If you want to know what’s wrong with the U.S. immigration system and how to make it work, don’t ask Congress. All they have done is over-fund the out-of-control agencies. Ask the immigration lawyers, and former immigration judges, agents, and immigrants who have been on the inside — some of whom have been violently discarded after building lives here for decades.

That’s what Demba Ndiath did in his new book, From Welcome To Deportation. Learn more about solutions from immigrants, lawyers, and judges in this blog post.

The Cincinnati Enquirer published an important story about an Ohio man at risk of detention and deportation (read behind paywall). Nadhirou Tambadou is a hero and leader of a movement to demand human rights for Black Mauritanians, who was finally forced to seek safety in the United States after years of persecution by the Mauritanian government.

“This is the very definition of stacking the deck against your opponent, and this is why the U.S. immigration courts must be removed from the Executive Branch,” said Lynn Tramonte, Executive Director of the Ohio Immigrant Alliance. “Stephen Miller cannot completely eliminate the Board of Immigration Appeals without action by Congress. Instead, his plan is to keep the Board in place to rule against immigrants who win in the lower courts, while denying people who lose their cases the opportunity for a second look. Courts should be independent from political direction. Our immigration courts need to be completely separated from the Executive Branch. That’s fundamental to fairness and due process. Finally making the immigration courts into an independent judiciary is long overdue. Congress must act, today. Anyone who argues against that simply wants to keep an unfair system in place.”