Immigration news

The NYT reports that a federal judge, Denny Chin, ruled that the "substandard and inhuman" conditions of immigration detention centers are a priority and Obama should address those conditions within 30 days.

Also, according to this Racewire article, the new mandate for a US passport when crossing US/Mexico and US/Canada borders is discriminatory against Mexican-Americans who are born outside of the hospital and therefore struggle to produce the many documents that serve as proof of US citizenship for those born outsie of hospitals:

The Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, which went into effect June 1, requires Americans passing across the Canadian and Mexican borders to have a valid U.S. passport or passport card, instead of just a valid driver’s license, as previously required.

The new policy affects many communities in the Southwest for whom border crossing is a routine occurrence, and whose economic and cultural life stretches across the official divide imposed by governments. The travel requirements especially impact Mexican Americans born on the U.S. side of the border who face difficulties producing the documents needed to obtain a passport.

Civil libertarians filed a lawsuit last year charging that the passport process was unfair and discriminatory. Essentially, the procedures were biased against Mexican Americans born outside a hospital, with the help of a midwife, by requiring “an excessive number of documents normally not required to prove their citizenship.” The government recently settled the case, pledging to revise its application review procedures.