Thread: Like it or hate it, Trump’s immigration enforcement is failing

Like it or hate it, Trump’s immigration enforcement is failing

12/14/17 06:00 AM EST



The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has released its FY2017 immigration enforcement report. It indicates that President Trump has reduced the number of illegal border crossings, but it shows no progress at all on reducing the number of undocumented aliens who are in the United States already.

An immigration court backlog crisis is making it extremely difficult for him to move new cases through removal proceedings.

Where enforcement is now.

Removals have actually gone down under the Trump administration:




DHS claims this is because fewer aliens are being apprehended in the vicinity of the border, which is where most removals take place. Trump has succeeded in reducing the number of illegal border crossings by reversing the damage President Obama did to border security with his interior enforcement policies.

When Barack Obama was president, he focused his immigration enforcement efforts on aliens who had been convicted of serious crimes or who had been caught near the border after making an illegal entry, and he protected aliens here unlawfully who were not in a priority category. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers were required to obtain permission from a Field Office Director before arresting an apparently deportable alien who was not in a priority category.

This created what I called a “home free magnet.” Aliens wanting to enter the United States illegally knew that they would be safe from deportation once they had reached the interior of the country unless they were convicted of a serious crime. This was a powerful incentive to do whatever was necessary to cross the border into the United States.

Trump destroyed this magnet with tough campaign rhetoric and his Executive Order, Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States, which greatly expanded enforcement priorities. No deportable alien is safe under President Trump’s enforcement policies.

In April 2017, CBP reported a sharp decline in the number of aliens apprehended along the Southwest border, and in the number of aliens who were found inadmissible at ports of entry.

But border security just keeps new aliens from entering the country illegally. It does not reduce the population of undocumented aliens who are in the country already, and this is where Trump’s enforcement program is failing.

The removal statistics above consist mainly of aliens who were caught in the vicinity of the border after making an illegal entry.

If you compare the internal removal statistics for Trump’s first eight months in office to former president Obama’s record over the same time period in FY2016, you will see that Trump made a 37 percent increase in internal removals. Progress, certainly, but not enough to make a meaningful difference.


Trump’s internal removal statistics show an average of 7,637 removals a month over an eight-month period. If he maintains this rate, he will remove approximately 91,644 undocumented aliens a year from the interior of the country, which would only be 366,564 removals by the end of his term in office.

That isn’t even enough to keep up with the number of aliens that become a part of the undocumented population in a single year as overstays. According to the Fiscal Year 2016 Entry/Exit Overstay Report, 739,478 aliens who entered the United States in FY2016 on temporary nonimmigrant visas did not leave at the end of their authorized period of stay.

According to the Pew Research Center, the undocumented immigrant population in 2015 was 11.3 million, and I think the actual number is much larger. I explain why in my analysis of PEW’s methods for making such estimates.

The backlog crisis.

At a Center for Immigration Studies panel discussion on the immigration court backlog, Immigration Judge Larry Burman said, “I cannot give you a merits hearing on my docket unless I take another case off. My docket is full through 2020, and I was instructed by my assistant chief immigration judge not to set any cases past 2020.”

This is going to get much worse.

According to a backgrounder on Trump’s plan to deal with the backlog, the immigration court had a backlog of 650,000 cases as of December 2017, and the pace of caseload increases is accelerating:

• FY2014 – FY2015: +48,000 cases
• FY2015 – FY 2016: +60,000 cases
• FY2016 – FY017: +100,000 cases (projected)

Trump’s plan is to more fully utilize immigration court resources and increase the number of immigration judges.

The immigration court currently has 339 judges. If funding is approved, the number will be increased to 449 judges, and a new, streamlined hiring plan is showing signs of reducing the hiring process from 742 days to 6-8 months.

The average backlog now per judge is 1,917 cases, and at the projected rate of increase, there could be 50,000 to 66,000 more cases to assign by the time the new judges are ready to start.

Trump’s enforcement program will fail if he doesn’t resolve this problem.

http://thehill.com/opinion/immigrati...ram-is-failing

The problem is so huge, the resources so limited, it's so depressing. This problem can not be solved with all this yada yada immigration "hearing". The problem can only be solved by a rapid deportation based on two simple questions:

1. are you a US citizen, verify, yes or no
2. if no, do you have valid unexpired papers to be in the US, verify, yes or no

If no and no, then out you go. ICE will have already verified 1 and 2 before the person is at the hearing and will present the verification.

This process takes 10 seconds.

This process has no need nor purpose in listening to sob stories and pity parties. It requires no examination of law, no disputes over why someone who is not a citizen and is without valid unexpired immigration documents should remain in the country. There is no excuse, no reason for exception, no cause for mercy. The United States is not obligated to a court process for deportation of people who are in our country in violation of US immigration law. This has to be nuts and bolts, 2 simple questions, administrative hearing to confirm no citizenship and no documents, that's it, and if no and no, then out you go with all your minor children in tow, regardless of where they were born.

That's it, it's that simple. No briefs, no arguments, no appeals, because there is nothing to explain, nothing to argue and no cause for an appeal.

Can immigrants be deported without a court hearing?

Mar 3, 2017 - . . . "Only 15% of removal cases ever go before a judge" . . .

If you are not a citizen and do not have valid unexpired immigration or travel documents to be here, then there is just no case to make. The hearing is a formality to verify and rubber-stamp what ICE has already determined. A judge who takes a year to handle less than 2000 cases a year is a judge not doing their job.

I believe that a good solution would be for Pres. Trump to create executive orders that allow states to act as immigration deputies of the executive branch. The states would be allowed to create their own immigration enforcement tools to arrest or fine anyone trespassing on their land. A few years back, a number of states and cities started creating dozens of laws to enforce immigration, but Pres. Obama was able to get a ruling from the Supreme Court that said that if the federal government does not want the states to help in enforcing immigration laws, then the federal government can refuse the states help. But it does not prevent the federal government from allowing the states to help.

If states were given immigration powers, they could arrest the illegal immigrants, fine them for trespassing, and then hold them for the federal government to deport them. After all, the states will be agents of the federal government.

Absolutely! Great idea, deputize local and state law enforcement officers, too, get them to work on our issue and they'll get this fixed pronto.

Deploy the National Guard...arrest and deport on the spot!

Send these people running for the border!

Whatever it takes to get them OFF our soil.

Start shipping out 1,000 TPS a week out of here...load up the barges!

Originally Posted by philipbrown

I believe that a good solution would be for Pres. Trump to create executive orders that allow states to act as immigration deputies of the executive branch. The states would be allowed to create their own immigration enforcement tools to arrest or fine anyone trespassing on their land. A few years back, a number of states and cities started creating dozens of laws to enforce immigration, but Pres. Obama was able to get a ruling from the Supreme Court that said that if the federal government does not want the states to help in enforcing immigration laws, then the federal government can refuse the states help. But it does not prevent the federal government from allowing the states to help.

If states were given immigration powers, they could arrest the illegal immigrants, fine them for trespassing, and then hold them for the federal government to deport them. After all, the states will be agents of the federal government.

Unfortunately I don't believe President Trump has the authority to issue an executive order making such a demand. I believe that would take an act of Congress and getting such a law on Trump's desk would be next to impossible. Don't get me wrong, I fully support what you're proposing, however, I just don't think it is a possibility. Besides that, a large majority of the states would strongly resist the federal government forcing them to participate in something that would be viewed as unconstitutional.

This is it folks. We are out of steam.

This is it folks. We are out of steam. #ALIPAC needs immediate support for us to be able to fight down to the final Amnesty deadline of 2017 on Dec. 22 when the elites plan to pass #DACA Amnesty!



https://www.alipac.us/f8/folks-we-out-steam-353439/

Sorry, I should have stated my suggestion more clearly. I am not suggesting that the federal government force the states or local governments to do anything regarding immigration. I am saying that President Trump has the power to ALLOW states and local governments to help enforce immigration laws IF THEY WANT TO. So, if the state of Arizona want to enact a law that gives police officers the ability to question drivers about their immigration status during traffic stops, they can. If the city of Farmer's Branch wants to enact a law requiring landlords to check the immigration status of their tenants, they can. If the state of California wants to totally ignore immigration law, they can.

The main reason why states are currently unable to enforce immigration law is because President Obama said that he did not want them to help, and the Supreme Court said that the Constitution give the federal government (ie. current President) broad exclusive powers to decided who can and cannot enforce immigration law. To my knowledge, there is nothing that prevent President Trump from creating a program where the federal, state, and local governments can work together on immigration if they want. But I could be wrong.