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DRO (Detention and Removal Operations)

CALL DRO: 202-353-8003 to Remove Aliens

Quote: Simply stated, DRO’s ultimate goal is to develop the capacity to remove all removable aliens.

Mission
DRO promotes public safety and national security by ensuring the departure from the United States of all removable aliens through the fair and effective enforcement of the nation’s immigration laws.

Ten-Year Vision
Within 10 years, DRO will have the capacity to meet all presidential and congressional mandates.

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Detention and Removal Operations (DRO)
The Office of Detention and Removal (DRO) is a division of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

DRO represents the final step of the immigration enforcement process. DRO serves the public by removing unauthorized aliens from the United States. The resources and expertise of DRO are utilized to transport aliens, manage them while in custody and waiting for their cases to be processed and to remove unauthorized aliens from the United States when ordered.

DRO is committed to providing this service in a professional, effective and efficient manner while addressing the rights, needs and interests of all its various stakeholders. Primary customers include: the U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Therefore, DRO must immerse itself within the immigration enforcement process and establish a significant and collaborative presence with its service and enforcement partners and stakeholders.

Mission
DRO promotes public safety and national security by ensuring the departure from the United States of all removable aliens through the fair and effective enforcement of the nation’s immigration laws.

Ten-Year Vision
Within 10 years, DRO will have the capacity to meet all presidential and congressional mandates.

Making this happen will require:

Visionary leadership at all levels of the organization;


An effectively trained and educated professional workforce;


The right levels of critical resources, e.g., personnel, facilities, infrastructure; and


Effective, responsive, and accurate command–control–communicationsâ€⠀œcomputer–intelligence (C4I) systems that advance the DRO mission.
DRO Strategic Plan 2003-2012

Program and Activity Information
Removals
The primary responsibilities of DRO are to provide adequate and appropriate custody management to support removals, to facilitate the processing of illegal aliens through the immigration court, and to enforce their departure from the United States. Key elements in exercising those responsibilities include: identifying and removing all high-risk illegal alien fugitives and absconders; ensuring that those aliens who have already been identified as criminals are expeditiously removed; and to develop and maintain a robust removals program with the capacity to remove all final order cases - thus precluding growth in the illegal alien absconder population.

Simply stated, DRO’s ultimate goal is to develop the capacity to remove all removable aliens.

The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) grants aliens the right to a removal proceeding before an immigration judge to decide both inadmissibility and deportability. Aliens can be removed for reasons of health, criminal status, economic well-being, national security risks and others that are specifically defined in the Act. An immigration judge weighs evidence presented by both the alien and DHS, assesses the facts and renders a decision that can be appealed to the Board of Immigration Appeals. When the decision rendered is to depart the country, DRO takes over the responsibility to facilitate the process and ensure the alien does, in fact, depart. The process includes coordination with foreign government and embassies to obtain travel documents and country clearances, coordinating all the logistics and transportation necessary to repatriate the alien and, when required, escort the alien to his or her home of record.

Fugitive Operations
The removal of criminal aliens from the United States has become a national priority.

To address this priority, DRO designed the National Fugitive Operations Program (NFOP). Its mission is to apprehend, process and remove from the United States aliens who have failed to surrender for removal or to comply with a removal order.

NFOP teams work exclusively on fugitive cases, giving priority to the cases of criminal aliens. The “Absconder Apprehension Initiative� uses the data available from National Crime Information Center databases as a virtual force multiplier.

As part of the Alien Absconder Initiative, DRO developed and coordinated the “ICE Most Wanted� program. This program publicizes the names, faces and other identifying features of the 10 most wanted fugitive criminals by ICE.

If you have comments or questions about the Most Wanted list, the Absconder Apprehension Initiative or the National Fugitive Operations Program, please contact us at:

U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Immigration and Customs Enforcement
Office of Detention and Removal - Fugitive Operations
801 I Street, NW
Washington, DC 20536
Phone: (202) 353-8003

e-mail: ICEFUGITIVEOPS@dhs.gov

MOST WANTED Criminal Aliens (link to the Most Wanted Criminal Aliens)

Detention
The aliens (non-citizens) who are apprehended and not released from custody are placed in detention facilities. Those that cannot be legally released from secure custody constitute DRO’s “nondetained� docket. Every case, whether “detained� or “nondetained,� remains part of DRO’s caseload, actively managed until and unless it is formally closed. DRO processes and monitors detained and nondetained cases as they move through immigration court proceedings to conclusion. At that point, DRO executes the judge’s order.

Primary healthcare for alien detainees is managed by the Division of Immigration Health Services (DIHS). The DIHS is located within the Bureau of Primary Health Care of the Public Health Service of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

DRO has defined policy and procedures regarding the proper handling of unaccompanied alien juveniles taken into federal custody as a result of their unlawful immigration status. DHS’ juvenile guidelines address the responsibilities related to unaccompanied alien juveniles who enter the United States illegally, violate their legal status or commit a deportable crime. As part of the restructuring of INS, the responsibilities related to the care and custody of unaccompanied alien juveniles has been transferred to HHS, Office of Refugee Resettlement and the Division of Unaccompanied Children Services.

Immigration Detention Facilities
DRO secures bed space in detention facilities, and monitors these facilities for compliance with national Detention Standards. The standards specify the living conditions appropriate for detainees. These standards have been collated and published in the Detention Operations Manual. This Manual provides uniform policies and procedures concerning the treatment of individuals detained by ICE.

ICE operates eight secure detention facilities called Service Processing Centers (SPCs). They are located in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico; Batavia, New York; El Centro, California; El Paso, Texas; Florence, Arizona; Miami, Florida; Los Fresnos, Texas; and San Pedro, California. The newest SPC, the Buffalo Federal Detention Facility, is unique because in addition to its 300 beds for detained aliens, it has 150 beds for use by the U.S. Marshals Service.

ICE augments its SPC’s with seven contract detention facilities. These facilities are located in Aurora, Colorado; Houston, Texas; Laredo, Texas; Seattle, Washington; Elizabeth, New Jersey; Queens, New York; and San Diego, California. ICE also uses state and local jails on a reimbursable detention day basis and has joint federal facilities with the Bureau of Prisons, the Federal Detention Center in Oakdale, Louisiana, and the contractor owned and operated (with the Bureau of Prisons) criminal alien facility in Eloy, Arizona. In addition, major expansion initiatives are underway at several SPCs’.

RELATED LINKS

DRO Home Page

Contact Information

Contact SAC Field Offices

Detention Facilities

Leadership

DRO News Room
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Last Modified 02/01/2005
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