Homeland Security Begins Dismissing Certain Deportation Cases

A timely post from www.fairus.org about the immigration non-enforcement. This follows this post about the Tea Party's quagmire and this post about the MURDER of ROBERT KRENTZ, who the protestors and boycotters won't give a solution for, but will call Americans racist for trying to prevent another MURDER, and this post which shows that there are 30,000 openly illegal immigrants in the border town of El Paso. For more interesting stories like this click here to follow this blog.


Homeland Security Begins Dismissing Certain Deportation Cases
The Houston Chronicle revealed this week that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is beginning to dismiss cases against certain aliens in deportation proceedings. According to The Chronicle, DHS is systematically reviewing thousands of pending immigration cases and moving to dismiss those filed against suspected illegal immigrants who have no serious criminal records. The local Houston office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is reviewing 2,500 cases and other ICE offices around the country are expected to follow suit. (The Houston Chronicle, Aug. 24, 2010)

ICE spokesman Richard Rocha said the review is part of the agency's nationwide strategy to prioritize the deportation of criminal aliens—meaning illegal aliens who have committed additional criminal offenses and have been caught and prosecuted. While Rocha refused to give additional details, The Chronicle extensively quotes Raed Gonzales, an immigration attorney who was briefed on the effort by DHS’s deputy chief counsel in Houston, for more details on the new policy. According to Mr. Gonzales, DHS has confirmed that it's reviewing cases nationwide and it now has five attorneys assigned full time to reviewing all active cases in Houston's immigration court. DHS attorneys are conducting the reviews on a case-by-case basis, but are following general guidelines that allow for the dismissal of cases for defendants who have been in the country for two or more years and have no felony convictions. In some instances, defendants can have one misdemeanor conviction, but it cannot involve a DWI, family violence or sexual crime. (The Houston Chronicle, Aug. 24, 2010)

ICE has not yet officially confirmed or denied The Chronicle report, but it did release a memo dated August 20, 2010 that outlines a new policy for dismissing certain deportation cases. In the memo, ICE Director John Morton announces that in order to reduce the backlog of pending immigration cases, ICE will begin dismissing deportation cases of aliens who appear eligible to adjust their status to become a legal permanent resident as the family member of a citizen or legal permanent resident. ICE estimates that this policy shift will apply to 17,000 aliens in removal proceedings. The memo does not state that criminal convictions will automatically bar the dismissal of a case, but instead provides that certain adverse factors will weigh against dismissal, including “criminal convictions, evidence of fraud or other criminal misconduct, and national security and public safety considerations.”

This latest ICE memo comes on the heels of a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) memo leaked in early August that outlines how the Obama Administration intends to use administrative means to reduce the likelihood that illegal aliens would be removed from the U.S. (See FAIR’s Legislative Update, Aug. 2, 2010). With ICE’s latest move to dismiss deportation cases, it appears that the Obama Administration is continuing to expand the scope of its strategy.