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Man is not deported after reporting to Philly ICE office for ‘final order of removal’
PHILADELPHIA – Christian M’Bagoyi walked into the Philadelphia ICE office as ordered on Friday morning, accompanied by his wife, Sarika, both uncertain if he would be walking out. Twenty-six minutes later he appeared — relieved and smiling that he wasn’t detained and deported — as two dozen supporters on the sidewalk broke into cheers and applause for the West African immigrant. He and his wife stepped immediately into the arms of Erika Guadalupe Nunez, a Juntos organizer, tears flowing in relief. “Thank you. The biggest thanks I can offer,” he told the crowd. “I think I would have been detain...
The Philadelphia Inquirer
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Reunited: Honduran immigrant and father leaves sanctuary in St. Louis-area church
MAPLEWOOD, Mo. — After three years in a Maplewood church to avoid immediate deportation, Alex Garcia returned home to his wife and children Wednesday without fear of imminent separation while he petitions for permanent legal status. Garcia, a Honduran immigrant and father of five who has lived in the U.S. for 17 years, left Christ Church United Church of Christ where he has sought refuge from federal officials looking to enforce a deportation order stemming from his first entry into the U.S. in 2000. His departure, Garcia and his advocates said, follows orders from President Joe Biden to Immig...
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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Judge blocks Biden's 100-day deportation pause in nationwide order
AUSTIN, Texas — Granting a nationwide injunction requested by Texas officials, a federal judge has blocked the Biden administration's plans to pause deportations for 100 days under a comprehensive review of immigration enforcement. U.S. District Judge Drew Tipton of Corpus Christi, appointed by former President Donald Trump last summer, had issued a temporary order halting enforcement of the deportation freeze on Jan. 26. Late Tuesday night, shortly before that temporary order was set to expire, Tipton ruled that the pause exceeded the president's authority because it improperly suspended or a...
Austin American-Statesman
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Excitement over Biden immigration proposals could lead to uptick in scams, experts warn
MIAMI — Joe Biden's first acts as president included taking steps to undo many of his predecessor's restrictionist immigration policies. But a slew of immigration-related executive orders and a proposed immigration reform bill unveiled Thursday — aimed at ushering in a more welcoming era for immigrants in the U.S. — could in the short term set some immigrants back, as confusion about what each development means leaves certain members of the community vulnerable to immigration scams and fraudsters, advocates warn. Oscar Londoño, executive director of WeCount!, a South Dade immigrant workers' ce...
Miami Herald
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He wasn't born in Haiti. But that didn't stop ICE from deporting him there, lawyer says
MIAMI — Less than two weeks after his deportation to Haiti — a country he wasn't born in and had never visited — was halted by immigration enforcement, Paul Pierrilus was sent there anyway, his lawyer said. Pierrilus, 40, arrived in Port-au-Prince Tuesday morning aboard a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportation charter flight from Louisiana with 63 other individuals expelled from the United States. He was distraught and in shock, said his lawyer, Nicole Phillips, who spoke with him hours later. "They knew he was stateless. They knew he didn't have a Haitian passport," she said. "I...
Miami Herald
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Woman who lived at Chicago church for over 3 years goes home after Biden administration suspends deportations
CHICAGO – A woman who has lived in a Humboldt Park neighborhood church for three and a half years to avoid deportation returned home Saturday night to live with her family after President Joe Biden’s 100-day moratorium on deportations went into effect Friday. Francisca Lino took sanctuary in an apartment above the same Chicago church that protected immigration activist Elvira Arellano, Adalberto United Methodist Church, at 2716 W. Division St., after she defied a court order in August 2017 mandating that she leave the country. Saturday, she was headed back to her Romeoville home. Lino, a mothe...
Chicago Tribune
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Trump’s order to halt deportations to Venezuela – a ‘gift’ or ‘cop out’? Experts weigh in
MIAMI — Madeleine Leon‘s eyes went wide, her jaw, ajar. The news that during his last night as president Tuesday, Donald Trump issued an executive order suspending the deportation of Venezuelans in the U.S. left her “sweaty, confused and pleasantly surprised.” “I was a madwoman– a happy one running all around the house,” the Venezuelan asylum seeker told the Miami Herald as she sat beside her husband. “We truly couldn’t believe our eyes, that Trump did that considering the past four years of his strict immigration policies. “I was changing all the channels on the TVs,” she added, noting that a...
Miami Herald
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Before leaving office, Trump sends final deportation flight to Haiti
MIAMI — The Trump administration sent a final deportation flight to Haiti on the eve of the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden, who has promised to halt removals during his first 100 days. In a last salvo of President Donald Trump’s hardline policy, Immigration and Customs Enforcement chartered a flight Tuesday operated by Swift Air, which departed from Louisiana and arrived in Port-au-Prince by early afternoon. A total of 25 deportees landed in the capital, including five infants, Jean Négot Bonheur Delva, the head of Haiti’s Office of National Migration (ONM), told the Miami Herald. S...
Miami Herald
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The hardest change to immigration policy post-Trump? Ending the mindset that immigrants are criminals
PHILADELPHIA — Like heads of other Philadelphia-based agencies that support and defend immigrants, Cathryn Miller-Wilson has been staggered by the four-year onslaught of nationalist Trump administration directives, policies and rules. The incoming Biden administration has pledged to undo as much as it can as fast as it can. But the hardest single thing to change, said Miller-Wilson, director of HIAS Pennsylvania, will be the one that’s not written down on any executive order or legislation: The belief that immigration equates to criminality, that it’s wrong, a detriment and not a benefit to Am...
The Philadelphia Inquirer
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In aftermath of Haiti’s 2010 earthquake, many still face immigration uncertainty
More than 300,000 died, 1.5 million were injured and tens of thousands fled. Eleven years after Haiti’s crushing 7.0 earthquake, many of those who left are still struggling to rebuild, their future unclear in countries across the Americas. In the past decade, thousands have voyaged from Chile, where the government in December 2019 estimated there were 185,865 Haitians, and Brazil, where more than 128,000 migrated over an eight-year period, and to the U.S. Mexico border, where today many remain stuck, unable to enter the United States. “We are still witnessing the aftershocks of the earthquake,...
Miami Herald
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