This week in immigration news – September 19, 2019

President Trump has set up tent courts in the border city of Laredo, Texas.

Asylum cases can frequently take years, but the tent courts are meant to reduce that time to 40 days or less. Critics note that this is “factory justice” and claim that immigration attorneys have been refused access to conduct know-your-rights segments as they do in other immigration courts.

In the Trump administration’s latest attempt to alter our immigration system, it has proposed increasing the fee to appeal a ruling to $975, and the fee to ask for a case to be reopened to $875.

Currently, the fees for both of these requests are $110. While people would still be able to apply for fee waivers, critics of the announcement counter that this is yet another obstacle for people going through immigration court.

Nearly two weeks after he was shot by an ICE officer, Jose Fernando Andrade-Sanchez was arrested by ICE on the property of a law firm that specialized in immigration law.

While Andrade-Sanchez has had other legal troubles, his case is highly unusual in that shots were fired by ICE and in a public location.