Napolitano Predicting Record Deportations

On October 5, 2011, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Jane Napolitano wrote an Op-Ed piece for Politico about the enforcement of immigration laws.

Secretary Napolitano sought to respond to critics of immigration policy from both sides. In the editorial, she predicted that next year DHS will break records with the number of deportations from the United States but explained that "while the overall number of individuals removed will exceed prior years, the composition of that number will consist of more convicted criminals, recent border crossers and repeat immigration law violators than ever before."

The administration's focus on prioritizing which individuals should be deported with limited resources makes sense. However, her prediction that DHS will break records for deportations next year calls into questions the hope for those low-priority individuals who seek prosecutorial discretion. Rather, it seems more likely that DHS will see that "record" number of deportations for the coming year as a mandate from above or a quota. Unfortunately, the data can be easily massaged to make it look like DHS has really sharpened its focus on high-priority aliens. By lumping all criminal offenses together, DHS can crow about the removal of criminal aliens. Secretary Napolitano stated in her Op-Ed that "50 percent of immigrants removed from our country had been convicted of a criminal offense."

Such statistics don't delve into what percentage were deported for drug offenses or violent offenses and what percentage were deported after being pulled over for having a tail light out and then convicted of driving without a license because their international driver's license is only good for a short period here in the United States.

All crimes are not the same and we should remember this for the coming year when DHS produces statistics of record deportations of "criminal aliens."

Click here to see Secretary Napolitano's Op-Ed .

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First Reported Cases Benefiting from 8/18/11 Obama Administration Announcement

Scattered reports in the media have indicated that the August 18, 2011 announcement by the Obama Administration may be starting to have some effect.

CNN reports that an Arizona attorney was contacted by Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials and told that she should request that her case be dismissed. The Huffington Post reports that two teenage men in Georgia have also had their deportation cases closed under the new policy.

Despite these reports of what seems to be an implementation of the August 18 announcement, it is important to recognize that the announcement is not an amnesty and does not grant anyone legal status. There is no new application that can be filed or that a person can sign up for. The announcement does not create any new way to file for a work permit either. The American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) put out a consumer advisory warning that there is no sure way to know whether one's case would be safely considered "low priority" under the new announcement and no sure way to know that a particular "low priority" case won't be prosecuted anyway.

While it will be interesting to see if these sporadic reports turn into a general trend of closing cases deemed "low priority" by DHS, for the time being there seems to be little change on the ground.

To read the CNN article, click here;

For the Huffington Post article, click here;

To review the AILA consumer advisory, click here.

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Denver Immigration Court Overloaded

An article in Sunday's Denver Post documents the overwhelming caseload at the Immigration Court in Denver, Colorado. According to the article, two of Denver's immigration judges have as many as 2,400 pending cases each at any given time.

Judge Dana Leigh Marks, president of the National Associate of Immigration Judges, is quoted as saying that the necessarily rushed nature of the proceedings with such an inundation of cases is akin to trying death penalty cases in a traffic court setting.

With the enactment of Secure Communities and other programs designed to sweep more and more people into removal proceedings, the court's caseload seems likely to get worse. In the midst of the current budget struggles, it is difficult to envision Congress passing funding for more immigration judges and court staff to ensure due process and meaningful hearings in immigration court.

To read the article in the Denver Post, click here.

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Staunch Cold War Ally Faces Deportation from U.S.

General Eugenio Vides Casanova, a former defense minister from El Salvador, was found by a 1983 United States Department of State report to have "acquiesced" in the cover-up to the rape and murder of four Catholic nuns and the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero. He has also been found liable for the brutal and systematic torture of the detained Salvadorans during his time in power.

At the same time, Mr. Vides Casanova was a valued cold war ally of the United States who was praised for his iron-fisted approach to the battle with marxist guerillas. He was awarded the Legion of Merit award by President Reagan. He eventually retired to a coastal community in Miami, Florida.

Now, the Department of Homeland Security is seeking to deport this once valued ally for his role in torture and other human rights abuses. An immigration court in Florida is scheduled to hear Mr. Vides Casanova’s removal proceedings this week. Though normally removal proceedings take only a half-day, the immigration court has scheduled Mr. Vides Casanova’s case for a full week. Former U.S. ambassadors are supposed to both testify against Mr. Vides Casanova and in his defense.

This case involves a fascinating intersection between the U.S. history of realpolitik foreign policy in opposing leftists and Latin America and the Department of Homeland Security’s desire to deport a man responsible for severe human rights abuses. It will be interesting to see how it unfolds.

For more on the removal proceedings against General Eugenio Vides Casanova, click on the following links:

-article from the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting;

-article from The Guardian;

-article from The New York Times.

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Motions to Reopen from Abroad

The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals is being urged to reconsider its decision upholding a Board of Immigration Appeals regulation barring foreign nationals from filing motions to reopen from outside the United States. The Tenth Circuit's 2009 decision in Rosillo-Puga v. Holder is contrary to the position of the five other circuit courts to consider the issue. The case of Contreras-Bocanegra v. Holder is currently before the Tenth Circuit and the foreign national and amici curiae in that case are urging the court to grant en banc review of the case and then reverse course and recognize noncitizens' opportunity to seek review of unfavorable decisions from outside the United States.

For legal analysis of the Tenth Circuit's decision in Rosillo-Puga v. Holder, see my comment on the Denver University Law Review Online.

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Record High Deportations from U.S.

On October 6, 2010, Immigration and Customs Enforcement ("ICE") announced that it had deported more people in fiscal year 2010 than in any year in history. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and ICE Director John Morton announced that they had deported 392,000 people. According to ICE, more than 195,000 of the people deported had been convicted of some crime.

While those who see enforcement as the only important policy piece of our immigration system will likely be happy to see the record numbers, one has to wonder whether the immigration court staff is growing at an similar rate in order to ensure that all are afforded full and meaningful due process before being removed.

To see the ICE announcement, click here.

For a New York Times article on the record numbers, click here.

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Major Colorado ICE Operation Leads to Arrests

According to the Denver Post, Immigration and Customs Enforcement ("ICE") has just completed a three-day operation which led to the arrest of 78 immigrants in towns across Colorado and in the town of Wamsutter, Wyoming. Using a law called Reinstatement of Removal, ICE has stated that those with prior orders of removal will be immediately removed from the country. Those subjected to Reinstatement of Removal will not have the opportunity to present a case for relief from removal in front of an immigration judge.

Read the full article from the Denver Post here.

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ICE Helps to Arrest Gang Members in New Orleans

Yesterday U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) reported that its office, along with the Offices of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO), U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and various local law enforcement agencies in the New Orleans area, arrested twenty-eight individuals with ties to the MS-13 and Latin Kings street gangs. After a three-day operation in the New Orleans area, the twenty-eight individuals are now facing criminal charges or deportation. Of the twenty-eight arrested, eighteen are from Mexico, six are from Honduras, three are from El Salvador, and one is from Guatemala.

These arrests were made as part of Operation Community Shield, which is “an ongoing initiative by the ICE HSI National Gang Unit in which the agency uses its powerful immigration and customs authorities in a coordinated strategy to attack and dismantle criminal street gangs across the country.” According to the article, HSI’s National Gang Unit “identifies violent street gangs and develops intelligence on their membership, associates, criminal activities and international movements” in order to stop gang operations.

Operation Community Shield began in February 2005, and to-date, ICE agents nationwide have arrested more than 18,000 gang members and gang associates, who are frequently foreign-born individuals involved in human and contraband smuggling, immigration violations and other crimes with a connection to the border.

For more information, please visit http://www.ice.gov/pi/nr/1009/100923neworleans.htm

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