Homeland Security

Is poor communication within DHS leading to mistakes?

Photo by ☼zlady/Flickr (Creative Commons)

How much is poor communication between the agencies that handle immigration and border security a factor in costly mistakes that affect immigrants in the system? A lengthy report based on an investigation by Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General doesn’t directly answer that question, but it does make a good case that improvements are needed.

More than a decade after the 9/11 attacks prompted a massive reorganization of the agencies that oversee the immigration system, inter-agency communication remains far from optimal at various steps along the way, from the agencies that monitor immigrants’ arrival to those that enforce their exit.

The report is especially relevant given some recent erroneous deportations that have received attention, most recently that of a young Honduran-born man from Los Angeles who had been pursuing a “reasonable fear” asylum claim in hopes of avoiding deportation, fearing his gang affiliation might get him killed if he was sent back. Twenty-year-old Nelson Avila-Lopez’s deportation was suspended last fall, but soon afterward, he was sent to Honduras by mistake.

Upon his return, he was placed in a prison that burned down in February, killing him and more than 350 others. Afterward, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials attributed the deadly mistake to “probably the product of a breakdown in communications between the agency and the local immigration court.”

According to the Homeland Security OIG report, the completion and tracking of asylum cases and how the results are communicated to other agencies is just one of many things that needs improvement within the immigration system. From the report:

…the ability of the Asylum Division to track reasonable fear case completions is essential. It is generally understood that the Asylum Division considers a reasonable fear case complete when the decision is served on the applicant by the Immigration Court, as indicated by the “Decision Served” field in the Asylum Pre-Screening System (APSS), but current reasonable fear procedures do not provide explicit instructions for APSS entries for all data fields.

Improvements in data entry procedures could result in more effective overall case management, specifically in the areas of timeliness and completions. In particular, the procedures should direct users to use the date of service (“Decision served” in APSS) to communicate completion of the reasonable fear case (i.e., service of the positive or negative decision on the detainee, on ICE ERO, and on the Immigration Court) or to use the date the case is administratively closed (“Close Effective” date in APSS.)

That’s just one example, as fragmented data systems, incomplete documents and other information-sharing problems hinder cooperation between agencies. The OIG investigation concluded that while “the relationships among the DHS components with shared responsibility are professional and cooperative,” there are problems where the agencies’ missions overlap:

However, DHS officers at the sites we visited raised three areas of concern about shared or overlapping missions:

(1) The legal documents that ICE ERO receives from ICE HSI and CBP OFO to place foreign nationals in immigration hearings are not always complete;

(2) missions that overlap between ICE HSI and the U.S. Border Patrol on the northern and southern border have been a source of concern since the establishment of DHS; and

(3) both ICE ERO and asylum officers expressed frustration regarding the length of time required to process some detained asylum cases. DHS-level oversight could address these areas where bilateral efforts have not been successful.

The investigation also pointed to a loss of institutional knowledge, the product of attrition since the creation of Homeland Security in 2003, as contributing to inter-agency lapses.

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FILED UNDER: Deported by mistake, DHS, Homeland Security, Office of Inspector General, OIG

November 14, 2011 | 11:01 AM | By Leslie Berestein Rojas

Obama administration’s new deportation policy being applied unevenly

Photo by John Moore/Getty Images

A man is prepared for a deportation flight bound for San Salvador in Mesa, Arizona, December 2010

A series of recent posts on Multi-American highlighted how a new deportation policy announced in August by the Obama administration, which promised to potentially spare thousands from deportation, was being applied unevenly.

Homeland Security officials announced that they would review the deportation cases of some 300,000 immigrants deemed a low priority for removal, among them young people who arrived here as minors and had no criminal record. But people who meet the criteria for leniency have continued moving through the deportation pipeline. One prominent recent example was Matias Ramos, a UCLA graduate and student activist who in September suddenly found himself wearing an electronic shackle and informed that he was to be deported to Argentina, where he was born.

Ramos was granted a last-minute temporary reprieve, as have other potential young deportees who have been the focus of social media campaigns by student activists and advocacy groups. But while some like these have been spared, others who meet the criteria and have similar backgrounds and similarly clean records continue to be deported.

The New York Times examined the problem in a story this weekend, citing from a new report from the American Immigration Lawyers Association and the American Immigration Council. The report collected data from 252 cases handled by attorneys who had asked U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to exercise prosecutorial discretion for their clients. From the story:

“The overwhelming conclusion is that most ICE offices have not changed their practices since the issuance of these new directives,” the report found.

“This is a classic example of leadership saying one thing and the rank and file doing another,” said Gregory Chen, director of advocacy for the lawyers association. The report found that training for immigration officers on the new guidelines had been lacking.

Officials at the Homeland Security Department acknowledge the policy’s slow start. Mr. Morton’s June guidelines were followed by a three-month lull, when resistance grew among agents in the field. In late September, Ms. Napolitano and Mr. Morton went on the offensive to press the policy, and since then Mr. Morton has been on the road inaugurating training programs.

“Like any major change in enforcement policy, this is a work in progress,” Mr. Morton said by telephone from Miami, where he was joining in a training session. “I have been handling much of the initial explanation myself, because I feel so strongly about it.”

Some of the immigrants whose cases were documented in the report experienced vastly different outcomes, despite similar legal backgrounds. Included in the story are cases like that of Rubén Quinteros, a 43-year-old undocumented immigrant from Uruguay who was arrested by immigration officials eight days before his planned wedding and deported in late October. The end result of his case was a far cry from that of Manuel Bartsch, an 24-year-old undocumented man brought to the U.S. from Germany when he was 10. After fighting deportation for years, his deportation case was terminated earlier this month, and he will now be able to apply for a work permit.

Last month, Homeland Security secretary Janet Napolitano announced that a pilot program to begin reviewing the cases of immigrants deemed a low deportation priority would begin “in a few weeks.”

FILED UNDER: Politics/Justice, AILA, Deportation, Deportation policy, Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, Matias Ramos, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement

June 8, 2011 | 10:04 AM | By Leslie Berestein Rojas

Two sheriffs, two takes on Secure Communities

The sign at one L.A. County Sheriff’s Department substation, June 2011. Photo by Pyrat Wesley/Flickr (Creative Commons)

In a three-part series this week, KPCC’s Washington, D.C. correspondent Kitty Felde has been exploring the controversy over Secure Communities, a federal immigration enforcement program that also draws in local authorities. Yesterday, the Los Angeles City Council approved a resolution backing proposed California legislation that would allow individual cities and counties to opt out of the program, which they presently can’t do.

Some law enforcement officials have complained that the program, which allows for the fingerprints of people booked into local jails to be shared with immigration authorities, undermines the trust of immigrant communities and potentially impedes policing. At the same time, others have praised it.

There is a stark divide, for example, between how the program is perceived by the sheriffs in Los Angeles and San Francisco. From today’s piece:

Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca supports Secure Communities. He compares it to another collaboration with ICE called 287g, which trains deputies to identify possible undocumented inmates.

The sheriff says 287g has identified 20,000 criminal illegal immigrants in L.A. County over the past five years. Baca says 287g works because it focuses on criminal activity first.

“They have to be not only arrested for behavior, not ethnicity, or not status, and then the crime itself results in a trial and then a conviction,” says Baca. “After the conviction, they have to serve their time. And it’s at that point they are entered into the system.”

“Entered into the system” means giving details about a criminal’s immigration status to federal authorities, who then start deportation proceedings. Orange, San Bernardino and Riverside county sheriffs all adopted the 287g program and have now embraced fingerprint sharing under Secure Communities.

There has been less support for the program up north:

San Francisco Sheriff Mike Hennessey says he’s cooperated with ICE in the past, sharing information about those convicted of felonies. But in an interview with KQED, he says Secure Communities sweeps up anyone arrested.

“When you get local cops involved in enforcing immigration,” he says, “it interferes with the trust that they have with the immigrant communities that they serve, it leads to people not reporting crimes, it leads to people refusing to be witnesses because they’re afraid they’re going to be deported if they go talk to the local cops.”

Hennessey says he discovered it was impossible to simply “opt out” of the Secure Communities program. So instead, he says he’ll release low-level offenders rather than let immigration officials take them away.

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FILED UNDER: Politics/Justice, Homeland Security, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, Secure Communities

June 7, 2011 | 4:03 PM | By Leslie Berestein Rojas

L.A. votes to support a Secure Communities opt-out

Photo by Chad Miller/Flickr (Creative Commons)

Los Angeles city leaders have become the latest elected officials to shun the federal Secure Communities immigration enforcement program, which allows for the fingerprints of people booked into local jails to be shared with immigration authorities.

The City Council voted 11-1 today to support a California bill that would allow the state to renegotiate its contract with the Homeland Security department, letting cities and counties opt out of the program. The bill recently cleared the state Assembly and goes to the Senate next.

The vote on the Los Angeles resolution is more symbolic than anything, as at present, individual jurisdictions can’t choose not to participate, with the agreements between the federal government and the states. In recent weeks and days, the governors of Illinois, New York and most recently Massachusetts have announced plans to withdraw their states from Secure Communities, although federal officials have said it’s not so easily done.

The idea of the program, which began rolling out in 2008, is to ferret out deportable criminals. But critics have blasted Secure Communities for netting the wrong people, and for potentially impeding policing. This afternoon, City News Service reported that Los Angeles’ chief legislative analyst found that “nearly 70 percent of people deported under Secure Communities had no convictions or were accused of minor offenses.” From the story:

City Councilman Bernard Parks, a former Los Angeles police chief who introduced the motion supporting the state legislation, said the program was intended to target undocumented immigrants convicted of violent crimes but has gone far astray from its original purpose.

…”One of the most significant issues of Secure Communities is that it impedes victims (from) making crime reports,” Parks said. “That is a 40-year journey in the city of Los Angeles for the LAPD … finding ways through language skills and also breaking down barriers to allow victims to come in, unimpeded to report crimes.”

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FILED UNDER: Politics/Justice, Homeland Security, Los Angeles City Council, Secure Communities

December 28, 2010 | 5:30 PM | By Leslie Berestein Rojas

Immigration politics: What to expect next

Photo by Eric White/Flickr (Creative Commons)

A stretch of border fence through the desert, Imperial Sand Dunes, California.

As the 111th U.S. Congress heads out the door without an immigration overhaul to its credit and a new Republican-led House takes over in January, what happens now?

In recent days, a series of requiems have emerged for the broad reforms that were promised by the Obama administration, as have predictions of two years of enforcement-based immigration measures.

Here are a few selections:

The Washington Post published an essay by University of Southern California journalism and public policy professor Roberto Suro, former director of the Pew Hispanic Center, titled “A lost decade for immigration reform.” From the piece:

Like so much else about the past decade, things didn’t go well. Immigration policy got kicked around a fair bit, but next to nothing got accomplished. Old laws and bureaucracies became increasingly dysfunctional. The public grew anxious. The debates turned repetitive, divisive and sterile.

An Associated Press analysis predicted a much harder line on immigration over the next two years, including efforts to test interpretations of the 14th Amendment, which grants citizenship to everyone born in the United States:

In a matter of weeks, Congress will go from trying to help young, illegal immigrants become legal to debating whether children born to parents who are in the country illegally should continue to enjoy automatic U.S. citizenship.

Such a hardened approach – and the rhetoric certain to accompany it – should resonate with the GOP faithful who helped swing the House in Republicans’ favor. But it also could further hurt the GOP in its endeavor to grab a large enough share of the growing Latino vote to win the White House and the Senate majority in 2012.

A Los Angeles Times story made a similar prediction, citing some of the goals of soon-to-be house Homeland Security Committee chair Peter T. King, a New York Republican, and Lamar Smith, the Texas Republican who is to chair the House Judiciary committee:

Among other initiatives, King wants to see the Homeland Security Department expand a program that enlists the help of local police departments in arresting suspected illegal immigrants.

Texas Republican Lamar Smith, who will have oversight over deportations and arrests when he takes the gavel as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, was an author of 1996 legislation increasing penalties against illegal immigrants.

In a press conference last week, President Obama called the failure of the Dream Act his “biggest disappointment” and said he wasn’t ready to give up on the measure. The proposed legislation would have granted conditional legal status to undocumented youths who attended college or joined the military. It cleared the House earlier this month, but fell five votes short of cloture during a Senate procedural vote two weekends ago. In the 112th Congress, a bill of this nature having any success is unlikely. From The Washington Post:

Congressional Republicans said in interviews Thursday that their concerns about the measure remain strong, and both House and Senate GOP leaders said they would fight any attempt to legalize any of the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country before the administration secured the nation’s southern border with Mexico.

“It is pointless to talk about any new immigration bills that grant amnesty until we secure the border, since such bills will only encourage more illegal immigration,” incoming House Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Tex.) said in a statement.