Thread: Judges Revive Catch-and-Release For Migrants With Children

Judges Revive Catch-and-Release For Migrants With Children

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Joe Raedle/Getty Images12 Jul 2018Administration officials are releasing thousands of migrants with young children into the United States, as required by judges, marking the return of catch-and-release policies for migrants with children.

Migrants with children are being released with ankle monitors so they can be tracked by border officials.


Officials admitted that the ankle-monitors do little to help enforcement officers find and repatriate the vast majority of the migrants who lose their asylum pleas, and that a large percentage of the first set of migrants’ children are not being reunified by their parents because of concerns about criminal activity. Also, some of those released parents reportedly prefer to leave their children with relatives in the United States to use schools and gain residency.


The initial wave of judge-ordered releases covers the migrants who brought 103 children younger than five. Of the 103, some 57 have been released and reunified with their children pending court hearings on the parents’ claims for asylum. However, 46 of the young children have not been returned to parents for a variety of reasons, including pending charges against their parents.


Officials will soon start reunifying roughly 2,000 parents with older children aged between 5 and 17, as required by judges.


Most of the migrants were separated from the children from April to June when President Donald Trump directed the end of catch-and-release for illegal migrants and asylum-seekers. This zero-tolerance policy required housing children in shelters while their parents were kept in detention until their legal claims were adjudicated. But a furious rage of protest about “family separation” by progressives and media successfully pressured Trump to release parents of children pending their legal claims.


The reunification of the parents and children has highlighted several difficult issues, such as the useless of ankle bracelets.


“On those individuals which we are required to release pursuant to the court order, generally, they will be placed on ankle bracelets to provide us a higher level of monitoring of their activities once they have been released,” said Matthew Albence, the Executive Associate Director of enforcement division at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. He spoke via phone at a July 10 press conference:

The use of the ankle bracelet is a tool which we use to hopefully encourage compliance from the individual that has been released to appear for their hearings … It has been effective with regard to ensuring appearance at hearing and meetings. It is not an effective removal tool. While we have a large number — over 80,000— of individuals on [ankle bracelets] last year. Thatled to barely more than 2,400 removals, so it is not an effective removal tool, it is merely used to gain compliance with individuals going through the court process.

The ankle monitors are not a good substitute for detention, said Andrew Arthur, a former immigration-court judge who now works with the Center for Immigration Studies. He said:

If the [detained] alien is detained … the alien can be quickly removed [and be sent home]. If the alien is on an ankle monitor … he simply has to cut off the ankle monitor and disappear.

The revived catch-and-release policy is being enforced by judges, said Arthur. “Given the Ms. L. [case] and the Flores settlement, I’m not sure how they would be able to detain family units for more than 20 days,” he said.


The judge-enforced revival of catch-and-release will invite more migration from Central American, Arthur wrote:

As U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) statistics reveal, the number of UACs and family units apprehended by the agency entering illegally plummeted after the inauguration of President Trump, falling from a high in FY 2017 of 22,934 (in November 2016) to a low of 2,115 (in April 2017). I wrote about this so-called “Trump effect” in a May 2017 post. In a September 2017 follow-up, however, I noted that that effect appeared to be waning. That month, 7,152 UACs and family units were apprehended by the Border Patrol, according to CBP…
The administration’s efforts to stem the flow of aliens entering the United States illegally were beginning to have an effect by June 2018, when Border Patrol arrested 34,114 aliens along the border (a 15 percent decrease over the month before), including 5,115 UACs (an almost 20 percent decrease) and 9,449 family units (a slight decrease).

Agency officials can appeal the two legal decisions requiring catch-and-release, said Arthur. But that legal process would be slow because the Supreme Court will not return until October.

However, the inflow of migrants with children may be quickly reduced by new policy guidance from Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Arthur said.


The new guidance makes clear that asylum law does not allow migrants who claim a “credible fear” of persecution by criminal gangs or violent spouses to file for asylum. It is “ very important because right now the grant rate for credible fear is 75 percent to 90 percent, and most of the people going through are claiming they will be harmed by criminal gangs or domestic abuse,” Arthur said.


“Assuming the guidance is faithfully adhered to, it would reduce the number of positive claims,” he added.


Migrants who enter the country illegally without children will be covered by Sessions’ zero-tolerance prosecution policy. That policy means single migrants are being processed en masse in courts and are quickly sent home.


But migrants can ask to apply for asylum even if they are caught sneaking across the border. That legal process takes longer than the 20-day limit set by judges for the shelter of children, allowing migrant who bring children to trigger catch-and-release.


Sessions’ credible-fear reform may reduce the inflow of parents with children to the point that nearly all can be kept in DHS-run family detention centers without catch-and-release.


The first parents released by the judges are the claimed parents of the 103 children under age 5. Of those, 57 have been released and given custody of their children.


The group includes a journalist from El Salvador, Jose Demar Fuentes, plus Olivia Caceres and their two young children, one-year-old Mateo and five-year-old Andree. Their story, according to KPBS station, is that:

Caceres entered the U.S. with Mateo’s brother, Andree, now age 5, about a month after Fuentes and Mateo asked for asylum at the San Ysidro Port of Entry. The family had traveled across Mexico together, fleeing violence in El Salvador. They split up when Mateo began to show signs of dehydration. Caceres said the couple was in a rush to get their youngest son somewhere safe …
Fuentes gave KPBS an interview from the detention center, and broke into tears multiple times when discussing his sons. Fuentes said he grew up without a father, and that there was nothing more important to him than being a present and involved parent.

The 46 under-5 children still in federal shelter include nine children whose parents are in federal or state custody facing various charges, and 12 children whose parents have been sent home. Officials have not said how many of those deported parents have declined to request the return of their children or have asked their children be assigned to relatives living in the United States.


Twenty-two of the 46 children could not be reunited “due to safety concerns posed by the adults.” A July 12 statement said:

• 22 children have been found ineligible due to safety concerns posed by the adults in question:
• 11 adults have a serious criminal history (charges or convictions for child cruelty, kidnapping, murder, human smuggling, domestic violence, etc.);
• 7 adults were determined not to be a parent;
• 1 adult had a falsified birth certificate;
• 1 adult was alleged to have abused the child;
• 1 adult planned to house the child with an adult charged with sexually abusing a child; and
• 1 adult is being treated for a communicable disease.

• 24 children are not currently eligible for reunification due to circumstances of the adults in question:
• 12 adults have been deported and are being contacted;
• 9 adults are in custody of the United States Marshals Service for other offenses;
• 2 adults are in custody of state jails for other offenses; and
• 1 adult’s location has been unknown for over a year.

https://www.breitbart.com/big-govern...with-children/

---------If the alien is on an ankle monitor … he simply has to cut off the ankle monitor and disappear.-------

Which one of our "open borders" government officials came up with this bright idea?

Apparently this is what Obama did. I don't know what GW Bush did, probably the same thing. If you can't legally detain them because of a court order, there really aren't too many options except rapid deportation which so far DOJ hasn't figured out how to do.

Originally Posted by Judy

Apparently this is what Obama did. I don't know what GW Bush did, probably the same thing. If you can't legally detain them because of a court order, there really aren't too many options except rapid deportation which so far DOJ hasn't figured out how to do.

Not necessarily true where asylum claims are concerned. AG Jeff Session's has cut down on a lot of these cases by narrowing the claims of credible fear at their initial hearing. Those not meeting the new credible fear guidelines set forth by Sessions are eligible for rapid deportation. Sessions is doing everything he possibly can, within the law, to remedy these situations. Unfortunately the DOJ and DHS are limited to the letter of the law, which includes court rulings. I personally commend our U.S. Attorney General for rewriting policies to take us away from the Obama era program which was full of loopholes. To actually change law will take an act of Congress.


AG Sessions Reforms Asylum Rules to Exclude Gang-Violence, Abuse Claims


LEILA MACOR/AFP/Getty Images11 Jul 2018321

Attorney General Jeff Sessions has directed border officers to reject migrants’ asylum requests at the initial “credible fear” stage whenever migrants claim to fear non-political gang crime or spousal abuse, according to a CNN report.

The asylum reform comes as tens of thousands of migrants try each month to join the roughly 500,000 Central Americans who have already flowed into U.S. blue-collar jobs, public schools, and working-class neighborhoods since 2009 because of migration-friendly rules set by former President Barack Obama and his elite-left aides.

The new rules also counter the migration-friendly judges who are forcing border officials to release migrants who bring children with them in just 20 days.

The reform raises the bar in the initial credible-fear interviews conducted by border officers. Under Obama’s rules, roughly 80 percent of migrants got through this stage, often just by saying they fear persecution by criminal gangs and violent spouses. Once past this “credible fear” stage, migrants can use a single child to exploit many legal loopholes and courtroom appeals which trigger the “catch and release” rules that have allowed at least 400,000 pending asylum-seekers to get work permits in 2017.

Sessions’ higher bar at the credible-fear stage allows officers to immediately send migrants and children home, or back over the border, without allowing them to begin filing for asylum. The reforms will apply to parents who bring children with them to the gates at the border, and will work alongside the zero-tolerance policies being applied to migrants who cross the border illegally.

According to CNN:

The new guidance from US Citizenship and Immigration Services … instruct[s] the officers who conduct the initial interviews at the border to reject asylum claims based on those [crime and spousal abuse] fears. Beyond that, the officers are told to evaluate whether an illegal border crossing should also be grounds for rejection, as Sessions had also argued.

The guidance also places the burden on the newly arrived immigrant to articulate their asylum claim to the fullest extent of the complex legal standard during their initial interview.

“Claims based on … the members’ vulnerability to harm of domestic violence or gang violence committed by non-government actors will not establish the basis for asylum, refugee status, or a credible or reasonable fear of persecution,” the guidance states.

The rules still allow migrants to immediately appeal their claim to an immigration judge, but the process is complex. Also, the immigration judges work for Sessions, and they will also implement his new directive.

Many migrants are coached on the immigration rules by smugglers, pro-migration lawyers, or their relatives who successfully reached U.S. cities. For example, the New York Times reported June 22:

“This is the reason I brought a minor with me,” said Guillermo T., 57, a construction worker who recently arrived in Arizona. Facing unemployment at home in Guatemala, he decided to head north; he had been told that bringing his 16-year-old daughter would assure passage. He asked that only his first named be used to avoid consequences with his immigration case.

“She was my passport,” he said of his daughter.

Immigration lawyers oppose the Sessions reforms, which will likely reduce the number of cases for immigration lawyers.

(((Greg Siskind)))

✔@gsiskind


Outrageous.


Dara Lind



✔@DLind


Welp, this final guidance on implementing Sessions’ asylum ruling in Matter of A- B- appears to go a bunch further than the interim guidance I posted a few weeks back. Going to be very interesting to see how this goes. https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/11/polit...ons/index.html …


12:28 AM - Jul 12, 2018 · Tennessee, USA

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Sessions can set the new policies because he is in charge of the immigration courts and write the rules.

For more than a year, he has been rewriting the Obama-era regulations step-by-step, even as he also fight many lawsuits launched by pro-migration groups.

Sessions is preserving the traditional asylum rules, ensuring protection for people who are being persecuted for their religion or politics or membership in a particular social group.

https://www.breitbart.com/big-govern...olence-claims/

I was referring to use of the ankle bracelets.

Originally Posted by stoptheinvaders

---------If the alien is on an ankle monitor … he simply has to cut off the ankle monitor and disappear.-------

Which one of our "open borders" government officials came up with this bright idea?

This is the result of corrupt or incompetent judges who are not held accountable for their stupid rulings.

If the Border Patrol can't keep them in custody, an ankle bracelet is about to only other way to keep track of them. However, if they cut off the ankle bracelet, do police put out an APB? The extra resources needed would take way from the violent criminals they need to pursue. So it is a go-free-card which costs us extra for the bracelet and monitoring. American loses no matter what.

And how much do these ankle bracelets cost taxpayers?

Put them in ankle CHAINS, load on a bus and get them out of here!

Originally Posted by Judy

I was referring to use of the ankle bracelets.

Yet you didn't mention them anywhere in your post!

It was the point of the article I was commenting on.

Originally Posted by jtdc

American loses no matter what.

Exactly! and it appears this is by design.