Deportation reviews

ICE deportation reviews by the numbers, explained

Photo by olongapowoodcraft/Flickr (Creative Commons)

The review of some 300,000 deportation cases in the nation’s backlogged immigration courts recently led to some confusing headlines after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced that about 16,500 pending cases would be temporarily put on hold, which some translated into these cases being “shelved.”

But that’s not exactly how it works. As the review process continues, there are no guarantees for those so far deemed eligible for relief. And even for the few spared removal to date, the future is uncertain.

Here’s some of the recently released ICE data on the deportation reviews, followed by an explanation of what it means. From ICE:

• In total, ICE has reviewed 219,554 pending cases with approximately 16,544, or 7.5%, identified as amenable for prosecutorial discretion as of April 16, 2012.

What it means: The agency has identified this many cases as being eligible for prosecutorial discretion, the guidelines for which were established by federal officials last year. The “low priority” immigrants defined in the guidelines include people who have a clean record, have close ties to the United States, have lived in the U.S. since they were minors, have served in the military or are part of a military family, have or are attempting a college education, and so forth.

But these 16,544 cases have only been identified as meeting the criteria for prosecutorial discretion. While it’s good news for those identified as eligible, there are still hoops for them to jump through, such as producing additional documentation and background checks. These cases could be at any stage in the process, and not all will make the cut. ”These cases have not been suspended,” ICE spokeswoman Barbara Gonzales clarified by phone.

Of the eligible cases identified, just a small fraction so far have been administratively closed.

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FILED UNDER: Deportation reviews, ICE, Immigration courts, Prosecutorial discretion, TRAC, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement

February 27, 2012 | 1:58 PM | By Leslie Berestein Rojas

Is prosecutorial discretion leading to fewer deportation cases?

Photo by Jose Cabezas/AFP/Getty Images

Deportees from the United States alight after their plane arrives in El Salvador, December 18, 2008

Are the prosecutorial discretion guidelines issued by the Obama administration last year having an effect on the number of deportation cases that the administration is pursuing?

A new Syracuse University report suggests yes, federal immigration officials say no, and some lawmakers are calling “amnesty” nonetheless.

First, the report: Issued in recent days by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University, the number of deportation proceedings begun in the nation’s immigration courts between October and December of last year (the first quarter of federal fiscal year 2012) “fell sharply to only 39,331 — down 33 percent from 58,639 filings recorded the previous quarter,” a drop of more than 10,000 cases filed. The report notes that since filings are typically lower at that time of year, the numbers were adjusted for seasonal drop-off. It continues:

This substantial drop may have been caused by the steps needed to implement the June 17, 2011 agency directive on prosecutorial discretion or as the indirect effect of the review announced August 18, 2011 by the Administration of all pending Immigration Court cases. The objective of these twin initiatives was to better target enforcement resources on high priority cases.

Not necessarily the case, say federal immigration officials, for whom a number of recent Syracuse University reports have been a thorn in the side. As with other recent reports from TRAC, the report uses data from the Executive Office for Immigration Review, which administers the immigration courts, and this is “essentially incomplete data,” said Gillian Christensen, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Washington D.C.

According to Christensen, “their data is only focused on the initiation of formal removal proceedings in the Executive Office for Immigration Review. It ignores the fact that we regularly remove individuals without going through formal proceedings: voluntary return, voluntary deportation, reinstatement of old removal orders. We can voluntarily return someone without going through the formal initiation of proceedings.”

The Obama administration has said that it counts voluntary removals in its overall record-breaking deportation tallies. The makeup of overall removals in any given period can shift, Christensen said, making a quarter-by-quarter comparison difficult to read.

As for the prosecutorial discretion reviews of roughly 300,000 deportation cases to be conducted in the nation’s immigration courts, as announced last summer by the Obama administration, a pilot program began in two cities, Denver and Baltimore, last November. The pilot lasted six weeks, with a little more than 1,600 cases recommended for closure once it concluded last month. But these were already pending deportation cases, which wouldn’t factor into a dip in new cases filed.

Experts have said it’s too soon to see a trend, but some lawmakers have taken the data to heart. On the House Judiciary Committee website, committee chair Lamar Smith, a Texas Republican, said in a statement linking to the TRAC report: “Last quarter’s data confirms what we knew all along: President Obama is recklessly determined to grant backdoor amnesty to thousands of illegal immigrants.”

Also in dispute is whether ICE, as the report points out, is focusing less on criminals. The Obama administration has stated that its goal is to deport criminals, with less of an emphasis on immigrants with clean records. In a similar report last year, TRAC pointed to fewer criminal cases in the immigration courts; ICE’s reply was that those deportation cases in which a crime is pointed out as part of the case make up just a portion of criminal removals overall, since many people with criminal records are removed administratively. From an ICE statement today:

When removing individuals who have been convicted of a crime and who have no lawful immigration status, like those who illegally cross our border or overstay their visa, ICE is not required to file charging documents in immigration court asserting criminal grounds of removal.

The entire TRAC report can be viewed here.

FILED UNDER: Deportation, Deportation reviews, ICE, Prosecutorial discretion, TRAC

January 30, 2012 | 2:00 PM | By Leslie Berestein Rojas

NSEERS and ‘special registration’ are gone, but long-term effects continue

Last spring, Homeland Security announced that it was officially ending what was perhaps the most controversial immigration-national security program implemented in the immediate wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, or NSEERS, focused on non-citizen men from 25 Muslim-majority countries with the goal of collecting their fingerprints, photographs, and monitoring their whereabouts.

In the beginning, those who met the criteria had to participate in a “special registration” that required reporting to immigration officials for questioning, some having to travel long distances to do so. This provision was suspended in 2003 amid much public and political criticism. But of the 83,519 men interviewed under special registration between September 2002 and September 2003, according to Homeland Security statistics, 13,799 landed in deportation proceedings.

With the entire program now gone, NSEERS-related deportation cases that remain in the system have been the focus of renewed attention lately, especially as the Obama administration begins reviewing some 300,000 deportation cases to screen out “low-priority” immigrants who may qualify to stay. KPCC intern Yasmin Nouh highlights one of these:

Photo by fazen/Flickr (Creative Commons)

Hadi Syed Zaidi is an aspiring student of industrial design and one of nearly 84,000 registrants with the now-defunct National Security Exit and Entry Registration System, known as NSEERS.

Zaidi, who was born in Pakistan and arrived in the U.S. at age four, registered with NSEERS after his 16th birthday in early 2003. Like most registrants, he had no terrorist ties. But Zaidi and his family had overstayed their visas.

He, his father, and his older brother, all of whom registered, were placed in deportation proceedings. His father was eventually able to stay legally; his brother’s deportation order remains outstanding. Zaidi faced imminent removal until earlier this month, when he was released from detention with orders to check in regularly with immigration officials. Last week he was granted a temporary stay of removal, although he can still be taken into custody.

Zaidi’s case is not uncommon. According to DHS, out of the nearly 84,000 registrants with NSEERS, around 14,000 were ordered deported and almost 3,000 were detained. But though the program has since been terminated, deportation cases initiated under NSEERS remain open.

It’s typical for cases like Hadi’s to continue even if they were initiated under the NSEERS program, says Anoop Prasad, an immigration attorney at the Asian Law Caucus.

“There have been no steps to rescind the removal orders that were issued under NSEERS,” Prasad said. “The long-term effects are that you still have thousands and thousands who have either been deported or are facing bars. Once you’ve been ordered deported, it’s very difficult to gain status to live in the United States and so they’re left in a limbo status. They can’t work or marry a U.S. citizen or have children in the U.S.”

The long-defunct special registration provision of NSEERS “continues to cause fear in the Muslim community even a decade later,” Prasad said.

This was at the core of a report released last May by the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund and New York University School of Law, which used case studies to illustrate the long-term effects of NSEERS, suggesting that Muslims continue to be targets of discriminatory immigration practices as a result of the program’s legacy. From the report:

Most of those charged with ordinary immigration violations and detained by ICE are provided a bond hearing and released after demonstrating that they are not a danger, threat to national security, or flight risk. However, lawyers report a recurring phenomenon in which Muslim non-citizens charged with minor immigration violations are detained in situations in which it is otherwise customary to release individuals.

Last June, the Obama administration welcomed what’s sometimes referred to as the Morton Memorandum, issued by John Morton, director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The memo allows immigration officials to cancel deportation proceedings for an undocumented immigrant classified as a “low priority” for removal. Some factors that qualify someone as low-priority are if he or she entered the U.S. at a young age, attended school in the U.S., has a history of military service, has immediate family living in the U.S. or is of the elderly or the ill.

Attorney Prasad says Zaidi meets the conditions outlined the memo. Zaidi’s mother, Aida Zaidi, says the family plans to reopen his appeal in hopes that he can stay permanently.

“He’s entitled to a green card,” Zaidi said of her son. “His grandmother is a U.S. citizen. His younger brother is a U.S. born citizen. The first cousin is a U.S. Marine. His youngest uncle is a U.S. Army veteran. My first cousin is in the U.S. Air Force. If they just did more background checking, they will see that we have far more ties here than in Pakistan.”