Supreme Court Reopens Local Leader’s Immigration Case

This summary was featured in Documented’s Early Arrival newsletter. You can subscribe to receive it in your inbox three times per week here.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday reinvigorated the federal government’s efforts to deport Ravi Ragbir, an immigrant advocate who runs the New Sanctuary Coalition. Ragbir has been fighting his deportation with a First Amendment claim, saying the federal government targeted him for exercising his freedom of speech. A federal appeals court had previously ruled in his favor, saying the arrest was retaliatory, but the Supreme Court vacated that decision and sent it back to a lower court. Law 360

In other local immigration news…

Muslim Families Continue to Struggle Due to Travel Ban

Sfuaun Ali, 29, has been waiting for three years to hear back from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) about the status of the I-130 form he submitted for his wife to join him in New York. After getting married in 2014, Ali returned to New York to finish his bachelor’s degree in international business while his wife stayed in Egypt as the war in Yemen worsened. Ali is among many Yemeni-Americans who have been impacted by the consequences of President Donald Trump’s travel ban on immigrants from a list of Muslim majority countries. The ban was issued in Trump’s first week as president and has gone through many iterations. But in his first term, it has impacted the lives of thousands of Americans hoping their loved ones could join them. Read more at Documented

Study Shows There’s No Link Between Crime and Undocumented Immigration

There is no link between undocumented immigration and crime, according to a new study released by the University of Buffalo. Researchers used two estimates of undocumented immigration to determine that that population had no direct effect on crime rates in 154 U.S. metropolitan areas, including cities like Chicago, Las Vegas and New York City. “Even after estimating the undocumented immigrant population in U.S. metropolitan areas in two different ways, we found that undocumented immigrants had no significant effect on violent crime and actually had a significant negative effect on property crime,” says Robert Adelman, an associate professor of sociology in UB’s College of Arts and Sciences. WGRZ

Documented Nominated for Four National Awards

Last year, Documented began distributing a newsletter in Spanish via WhatsApp called Documented Semanal. Many of the subscribers to the newsletter are undocumented Spanish speakers in New York City. This year, in response to the pandemic, Documented created resources to help the community find critical aid, such as food or rental relief, and answered questions readers had about coronavirus relief. Now all the Spanish articles published on our site are in response to questions from our WhatsApp community. In recognition of this work, Documented is a finalist for the LION Awards for Best Coverage of Underserved Communities and Technology Innovation of the Year, along with the Online Journalism Award Gather Award in Engaged Journalism. Read more at Documented