On July 6, 2016, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals released its decision in Flores v. Lynch, a lawsuit brought by the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law to decide about a difference in interpretation of a Settlement agreement the government entered into in 1997 regarding the detention of alien minors. Based on litigation back then regarding the detention and treatment of minors in detention, the government settled the lawsuits by agreeing to hold minors in facilities that are…

When Donald J. Trump announced that he would impose a moratorium on admitting Muslims to the United States, there was consternation, except by the plurality of Republicans that continue to vote for him, that such an approach to a major world religion was bigoted and violative of principles of freedom of religion – and anti-American. Then media reported that Mr. Trump’s perspective was the opposite of the inclusive, tolerant approach under President George W. Bush. Such contrasting Mr. Trump and…

In the zero-sum-game political world we live in, a victory for one side of a polarized issue is considered a defeat for the other side. This is true with immigration and particularly true with the influx of families and unaccompanied minors coming to America’s southern border from Central America two summers ago, and still coming to a lesser degree. Americans are polarized between those who want to provide humanitarian aid  to these wretched people and those who see them as…

One of the first and one of the best thing s President Obama did when he first became President was to reverse the Bush-administration policy of detaining nearly all arriving-alien asylum seekers until their cases were adjudicated in the immigration court which I discussed here. His administration instead allowed Immigration and Customs Enforcement to release asylum-seeking aliens after they successfully completed a credible fear interview. As for  arriving aliens with families or who were pregnant, the government would most often…