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immigration

‘We Can Make Him Disappear’: The Power of County Sheriffs

These days, former Sheriff Jim Pendergraph calls himself an “Old School Conservative,” but not so long ago he identified as a Democrat. This is back in early 2006, when Pendergraph was like most sheriffs — an enormously powerful guy who managed to get around unnoticed. He was 35 years into his law enforcement career and 12 years […]

New Documents Reveal How ICE Mines Local Police Databases Across the Country

In cities across the country, Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations agents can mine local police reports using COPLINK, a data program little known outside law enforcement circles. While public records have revealed ICE’s access to this program in the past, new documents, obtained by the ACLU of Massachusetts and shared with The Appeal, offer the first […]

A National Campaign to Crack Down on Massage Businesses May Harm the Women it Wants to Help

Polaris, a Washington, D.C.-based non-governmental organization best known for operating the National Human Trafficking Hotline, says it has located a new front in the fight against human trafficking: what it describes as “illicit massage businesses,” or IMBs. The nonprofit, which brought in $10 million in 2016 (of which $2.1 million is government funding, according to IRS […]

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Protesting ICE Courthouse Arrests Doesn’t Get NYC Prosecutors Off the Hook for Everyday Injustice

On February 14, Manhattan, Brooklyn and Bronx prosecutors stood in front of Manhattan Supreme Court to protest U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arresting New Yorkers involved in criminal cases. The event followed growing protests from public defenders — including walk-outs — taking aim at ICE’s practice of staking out courthouses to locate targets for deportation. According to a December 2017 report by The […]

From Gang Allegations to Deportation: How Boston is Putting its Immigrant Youth in Harm’s Way

The Trump administration uses Sanctuary Cities as punching bags in its war against immigrants. But even in the cities taking federal heat for protecting immigrant communities, a little-understood, post-9/11 institution called the “fusion center” is playing a starring — if behind the scenes — role in the Trump-Sessions deportation regime. Despite promises from liberal mayors, local police departments are […]

Family, Former Attorney of Queens Woman Who Fell to Her Death in Vice Sting Say She Was Sexually Assaulted, Pressured to Become an Informant

Yang Song fell four stories onto a sidewalk in Flushing, Queens on the night of November 25th. An officer with the New York City Police Department accompanied her, unconscious, to New York Presbyterian Hospital where doctors placed her on a respirator. They worked for hours: the 35 units of blood they transfused did not take, given the severity of her injuries from the thirty foot fall.

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ICE Is Making Its Massive Data Collection Effort Secret As It Labels More and More Immigrants ‘Gang Members’

In a new rule proposal, the Department of Homeland Security has moved to exempt large swaths of the Immigration and Customs Enformcement’s massive data collection system from the Privacy Act, making the type, sources, and accuracy of information ICE is collecting almost completely secret. By doing so, it would further obscure a law enforcement agency that […]

Arpaio disgrace complete, but Maricopa County must now deal with damage

He was once praised for being “America’s toughest sheriff.” But as of yesterday, former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio was convicted of a crime of his own. Arpaio’s rise and fall mirror the way America has looked at criminal justice in the 21st Century. Once an icon of the right, Arpaio’s approach to policing has proven to […]

Police and Prosecutors Should Do More to Protect Immigrants

Overwhelmingly, “undocumented” residents are referred to by the current administration In Washington as “illegal aliens” and identified almost exclusively as Latinos. There is little, if any, subtlety in this regard. The administration’s policy is undeniably race based.

Los Angeles Can Take Further Steps to Protect Its Immigrant Neighbors

Donald Trump’s presidency represents a serious threat to undocumented immigrants across the country and here in Los Angeles. Mayor Eric Garcetti has boldly rejected President Trump’s dangerous rhetoric, but if the mayor and locally elected leaders truly want to protect immigrant Angelenos, they must commit to ending “broken windows” policing and other practices, which put many people at great risk of deportation for doing little more than sleeping on a sidewalk.