Immigration

Rocket Dockets for Kids in Immigration Courts Raise Doubts About Fairness

Last week, we told you about 13-year-old Gaby, who was given an order of deportation from immigration Judge Michael Baird. Gaby is from Honduras, and will be sent back this fall after having been in the United States for less than a year. Her court appearances will have taken place in the course of ... More >>

Why Immigration Judges Say Cornyn and Cueller's Solution to the Surge Won't Work

Republican Senator John Cornyn and Democratic Congressman Henry Cuellar this week were heralded, by the Morning News among others, for their proposal to hire scores of new immigration judges to begin ruling on child migrant cases within a week or so of their arrival, as a show of force to the Centra ... More >>

Texas Republicans Debate Immigration, as "The Future of the Party Hangs in the Balance"

"Unless we adjust, we as a party are at tremendous peril of vanishing forever." This was Jason Villalba, the state rep from Dallas, over the phone today, imagining the doomsday scenario that could break his Republican party, if far-right members don't shuffle toward the center aisle on immigration. ... More >>

Texas Is Only State Where Illegal Immigration Isn't Dropping, Report Says

Back when he was trying to become president, Rick Perry was ridiculed by Mitt Romney for Texas' growing population of illegal immigrants. Romney had said in a debate that while California and Florida had "no increase in illegal immigration, Texas has had 60 percent increase in illegal immigrants." ... More >>

Farmers Branch's Illegal-Immigrant Rental Ban May Finally Be Dead

The decade-long fight by the City of Farmers Branch to purge itself of undocumented immigrants may be coming to a court-ordered close. Last year, a judge ordered the city to implement single-member City Council districts, which shook up the formerly lily-white city government with the May election ... More >>

Dallas ICE Agent Sues ICE, Homeland Security Over Obama's Deportation Deferral

Ten ICE agents, including one from the Dallas office, are suing ICE and Homeland Security in a Dallas federal court over a directive from President Barack Obama that would defer in some cases the deportation of undocumented immigrants brought here as children. Dallas enforcement and removal officer ... More >>

Why Do Mexicans Rape So Much?

And why do they always yell "Cu-le-ro" at bands they love?

In Farmers Branch Immigration Fight, Competing Readings of Supreme Court's Arizona Ruling

Opposing counsel in a six-year legal battle over a proposed Farmers Branch immigration ordinance are trading letters to the judge, arguing, naturally, that the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling on Arizona's immigration law supports their side. Last month, the high court struck down every provision of Ari ... More >>

What the Supreme Court's Ruling On Arizona's Immigration Law Means for Farmers Branch

The U.S. Supreme Court struck down much of Arizona's illegal immigration law Monday morning, leaving its most controversial, show-me-your-papers provision standing, and that only provisionally. Experts say the decision provides a road map to federal courts evaluating immigration laws enacted in plac ... More >>

Farmers Branch Has Spent Five Years and Millions of Dollars Trying to Keep Out Mexicans. Is It Time for a Truce?

A Guide to How Obama's New Immigration Policy Will Work, And a Word of Caution

President Barack Obama announced Friday afternoon that the Department of Homeland Security will no longer attempt to deport young undocumented immigrants brought here as children, signaling a compassionate shift in an immigration policy whose hallmark was aggressive enforcement and record-shattering ... More >>

America's War on Brown People Has Gone Too Far

A hostile Supreme Court. A feckless Obama administration. America's war on Mexicans has gone too far.

How To Not Get Deported

So, you're an undocumented immigrant. Your great hope is to stick around, make a living and, some day, become naturalized. Unfortunately, our immigration laws are a tangled morass of inscrutability, insensible to the realities of a globalized world. You may have watched last week's Republican deba ... More >>

ACLU of Texas Reacts to House Passage of Carrollton Rep's Sanctuary Cities Legislation

State Rep. Burt Solomons​As the Texas Tribune notes today, in the wee small hours of the morning, the state House passed Carrollton state Rep. Burt Solomons's HB 12, the so-called "sanctuary cities" legislation deemed an emergency item by Gov. Rick Perry. As the Trib's Julian Aguilar sums it up, t ... More >>

Do Legal Mexican Immigrants Really Sympathize with Illegals?

Mass deportation, strict border enforcement, amnesty. What will comprehensive immigration reform look like if the feds take action--or if they don't?

The Feds Bury Border Patrol Abuses of Immigrants, But What's Been Unearthed Reveals a Culture of Cruelty

Mexican Macro-economics

Whose Dole Is It, Anyway?

FAIR-y Tales

Russell Pearce and Other Illegal-Immigration Populists Rely on Misleading, Right-Wing Reports to Scapegoat Immigrants and Terrify Penny-Pinched Americans.

Unlike refugees from other troubled countries, only a fraction of Mexicans seeking U.S. asylum are accepted- no matter how horrible their wounds or their stories.

Access Denied

Illegal Immigrants, Desperate To Find Work In The U.S., Risk Kidnapping, Rape and Murder From Those Smuggling Them Across the Border

Get Out!: Arizona and America Join Joe Arpaio in Rushing to Inquire: Are Your Papers in Order?

Today, "amnesty" is a dirty word. So what happened to the immigrants given a fresh start by Reagan in 1986?

Ronnie's Kids

In Battle Between Feds and States Over Arizona's Immigration Law, Guess Which Side Rick Perry and Greg Abbott Are On?

Danny FulgencioGovernor Rick Perry​Arizona's new immigration law has been a polarizing political issue to say the least, with President Obama challenging its constitutionality through the Department of Justice by launching a July 6 lawsuit against Arizona and Governor Janice Brewer. So it was ... More >>

Cowboy Down: Murdered Southern Arizona Rancher Rob Krentz's Family Talk About His Life and Death

For Those Living in Ground Zero for Drug Trafficking Along the U.S.-Mexico Border, the Illegal Immigration Crisis is Personal

Badlands

Mike Bacsik's Tweet Might Have Gotten Him Fired, But At Least It Inspired a Song

Mark Ellis​San Antonio's Krayolas have been around a long while -- since the late '70s, on and off. I'd definitely start with Best Riffs Only, which collects the early singles that sound alternately like the Sir Doug, the Kinks and the Beatles, but the newer comeback stuff's top-notch too, especia ... More >>

Sheriff Joe Arpaio's Reign of Terror Becomes State Policy, Thanks to State Senator Russell Pearce and Governor Jan Brewer

Arlington PD Says It Doesn't Want to Be in the Business of Enforcing Immigration Laws

CopShop.com​While Irving makes the occasional headline with its use of the Criminal Alien Program -- which involves turning over to federal immigration officials people detained for any reason, even traffic violations --  top cops in Arlington have taken a stand against that approach. Instead ... More >>

Ask a Mexican

Hail Cesar, who was capable of changing his mind

An Over-Wide Net

Domingo Garcia's Back -- So, Ya Know, Look Out, Irving!

Wait, Wait. Don't Leave.

Not So Swift

When immigration agents visited six Swift meatpacking plants around the country last week, they made 19 arrests. One of those arrests was of Chris Lamb, an Iowa human resources employee who’s being charged with harboring illegal immigrants. Makes you wonder if, seven months after Immigration and C ... More >>

Old-Time Religion and New Americans

Hispanic evangelical leaders join to push for compassionate immigration reform

Swift Justice? Not Bloody Likely.

Illustration by Brian Stauffer So, it’s official: All 53 illegal immigrants charged with fraud after the December raid at Swift & Co.’s Cactus meatpacking plant have pled guilty in federal court in Amarillo. They face five to 10 years in prison and fines of up to $250,000 for using the stolen ... More >>

You Know Who Likes the President's Immigration Reform Plan? Nobody, That's Who.

Rafael Anchia Wants to Kill Anti-Immigration Legislation Dead. Good Luck With All That.

Rafael Anchia is trying to kick out immigration legislation, but not immigrants. Because nothing gets the Friend of Unfair Park more riled up than the words "immigration legislation" (or "Avi Adelman," geez), we thought it'd be a good idea to mention the press release we just received from the offic ... More >>

Anchia to Tackle "Divisive and Misguided" Anti-Immigration Legislation

State Representative Rafael Anchia Don't tell FrontBurner, because they'll think he's a racist, but Representative Rafael Anchia belongs to the Mexican American Legislative Caucus of the Texas House of Representatives. And last week, Anchia was named vice-chair of MALC's newly formed task force on i ... More >>

The Big Foist

Paper Chase

A former INS agent goes into business to smoke out fake documents

Who Brought the Minutemen to Garland? A Former City Council Member, Looks Like.

The Hunted

Minutemen train their sights on a new target: Hispanic day laborers

Simple minds

ICE, ICE, baby

Heat, No Light

Young Conservatives make a fuss with immigration protest

The Sins of the Father

Cantankerous, proud and devoted to helping immigrants, Father Justin Lucio's singleminded sense of duty led to overblown charges of "scandal"

Strange bedfellows

National union leaders do the math and switch their position on immigration

The kids aren't all right

The Americanized culture of undocumented immigrants finds the doors to higher education closed

Victims in the shadows

A Rowlett murder shines a light on the practices of notarios who victimize illegal immigrants desperate for a chance to remain in the United States