A group of undocumented immigrants is asking a federal judge to declare unconstitutional the use of GPS ankle monitors to track immigrants who pose no threat to society.

The suit, filed by Arturo Rodriguez of the Isenberg Center for Immigration Equality, targets the ICE Dallas field office and BI Inc., a Homeland Security contractor and purveyor of ankle monitors. The plaintiffs are asking the judge for damages and a permanent injunction against the use of ankle monitors on immigrants accused only of being in the country without authorization.

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So often we think of undocumented immigrants as young, rootless men scaling border fences with plastic bags and gallon jugs of water slung over their shoulders. Truth is, people come here, set down roots and have kids. And when they get picked up by authorities, whether for a felony or for something petty, like driving without a license, they leave family behind.

According to a report from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to the Senate and House appropriations subcommittees on Homeland Security, immigration officials removed nearly 47,000 undocumented immigrants who had U.S.-born children during the second and third quarters of 2011. In the Dallas district, nearly a thousand removal orders were obtained.

Unfair Park was curious about how these forced separations played out on a case-by-case basis, so we reached out to Dallas immigration attorney Lisa Schwamkrug. These stories, she says, are all too common.

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So, you're an undocumented immigrant. Your great hope is to stick around, make a living and, some day, become naturalized. Unfortunately, our immigration laws are a tangled morass of inscrutability, insensible to the realities of a globalized world.

You may have watched last week's Republican debate in Arizona with a growing sense of foreboding as the candidatry swung its collective, penetrating gaze from America's kibbles-'n'-bits to border security. Presumptive nominee Mitt Romney endorsed Gov. Jan Brewer's American Legislative Exchange Council-penned immigration law, designed to do little other than line the pockets of private-prison operator Corrections Corporation of America by filling its detention facilities.

"You know, I think you see a model in Arizona."

It'll be bad enough if primary voters can stomach pulling on the Mittens of Last Resort, but even if they can't, the GOP -- these days the party of craven, isolationist xenophobia -- has a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives. And because the Democrats have neither the political will nor capital to do anything about immigration reform, you're stuck with the current state of things.

But it's confusing out there. Buzzwords like "prosecutorial discretion" keep cropping up. What do they mean? And how, above all else, do you stay in this country and out of CCA's privately run pokeys you keep hearing such awful things (rape) about? To that end, Unfair Park chatted with local immigration attorney Furqan Sunny Azhar. Here's what we took from the conversation:

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In Dallas and across the country, the astronomical number of deportation orders issued by immigration courts is at last beginning to fall. President Obama's new strategy focuses on intelligent enforcement and prosecutorial discretion. Translated: We'll show bad guys the door, but the undocumented student brought here as a child can probably stay.

The June 2011 gear-shift in policy was a big one for an administration that deported folks at double the rate of its predecessor. It renewed hope among undocumented immigrants seeking only to make a living, and it prompted cheers from advocates, who believe it signals a more humane, pragmatic turn by the Obama Administration.

Problem is, it took months to see any sign that it was actually happening.

But according to Syracuse's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, the first quarter of 2012 saw a six-percent drop in the number of removal orders nationwide. Based on those numbers, they're projecting a 21-percent drop in the number of deportation orders originating from Dallas.

"In my practice, I find that it took some months for the Morton memo to really have an impact. I think ICE was reluctant at first," immigration attorney Furqan Sunny Azhar tells Unfair Park. "Eventually enforcement and removal operations, as well as the Office of Chief Counsel, began to take the Morton memo a little more seriously, and they reevaluated most of the cases for prosecutorial discretion."

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Photo by Danny Fulgencio

Rasmiya AlGrawi is adjusting to life in Vickery Meadow after violence in Iraq pushed out what was left of her family.

Rasmiya AlGhrawi greets guests with big hugs and a series of kisses from cheek to cheek and back again. She's a mother and grandmother to both her own family and to anyone who walks through her door and sinks into her comfy couches. She's also a refugee, having fled from Iraq in 2010, two years after her daughter, Israa Alchalach, came to the States.

Alchalach, who lives with her son down the street from her mother, worked as a translator until her work made her a target for Iraqi rebels. In 2008, an Iraqi militia kidnapped her for six hours, covering her eyes, tying her hands behind her and holding a gun to her head. Her mind flashed with questions of whether she would ever again see her mother or her teenage son.

She's still coping with that moment. She would have been the third of AlGhrawi's three daughters to die because of her work. In 2004, within a minute of each other, the first two were killed when they were targeted as translators for American troops.

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Photos by Leslie Minora

Jakadrien Turner, home at last, with grandmother Lorene on her right and mother Johnisa on her left

At 11 a.m. Friday morning, Lorene Turner got the call: Her granddaughter, Jakadrien Turner, who had run away from her Oak Cliff home and her life as a student at Kimball High School, was on a flight home from Colombia. Eleven hours later, the strong but exhausted grandmother finally walked down the international arrivals chute at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport next to the 15-year-old she hadn't hugged in more than a year.

The teen runaway had traveled from Dallas to New Orleans before arriving in Houston, where she was arrested for shoplifting and deported to Colombia under a false identity she provided police. The journey was a long one, and while last night marks the end of her saga as a runaway, most of what happened after April 2010, when she left Oak Cliff, remains a long list of questions.

After more than two hours' worth of immigration procedures and questioning by authorities following her arrival at about 7 p.m. on a Delta flight from Atlanta, Jakadrien, her mother Johnisa Turner and Lorene, flanked by armed guards and their lawyer Ray Jackson, slowly walked from the international arrivals gate to the parking lot as reporters swarmed and news cameras rolled. All three appeared to alternate between choking back tears and suppressing smiles that occasionally cracked through. They held hands but gave little indication of the emotion evoked by the homecoming.

Jackson, Turner's attorney, was the only one who addressed the crowd of reporters gathered at the terminal. "She's happy to be home," he said, but wouldn't offer much more, saying that the family would comment in a few days, after they've rested. "We want to respect that it's been a long flight and a long day."

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It's been nearly six months since U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director John Morton issued a memo to his subordinates, which we'll translate from bureaucrat-speak for you: Look, we got scarce resources, so don't head out into the field looking to pop every Tomas, Diego and Enrique you find without papers. And when you come across 'em, think about a coupla things. 1) Have they been here forever, or did their folks drag them across the border as kids? 2) Are they going to college or the military, makin' good and whatnot? And 3) Most importantly, is this guy before you lacking the qualities of an asshole? More specifically, does he pose no threat to society at large, and does he have a clean record?

If the answer to any of those questions is yes, he probably isn't worth your time.

In October, the White House issued the same message. It's nothing particularly new. As early as 2010, ICE honchos have been urging their underlings to stick to the bad guys and steer clear of the grandma without a driver's license.

So we thought we'd check in on ICE. A progress report of sorts, to see whether they're enforcing federal immigration law intelligently and judiciously. The answer: more like dumbly. Still. According to data obtained by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, compiled by Syracuse University and released Monday, in the months following the memo, only 14 percent of those placed in deportation proceedings were accused of an actual crime. Enforcement for immigration infractions -- a violation of civil law -- still comprised the vast majority of detainer notices filed by ICE agents.

In Texas, the biggest deporter of 'em all, the numbers say the same thing. For the fiscal year through the end of September, immigration infractions still make up more than 80 percent of all deportation proceedings in immigration court. Less than three percent are aggravated felonies. Miscellaneous "other criminal charges" account for 13 percent. "National security charges" -- whatever that means -- are less than 3 percent. And Texas deportations for terrorism: nada.

Perhaps it's time for Morton to issue another memo. Problem is, ever since the union that represents ICE agents cast a unanimous vote for no confidence in the director, it's probably falling on deaf ears.

"I knew I should have signed that bill with my red-white-and-blue Sharpie."

Hey, maybe this will help Rick Perry shore up support with the Tea Party's Ship-Em-Out Division and his new Arizona boyfriend: Those kooky activists at the ACLU and some of their libtard friends are pleading with the Devil HimselfUnited States Department of Justice to intervene on behalf of Texas's minority communities, which activists claim will be discriminated against under the state's new Voter ID law.

The law, one of several passed across the country in recent years, requires voters to show government ID at the polls, even if they have registration cards and are listed among the voting rolls. The laws are purportedly designed to limit voter fraud and keep illegal immigrants from stealing our nation's elections. But voter fraud -- unregistered voters successfully filing fraudulent ballots -- has been demonstrated to be a problem that's vastly overstated. And illegal immigrants, believe it or not, are actually not that big on showing up at buildings full of official paperwork.

As a result, Voter ID bills are more likely to disenfranchise poor voters, minority voters, old voters and all sorts of voters who have a relatively shitty go of it already. Thus, the Coalition of Obvious Socialists' lengthy letter, which is on display below, and which claims that the state failed to prove that the law wasn't discriminatory. (A tip of the 49ers beret to the People's Liberalation Army, aka Politico.)

The group is asking the A.G. to file an objection, which probably won't happen, but would be pretty funny. Think about it: Texas passes through its legislature a law protecting its citizens from having its elections stolen by illegal immigrants. The governor signs that legislation. As the governor surges to the top of the GOP presidential field, the ACLU asks evil feds to intervene. Evil feds send Texas a letter questioning its new law.

You think that would come up at next week's Fox News debate?

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"Let's get these studying motherfuckers."

Rest easy, Friends of Unfair Park. ICE's Counterterrorism and Criminal Exploitation Unit is on the job. In the most recent sweep, they rounded up 27 dangerous immigration violators in the Dallas-Fort Worth area -- criminals guilty largely of ... overstaying their student visas.

Not quite the stuff of Bruckheimer actioners. And how do these arrests square with the recent announcement from the Obama administration that deportation proceedings could be halted for non-criminal immigrants who pose no threat to national security or public safety?

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Tuesday night, the Department of Homeland Security Advisory Council's Task Force on Secure Communities (hold on, gotta catch my breath after that pithy title) held a pilot meeting at the Dallas County Community College's Bill J. Priest Campus to discuss ICE's controversial fingerprint screening program intended to snare dangerous undocumented immigrants. More than 150 were in attendance -- including some activists from Austin, but many locals too. And for two hours they aired their complaints about the program to the Task Force, which included Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez and Harris County Sheriff Adrian Garcia, among others.

Vanna Slaughter, director of Catholic Charities in Dallas, told the Task Force she'd been the victim of a home invasion last October. An undocumented neighbor told her she didn't know about the attack, but added, "If I did, I'm not sure I would have called the police." It wasn't exactly a ringing endorsement of humanity, but it characterized the fear pervading the immigrant community.

State Rep. Roberto Alonzo from Oak Cliff said ICE was after El Cucuy, a Mexican boogeyman that doesn't exist. A representative from the Greater Dallas Korean Chamber of Commerce said, "When I have 20 Korean businesses looted and robbed in Dallas, nobody spoke because if they spoke up, they could be fingerprinted and everything becomes known.

"This program is a tool to keep us quiet."

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