Trump Orders Halt to ‘Catch and Release,’ But There’s a Catch

Trump Orders Halt to ‘Catch and Release,’ But There’s a Catch

By Katherine McIntire Peters
January 25, 2017

Among the long list of directives included in the executive order President Trump signed on Wednesday on border security and immigration enforcement was a provision to end the practice known as “catch and release.”

Specifically, the order directs the secretary of Homeland Security to “immediately take all appropriate actions to ensure” that any non-citizens caught in the country in violation of immigration law be apprehended until they can be deported:

“The Secretary shall issue new policy guidance to all Department of Homeland Security personnel regarding the appropriate and consistent use of lawful detention authority under the INA, including the termination of the practice commonly known as "catch and release," whereby aliens are routinely released in the United States shortly after their apprehension for violations of immigration law.

It sounds simple enough, but it’s a problem lawmakers and Homeland Security officials have struggled to cope with for more than a dozen years. Back in 2004, Government Executive highlighted the myriad challenges inherent in arresting and detaining immigrants, adjudicating their cases and then deporting them. It takes a lot of skilled personnel—law enforcement officers; detention facility operators; immigration judges, of which there is a severe shortage; and a deportation force—all of which costs a lot of money.

In October 2005, then DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff noted that parts of the immigration control system had “nearly collapsed under the weight of the numbers” (at the time, 80 percent of non-Mexicans apprehended at the border were released because there was simply no place to put them. Twelve years before Trump signed today’s executive order, Chertoff called for an end to catch and release, promising to replace it with a "catch and return" policy:

"Our goal at DHS is to completely eliminate the 'catch and release' enforcement problem, and return every single illegal entrant—no exceptions," Chertoff said.

That obviously didn’t happen. DHS has never had the workforce or the budget to adequately enforce immigration laws given the department's many other responsibilities. Whether the Trump administration will succeed where others have failed—which means prodding Congress to appropriate more money for administrative law judges, detention facilities and law enforcement personnel—is yet to be seen. But it will take more than the stroke of a pen to end catch and release.

http://www.govexec.com/federal-news/...-catch/134874/

This is the original EO language to end Catch and Release issued by President Trump early last year on January 25, 2017, his third day in office. Sounds pretty clean, clear, crisp and firm to me. But the President has issued another one today to get to the bottom of why his EO hasn't been complied with to the extent necessary to solve the problem.

The running theme seems to be two fold, one is some laws need to be changed to tighten up existing loopholes that give attorneys representing illegal aliens the ability to request release in hearings through DOJ, especially for unaccompanied minors and asylum-seekers, and second is money, judges, staff and facilities.

Americans don't want to spend billions and billions of dollars "detaining" people in our country in violation of US immigration law. We want them all processed in a couple of hours at the point of capture and an immediate deportation. This has happened because Congress took this deportation role out of the hands of DHS some time ago on the basis that DHS and ICE needed a "check and balance" so that the same entity arresting wasn't the same entity issuing the deportation orders. So they moved all deportation orders over to the corrupt Department of Justice and therein lies the root of the whole "backlog" in DOJ that then spills over to the long detention holds by DHS that breaks the bank and results in a release. This is unacceptable.

Now that we see that involving DOJ in this process was a mistake, it's time to correct it and put deportation orders back to ICE and Border Patrol so they can review on the spot and deport within hours or a few days. To issue a deportation order is very simple, two questions:

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

If no and no, then out you go. Any other claim or request you have will have to be made from your home country on your time, your soil, your dollar and at your expense. Period.

No more DOJ games to destroy our country by overloading it with illegal aliens because we can't afford to detain these asshats for years waiting for a months, years long hearing process through the US Department of Justice.

End it now and get these people out of our country.

All he has to do is rescind obama's directive to ICE's john morton that started catch & release. The order that trump issued over a year ago did not stand up and nothing has been done since - 13 more mths of this costly assault. There is some kind of game being played here with a lot of blah-blah.

https://www.ice.gov/doclib/dro/pdf/1...dible_fear.pdf

Quote:

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Originally Posted by artist

All he has to do is rescind obama's directive to ICE's john morton that started catch & release. The order that trump issued over a year ago did not stand up and nothing has been done since - 13 more mths of this costly assault. There is some kind of game being played here with a lot of blah-blah.

https://www.ice.gov/doclib/dro/pdf/1...dible_fear.pdf

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His Executive Order already rescinds it, because it over-rides that memo and any other memo that is contrary to his Executive Order. Maybe he needs to explain that fact to the personnel in DHS. He issued another EO today. You raised a good point, though, and I agree he needs to address it if his second EO on Catch and Release doesn't do that. But these people should have known this simple fact that if you're operating on one memo that contradicts a new Presidential Executive Order, the Presidential Executive Order is the order you follow, not the old memo that contradicts it.

His EO today that he signed gives these bureaucrats 75 days to come up with solutions to the problems including DOJ this time as I understand it.

Trump presses for options to end 'catch and release' in immigration policy

Posted: Apr 06, 2018 8:30 PM EDT
Updated: Apr 06, 2018 8:42 PM EDT
By Tal Kopan CNN

(CNN) -- Capping a week of aggressive rhetoric on immigration and border security, President Donald Trump on Friday evening ordered his administration to double down on ending the so-called "catch and release" of deportable immigrants.

In a memo for the heads of the Departments of State, Defense, Justice, Homeland Security, and Health and Human Services, Trump ordered his officials to prepare a series of reports on further measures they can take to crack down on illegal immigration.

The memo did not prescribe any policy steps to take and largely reiterated demands from executive orders Trump signed in the early days of his presidency, but the move highlights his frustration over Congress' inability to pass any major immigration or border security legislation and lawmakers' continued refusal to fund his border wall outside of a few dozen miles.

In a statement to go along with the memo, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said the document orders "important steps" to be taken.

"The safety and security of the American people is the President's highest priority, and he will keep his promise to protect our country and to ensure that our laws are respected," Sanders said, accusing Democrats of blocking further action although the President has struggled to find even enough Republicans in Congress to pass much of his agenda.

"Catch and release" refers to the fact that many undocumented immigrants end up living in the US for years because of a deeply backlogged immigration court system. When deportable immigrants are arrested, some go into mandatory detention but some must be released.

The US has the capacity to detain only about 40,000 immigrants at a time, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement and congressional appropriators, and in this administration and the last, many immigrants deemed not to be flight risks and not dangerous have been released on their own recognizance or with monitoring technology.

In addition, court orders and laws require that children, alone or with family, can be held in detention only up to three weeks, and many must be released in a matter of days. Individuals who pass the initial screening to pursue asylum claims are also often released.

Critics' concern about the release of such immigrants is that their court dates are often years away, and some qualify for work permits in the meantime. As they build lives in the US awaiting rulings on their fate, the critics say, they "exploit" the system and sometimes don't show up for court. According to Justice Department data, 25% of asylum decisions were given in absentia in 2016, meaning those immigrants were not in court. That number in 2015 and 2016 was higher than in previous years.

The memo orders a report in 45 days that lays out what the agencies have done and could do to address factors that contribute to the release of immigrants from detention, including building more detention facilities, speeding up and tightening asylum policies, defaulting to detaining immigrants rather than releasing them and exploring the use of military facilities and other types of existing structures for detention.

It orders a report In 75 days on what new powers might be needed and a report in 60 days on what has been done to pressure countries that do not readily take back their citizens who have been deported from the United States.

TM & © 2018 Cable News Network, Inc., a Time Warner Company. All rights reserved.

http://www.nbc-2.com/story/37900337/...gration-policy

My guess is that the President is furious over the failure of all these departments to execute in good faith and best effort his January 25, 2017 Executive Order on Catch and Release. In business, if you're given a directive as clear as his was on Catch and Release, and you didn't do it, you'd be fired.

Where will they put the minors? They just closed the shelters for minors in Texas.

Immigration Shelters for Minors to Close

Where will they put the adults?
​
Spending bill forces DHS to cut detention beds for illegal immigrants

He did not rescind the morton memo - that is all that needed to be done. Too busy fighting for daca amnesty. trump seems to like obama's decrees - he lets them stand.

Just like he is not mandating E-verify - where is that going - nowhere, birthright citizenship clarification - nowhere.

OBAMA ENDED WET FOOT DRY FOOT

NOW END (MOD EDIT) FOOT...NO ASYLUM!

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Originally Posted by Beezer

OBAMA ENDED WET FOOT DRY FOOT

NOW END (MOD EDIT) FOOT...NO ASYLUM!

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Moderator edit! Beezer, you know better than to use language like that at ALIPAC.