Many removal proceedings must go before an immigration judge. This chart shows trends in the number of people that were removed from the U.S. from 2003 to 2008, broken down by ICE Field Office. Click on image to view chart. Produced by Hugo Cabrera While the nation’s understaffed immigration courts strain under a backlog that […]
Andrew Becker
Reporter
Andrew Becker is a reporter for Reveal, covering border, national and homeland security issues, as well as weapons and gun trafficking. He has focused on waste, fraud and abuse – with stories ranging from border corruption to the expanding use of drones and unmanned aerial vehicles, from the militarization of police to the intersection of politics and policy related to immigration, from terrorism to drug trafficking. Becker's reporting has appeared in The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, Newsweek/The Daily Beast and on National Public Radio and PBS/FRONTLINE, among others. He received a master's degree in journalism from UC Berkeley. Becker is based in Reveal's Emeryville, California, office.
Posted inInside the Newsroom
Small numbers of Mexicans fleeing drug violence given refuge
U.S. immigration courts granted 71 out of 3,000 asylum cases.
Posted inAccountability
Mexican Police Fleeing Cartels Find U.S. Reluctant to Grant Asylum
Julio Ledezma had been chief of police in La Junta, a town of 8,700 in northern Mexico, for barely three months when a pair of strangers paid him a visit. They said an aide to the mayor had sent them, and they bore gifts: a briefcase stuffed with cash and a truck for Ledezma’s personal […]
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Posted inAccountability, Immigration
Army Extends Immigrant Recruiting
The lanky 19-year-old from South Korea has lived in the Southland since he was 9 years old. He is as comfortable speaking English as his native Korean. And he desperately wants to join the Army. Late last week, the teenager walked into a recruiting office in an Eagle Rock mall wearing a pendant shaped like […]
Posted inNational Security
Observe and Deport
Salvador Rivera was born in Portland, Oregon, in 1979. At age 18, as he faced several arrest warrants, he adopted an alias and obtained a Mexican birth certificate. The ruse worked: When he was arrested by a Border Patrol agent in January 1998, Rivera assumed his false identity and was voluntarily deported to Mexico. Within […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Immigration
Many Immigrants Deported for Nonviolent Crimes
Federal authorities have repeatedly said their priority is to find and remove illegal immigrants with violent criminal histories, but the U.S. government’s stepped up enforcement in recent years has led to the deportation of hundreds of thousands of immigrants convicted of nonviolent crimes, according to a new study. Nearly three-quarters of the roughly 897,000 immigrants […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Immigration
U.S. Citizens Caught Up in Immigration Sweeps
Frank Ponce de Leon, a native of Mexico who lives in La Puente, Calif., spent almost three months in immigration custody — all the while insisting he was a U.S. citizen. Photo: Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times Rennison Vern Castillo thought his legal troubles were nearly over at the end of a jail stay […]
Posted inAccountability
New Migrant Class Flees Mexican Drug War
As a drug war rages throughout Mexico and along its northern border, an increasing number of Mexicans are crossing into the United States to flee the killings, extortion and kidnappings that have plagued places like Juárez and Tijuana. Unlike the traditional job-seeking migrants, whose numbers have dropped in part due to the slumping US economy […]
Posted inInside the Newsroom
Two former Border Patrol agents plead not guilty to human smuggling charges
Brothers extradited from Mexico accused of smuggling Brazilians and Mexicans into the country for as much as $12,000 a person.
Posted inAccountability
Mexico’s Drug War Creates New Class of Refugees
EL PASO—The Juarez police lieutenant was recovering from three gunshot wounds, the result of an assault by hit men for a drug cartel. His name was on a death list brazenly posted at a monument for fallen peace officers. Lt. Salvador Hernandez Arvizu didn’t like his odds of surviving in Mexico. So he fled his […]