How Trump Changed The Rules To Arrest More Non-Criminal Immigrants

@TalKopan:

Where the Obama administration focused deportation efforts almost exclusively on criminals and national security threats, as well as immigrants who recently arrived illegally, the Trump administration has also targeted immigrants with what are called final orders of removal -- an order from a judge that a person can be deported and has no more appeals left.

In Trump's first year, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested 109,000 criminals and 46,000 people without criminal records -- a 171% increase in the number of non-criminal individuals arrested over 2016.

Critics say including people with decades-old final orders of removal as priorities is more about boosting numbers by targeting easily catchable ."

Sandweg said that people with final orders, especially those who are checking in regularly with ICE, are easy to locate and can be immediately deported without much legal recourse. Identifying and locating criminals and gang members takes more investigative work.

A final order of removal is absolutely not indicative of a person's threat to public safety," said former Obama administration ICE chief and DHS counsel John Sandweg. "You cannot equate convicted criminals with final orders of removal

There are more than 90,000 people on so-called orders of supervision who check in regularly with ICE officials, according to the agency. And there are more than 1 million who have removal proceedings pending or who have been ordered to leave the country but have not.

The Trump administration has subtly blurred the distinction between criminals and those with final orders of removal, which is a civil, not criminal charge.

ICE has combined "ICE fugitives" -- people who have been ordered to leave the country but haven't yet -- with convicted criminals who have pending criminal charges and reinstated final orders of removal, allowing the agency to say 92% of those arrested under Trump had criminal convictions or one of the other factors -- when the number with criminal records is closer to 70%.

Sandweg said the Obama administration in 2014 changed its priorities to move away from those with old removal orders in order to give itself more resources to pick up targets from jails, which can be hours away from ICE offices, when they get word that a criminal could be detained on immigration charges.

"Setting enforcement priorities is not micromanagement, that's what every law enforcement agency does," agreed Cooper.

As for whether ICE was handcuffed during the Obama era, Saldana said that even in Trump's executive order, there is room for discretion.

"That's silly," Saldana said. "Can you imagine having 11, 12 million in the system? The cost would be extraordinary, so you have to make priorities and work that way. ... You can't sweep everybody into one category. Not everyone is a contributor to society, and not everyone is a criminal."


https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/02/polit...ons/index.html

It's just a matter of time before they start sending notices to TPS, non-Daca Dreamers with final orders, to check in for deportation. Speak up! Call and write Congress to reestablish priorities. Watch out for corrupt Democrats and Republicans who want to increase detention beds in the current budget.

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Morally speaking, who is "worse"? Someone who came here illegally without ever checking in or trying to do it make any attempt; or someone who came here illegally or legally and became illegal and tried to fix it and got a final order? If this was the only two choice, it seems unfair that the ones who actually tried to do something legally and failed are the ones that aren't shown any mercy.

Exactly. In our case, as usual, it was bad legal advice and professional malpractice from the original attorney.

Preach.

Yeah in our case, our relatives who were here tried to find a lawyer but all the good ones were busy with cases and couldn't just drop everything and show up at the INS so they found a guy who spoke broken English and just took the money without actually guiding us.

My current attorney is very good at shooting down bad ideas, even if it means he won't make money.

Journalists need to report that all with final orders are targets - there are thousands of Daca recipients and TPS recipients with final orders.

The moment tbeir protections expire they can be deported. Worse for those who cannot apply in the first place.