Orange County Immigration & Naturalization Law Blog

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials do sometimes make mistakes. One United States citizen was deported to Mexico because he was misidentified. It appears that he could not participate in his own defense because he suffered from a number of psychiatric and cognitive disabilities.

This individual was deported though he had never been to Mexico, was not of Mexican heritage, and did not speak Spanish. Prior to the deportation, he was detained for 51 days and placed in a position of defending himself without having an immigration attorney available to represent him. Only after an attorney became involved after being retained by the man's family was he then allowed to return to the United States.

Approximately 1.5 million individuals in California and across the United States that came here as immigrant children and reportedly do not have the paperwork to be considered legal residents. One such individual is now studying for a journalism degree in Los Angeles, and he has lived in the United States without the proper paperwork since he was 7-years old.

The new U.S. Senate version of the immigration bill would clear obstacles for individuals such as this to become citizens of the United States. Under ideal circumstances, the bill would allow for students to fill out applications for green cards after a five year waiting period, and citizenship would then hopefully be granted shortly after the green card was approved.

Approximately 300 immigrants that are detained are placed in solitary confinement every day across the United States, and often they are held in isolation for several days. Most of these detainees never have an attorney, do not have their cases reviewed by judges, and often are unable to have their families come to visit them.

The isolation seems particularly cruel when considering that many of these detainees have never been convicted of any crime, and usually have only been accused of civil charges. The claimed purpose of the detention centers is to guarantee an immigrants appearance at an administrative hearing, but the practice of isolating individuals ultimately results in punishment.

When it comes to the hiring of immigrant employees, apparently some California employers are getting desperate. Two Silicon Valley Entrepreneurs are apparently thinking of building a colony in international waters so that they can retain talented individuals that for some reason or other have not been issued visas to work within the borders of the United States.

The so-called plan is to anchor a cruise ship a number of miles off of the California coast, and then have immigrant workers employed while staying upon the ship. Apparently, they feel such a step is necessary as the cap on temporary work visas is thought to be too low.