CNN reports this morning, "Protesters plan to hold hands and encircle the White House on Sunday to demand President Barack Obama reject a proposed oil pipeline that would stretch from Canada to Texas."

In just a few hours, about 5,000 people are expected to converge on Lafayette Square, a small park just north of the White House, for the #Surround action against the Keystone XL pipeline.

About 50 marshalls will help to move thousands to E Street (south of the White House), 15th Street (to the east), 17th Street (to the west), and H Street (to the north) to form a 1.6 kilometre circle around the White House.

It’s a now-or-never moment for the DREAM Act, a bill that would provide a conditional path to citizenship for certain immigrant youth. The bill’s prospects won’t improve with next Congress’ influx of Republican legislators, and thousands of undocumented students and their bipartisan supporters are urging the Senate to pass the DREAM Act. But as the Senate appears ready to finally vote on the landmark bill, state lawmakers are moving in the exact opposite direction.

For the past several months, the Obama administration has relentlessly professed its commitment to targeting only the most dangerous “criminal aliens.” But a new report released this week by the Immigration Policy Center suggests that misguided Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) polices render the administration virtually powerless to fulfill its promise.

The precarious fate of comprehensive immigration reform has fallen into the hands of staunch nativists. With Republicans now leading the House and a new crop of anti-immigrant governors stepping up to bat, the road to immigration reform just became more arduous than ever.

The results of the mid-term elections are a heavy blow to immigration reform advocates who have recently contended with a DREAM Act defeat, a pandemic of state-level anti-immigrant measures, attempts to stifle Latino votes, and an allegedly disaffected Latino electorate. And, to add insult to injury, the election season was tainted by a slew of race-baiting campaign aids and sensational anti-immigrant soundbytes (AlterNet has the rundown).

Here’s the harsh truth about our immigration system: When 392,000 immigrants are detained per year and 33,000 more are detained everyday with limited staff and minimal federal oversight, institutional misconduct is inevitable.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is moving record-breaking numbers of immigrants through its ancillary agencies and, in the process, immigrant women are being raped by Border Patrol agents, LGBT detainees are being sexually assaulted at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities, and citizens and legal residents are certainly being deported.

Last October, the Obama administration’s announced their intention to reform the detention system -- to improve the management, medical care and accountability within detention centres, and make better use of low-cost alternatives to detention.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced last week that it had broken its own record for deportations, affirming the Obama administration's zeal for heavy-handed immigration enforcement. According to the announcement, deportations have increased by 70 percent since the Bush administration, totaling 392,000 in fiscal year 2010.

While the agency hailed this figure as a victory, others are taking a step back to examine the huge political, financial, and human costs associated with this administration's unapologetic and tough approach to immigration.

The human costs

A massive foreclosure fraud scandal is rocking the U.S. mortgage market. Wall Street banks and their lawyers are fabricating documents, forging signatures and lying to judges -- all to exploit troubled borrowers with enormous, illegal fees, and in some cases, improperly foreclose on borrowers who haven’t missed any payments.

The fraud is so widespread that it could put some big banks out of business and even spark another financial collapse. Fortunately, things haven’t fallen apart just yet. With strong leadership from President Barack Obama and Congress, the government can help keep troubled borrowers in their homes and prevent another meltdown.

One fraud begets another

Riding the media blitz that followed the DREAM Act’s recent defeat, Senators Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT) unveiled their own comprehensive immigration reform bills just before Congress adjourned last week. The bills are enforcement-heavy, party-line bills that were immediately referred to committee, where they are expected to languish for some time.