Thread: AUDIT: DHS DOES NOT FULLY MONITOR USE OF PROSECUTORIAL DISCRETION

by CAROLINE MAY
13 May 2015

The Department of Homeland Security does not fully track its uses of prosecutorial discretion in immigration enforcement matters, the department’s watchdog reveals in a new report.

In recent years, the Obama administration has used prosecutorial discretion as a means of shielding illegal immigrants from deportation via deferred action (or executive amnesty) and policies prioritizing cases for enforcement.

“DHS does not collect and analyze data on the use of prosecutorial discretion to fully assess its current immigration enforcement activities and to develop future policy. Although the Office of Policy is responsible for developing DHS- wide policies and programs, the Department has not required this office to gather or use data to assess the effect of prosecutorial discretion on immigration enforcement activities,” the report, issued by the Department of Homeland Security Office of the Inspector General, reads.

The OIG explained that with the three primary immigration enforcement bodies within DHS — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) — receiving $21 billion collectively in annual funding, the department might not be using its resources effectively and could be leaving the door open for security threats.

“As a result, DHS may not be using Government funds as efficiently as possible and may be missing opportunities to strengthen its ability to remove aliens who pose a threat to national security and public safety,” the report reads.

The OIG recommended that DHS put together a plan “to collect, analyze, and report data on the Department’s use of prosecutorial discretion” a recommendation with which the department concurred.

The report also identified several eyebrow-raising details about the administration’s use of prosecutorial discretion. For example, ICE officers revealed they cannot get the full information about an immigrant’s criminal history.

“When applying prosecutorial discretion, ICE field office personnel said they might not always have access to an individual’s criminal history in his or her country of origin. As a result, aliens convicted of or wanted for a felony committed in their home country, but not convicted of a felony or significant misdemeanor in the United States may not be identified as a DHS enforcement priority,” the report reads.

Further, the reports DHS issues annually does not include data on the use of prosecutorial discretion and ICE could not say for sure how many deferred action-eligible immigrants it had released from custody.

“ICE could not provide the number of [Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals]-eligible individuals it had released, but it recorded its use of prosecutorial discretion,” the report reads. “For example in FY 2014, ICE recorded 12,757 instances in which an ICE officer, after interviewing an individual and determining he or she was not an enforcement priority, used prosecutorial discretion to release the alien. However, according to ICE, the prosecutorial discretion data may not always be accurate and complete. ICE officials noted that field office personnel do not always record their use of prosecutorial discretion because they make these decisions daily and it would be too time consuming to record every occurrence.”

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) expressed frustration at the reports findings, calling on the Obama administration to “end its reckless policies.”

“Not only are President Obama’s unilaterally-created immigration policies and programs unconstitutional, their implementation has proved to needlessly place Americans and our country at risk. As confirmed by today’s Inspector General report, the Department of Homeland Security does not track its use of prosecutorial discretion nor does it always conduct thorough background checks on the individuals benefitting from the Administration’s lax policies,” Goodlatte said Wednesday.

“As a result, the American people are left in the dark about the effects of the Administration’s immigration policies and dangerous criminal aliens who have committed a crime in their home country may be able to find amnesty in the United States,” he added.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-governm...al-discretion/

Make DHS effective, verify that it is cost effective. If not, dissolve it. This article, assuming it is accurate, dis plays that it is being used by politicians for reasons detrimental to Homeland's security? Goodaltte, offer some legislation!

DHS Fails To Keep Track Of Number Of Illegals Allowed To Stay In U.S.

CHUCK ROSS
Reporter
2:50 PM 05/13/2015

The Department of Homeland Security does not maintain data on how many illegal immigrants it allows to stay in the U.S. through prosecutorial discretion — a failure that could have national security implications — the agency’s inspector general reported Wednesday.

“The Department’s ability to accurately assess the results of policy decisions and make needed changes is important given its modified approach to immigration enforcement,” wrote inspector general John Roth.

Though the Obama administration has implemented new policies that rolled back immigration enforcement through executive action and expanded the use of prosecutorial discretion, “the policies did not include a requirement to collect data on prosecutorial discretion for annual reporting,” according to Roth.

In June 2011, U.S. Customs and Immigration Services, a branch of DHS, issued a memo which expanded the use of prosecutorial discretion, thus granting federal immigration agents the ability to decide whether or not to release illegal aliens from federal custody. Obama followed that up with an executive action which provided amnesty to so-called DREAMers under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.

But as Roth’s report notes, DHS has not maintained consistent records to show how these policies have been implemented, a failure that could have national security and public safety implications.

“The Department may also be missing opportunities to strengthen its ability to remove aliens who pose a threat to national security and public safety,” Roth wrote.

USCIS, and two other DHS sub-agencies, Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, do collect some data on prosecutorial discretion, such as for DACA-eligible individuals.

USCIS reported that as of Sept. 30, 2014, it had approved 632,855 DACA applications while CBP released 650 DACA-eligible individuals from its custody.

While ICE records some instances of prosecutorial discretion, Roth notes that some field office personnel do not record every time it is invoked.

In fiscal year 2014, ICE recorded 12,757 instances in which an ICE officer intervened to release an alien deemed to not be an enforcement priority.

But, “ICE officials noted that field office personnel do not always record their use of prosecutorial discretion because they make these decisions daily and it would be too time consuming to record every occurrence,” Roth reported.

Though ICE did keep some statistics on its use of prosecutorial discretion, it did not maintain records of how many DACA-eligible individuals it released.

Roth notes that while DHS reports enforcement data such as alien apprehensions, detentions and removals, its reports do not include prosecutorial discretion data.

Roth suggests that DHS could begin gathering data on aliens who receive prosecutorial discretion but later commit a crime or pose a threat to national security or public safety.

Roth also noted another “potential issue” that could have national security and public safety implications.

“ICE field office personnel said they might not always have access to an individual’s criminal history in his or her country of origin. As a result, aliens convicted of or wanted for a felony committed in their home country, but not convicted of a felony or significant misdemeanor in the United States may not be identified as a DHS enforcement priority.”

http://dailycaller.com/2015/05/13/dh...o-stay-in-u-s/

MAY 19, 2015

The monstrous agency created after 9/11 to protect the United States from more terrorist attacks instead compromises national security by failing to track how many unauthorized foreigners—some felons in their native country—it refuses to prosecute under President Obama’s broad amnesty initiative.

One of the president’s many tools to reward illegal immigrants with amnesty is a measure known as prosecutorial discretion, which allows federal agencies to decide to what degree they enforce certain laws against particular individuals. For years the system has spared a myriad of illegal aliens from removal by authorizing—and encouraging—low-level field officers to block deportations by using an outrageously broad list of exemptions. Under prosecutorial discretion guidelines issued in 2011, droves of illegal aliens have been allowed to stay in the country, but no one really knows the exact amount.

That’s because, unbelievably, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) doesn’t bother keeping track of the illegal immigrants it has failed to prosecute under the directive. In fact, the agency doesn’t even have a data-gathering system in place to document when agents exercise prosecutorial discretion, according to a report made public this month by the DHS Office of Inspector General (OIG). This could create a national security risk, the agency watchdog writes, further stating that DHS “may be missing opportunities to strengthen its ability to remove aliens who pose a threat to national security and public safety.”

It gets better. The OIG reveals that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents admit that their agency regularly grants illegal immigrants prosecutorial discretion without bothering to access criminal records in the country of origin. “As a result, aliens convicted of or wanted for a felony committed in their home country, but not convicted of a felony or significant misdemeanor in the United States may not be identified as a DHS enforcement priority,” the report states. It gets even scarier. ICE officials say field personnel don’t always record their use of prosecutorial discretion because they exercise it daily and it would be “too time consuming to record every occurrence.”

Furthermore, investigators from the OIG found that DHS also fails to keep adequate records of illegal aliens released under an Obama amnesty program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). The president launched DACA in 2010 and thousands of illegal immigrants, brought to the U.S. as children “through no fault of their own, have been spared deportation. A few years ago Judicial Watch obtained government documents showing that DHS abandoned required background checks—instead adopting costly “lean and lite” procedures—in order to keep up with the flood of amnesty applications spurred by DACA.

As of September 2014 U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) reported that it had approved 632,855 DACA requests and the U.S. Border Patrol reported it had released 650 individuals eligible for DACA, the DHS Inspector General reveals. Incredibly, the various DHS agencies cannot provide the number of DACA-eligible illegal aliens they had released. The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Bob Goodlatte of Virginia, called on the Obama administration to end its reckless policies. “Not only are President Obama’s unilaterally-created immigration policies and programs unconstitutional, their implementation has proved to needlessly place Americans and our country at risk,” the Virginia congressman said in a statement issued in the aftermath of the report.

http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/20...safety-threat/