DENVER (AP) — While her 5-year-old son slept in her arms, a woman from El Salvador spoke of fleeing the sexual harassment of violent gang members, as immigration judges in Denver began video proceedings Monday in asylum cases of mothers and children being held at a remote New Mexico deportation center.

The 27-year-old woman, who appeared over a video screen and spoke through a translator, promised a judge she would not flee if she were released to family in Los Angeles and vowed to seek U.S. citizenship.

Hers was among the first of scores of cases that have been moved from Arlington, Virginia, to judges in Denver. Officials say it makes more sense to hold the proceedings in the same time zone as the detention center in Artesia, New Mexico.

The change in venue came after immigration lawyers filed a lawsuit seeking to block deportations from Artesia, saying immigrants don’t have proper access to lawyers and were being forced to clean restrooms and retell stories of violence and rape in front of children.

A surge of cases involving immigrants from Central America has backed up federal courts and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Immigration judges Eileen Trujillo and Donn Livingston were scheduled to hear 36 cases Monday, most involving women from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.

Colorado Springs immigration attorney Stephanie Izaguirre, who has traveled to Artesia to represent immigrants, welcomed the change in courts. She said some of the children were getting sick and refused to eat the food in the detention center.

Most of the women are seeking asylum from abusive relatives and violent street gangs. Accompanied by an 11-year-old daughter, Izaguirre’s client said she was fleeing a violent husband in El Salvador who was recently released from prison in a murder case.

Izaguirre testified that the woman’s husband is looking for her now that he is free, so she fled to the U.S. with the help of smugglers. She did not get far before she was stopped by U.S. Border Patrol agents.

Trujillo postponed a bond hearing for that woman. Later, she set a $5,000 bond for the woman and her 5-year-old son seeking to live with her parents in Los Angeles.

The judge’s order came over the objections of Homeland Security attorney Nathan Herbert, who cited, among other concerns, national security risks posed by the recent influx of immigrants.

“I understand the general problem with people being allowed to enter the country unimpeded,” Judge Livingston said before setting a $12,000 bond for yet another woman who said she was beaten and raped in El Salvador when she refused to date a gang member.

Livingston said the woman’s U.S. connections, including family in Kansas City, Kansas, took precedence over U.S. security concerns.

• Immigration Issues
• Crime & Justice
• El Salvador

PHOENIX (AP) — A Mexican woman who claims her five-day detention at a federal immigration office was an illegal arrest filed the first lawsuit challenging enforcement of Arizona’s landmark immigration enforcement law.

Opponents of the 2010 law have already filed lawsuits that questioned the constitutionality of the law’s provisions, but Thursday’s filing by Maria del Rosario Cortes Camacho marks a new type of challenge that alleges constitutional violations in how a police agency enforced the law.

Cortes, a domestic violence victim who had applied for a visa allowing her to remain in the U.S. to assist authorities with the case, alleged two Pinal County sheriff’s deputies had unreasonably prolonged the length of a September 2012 traffic stop that was prompted by her cracked windshield. She also accuses the officers of making an illegal arrest by bringing her in handcuffs to a Border Patrol office about 13 miles away where she was detained for five days.

“Our deputies took the exact actions as what is required by law,” Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu said in a written statement.

In the earlier lawsuits over the law, critics said Latinos in Arizona would face systematic racial profiling in the enforcement of the statute and argued that the state law was trumped by federal immigration statutes.

The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the Arizona law’s most contentious section — a requirement that police, while enforcing other laws, question the immigration status of those suspected of being in the country illegally. But the courts have either struck down or blocked enforcement of other sections of the law known as SB1070, such as a requirement that immigrants carry registration.

While Cortes’ case marks the first challenge based on the law’s enforcement, several legal claims that serve as precursors to lawsuits have been filed in Tucson and South Tucson, alleging violation in how the law is carried out.

Cortes was pulled over in Eloy, about 65 miles southeast of Phoenix, as she was driving home and told one of the officers about her visa application but he wasn’t interested in looking at it, according to the lawsuit. She was cited for having a cracked windshield, driving without a license and failing to show proof of insurance. Cortes was taken to a Border Patrol office in nearby Casa Grande.

The lawsuit alleges the officers violated Cortes’ Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable seizures by prolonging the length of her stop after the original purpose of the traffic stop was completed. She alleges the stop was prolonged based on her immigration status.

Dan Pochoda, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona, which filed the lawsuit, said the officers didn’t understand it’s generally not a criminal act for an immigrant without permission to be in the country to remain in the United States, so the deputies’ belief that she was here illegally didn’t provide constitutional justification for detaining her.

“To say that SB1070 made me do it feeds into some people’s worst law enforcement practices,” Pochoda said.

Babeu said Cortes acknowledged not being a U.S. citizen, was cited for traffic violations and, as part of enforcing state immigration law, was brought to a federal immigration office so authorities there could determine her immigration status.

Cortes, who didn’t allege racial profiling in her lawsuit, is seeking unspecified damages.

• Immigration Issues
• Politics & Government

PHOENIX (AP) — A Mexican woman who claims her five-day detention at a federal immigration office was an illegal arrest filed the first lawsuit challenging enforcement of Arizona’s landmark immigration enforcement law.

Opponents of the 2008 law have already filed lawsuits that questioned the constitutionality of the law’s provisions, but Thursday’s filing by Maria del Rosario Cortes Camacho marks a new type of challenge that alleges constitutional violations in how a police agency enforced the law.

Cortes, a domestic violence victim who had applied for a visa allowing her to remain in the U.S. to assist authorities with the case, alleged two Pinal County sheriff’s deputies had unreasonably prolonged the length of a September 2012 traffic stop that was prompted by her cracked windshield. She also accuses the officers of making an illegal arrest by bringing her in handcuffs to a Border Patrol office about 13 miles away where she was detained for five days.

“Our deputies took the exact actions as what is required by law,” Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu said in a written statement.

In the earlier lawsuits over the law, critics said Latinos in Arizona would face systematic racial profiling in the enforcement of the statute and argued that the state law was trumped by federal immigration statutes.

The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the Arizona law’s most contentious section — a requirement that police, while enforcing other laws, question the immigration status of those suspected of being in the country illegally. But the courts have either struck down or blocked enforcement of other sections of the law known as SB1070, such as a requirement that immigrants carry registration.

While Cortes’ case marks the first challenge based on the law’s enforcement, several legal claims that serve as precursors to lawsuits have been filed in Tucson and South Tucson, alleging violation in how the law is carried out.

Cortes was pulled over in Eloy, about 65 miles southeast of Phoenix, as she was driving home and told one of the officers about her visa application but he wasn’t interested in looking at it, according to the lawsuit. She was cited for having a cracked windshield, driving without a license and failing to show proof of insurance. Cortes was taken to a Border Patrol office in nearby Casa Grande.

The lawsuit alleges the officers violated Cortes’ Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable seizures by prolonging the length of her stop after the original purpose of the traffic stop was completed. She alleges the stop was prolonged based on her immigration status.

Dan Pochoda, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona, which filed the lawsuit, said the officers didn’t understand it’s generally not a criminal act for an immigrant without permission to be in the country to remain in the United States, so the deputies’ belief that she was here illegally didn’t provide constitutional justification for detaining her.

“To say that SB1070 made me do it feeds into some people’s worst law enforcement practices,” Pochoda said.

Babeu said Cortes acknowledged not being a U.S. citizen, was cited for traffic violations and, as part of enforcing state immigration law, was brought to a federal immigration office so authorities there could determine her immigration status.

Cortes, who didn’t allege racial profiling in her lawsuit, is seeking unspecified damages.

• Immigration Issues
• Politics & Government

By Ian Simpson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. immigration agents have arrested 19 fugitives sought for human rights violations committed in other countries, Immigration and Customs Enforcement said on Wednesday.

Arrested last week during Operation No Safe Haven, the first nationwide crackdown of its kind, the 19 have outstanding removal orders and are subject to being deported, the agency said in a statement.

Eight of the 19 are also convicted criminals. Those arrested and their home countries were not identified.

They include a West African man implicated in human rights atrocities who had been a member of a revolutionary group that murdered women and children, the statement said.

A second man was from Central America and served in a military unit implicated in human rights atrocities during civil war in the 1980s. Agents who searched his home found a cache of firearms and ammunition, it said.

Another Central American man had served in military and national police units that carried out human rights violations, the statement said.

Since 2004, ICE has arrested more than 270 people for human rights-related violations and deported more than 650 known or suspected human rights violators from the United States, it said.

ICE is pursuing more than 1,800 leads and removal cases involving suspected human rights violators from 97 countries, it said.

• Politics & Government
• Society & Culture
• human rights violations

WASHINGTON (AP) — There were about 30, all Mexican nationals desperate to avoid deportations that would separate them from their families. Living in Illinois, they appealed for help from their new U.S. senator, Barack Obama.

He turned them down.

It was one of the first times Obama could have used the power of his office to help defer the removal of immigrants who were in the United States illegally. Eight years later, with his powers magnified as president, such a decision is upon him again, this time with the status of millions of immigrants at stake.

That episode in 2006 represents just one early marker in Obama’s complicated history with the politics of immigration. The son of a Kenyan immigrant, Obama has been embraced and scorned by immigrant advocates who have viewed him as both a champion and an obstacle to their cause.

Now, perhaps paradoxically, in their anger over his delay of executive actions that potentially could give work permits to millions of immigrants living illegally in this country, these advocacy groups also hold out hope that when Obama does act, he will be aggressive and leave a mark for posterity.

“Some of the hard feelings could be forgotten at the end of the day if he acts boldly,” said Janet Murguia, the president of the National Council of La Raza, a leading Latino advocacy group.

Obama’s record on immigration, however, is one of caution and deliberation punctuated by moments of determination amid some broken promises. With the president delaying executive action until after the November congressional elections, some Democrats worry that expectations have been raised beyond what he can deliver.

“If they weren’t sky high before, they are now,” said Jim Manley, a former top aide to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. “I’m not convinced they will meet the expectations of the Hispanic community.”

White House officials say the delay will not affect the scope of what Obama intends to do. They play down suggestions he is looking to build his legacy with the decision.

“The goal is going to be to do as meaningful a package of reforms as is available to the president through his executive authority,” White House communications director Jennifer Palmieri said. “I don’t think that is going to manifestly change from September to when we do this later this year.”

The 2006 incident with the immigrants seeking to avoid deportation illustrates Obama’s past reluctance to act unilaterally and calls attention to the on-and-off relationship he has had with leaders in the Latino community.

As Obama recalls in his book “The Audacity of Hope,” a group of Chicago community advocates visited his office seeking legislation to legalize the status of that small group of Mexican immigrants. Obama didn’t want to provide special dispensation to a select group and sent an aide to decline the request, leading to a confrontation.

That year, Obama also angered Latino leaders when he voted to erect a 700-mile double fence along the U.S.-Mexico border. The measure passed the Senate 80-19, over the objections of many Latino groups who saw it as an enforcement-only alternative to a comprehensive immigration overhaul.

Over time, Obama would build a varied immigration record:

—He backed compromise legislation in 2007 from Sens. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and John McCain, R-Ariz., to overhaul immigration laws. Whether his support for a labor-backed change to the legislation contributed to the bill’s demise remains a point of debate.

—During the 2008 Democratic presidential campaign, Obama took the side of pro-immigrant forces in supporting driver’s licenses for immigrants living illegally in the United States. That stand distinguished him from Hillary Rodham Clinton, who opposed them.

—Obama galvanized Latino voters with promises to take up an immigration overhaul during his presidency’s first year. But once in office, he backed off to deal with the recession and launch a health care overhaul.

—Under his watch, deportation numbers began to rise. Immigration groups protested; Obama argued he could not act unilaterally to reduce deportations.

—In 2012, as he campaigned for re-election, his administration announced a plan to defer deportation for certain immigrants who entered the country illegally as children. Since then, the program has deferred deportation and provided work permits for nearly 600,000 immigrants.

—He backed bipartisan comprehensive immigration legislation passed in the Senate in 2013 and held out hope the Republican-controlled House would follow. This past June, Obama was finally convinced the House would not vote, and he promised to act on his own shortly after summer’s end.

—This month, Obama decided to wait until after the elections, saying he worried his actions would be undermined by campaign politics and damage any prospects of future legislation.

For Obama’s executive actions to be embraced by Latino and immigrant advocates, Murguia said, the number of people helped must far surpass the number of deportations under his administration — 2 million-plus, already.

“If he does 3 million or less, then years from now it could be said he deported as many people as he protected,” Murguia said.

White House officials caution that without a change in the law, Obama’s actions are limited.

“Whatever we do is going to be imperfect,” Palmieri said, “and is not going to be as big as we need.”

• Politics & Government
• Immigration Issues
• Barack Obama
• immigrants