GOPers Continue to Peddle Immigration Enforcement Conspiracy Theories
25 October 2010
Despite a record number of removals in fiscal years 2010
In August, ICE Assistant Secretary John Morton issued a memo directing legal counsel to review and terminate certain immigration court cases where the immigrant also had an application pending in front of US Citizenship and Immigration Services -- the logic being that if their status is pending, dismissing the court case would avoid duplicating resources and move people through the system faster. The new policy -- which ICE estimates may benefit 7,000 people -- would not apply to serious criminals convicted of aggravated felonies or two or more felonies. Sens. Grassley, Sessions, et al., however, call
The ICE directive, along with other recently announced detention and removal policies, raises serious questions about your Departments commitment to enforce the immigration laws. It appears that your Department is enforcing the law based on criteria it arbitrarily chose, with complete disregard for the enforcement laws created by Congress. The repercussions of this decision extend beyond removal proceedings, because it discourages officers from even initiating new removal proceedings if they believe the case ultimately will be dismissed based on the new directive.
ICE responded
The idea that DHS is engaged in ’selective enforcement’ couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, this administration has fundamentally changed the way the federal government approaches immigration enforcement, doing more to keep criminal aliens who are threats to public safety -- including murderers, rapists and child molesters -- off our streets than ever before.
The idea of questioning the administration’s “commitment to enforcement” probably seems laughable to many immigration advocates, who continue to find that the Obama administration is obsessed with immigration enforcement -- and see no real end in sight to enforcement-heavy strategies. In fiscal year 2010, for example, ICE boasted
Furthermore, prioritizing serious criminals and streamlining immigration court cases is desperately needed. Just this week, Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) released their latest numbers
The number of cases awaiting resolution before the Immigration Courts reached a new all-time high of 261,083 by the end of September 2010. The case backlog has continued to grow -- up 5.3 percent -- since TRAC’s last report three months ago, and more than a third higher (40%) than levels at the end of FY 2008.
So if removals are up and apprehension levels are so high that the immigration courts are completely backlogged, what exactly do Senators Sessions, Cornyn, Kyl, Grassley, Hatch, Coburn and Graham mean when they question the administrations “commitment to enforcement?” Isn’t streamlining immigration cases to avoid wasting resources and duplicative processes a commitment to making our immigration system work?
Wringing hands and blowing smoke are always useful tactics of distraction, particularly when the facts don’t match the political point you want to make. The question is whether these Senators actually care about efficient and common sense enforcement of our laws, or would prefer to just play at blowing the Administration’s enforcement house down.