ImmigrationDeportation backlog prompts DHS to review cases, procedures

In a move aimed at reducing the strain on overburdened immigration courts, DHS recently began a review of 300,000 ongoing deportation cases. Illegal immigrants with a criminal record will face expedited deportation proceedings, while many with no criminal history could have their cases closed.

Earlier this year the Obama administration decided to drastically change the way immigration officials handle deportations as deportation cases in the nation’s fifty-nine  immigration courts were “at an all-time high,” according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse..

The change in policy was originally laid out in a 17 June memo by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) director John Morton. In the document Morton directed ICE attorneys and agents to exercise “prosecutorial discretion” when approaching deportation cases.

By prioritizing certain cases, DHS hoped to “reduce inefficiencies that delay the removal of criminal aliens and other priority cases by preventing new low priority cases from clogging the immigration court dockets,” the memo said.

Morton identified a number of factors which would qualify for expedited deportation, including cases of individuals who pose a clear risk to national security, convicted felons, gang members, and those with a record of repeated illegal re-entry into the United States

Cases involving illegal immigrants who are long-time permanent residents, members of the military, or have been in the United States since childhood could have their cases closed, but not dismissed. These cases could be re-opened at any time by immigration officials, for instance if the immigrant committed a crime.

A lack of adherence to the priorities contained in the 17 June memo led DHS to take additional steps to implement the policy.

During the first stage of the review, which began on 17 November, ICE lawyers will look at all incoming deportation cases in order “to identify the cases most clearly eligible and ineligible for a favorable exercise of discretion.”

A second phase of the review will start on 4 December, during which an intra-agency team consisting of lawyers from ICE, the Department of Justice, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and Customs and Border Patrol will conduct a six-week pilot program, reviewing cases from immigration courts in Denver and Baltimore based on the 17 June prosecutorial discretion memo.

Using data gathered from the pilot, agency officials will determine how best to expand the program nationwide.

In addition to the review of current and incoming cases, on 17 November ICE began a scenario-based training program on the appropriate use of prosecutorial distraction. By 13 January all ICE officers and attorneys will have gone through the training program.

Congressional Republicans were quick to criticize the new deportations policy. In October Representative Lamar Smith (R-Texas), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, accused the Obama administration of inflating its deportation numbers and enacting the new policy with the “specific purpose of overruling or preventing orders of removal for illegal immigrants.”

The Obama administration has deported nearly 400,000 immigrants per year since 2008, culminating in a record high of 396,906 deportations in 2011 according to a report released by ICE in October. Approximately 55 percent of those deported had committed crimes, up from 35 percent in 2007.