Thursday, November 17, 2011

Feds Began Reviewing Illegal Immigrant Deportation Cases To Determine Who Can Stay In The U.S.

The Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department to review 300,000 pending deportation cases.

By H. Nelson Goodson
November 17, 2011

Washington, D.C. - On Thursday, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) began a national comprehensive training program for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to begin enforcement of a policy to screen non-criminal and criminal illegal immigrants detained. Federal prosecutors and ICE agents will now be expected to review case-by-case detentions to determine and deport those illegal immigrants that have returned illegally to the U.S., been convicted of serious and felony criminal acts. Those illegal immigrants who have been detained, but are not considered dangerous, a national security threat, young school children and college students considered DREAMERs (qualify under the DREAM Act), elderly, undocumented veterans and heads of families that are dependent to support families won't be prioritised for deportation.
Those detainees considered recipients of the ICE immigration stay policy will be able to qualify for legal yearly stays, which would be determined during immigration hearings. The action to allow non-criminal detainees to remain in the U.S. is expected to relieve the conjested federal immigration court system.
Being in the U.S. illegally is a federal civil violation and not a federal criminal act, unless the individual has been priviously been deported.
The recent action taken by the DHS, DOJ and ICE to screen detainee cases was authorized by an administrative discretionary memo (internal policy) introduced back in June by John Morton, ICE Director and supported by the Obama administration. In the memo, Morton orderd all ICE field office directors, special agents in charge and all chief counsels to use or exercise prosecutorial discretion dealing with the apprehension detention and removal of illegal immigrants.
Instead, ICE and the Obama administration have focused on prosecuting those illegal immigrants who have been deported, but had decided to returned to the U.S illegally once more, which federal prosecutions increased by 42 percent within the first two years, since President Obama took office. The federal prison system reported an increase of incarcerations of illegal Hispanic convicted felons for returning to the U.S. after they were deported.
ICE despite the stay policy will continue to deport more than 1,000 illegals per month or more than 400,000 per year. Since President Obama took office, more than 1 million undocumented immigrants have been deported.
Overall, in Fiscal Year (FY) 2011 ICE's Office of Enforcement and Removal Operations removed 396,906 individuals, which is the largest number deported in the agency's history. Of these, nearly 55 percent or 216,698 of the people removed were convicted of felonies or misdemeanors, an 89 percent increase in the removal of criminals since FY 2008. This includes 1,119 aliens convicted of homicide; 5,848 aliens convicted of sexual offenses; 44,653 aliens convicted of drug related crimes and 35,927 aliens convicted of driving under the influence.

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