Customs Enforcement Research Articles

102 Evaluation of Disaster Risk and Health Care Response in 12 US Cities

Cities are a diverse ecosystem of individuals, health care, and the built and natural environment that all contribute to their risk as well as readiness to respond in the event of a disaster. Various factors contribute to the risk a city faces for natural and manmade disasters, and the health care system is an essential component of a city’s ability to respond to the medical needs of individuals. The National Quality Forum (NQF) is creating a measurement framework for hospital readiness. We calculated a risk score for US cities using regional factors and evaluated health system capacity within each city. Twelve cities were evaluated using over 30 variables and three sub-themes (Figure 1) from data sources including NOAA, FEMA, US Census Bureau, US Geological Survey, American Highway Users Alliance, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Bureau of Land Management, National Pipeline Mapping System, International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation, Stadium Managers Association, and CDC. For each city, percentile ranks were generated for each of the individual variables. Scores for each variable within a sub-theme (infrastructure, environment, population) were then averaged to create that subtheme’s score. This process was repeated to create the overall city risk score from the three subtheme scores. Cities were ranked using percentiles (range 0-1) with higher values indicating greater exposure to disaster risk. Health system descriptive statistics were estimated at the city level using data reported from multiple CMS data files and from the American Hospital Survey. Overall risk scores ranged from 0.40 (Denver) to 0.71 (New York) (mean 0.56, SD 0.09). Sub-scores ranged from 0.37 (Cincinnati) to 0.78 (Los Angeles) for infrastructure; 0.40 (Denver) to 0.75 (Orlando) for environment; and 0.33 (Denver) to 0.71 (New York) for population. The health care system in high and low risk cities varied, with 40 major hospitals present in the 5 New York boroughs and 8 in Denver. A total of 8 hospitals in New York were designated as a level I trauma center (4 Level II) compared with 0 in Denver, (4 level II). New York had 215,567.5 residents/hospital vs 89,561.5 in Denver. An average of 9% of total beds were designated for the ICU in New York (1,878 ICU of 21,058 total beds) compared with 14% in Denver (397 ICU of 2,862 total beds). The median occupancy rates in New York were 81% (IQR: 71-86) vs 65% (IQR: 47-71) in Denver, with significant differences in average mean boarding time (214.32 minutes New York vs 80.57 minutes Denver, p-value <0.001). Infrastructure, environment, and population factors can be quantified to describe a city’s disaster risk score. Health system factors can be used to describe the capacity of regional health systems to manage the acute care needs of the population during disasters. The ratio of risk to readiness provides an objective mechanism by which to achieve the NQF’s goal of benchmarking health system readiness at the community level.

Building a “Fortress Europe” in the air: A critical review of the European customs enforcement of IPRs

AbstractFor several decades now, the European Union (EU) has been promoting the strengthening of enforcement measures of intellectual property rights (IPRs). The reinforcement of border measures aimed at blocking the importation of infringing goods has been under particular scrutiny in this respect. Since the adoption of the Trade‐Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights agreement, the EU has adopted numerous customs regulations specifically designed to curtail the flow of counterfeits entering the European market. In this paper, we argue this regulatory inflation is problematic considering the ambiguous construction of European border measures against counterfeiting. We suggest that EU law has imperfectly transplanted the American customs regulation reformed in the 70s which has allowed customs authorities to seize imported goods which were infringing IPRs in the United States. To fulfill their new mission, American customs was granted with the ability to assess such infringement at the border. Although required to fulfill the same mission, European member states' customs authorities have not been granted with such a quasijudicial competence. As a result, the action of European customs authorities regarding infringing goods is based on an ambiguous “conditional prohibition” which can easily lead to abuses as the international dispute regarding in‐transit generic medicines has shown.

Society of Behavioral Medicine Position Statement: Congress should protect immigrants seeking health care.

According to the Migration Policy Institute (2019), as of 2017 the USA was home to approximately 44 million immigrants, the largest number of immigrants in the world. Most of these immigrants relocate from Mexico, India, China, the Philippines, El Salvador, Vietnam, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic. Since 2017, there have been increased reports of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) interventions toward immigrants, especially at and near previously delineated "safe areas" such as medical facilities, as immigrants sought health care. Currently, health care providers are reporting delays and reductions in health care seeking by immigrants. This increases risks of untreated health problems for the immigrants themselves as well as their communities. To protect the health of immigrants, and the general public, the Society of Behavioral Medicine joins the American College of Physicians (2011) and the American Medical Association (2017) in recommending that Congress impose restrictions on ICE interventions in or around medical facilities.

Sanctuary Cities: A Study in Modern Nullification?

Abstract Since Donald Trump’s election as President of the United States, the sanctuary movement has gained prominence as a form of resistance to federal immigration policy. Sanctuary cities and states have attempted to frustrate the Trump administration’s immigration agenda by refusing to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE’s) efforts to remove aliens illegally residing in the United States. Academics, pundits and politicians have compared this resistance and non-cooperation to “nullification,” a doctrine typically associated with the South Carolina Nullification Crisis of the 1830s and the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798. This article rejects comparisons between the sanctuary movement and nullification as false equivalencies and explains why the sanctuary movement is not a form of modern nullification. Rather, it suggests the movement is better understood as being similar to “interposition”—a doctrine related to, but distinct from, nullification. In doing so, this paper will clarify the meaning of nullification and interposition by analyzing the developments of these doctrines. Part 1 of this article discusses the historical, theoretical and practical aspects of South Carolina-style nullification, and compares these to that of the sanctuary movement. Part 2 explores the development of nullification and interposition more broadly, with a particular focus on the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798. Finally, Part 3 directly compares the sanctuary movement, nullification and interposition, and it connects the movement to the “anti-commandeering” doctrine articulated by the Supreme Court in the 1990s.

Abolish ICE . . . And Then What?

In recent years, activists and then politicians began calling for the abolition of the United States’s interior immigration-enforcement agency: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Many people have misinterpreted the call to “Abolish ICE” as merely a spontaneous rhetorical device used to express outrage at the current Administration’s brutal immigration policies. In fact, abolishing ICE is the natural extension of years of thoughtful organizing by a loose coalition of grassroots immigrant-rights groups. These organizations are serious, not only about their literal goal to eliminate the agency, but also about not replacing it with another dedicated agency of immigration police. Accordingly, the proposal to eliminate ICE necessarily raises the question of how, in a post-ICE world, the United States would enforce its immigration laws. Missing from the public discourse, however, is an affirmative vision for the mechanics of a just and humane immigration-enforcement system that could follow the abolition of ICE. Drawing on lessons from our own and other nations’ past immigration-enforcement schemes, enforcement mechanisms employed by other federal agencies, and interviews with leaders of the “Abolish ICE” movement, I seek to begin to fill this void. This Essay suggests a paradigm shift in immigration enforcement toward the creation of an enforcement scheme that does not rely on detention, mass deportation, or any dedicated agency of immigration police but is nevertheless realistic and effective at increasing compliance with immigration law. The new immigration enforcement principles set forth herein are intended as a starting point for the immigrant-rights movement and for policymakers to use, critique, and improve upon.

From Computational Thinking to Political Resistance

Working with Latinx adolescents and providing informal learning experiences through a voluntary after school program aimed at developing their computational thinking and competencies, discussions around the election of Donald Trump emerged as it was important for many students. Emergent bilinguals internalized the xenophobic discourse that was amplified during the presidential election season. Thus, students feared deportation, discrimination, and other forms of violence. Many students experienced their friends and families facing deportation due to the increased Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids that occurred in 2016. The after-school program was a safe space in which we could provide a constructive and creative environment for students to comfortably explore these topics. In this paper, drawing on three pre-service teachers’ reflections, we explore how middle school urban Latinx students navigated their oppressors through computational thinking and show case a model of a critical pedagogy in an informal science education.

The Worst of Health: Law and Policy at the Intersection of Health &amp; Immigration

This symposium, The Intersection of Immigration Law and Health Policy, could not be timelier. Almost every day since President Trump’s inauguration, the news has brought yet another story about immigration and health: we hear about children dying while in the custody of the border patrol and about the long-term health effects of children who were separated from their parents at the border. We read about immigrant minors being denied access to reproductive health services, and about children being stopped by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) on their way for emergency surgery. Physicians report that fearful patients are failing to show up for their medical appointments, and researchers report that immigrants have refused to enroll their infants in child nutrition programs for fear that doing so could lead to their own deportation. Hospitals and other health care providers worry about workers, whose ability to remain employed may be threatened by the possible termination of DACA, or who may be unable to come to this country and provide care because of the travel ban or cut backs on visas. Meanwhile the Administration has proposed new proposed public charge regulations, which if promulgated, may cause millions of lawfully present immigrants to forego a broad array of programs that support health, including Medicaid and food stamps. All of these incidents, and many more, illustrate that when nativist immigration policy meets health law, health policy and public health tend to suffer. The health care system covers fewer people, while becoming costlier and less efficient. Public health is also jeopardized as punitive and futile efforts to keep diseases out by excluding or punishing newcomers replace evidence-based public health solutions. More subtly, when immigration and health policy meet, we lose sight of why the health policy exists in the first place is lost. This essay explores these issues, examining why and how laws and policies at the intersection of health and immigration are frequently problematic for both health policy and public health. Part I begins by noting that the troubling relationship between immigration and health law is both longstanding and international in scope. Parts II and III explore the impact of the interjection of immigration policy into health law, discussing in Part II how it adds to the complexity and inefficiency of the health care system and in Part III, how it harms public health. Part IV elucidates those claims further by exploring the potential health impact of the proposed public charge regulations. Part V concludes by arguing that the battles over immigration and health both reflect and shed light on deeply-seated divisions over the nature of community, the scope of solidarity, and the underlying rationale for health policy and law. I also argue that health laws’ treatment of immigrants forces us to consider the basic rationales for health law. That inquiry offers the possibility of a richer and deeper appreciation of the ethical foundations for health law.

Vanished Classmates: The Effects of Local Immigration Enforcement on School Enrollment

For over a decade, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has formed partnerships allowing local police to enforce immigration law by identifying and arresting undocumented residents. Prior studies, using survey data with self-reported immigrant and citizenship status, provide mixed evidence on their demographic impact. This study presents new evidence based on Hispanic public school enrollment. We find local ICE partnerships reduce the number of Hispanic students by 10% within 2 years. We estimate partnerships enacted before 2012 displaced more than 300,000 Hispanic students. These effects are concentrated among elementary school students. We find no corresponding effects on the enrollment of non-Hispanic students and no evidence that ICE partnerships reduced pupil-teacher ratios or the percentage of students eligible for the National School Lunch Program.

Documenting ICE

On July 14th, 2017, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) posted a notice in the Federal Register that U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was seeking permission to destroy eleven types of records related to people detained by ICE. These include records of sexual abuse and assault, escapes, deaths, solitary confinement, and complaints made to a hotline by those in ICE custody. ICE requested timelines for the destruction of these records ranging from three to twenty years and in late August 2017, NARA granted preliminary approval of this request. This perspective essay seeks to shed light on the vast array of arguments asserting the value of these records to the people in ICE detention. Moreover, it attempts to weigh the evidence of ICE’s recordkeeping practices, the preponderance of which points to ICE’s inability and aversion to accurate, truthful and accessible documentation surrounding its operation. This exploration ultimately considers this historical moment as one in which archives can show their value as resources for government accountability, historical research and communities of migrants and refugees to argue that it is incumbent upon archivists to seize the opportunity.

Feminist Approaches to Border Studies and Gender Violence: Family Separation as Reproductive Injustice

In 2018, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director Thomas Homan announced that the Trump administration would adopt a “zero-tolerance” policy for anyone,...

Deportation Platforms: The AWS-ICE Alliance and the Fallacy of Explicit Agendas

In this paper, I analyze elite discourse in the context of the increasing role played by large-scale corporate platforms in federal immigration enforcement in the US Specifically, I focus on Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) alliance with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Incorporating Marx’s (2016) “fallacy of explicit agendas” as a heuristic for contextualizing recent employee challenges to company CEO Jeff Bezos, I show how the fallacy serves to conceal far more about the AWS alliance with ICE, an organization with a long track record of deeply troubling practices. The secrecy that is fostered by such discourse also obscures the growing dependency of government entities on large-scale technologies of marginalizing surveillance that threaten civil liberties and rights of refugees and immigrants.

PENINDAKAN CUKAI ILEGAL PADA KANTOR PENGAWASAN DAN PELAYANAN BEA CUKAI TIPE MADYA PABEAN C PAREPARE PERSPEKTIF HUKUM ISLAM

The results of this study are that the Parepare Customs and Excise Enforcement conducts various strict and massive and continuous supervision including law enforcement efforts on various attempts to smuggle illegal, dangerous goods and captured goods will be destroyed and provide sanctions in the form of fines. The factors that hinder the directorate general of customs against the circulation of illegal excise, the factor of the lack of public awareness that still brings illegal excise goods into the Parepare area, the factor is still weak supervision and enforcement carried out by customs officials, there are several efforts made, namely preventive efforts, namely efforts made for prevention, repressive efforts, namely the form of activities carried out after the existence of preventive supervision, internal factors, namely the submission of additional personnel or employees, external factors, namely free and unclear area boundaries.

Managing Geopolitical Risk: Repurposing Human Systems and Re-Establishing Sovereignty Over Them

Traditional systems of customs and border enforcement are being challenged. How the movement people and goods are managed, is a political decision, with an economic impact. Uncertainty surrounding these systems creates risk. This paper uses theory, existing practice, and examples of human advancement to consider how the international community could manage migration, reduce irregular mass migration, pursue development, and take action against exploitation (i.e. human trafficking, human smuggling, and forced labour), collectively. It also considers how the EU and the UK can manage customs enforcement after Brexit, while continuing the peace process.

Costs and Characteristics of Undocumented Immigrants Brought to a Trauma Center by Border Patrol Agents in Southern Texas.

Background:The objective of this study was to evaluate the costs, characteristics, and outcomes of patients brought to a Texas trauma center emergenct department after apprehension by Border Patrol (BP)/Immigration and Customs Enforcement (BP/ICE).Materials and Methods:This is a secondary analysis of a trauma registry/financial records (1/1/11-12/31/14). Data were extracted utilizing a structured form. A multivariate ordinary least square was estimated to identify variables associated with hospital charges.Results:A total of 128 patients were enrolled as the study group; mean age was 28.6 ± 6 years, 20.3% were female, 100% were Hispanic, the most common mechanism of injury (MOI) was motor vehicle crash (75%), and mean charge was $162,152 ± $295,441. Mean length of stay (LOS) was 13.2 ± 29.8 days; 92.2% survived to discharge. Bivariate analysis revealed that MOI differed by gender (P = 0.021). In the multivariate analysis, the only variable that associated with increased charge was LOS. Total charges for the 128 patients were $20.6M, total costs were $4.5M, and total payments were $0.99M.Conclusions:Undocumented immigrants apprehended by BP/ICE and brought to our trauma center utilized significant health-care resources.

Jailing Immigrant Detainees: A National Study of County Participation in Immigration Detention, 1983-2013

Hundreds of county jails are involved in detaining immigrants facing removal proceedings, a civil process. In exchange, local jails receive per diem payments from Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Immigration detention thus presents a striking case of commodification of penal institutions for civil confinement purposes. Yet we know very little about the counties participating in this arrangement and the predictors of their participation over time. Our study offers the first systematic analysis of immigration detention in county jails using new and comprehensive panel data on jails across the United States. First, we find that the number of counties confining immigrant detainees steadily increased between 1983 and 2013, with the largest growth concentrated in small to medium sized, rural, and Republican counties located in the South. Second, our regression analyses point to a number of significant predictors of county participation in immigration detention: (a) worsening labor market conditions, combined with growing excess bed space for the criminal inmate population, (b) an increasing Latino population up to a certain threshold level, and (c) increasing Republican Party strength. These findings have important implications for current debates raging across the United States about the proper role of local communities in detaining immigrants.

Treading on Sacred Land: First Amendment Implications of ICE's Targeting of Churches

In the last few years, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has begun to target religious institutions—specifically churches—as a means to find and arrest undocumented immigrants. This technique is in legal tension with the First Amendment rights of free exercise of religion and free association. It is unclear, however, how these legal rights protect those most affected by this targeting tactic: undocumented immigrants. Undocumented immigrants may lack standing to challenge ICE’s tactics on their own and may require the help of related parties to protect their interests. This Note explores a potential solution to the ambiguity surrounding undocumented immigrants’ protection under the First Amendment. Specifically, this Note argues that while undocumented immigrants may be barred from filing suits challenging the constitutionality of ICE raids on religious institutions, U.S. citizens who worship alongside these immigrants can and should bring such suits and demand injunctions to end the practice. These citizens not only have the undisputed legal rights to bring such potential claims but also may use those rights to provide a legal and practical shield for undocumented immigrants who seek to attend church without government intrusion.

Mutual Administrative Assistance in Customs Matters

Mutual administrative assistance in customs matters (CMAA) is a significant component of customs enforcement. It is essential to impose international norms on this matter and, therefore, there are increasingly CMAA agreements and conventions between countries – at the bilateral, regional and global levels. The World Customs Organization (WCO) plays an important part in developing the agreements and conventions. This article looks into these international legal instruments, and examines the relevant work done by the WCO.

593. A Nationwide Assessment of Predictive Factors for Provision of Continuity of Care Resources for HIV-Positive Detainees in ICE Health Service Corps-Staffed Facilities, 2015 and 2017

BackgroundContinuity of care (CoC) is paramount to the successful management of patients with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), and is uniquely challenging when patients are mobile. Over the past several years Immigration and Customs Enforcement Health Service Corps (IHSC) has increased training and education for providers regarding the provision of CoC. The objective of this study was to evaluate the impact of these efforts by assessing provision of and factors associated with CoC counseling to HIV-infected detainees in 2015 as compared with 2017.MethodsThis retrospective analysis reviewed electronic health records of detainees with confirmed HIV infection detained at any of the 21 IHSC-staffed nationwide facilities between January–December 2015 and January–August 2017. Using SAS software V.9.3, odds ratios, 95% CI, chi-square, univariate and multiple logistic regression analyses were utilized to assess and compare relationships between independent variables and CoC for 2015 and 2017.ResultsFive hundred and eight HIV-infected detainees were identified; they were predominately male (88.4%), born in Mexico (37%), generally had CD4 counts >200 (86.2%) and had an established diagnosis of HIV prior to entering custody (94.1%). Among all primary variables assessed for predictive association to CoC, female gender and infectious disease (ID) consultation were statistically significant (P = 0.0.0058, 0.0085) after adjusting for all other variables. Compared with all other detainees, our sample was in custody twice as long (61 days vs. 31 days, P < 0.001). In 2015 and 2017, 91% of detainees received ART during custody, and CoC prior to release nearly doubled from 29.4% in 2015 to 59.6% in 2017.ConclusionDiscussing CoC with ICE detainees is imperative given their increased risk for treatment interruption. Our results emphasize that (i) CoC discussion should happen early in custody stay as most detainees have left our care system within two months of entry, (ii) providers should be aware of possible bias during counseling and offer the same level of CoC discussion regardless of gender or clinical parameters. Questions prompting and reminding providers to have CoC discussions should be included in HIV-specific templates during the initial health assessment.Disclosures All authors: No reported disclosures.

Trans(formation) of a Movement

On May 25, 2018, Roxsana Hernandez, a trans women from Honduras, died while in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention in Albuquerque, New Mexico, after being held there for two weeks. ...

The Effect of Immigration Enforcement on Crime Reporting: Evidence from the Priority Enforcement Program

Weak trust between immigrants and law enforcement may undermine law enforcement agencies' ability to keep communities safe. This paper documents that an immigrant's willingness to report crime is affected by immigration enforcement policies. I analyze the Priority Enforcement Program (PEP), which was launched by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency in 2015. Under PEP, ICE focused enforcement efforts on immigrants convicted of serious crimes and shifted resources away from immigration-related offenses, thereby lowering the cost to immigrants of reporting crime to the police. I use incident-level data from the Dallas Police Department that include the name and ethnicity of all complainants to show that the number of incidents reported by Hispanic individuals increased by 10 percent after the launch of PEP. The results of this study suggest that reducing immigration enforcement of individuals who do not pose a threat to public safety can potentially be one way to enhance trust between immigrant communities and the police.