Migration News 

BREAKING: Texas Court Blocks Biden's Deportation Freeze
Jennifer Doherty, Law360
A Texas federal judge granted a temporary restraining order on Tuesday barring the U.S. Department of Homeland Security from pausing most deportations nationwide while it conducts an internal review, finding that the department may have violated immigration statutes.

Covid-19 Pandemic Pushes Down Number of Refugee Resettlements
Raja Abdulrahim, Wall Street Journal 
A fraction of the nearly 1.5 million refugees in urgent need of resettlement were resettled through the United Nations last year, in part because of the coronavirus pandemic.Those entering the U.S. fell to the lowest level in the 40-year history of its refugee program, according to State Department data, after former President Donald Trump set the ceiling for 2020 at 18,000. Fewer than 12,000 refugees were admitted during the fiscal year that ended in September, owing in part to a temporary moratorium because of the pandemic.

Immigrant justice campaign launches to call on Congress to act on immigration
Alex Gangitano, The Hill 
The We Are Home campaign, a nationwide immigrant justice campaign that includes labor unions and other advocate groups, launched on Tuesday to urge Congress to enact legislation to address the immigration system. The eight-figure campaign that includes digital advertising is co-chaired by Community Change, the National Domestic Workers Alliance, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the United Farm Workers (UFW), and United We Dream. 

Work on Trump’s border wall ends Jan. 27, says Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar
Benjamin Wermund, Houston Chronicle 
Construction on the border wall is set to end this week, U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar announced Monday. The Laredo Democrat and senior member of the House Appropriations Committee said Customs and Border Protection is halting all of the agency’s contracts for wall construction on Wednesday. Cuellar said he expects the same is true for U.S. Department of Defense and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers contracts as well after President Joe Biden last week signed an executive order ending the national emergency Donald Trump declared at the border.

Fast-Track Asylum Found To Have Left Hundreds In Limbo
Asher Stockler, Law360
Two Trump-era pilot programs designed to speed up the asylum-seeking process left hundreds of cases unresolved and unopened in the immigration courts, according to a government watchdog report released Monday. The U.S. Government Accountability Office said that as of October, more than half of the asylum-seekers who passed an initial screening in the programs did not have their full immigration cases initiated by the U.S. Department of Justice, which oversees the immigration courts. The two pilot tracks, one for Mexicans and the other for non-Mexican nationals, set expedited timetables for these screenings and allowed border officials to retain custody of asylum-seekers between October 2019 and March 2020 The report said that government data "do not account for the status of removal proceedings for approximately 630 individuals who received positive determinations because there is no record" in the case management system that immigration officials filed the required paperwork.

Biden Issued a Deportation Moratorium, but Immigration Advocates Raise Alarms About ICE Noncompliance
Lucy Diavolo, Teen Vogue 
President Joe Biden has prioritized immigration policy in many of his early executive orders, including a 100-day moratorium on deportations. That block on most deportations just went into effect on January 22, but concerns that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) may go forward with at least one deportation covered by the moratorium prompted an outburst of criticism over the weekend. Alongside Representative Richie Torres (D-NY), attorneys for Javier Castillo Maradiaga, a 27-year-old resident of the Bronx in New York City, raised alarms about whether ICE will defy the new president’s directive.

Worth a Read 

Life Is 'Really Tough' For Refugees Trying To Settle In Pandemic America
NPR

Biden wasting no time naming officials to reverse Trump's immigration policies
CNN 

Minnesota refugee from Congo finds new struggles amid pandemic, police violence
Minneapolis Star-Tribune 

Through Student Clinic for Immigrant Justice, students aim to provide representation for asylum seekers
The Brown Daily Herald 

Biden open to breaking his immigration bill into pieces
Politico