre la reforma en el presente. El demócrata Luis Gutiérrez y el republicano Mario Díaz-Balart están dando una batalla campal para mantener el tema vivo y poder concretar legislación que pueda pasar la Cámara. Nadie puede cuestionar su compromiso y liderato. El problema es que sin la participación activa y apoyo consistente de sus respectivos líderes es difícil que puedan tener éxito.

Solo habrá una posibilidad real de que durante esta "pequeña ventana" de tiempo se haga algo,si los líderes de ambos partidos en el Congreso empiezan a hablar entre sí y con los miembros de sus respectivas delegaciones. Para poder legislar hay que conversar, y, hasta el momento, a pesar de todos los discursos públicos de un lado y del otro, las conversaciones y negociaciones que son necesarias para que se pase un proyecto de reforma no están ocurriendo.

Los días pasan y la ventana comienza a cerrase.

Feds to open shelter for unaccompanied minors

 

Source: U.S. Customs and Border Protection

The federal government plans to open a shelter Tucson to accommodate the influx of unaccompanied minors crossing the border, according to a Guatemalan government official and city and county documents.

On May 30, Southwest Key, which describes itself as the largest provider of shelter services to unaccompanied minors in the country, requested a permit to convert part of a studio-apartment complex into a shelter for 36 children. The city of Tucson approved the request this week.
Also in May, the group contacted the Pima County Planning Department about using a hotel as a shelter for at least 150 children. In a document to the county, Southwest Key described it as “a group home/residential care facility/shelter/interim foster program for immigrant children who are under the protection of the Federal Department of Health and Human Services in the Office of Refugee Resettlement under the Division of Children Services.” It will not be a detention center, the document says.
The county responded on May 19 that Southwest Key would have to get approval from the Pima County Board of Supervisors for a “modification of a rezoning condition” because the hotel had been previously approved to be rezoned for an assisted-living facility. Chris Poirier, assistant planning director, said Thursday that his office hasn’t heard back from the real estate company.
An Arizona Department of Health Services spokeswoman, Laura Oxley, said Southwest Key told department officials it plans to open a shelter in Tucson but has not filed any paperwork. Southwest Key referred all questions about the shelters to the Office of Refugee Resettlement.
In an email, an Office of Refugee Resettlement spokeswoman said the agency does not give out locations of shelters “so as to protect the privacy and security of the children in HHS care, many of whom have fled situations of violence in their home countries.”
Mother Jones magazine recently published the cities of the 80 shelters in the country, which it obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. Southwest Key lists four Arizona locations in its website: two in Phoenix, one in Glendale and one in Youngtown.
Jimena Diaz, consul general of Guatemala in Phoenix, said her office was told the Tucson shelter, among several to be opened in Arizona, would open by the end of June with a capacity of 200 children.
On May 21, Southwest Key’s website advertised nearly two dozen job openings in Tucson for positions including cook, youth-care worker, clinician and program director.
The number of children attempting the journey north has been steadily increasing over the last several years, but nothing compared with what officials are seeing this year.
In the past eight months, more than 47,000 children, mostly from Mexico and Central America, have been apprehended along the Southwest border.
Most of them are coming through south Texas. The Tucson Border Patrol Sector is the only one that has seen a slight decrease — 5 percent — so far this fiscal year compared with the same period last year.
Children are placed wherever the Office of Refugee Resettlement can find beds for them — and often that’s not in the state where they were apprehended.
To help process the minors, this week the Border Patrol reopened a processing center in Nogales that had been closed for several years, said Art del Cueto, president of the local Border Patrol Union. It mainly will process juveniles from countries other than Mexico.
“If Texas doesn’t have the facilities to take care of them, what are we going to do?” he asked. “They are truly overrun right now.”
Diaz said the Guatemalan government is also working on opening an office in Tucson to better serve those in need.
The government estimates that as many as 60,000 children will be caught along the border this year — a tenfold increase from 2011. More of them are also girls and younger than 13.
Crime, gangs and a desire to reunite with parents in the United States are among the reasons young immigrants come to America. Rumors back home about women and children being released also have contributed to the increases.
The shelter will help reunite children and adolescents with their parents or place them with a foster family. While at the shelter, children will receive medical attention, counseling, legal representation and schooling. A child’s average stay will be less than 35 days, Southwest Key documents say.
Migrant children still can be deported after they are reunited with their parents or relatives. Special visas are available for those who have been abandoned, abused or trafficked.
Little information is available about the fate of minors caught at the border. The New York Times recently reported that in 2013 the administration deported one-fifth the number of Central American children as in 2008

Officials: DHS to stop transporting migrants from Texas to Arizona

The Department of Homeland Security, officials say, is no longer flying undocumented migrants from Texas to Arizona, which had prompted an outcry after immigration authorities began releasing them at Greyhound bus stations in Phoenix and Tucson.
Hundreds of immigrants from Central America, most of them women traveling with children, some as young as 2 months old, have been released at the bus stations since the Memorial Day weekend. Officials said the Border Patrol did not have the manpower to handle a surge in immigrants crossing the border illegally in south Texas.
RELATED: Food, water, smiles greet migrants shipped to Arizona

RELATED: Scores of undocumented migrants dropped off in Ariz.

But on Thursday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials told an official from Guatemala that no more families apprehended at the border in Texas are being flown to Arizona.
"They aren't going to send any more," said Jimena Diaz, the consul general of Guatemala, based in Phoenix.
ICE officials could not immediately confirm that the practice had been stopped.
But Ruben Reyes, a spokesman for U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz., told 12 News that ICE officials said no more migrant families are being flown from Texas to Arizona.
Virginia Kice, an ICE spokeswoman, could only say that no more migrant families had been flown from Texas to Arizona since Monday. She said she didn't know the total number of migrants that had been flown to Arizona.
Diaz said she was told by ICE that Thursday would be the last day migrants would be released.
She said ICE officials told her 120 migrants were released Thursday at the Greyhound station in Phoenix, including 15 from Guatemala. Most of those who have been released are from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.
The release began when about 400 immigrants from Central America were flown from Texas to Arizona over the Memorial Day weekend. That prompted Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer to complain in a letter to President Barack Obama that DHS officials never informed her or state officials before making the decision to transfer the migrants to Arizona and release them in Tucson and Phoenix.
Andrew Wilder, Brewer's press secretary, could not be reached for comment Thursday.
Arizona's two U.S. senators, John McCain and Jeff Flake, also wrote a letter to DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson demanding more information about the release of migrants at the bus stations, including how many have been transported to Arizona, why they are being released and how the DHS will respond to migrants who disappear or commit crimes after their release.
Humanitarian groups also raised concerns, accusing the DHS of abruptly dumping the migrants at the bus stations in 100-degree heat without food and water.
In response, dozens of volunteers began showing up at the bus stations daily, providing the migrants with food, water and other basic necessities and helping them make travel arrangements.
Cyndi Whitmore, a volunteer with the Phoenix Restoration Project, which helped coordinate the response from humanitarian groups, had mixed feelings about the decision to stop shipping migrants to Arizona from Texas.
"If there are no more families to be processed and that's why they have stopped then that's good news," Whitmore said.
But if DHS is still experiencing a backlog of migrants waiting to be processed in Texas, then the families may end up being held in detention facilities even longer and then released in cities where they won't receive the support they were receiving in Arizona, Whitmore said.
"I am very concerned that all of this posturing may have put these families in greater danger," Whitmore said.
Most of the released migrants remained in Arizona only a few hours until they could make arrangements to travel to other cities to reunite with family members. They were released on humanitarian parole with instructions to report to an ICE office once they arrived at their final destination.
They face deportation proceedings once they report to ICE, prompting some immigration-enforcement advocates to speculate that many will choose to disappear into the U.S. The advocates are also concerned that releasing the migrants will encourage more to come here illegally.
Of the dozen or so migrants interviewed at the Greyhound bus station this week, however, all said they planned to report to ICE once they reach their destinations in the U.S.
They described harrowing journeys traveling for weeks by bus to flee rampant violence, gangs, corruption and poverty in their home countries and said they didn't want to jeopardize any chance they might have at remaining in the U.S. legally.
German Rojas, 24, said he traveled from San Salvador, El Salvador, through Mexico with his 7-year-old daughter, Jeimy, before being caught by the Border Patrol in Texas and flown to Arizona. He was headed to Houston and had been given a piece of paper from ICE with instructions to report on June 17.
"Yes I plan to go" to the ICE office, Rojas said. "I need to go to see what they have to say."

6 Multilingual Benefits That You Only Get If You Speak Another Language

If we spoke a different language, we would perceive a somewhat different world."
Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein had plenty to say on the topic of being bilingual back in the early 20th century. Today, nearly 100 years later, it's safe to say the 'ole wordsmith would be proud.
It's estimated that more than half of the world's population is bilingual, according to Psychology Today. That means about 3.5 billion people use more than one language to communicate every day.
There are commonly held benefits attributed to these casual script swappers, most of them suggesting an increase in cognitive processing, focus and the ability to multi-task. But to people who identify as bilingual or multilingual, the benefits are usually more concrete and personal. Here are a few firsthand accounts we gathered from multilinguals that help explain the daily benefits of being able to speak multiple languages.
You can understand and appreciate cultural references and nuances.
Most works of art and popular culture are more honestly represented in their native language. Listening to a song, reading a classic novel, watching a movie -- these are expressions that bilinguals typically have the advantage of appreciating in their original form.
Because sometimes, even little things like movie titles or song lyrics can get misinterpreted:
"Being able to talk to my grandmother, realizing where words in English come from, being able to sing Beny Moré songs." -- Roque, New York, English, Spanish & Portuguese
"I always feel I put my French double major to use when I can understand the French part in "Partition" by Beyoncé." -- Lauren, New York, English & French


Bilingualism can create job opportunities and help you navigate the world.
Many of the people we asked held one common belief: Being bilingual, and especially multilingual, can help facilitate your travels. When languages share similar words and patterns, it's easier to apply your knowledge of one language to another and thus make your way around certain regions of the world.
In addition, it's no secret that employers see language skills as a benefit for a prospective employee. There's one qualification that employers can't seem to get enough of, and that's fluency in a foreign language:
"I did translation work for the government. I happened to be the only person in a 400 mile radius that spoke the language they wanted." -- Thera, New York, English & Portuguese
"I think for me it's being able to travel around Europe and being able to communicate in a few countries, as I speak French, English, Italian and Spanish." -- Cosima, New York, English, French, Spanish & Italian
You notice and appreciate the things that are sometimes lost in translation.
We live in an increasingly globalized world where many cultural subtleties can slip through the cracks as we're trying to understand past each other's different dialects. Allowing yourself to be immersed in another language means opening the door to an entirely new culture and way of viewing the world.
Not everything that's translated can be easily understood. Sometimes cultural context is needed:
"The way languages are formed and slang is created can often say a lot about the people speaking it. Knowing Spanish is also helpful in learning new languages, especially Romance languages." -- Carolina, New York, English, Spanish & French
"Living in globalized and multicultural society, it has become critical more than ever that we have the ability and willingness to interact with many different kinds people, all bringing their diverse languages and subtle nuances." -- Gabriel, Los Angeles, English & Spanish
Image via Giphy

You feel a sense of connection with your heritage, history and family.
For many, speaking another language keeps them connected to their families. Imagine not being able to communicate with your parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles simply because you don't share a common language.
As the popular saying goes, "you can't know where you're going until you know where you've been" -- and for some, language provides that journey:
"I think the most beneficial thing is being able to communicate with my family. And as a little side bonus, some people don't know that I'm Iranian, so they'll speak Farsi around me not knowing that I understand but little do they know, I do." -- Azad, Los Angeles, English & Farsi
"It gives me a sense of pride and connection to my heritage. I honestly believe the fact that I can speak another language with my family brings us closer together. It reminds us where we've come from and how far we've come." -- Bryant, Chicago, English & Korean
"The biggest benefit is being able to communicate with my parents. As simple as that sounds, I’ve seen many first generation immigrant families struggle with this -– the parents never fully assimilate and the children grow up 'Americanized,' resulting in almost an internal culture clash within families." -- Cindy, New York, English & Korean
Photo by Cindy Bark

Your interactions with people of different cultures go deeper.
When you speak someone's native language, you can talk about a lot more than the weather and other daily fillers. Building deep and meaningful relationships with foreign communities usually involves speaking and understanding, partially at least, the same language.
Either that or you must be one hell of a charades player:
"It's comforting when traveling to foreign countries and being able to speak their language -- the locals appreciate it and make you feel more at home.
"Also, you are always the person who your friends call when they have a visitor from abroad and you speak their language. So you'll always have occasions of meeting and going out with new people." -- Elias, Lebanon, English, Arabic & French
"Being able to speak multiple languages means having the capacity to engage with people in more organic and sincere ways.
"When thinking about bilingualism or the ability to speak multiple languages (in addition to being multi-racial), I think about the benefits with regards to professional career trajectories and the ability to connect with a broader range of people." -- Walter, Stanford, California, English & Spanish
"Now the fun part comes from, personally, not having to speak every word in each language. I love that I can speak Spanglish or Portuñol and the people I am speaking with understand what I am saying. I have created a completely different language hybrid that is easily accepted by friends, however not recognized academically." --Érica, Los Angeles, English, Spanish & Portuguese



And lastly, your self-expression excitingly takes on a multitude of forms.
Some even suggest that multilinguals have multiple personalities, acting differently when speaking in various languages. As a trilingual myself, I'd have to agree with that theory -- because some words just plain don't exist in other languages, which at the very least means different ways of expression depending on the language I'm speaking:
"You can talk in a different way than you do in English. Just the way we tell stories, or jokes, it's just a completely different way of story telling, which is nice because you can understand people in a different way. Things can be hilarious in Arabic, but not so hilarious in English-- you just see it in a different light.
"It reminds me that just because I'm an American, doesn't mean I can't be in touch with my culture and grasp a completely different way of life, and that's very special. Not just grasp, engage.
"Engaging is a very, very fragile gift I think, and when you can speak another language, you have that ability to immerse yourself in that culture even more." -- Stephanie, Los Angeles, English, Arabic

Tucson police to change SB 1070 data system

The Tucson Police Department plans to begin collecting information about its calls to immigration authorities in a format that would allow for analysis.
Chief Roberto Villaseñor said Tuesday that TPD will create a database and revise the form it uses to collect details of each call.
Officers are required under SB 1070 to call immigration authorities each time they develop reasonable suspicion that a person they have lawfully stopped is in the country illegally. TPD also checks the immigration status of everyone arrested.
The data-collection shift is partly a response to a settlement between the American Civil Liberties Union and South Tucson last month. TPD will likely incorporate ideas from South Tucson’s new form and add additional information, Capt. Ramon Batista said.
The timeline for the database launch is not yet clear. Spokesman Sgt. Chris Widmer attributed delays to the city’s information technology department.
Some members of the City Council wonder why it’s taken so long.
“We requested it in November, and I requested an update in March, and we’re still waiting for that update,” Councilwoman Regina Romero said Tuesday.
Councilman Steve Kozachik said the data is imperative to know how many people are detained and how resources are spent. “They were told seven months ago, and they’ve been ignoring it.”

Here's An Immigrant Imprisonment Program That Obama Could Stop Without Congress

Posted: 06/03/2014 7:35 am EDT Updated: 1 Hour ago        

            

Migrants wait along the shore of the Rio Grande River in Piedras Negras, Mexico, Monday, Dec. 11, 2006, with milk jugs full of water used throughout their long journey to the border crossing. They plan to wait for a good time to cross the river into the U.S. | RJ Sangosti via Getty Images

Last month, in the face of growing pressure from immigrant rights activists, Hispanic politicians and Democratic allies, President Barack Obama ordered the Department of Homeland Security to review the policies that drive the administration's record-setting pace of deportations.
It remains to be seen what kind of changes will come as a result. Last week, the White House delayed the announcement of possible changes for two months in an effort to keep alive the debate over comprehensive reform. Activists have long demanded that Obama use his executive power to curtail deportations dramatically. But while the president supports a pathway to citizenship and has exempted from deportation many undocumented immigrants who arrived as children, he has maintained that he must enforce existing immigration law unless Congress passes comprehensive reform.
However, the White House does appear to have the power to stop a program reviled by immigration activists and criticized by legal scholars that has helped inflate the percentage of deportees with criminal records in recent years.
Begun under the George W. Bush administration, the program, known as Operation Streamline, charges people en masse with the crime of illegal entry (a misdemeanor) or illegal re-entry (a felony) after they have been caught illegally crossing the border. The detainees are given a jail sentence and then deported. Immigration activists and civil rights defenders have long opposed the program, citing concerns about due process and arguing that it diverts the courts' attention from more serious crimes.
The Border Patrol first developed the idea for Operation Streamline in South Texas, according to the California Law Review. Amid growing numbers of illegal immigrants from Central America, who, unlike Mexicans, could not be immediately repatriated, the area was running out of bed space in detention centers, and authorities often had no choice but to allow apprehended immigrants to leave detention with a notice to appear in court.
The Border Patrol suggested that the federal government prosecute non-Mexicans to create a deterrent for crossing illegally in the area and to funnel undocumented immigrants into the criminal justice system, where more bed space was available. The zero-tolerance program quickly spread to other jurisdictions and expanded to cover Mexican nationals.
Today, under Operation Streamline, judges hear dozens of cases within hours, often convicting migrants in groups to save time. In an article published in February, New York Times reporter Fernanda Santos described the daily scene in a courthouse in Tucson, Arizona:

Men and women arrested along the border, the chains around their ankles and wrists jingling as they move, are gathered to answer to the same charges -- illegal entry, a misdemeanor, and illegal re-entry, a felony. They have not had an opportunity to bathe since they set off to cross the desert; the courtroom has the smell of sweaty clothes left for days in a plastic bag. Side by side in groups of seven as they face the bench, they consistently plead guilty to a lesser charge, which spares them longer time behind bars. The immigration charge is often their only offense.

Things weren't always this way. Tucson attorney Isabel Garcia worked as a federal public defender in the 1980s, when the crime of illegal entry was rarely prosecuted. She says she won several of those cases by challenging the admissibility of the immigrant's confession.
"In Tucson, it's the daily bread for those who work in this court system," Garcia said. "Why are we doing this? We know there's violations of law everywhere. So don't give me this 'we prosecute every violation of the law,' because we don't."
Maintaining a program that leads to greater criminal prosecution of undocumented immigrants would seem to be at odds with a presidential administration that has called for comprehensive immigration reform and used prosecutorial discretion to make it more difficult to deport some undocumented immigrants. But the president of the National Immigration Judges Association, Dana Leigh Marks, says the current mandate to prosecute large volumes of illegal-entry and re-entry cases ultimately rests with the executive branch, rather than with Congress.
"If it's a policy, it's not mandated by law," Marks told HuffPost. "These prosecutions occur in a criminal context. They could choose to place people in immigration proceedings and not choose to prosecute them criminally in addition."
The White House, the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Attorney's Office did not return requests for comment.
Immigration-related crimes now make up the most-prosecuted category of crimes in federal courts, at 41 percent of the caseload in the 2012 fiscal year, according to the most recently available statistics from the U.S. Attorney's Office. Drug crimes took second place, at 22 percent, followed by violent crime at 19 percent.
In April, the Blue Ribbon Commission, a group made up of undocumented and formerly undocumented activists, issued a call for the Obama administration to end Operation Streamline. The group called the proceedings "dehumanizing" and pointed out that in many cases those convicted are "trying to return home to their families or flee prosecution."
Despite such criticisms, the program still has its supporters. Bernardo Velasco, a judge in Tucson, told The Huffington Post he hears about 350 Streamline cases every week.
"Everybody that appears before me has a lawyer appointed to represent them at no cost to them," said Velasco. "Everyone that appears before me has had a chance to speak to their lawyer in the morning, to talk to the Mexican consulate at noon and to talk to me. So I'm satisfied that due process is more than dealt with."
Critics say that under the Streamline program, many people end up with a criminal offense on their record when they wouldn't otherwise have any. But Velasco told HuffPost that virtually everyone who appears before him is a repeat crosser, often with a previous conviction for illegal entry.
"That criticism is no longer valid because the people that are being prosecuted now have criminal records, and they're being offered a plea agreement that offers them less time than they could possibly get if they went through a felony proceeding," Velasco said. "Every country in the world has the right to secure its borders."
In its annual report on deportations this year, the Department of Homeland Security highlighted that 59 percent of the 368,644 immigrants deported in 2013 had been convicted of a crime, the highest percentage in the last five years.
But critics point out that many of the people labeled as criminal offenders in those statistics are guilty only of crossing the border illegally -- a crime that does not set them far apart from others who were apprehended outside the border zone or who fell out of lawful immigration status while overstaying a visa.
Immigration offenses accounted for 54,812 of those crimes in 2013, according to TRAC -- 25 percent of the total. The number of deportees with an immigration conviction rose 167 percent between 2008 and 2013.
At times, authorities have seemed almost comically enthusiastic about prosecuting immigration crimes. NPR reports that Mexican migrants have been stopped at legal ports of entry while they were trying to return to Mexico. Instead of simply being allowed to leave, they were detained, convicted of illegal entry and then deported -- all at taxpayer expense.
"It's fully under the purview of the administration whether to prosecute these cases," Vicki Gaubeca, director of the ACLU's Regional Center for Border Rights in New Mexico, told HuffPost. "It's just a colossal waste of resources."