This week in immigration news – September 3, 2020
A 50-year-old Honduran man in ICE custody dies from COVID-19
A 50-year-old Honduran man who was in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody died this past week in a Texas hospital. He was the 50th person to test positive for the coronavirus at the Joe Corley Processing Center, and the 19th person in ICE’s custody to die during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Trump administration is seeking to expand the amount of biometric data collected from immigrants
While the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) agency requires biometric data from immigrants over the age of 14 applying for citizenship, this is currently limited to fingerprints, photographs, and signatures. The Trump administration, by contrast, is looking to expand this to include DNA, eye scans, voice prints, and photographs. This biometric data would be required continuously throughout the citizenship application process, and the policy would require children under 14 to comply.
Critics of the policy say that it is unnecessary and amounts to surveilling immigrants.
A report by the Migration Policy Institute surveyed five high schools in Texas and six high schools in Rhode Island and found that Latino high school students are suffering from high rates of anxiety, specifically over whether they themselves or their loved ones will be deported. Surprisingly, fearing they would be deported even extended to 12% of U.S.-born students in the survey.
