Immigration and customs enforcement officials have developed guidelines to guide officials to focus primarily on certain groups of immigrants, such as those suspected of being a threat to national security, and require high-level approval for street operations as part of a draft memorandum. obtained by BuzzFeed Notícias which, if implemented, would likely lead to a significant drop in prisons.
The draft interim guide was written by ICE Director Tae Johnson and applies to all decisions the agency makes in the US, including the arrest or detention of undocumented immigrants. It includes a section on implementing a 100-day deportation moratorium, but that plan was blocked by a federal judge in Texas on Tuesday. The judge’s order, however, did not stop the Biden government from moving forward with changing ICE’s prison priorities.
“This guidance will significantly reduce ICE operations. By imposing reporting requirements for any arrests that occur outside the administration’s narrow priorities and for any arrests that occur in general or in communities, they are almost ensuring that immigration enforcement will focus on a small number of individuals in criminal custody, ” said Sarah Pierce, an analyst at the Migration Policy Institute. “The Biden government is rapidly eliminating any Trump changes aimed at keeping unauthorized immigrants ‘looking over their shoulders’.”
ICE officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The draft directive is a step in the new government’s attempts to reform the way the ICE uses its resources and was requested by David Pekoske, acting secretary of homeland security, on January 20.
In the guideline, which would take effect on February 1, ICE officials recognize that their resources are limited, an argument that many advocates and former agency leaders have made.
“The total number of non-citizens who are estimated to be illegally present in the United States is in the millions. Meanwhile, ICE resources allow the removal of a few hundred thousand non-citizens annually … It is neither possible nor practical to prioritize every non-citizen who is illegally present in the United States, ”says the memo. “Therefore, the ICE must prioritize its resources to carry out more effective and efficient immigration surveillance, in order to manage an already overburdened number of cases.”
Former President Donald Trump’s directive in 2017 made almost all undocumented migrants a priority for prison. Not long after, ICE prosecutors were prevented from awarding damages to certain immigrants facing deportation and were ordered to review and potentially reopen previously closed cases, which was first revealed by BuzzFeed News through Freedom Act requests. of information. Therefore, the proportion of immigrants without previous criminal convictions who were being arrested and placed in the process of deportation soared.
The groups of people that ICE officers would focus on include those suspected of being a threat to national security, those who have recently crossed the border and those who have been released from prison after being convicted of an aggravated crime. The draft guidance includes an additional priority for those considered otherwise to represent “a threat to public security”.
Officers would be informed that the vague phrase should be considered to include all “relevant facts”, such as the extent, seriousness and recency of criminal activity, as well as any mitigating factors such as rehabilitation.
“When the totality of circumstances is considered, the key question in deciding whether the noncitizen poses a threat to public security is whether the continued presence of the noncitizen represents a significant and articulable danger for people in the United States,” says memo.
The draft directive requires that the decision to arrest anyone outside the three priority groups must be made “in writing” by the director of the local office and include the reason the individual is being prosecuted, that the action be in the “federal interest” and that it would not shift resources against others that have higher priorities. If there are no emergency circumstances, the report must be filed before the arrest and reported to senior leaders in Washington, DC.
Elsewhere, ICE employees wishing to make any arrests outside federal, state or local prisons or jails must have the approval of the agency’s leader, Johnson, before proceeding.
Approval must also be received before imprisonment, unless there are demanding circumstances.
The draft also requires the ICE to start recording and measuring its effectiveness by complying with the memorandum on a regular basis from 14 February. In the meantime, an internal review on the distribution of officers, policies around the discretion of the prosecutor and interaction with state and local enforcement legislation has begun.
The draft directive, if left unchanged, will be in effect as long as the Biden administration conducts its planned review of the ICE protocols, after which new priorities must be issued.