Thread: Insights on Immigration: deportation reprieve

Insights on Immigration: deportation reprieve

Written by
Elizabeth Aguilera
2:38 p.m., Feb. 16, 2012

Insights on Immigration panel
•Lilia Velasquez — Immigration attorney.
•David Shirk — Director of the Trans-Border Institute at the University of San Diego.
•Peter Nunez — Former U.S. attorney in San Diego and a board member of the Center for Immigration Studies.
•Ruben Barrales — Executive director of the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce.

To suggest a topic, email Elizabeth Aguilera.
U-T San Diego’s Insights on Immigration, a panel of experts who regularly explore timely and often provocative issues, was created to better explore the many facets of immigration and provide more perspectives for readers.

Q: The Obama administration has created a new system for prioritizing deportation cases. That system, called prosecutorial discretion, is meant to focus on criminals and perhaps allow others to stay in the country. What do you think of this approach?

Lilia Velasquez
A: The Obama administration’s recent policy on prosecutorial discretion is one of necessity and common sense. More than 260 immigration judges throughout the country are overwhelmed with a docket of 300,000 pending deportation cases. In some districts, it may take more than two years to hear a case. A list of positive and negative factors has been established to determine what cases are “low priority” and should be administratively closed.

It makes perfect sense that the government’s limited resources be used to remove convicted criminals rather than persons with a clean record who do not pose a danger to the community, such as victims of domestic violence or parents who care for their minor U.S. citizen children.

Prosecutorial discretion is not an amnesty program, and does not provide applicants with legal status or a work permit. This policy will benefit many immigrants whose possible removal will be deferred, but it will also help the administration of justice of our immigration courts.

David Shirk
A: There is no doubt that all people should answer for the crimes they commit. In addition to paying their debt to U.S. society, it’s also reasonable to expect that foreign guests of this country who commit serious crimes should lose their privilege to remain in the United States, whether they were legally admitted or otherwise.

The thing is, when you have 10 million to 12 million people —roughly 3% of the U.S. population— living in the shadows, you need to determine where to prioritize scarce resources. Used well and targeting the greatest threats to society, prosecutorial discretion provides a mechanism to deploy those resources in the best interests of the public.

Hence, it seems reasonable to focus on expelling, say, drug traffickers rather than illegally hired dishwashers. What both groups really need are legitimate options to earn a decent living in their home country. It would actually be in our own best interest to find ways to help boost the Mexican economy, the second-largest market for U.S. exports (after Canada). Instead, we ignore the causes and focus on the symptoms.

In comparison to shoving millions of people into boxcars, focusing on the most dangerous elements seems to be a reasonable place to start.

Peter Nunez
A: The Obama administration has created a de facto amnesty for millions of people who should be deported. Every person in the U.S. illegally, and every legal immigrant who commits a “deportable offense,” is subject to deportation. Given the enormous size of this population, which successive administrations have allowed to accumulate since the 1986 amnesty, there is some merit to establishing priorities to determine how to use the available resources to deport the worst first.

Insights on Immigration: deportation reprieve | UTSanDiego.com

The Obama administration’s recent policy on prosecutorial discretion is one of necessity and common sense. More than 260 immigration judges throughout the country are overwhelmed with a docket of 300,000 pending deportation cases.

We need more judges - not an amnesty.