During the debate last night, Mitt Romney offered up the idea of “self-deportation”, which sounds like something you shouldn’t do because you’ll go blind, but which actually just describes the idea of making life completely miserable for immigrants so they’ll give up on America and go home.

The White House announced that Cecilia Muñoz, currently the director of intergovernmental affairs, will become the director of the Domestic Policy Council, replacing Melody Barnes. It’s a strange choice, because she’s caught up in the controversy over the Secure Communities program, which has near-universal condemnation in the Hispanic community.

In potentially good news on the immigration front, the Obama Administration will change the rules for immigrants who apply for legal status. They will allow children and spouses of US citizens applying for legal status to go through the process while staying in the country, rather than the current rule, where the applicant has to leave the country while requesting the waiver.

If you want to understand why the Obama Administration should have some concern about Latino voter turnout in 2012, it’s partly because under his Administration, ICE keeps rounding up American citizens, misidentifying them, and wrongly deporting them.

This deportation review is unlikely to stop the record level of deportations, which hit 400,000 last year. Obama Administration official Cecilia Munoz admitted on a Frontline documentary this week that “As long as Congress gives us the money to deport 400,000 people a year, that’s what the administration is going to do.”

That’s a pretty shocking admission.

The news that the Obama Administration deported 400,000 undocumented immigrants in the last fiscal year, setting another record, did not come as welcome news to immigration advocates. The Administration claims there is new focus on just criminals, but what do they define as “criminal”?

David Dayen’s New Roundup from Tuesday night, October 18, 2011. Stories on Israel/Palestine prisoner exchange, record deportations, Snowe, Tester, Liz Warren, James Kwak, Corray, and many more.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) announced a roundup over the last week of nearly 3,000 alleged criminal immigrants from across the country. The action follows a recent order from the Department of Homeland Security to focus only on serious criminals in their deportation efforts. But why is the Department of Justice undermining the Dream Act?

Latino and immigration activists have staged mass walkouts of federal task force hearings over the Obama Administration’s immigration and deportation policies, including “Secure Communities.” This week that pressure had an impact, as the Administration revised its rules. But activist groups aren’t satisfied.

Here’s the list or the latest civil liberties stories. Protests and civil disobedience against the Obama administration’s “Secure Communities” program have taken place all over the country, while protests and violence continue in the UK. Plus updates in wikileaks and much more.