Low-risk detainees avoid deportations

palmbeachpost.com
By John Lantigua
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Posted: 11:59 p.m. Friday, Nov. 18, 2011
Updated: 9:42 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 19, 2011



Guatemala native Anibal Mazariegos was released from detention Thursday and reunited in Indiantown with his U.S.-born children (clockwise from top left): Jordi, 13; Jacquelin, 16; Jeanette, 11; and Julieta, 11. 'I’m very happy,’ he said.

The implementation of a new national policy on deportations of illegal immigrants didn't come a day too soon for Anibal Mazariegos of Indiantown.

His attorney, Daniel Yibirin of Boynton Beach, received an emailed letter early Thursday from Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials announcing they had canceled his client's scheduled removal from the United States.

Mazariegos, 37, who works as a landscaper, was released later in the day from Broward Transitional Center in Pompano Beach, where he had been held for three weeks. Guards at the detention center had told him to pack his bag, because he was being shipped back to his native Guatemala after living for 20 years in the U.S. and raising a family in South Florida.

"He was very, very close to being deported," Yibirin said. "Basically, he would have been on a plane next Wednesday."

The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, announced Thursday that ICE was immediately beginning to train its immigration prosecutors to exercise "prosecutorial discretion" in dealing with the country's 300,000 pending deportation cases. That policy is designed to suspend the deportations of thousands of undocumented people with no serious criminal records - many in South Florida - to diminish the onerous caseload on immigration courts and to allow immigration authorities to more quickly process the cases and removals of undocumented immigrants who are considered threats.

"Beginning immediately, ICE attorneys nationwide will review all incoming cases in immigration court," the Department of Homeland Security said. "This review will help reduce inefficiencies that delay the removal of criminal aliens and other priority cases by preventing new low-priority cases from clogging the immigration court dockets."

The statement said the review will focus on cases on the immigration courts calendar but also will look at cases not yet filed in immigration court, which implies that many people who in the past have ended up in deportation proceedings may never reach that point.

Apparently toward that same end, the department said ICE agents in the field will be required to complete training by Jan. 13 in implementing the new policy in various situations.

Many agents have opposed the more lenient deportation policies espoused by the Obama administration. Chris Crane, head of the 7,000-member union for ICE agents, has denounced the new policy as "backdoor amnesty."

"Any American concerned about immigration needs to brace themselves for what's coming," Crane said when the policy changes were first floated. "This is just one of many new ICE policies aimed at stopping the enforcement of U.S. immigration laws in the United States."

But the statement Thursday indicates "prosecutorial discretion" will start at the street level.

The new policy was mentioned in an internal memo written in June by John Morton, director of ICE. In August it was discussed publicly by White House officials. But immigration attorneys in South Florida and elsewhere complained that it was not implemented. Many people with no criminal past were still being detained, put in the deportation pipeline and in some cases deported.

The Border Patrol, another agency under Homeland Security, has remained particularly busy in detaining undocumented people, leading immigration attorneys to complain that there is no cogent immigration enforcement policy in place.

"We would like to see consistency, not just within ICE but among all the agencies in DHS," Susana Barciela, spokeswoman for Americans for Immigrant Justice, said Thursday.

Over the past several months, immigration prosecutors explained the new policy had not been implemented because they had not been given the guidelines. The announcement Thursday appears to change that.

Morton and his leadership team visited cities around the U.S. over the past month, including Miami, to instruct ICE agents and immigration prosecutors on the new policy.

Beginning Dec. 4, the Homeland Security and Justice departments will launch pilot programs in the Baltimore and Denver jurisdictions, reviewing all cases pending in immigration courts. For the next six weeks, immigration judges in those two locales will concentrate on cases of people currently in detention, to clear those cases and help establish a plan for the entire country.

Homeland Security said it will use guidelines set out in Morton's June memo to decide who will see their deportation cases suspended. Yibirin said his client, Mazariegos, fits several of the criteria laid out by Morton.

"He's been here 20 years and is a good, responsible, hardworking person," the attorney said. Mazariegos has no criminal record or prior deportation order. He also has four U.S.-born children, one of whom has a heart condition, and he provides for another child born into his wife's family.

Yibirin also said Mazariegos had a strong case for asylum 20 years ago because the part of Guatemala he escaped was ravaged by guerrilla war and his life was in danger. But his asylum plea was denied after authorities said he missed a court date. Mazariegos said he in fact arrived at the immigration court, but it had been closed because of an approaching hurricane.

Richard Hujber, head of the Boynton Beach firm that represents Mazariegos, Hujber Law Group, said it was unclear why his client was chosen for release on the very morning of the Homeland Security announcement. But Hujber said he had emailed a copy of a New York Times story about the imminent implementation of the policy to an immigration prosecutor early Thursday, saying his client was a good candidate for release.

"About an hour later, we got the letter saying his removal had been suspended," Hujber said. "Who knows if one thing had to do with the other."

Mazariegos was told in the letter that his deportation was suspended for one year. The suspension could be extended later, but the letter also said officials can change their minds at any moment. The suspension of deportation does not confer legal status on him. He must report to ICE once a month.

But Mazariegos, reached a few minutes after arriving home to his family, was still elated.

"I'm very, very happy," he said. "Being deported would have meant being separated from my family, and that would have been very hard. Today I'm very happy."

Staff researcher Niels Heimeriks contributed to this story.

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