Immigration Law

Climate migrants deserve stronger protections, ABA House says

The ABA House of Delegates called for increased protection for immigrants in a pair of resolutions at the ABA Midyear Meeting in Phoenix on Monday.

Feb 3, 2025 2:05 PM CST

Change-Maker: Rodrigo Camarena is building tools to help immigrants become citizens and combat wage theft

Rodrigo Camarena has been advocating for immigrants since he was a child. By the time he was 8, this son of an electrical engineer father and an attorney mother was the family's translator, navigating the bureaucracy when they immigrated to northern Virginia from Mexico City via a work visa.

Feb 1, 2025 12:35 AM CST

Helping Hand: Swapna Reddy is helping asylum-seekers navigate the immigration system

In early 2015, Swapna Reddy volunteered for a week at the South Texas Family Residential Center, an immigration detention center near the U.S.-Mexico border that held thousands of asylum-seeking parents and their children.

Feb 1, 2025 12:20 AM CST

Behind the scenes as the ABA reacts to DOJ’s order to stop providing legal support to immigrants

Jan. 22 started as a regular day for the ABA Immigration Justice Project’s attorneys. But shortly after noon, an order from the U.S. Department of Justice changed everything.

Jan 30, 2025 2:18 PM CST

Iowa immigration law making illegal reentry a misdemeanor blocked by 8th Circuit

Iowa can’t enforce a law making it a crime for immigrants to be in the state if they reentered the country illegally after formerly being denied entry or ordered deported, a federal appeals court has ruled.

Jan 29, 2025 9:35 AM CST

DOJ says it will prosecute local officials over immigration enforcement

The Trump administration has directed federal prosecutors nationwide to investigate and potentially bring criminal charges against state and local officials who don’t cooperate with the president’s plans to carry out mass deportations.

Jan 22, 2025 9:35 AM CST

States, civil rights groups sue to stop Trump’s birthright citizenship order

President Donald Trump’s executive order to end birthright citizenship faced a flurry of legal challenges Tuesday from a bevy of states and civil rights groups, signaling that the effort could be tied up in court and unlikely to take effect next month as planned.

Jan 21, 2025 2:45 PM CST

ABA calls on senators to oppose ‘deeply concerning’ immigration bill

The ABA is urging the U.S. Senate to vote against an immigration reform bill that would require the detention of noncitizens who committed “certain low-level offenses.”

Jan 17, 2025 9:35 AM CST

Microsoft partners with ABA on new pilot project to help asylum-seekers

This year, the ABA Commission on Immigration partnered with Microsoft to launch a new virtual clinic to help pro se asylum-seekers complete their asylum applications.

Dec 24, 2024 10:21 AM CST

Dive into our favorite long reads of 2024

The end of the year will hopefully bring you some downtime for leisure reading. We’ve curated a list of some of our favorite web and print long reads from 2024.

Dec 23, 2024 9:35 AM CST

Poll: Which ABA Journal magazine cover from 2024 was your favorite?

We covered a wide array of diverse, in-depth and hard-hitting legal topics at the ABA Journal this year.

Dec 20, 2024 10:35 AM CST

What laws could Trump invoke to fast track deportations?

President-elect Donald Trump has threatened to invoke a 1798 law known as the Alien Enemies Act to remove noncitizens he says are part of a “migrant invasion” in the United States. And he could try to invoke a second law to get the military involved.

Dec 10, 2024 9:45 AM CST

Judge gave ‘reasonable impression’ she was letting immigrant evade ICE, ethics charges say

A Massachusetts judge who allegedly gave a “reasonable impression” that she was allowing an immigrant to evade federal custody was “less than fully candid” when asked about the incident, according to an ethics complaint filed Monday.

Dec 5, 2024 12:52 PM CST

County can’t prevent chartered deportation flights at airport, 9th Circuit rules

King County in Washington can’t prevent the federal government from using a Seattle-area airport for chartered deportation flights, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at San Francisco ruled last week.

Dec 4, 2024 9:02 AM CST

5th Circuit again blocks US from cutting razor-wire fence installed by Texas at border

Texas is entitled to a preliminary injunction that blocks the federal government from cutting razor wire that the state had installed along the border, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at New Orleans ruled last week.

Dec 2, 2024 10:05 AM CST