Photo by davipt/Flickr (Creative Commons)
After yesterday’s announcement from the Department of Homeland Security that it will review some 300,000 cases of immigrants in the deportation pipeline, potentially sparing many from removal, a Obama administration official posting on the White House Blog linked to “common sense guidelines” that will be applied in deciding who goes and who stays.
An excerpt from what was posted by Cecilia Muñoz, White House intergovernmental affairs director:
So DHS, along with the Department of Justice, will be reviewing the current deportation caseload to clear out low-priority cases on a case-by-case basis and make more room to deport people who have been convicted of crimes or pose a security risk. And they will take steps to keep low-priority cases out of the deportation pipeline in the first place. They will be applying common sense guidelines to make these decisions, like a person’s ties and contributions to the community, their family relationships and military service record.
The link leads back to a June 17 memo from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement director John Morton that urged agency staff to use prosecutorial discretion in the cases of certain immigrants, particularly those without a criminal record, those who arrived here as minors and those who have served or are connected to the military. From the memo, some of the factors to be considered (bold type added):
When weighing whether an exercise of prosecutorial discretion may be warranted for a given alien, ICE officers, agents, and attorneys should consider all relevant factors, including, but not limited to –
• the agency’s civil immigration enforcement priorities
• the person’s length of presence in the United States, with particular consideration given to presence while in lawful status
• the circumstances of the person’s arrival in the United States and the manner of his or her entry, particularly if the alien came to the United States as a young child
• the person’s pursuit of education in the United States, with particular consideration given to those who have graduated from a U.S. high school or have successfully pursued or are pursuing a college or advanced degrees at a legitimate institution of higher education in the United States
• whether the person, or the person’s immediate relative, has served in the U.S. military reserves, or national guard, with particular consideration given to those who served in combat
