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  1. #1
    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
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    ICE announces changes to immigration enforcement

    ICE announces changes to immigration enforcement

    KATE BRUMBACK
    Published: June 17, 2011

    ATLANTA (AP) — Federal immigration authorities said Friday they're changing the way they enforce immigration policies in an effort to focus on the most serious criminals and to give government field attorneys more discretion.

    Many of the changes were prompted by concerns from local law enforcement agencies and communities, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director John Morton said Friday during a conference call with reporters.

    "We're listening to those concerns and addressing them head-on and directly today," he said.

    Some changes will be made to the Secure Communities program, which enables local law enforcement to share fingerprint information with federal agencies to be checked against the FBI criminal database and against immigration databases. The program is a critical tool for law enforcement agencies but needs to be tweaked to "do a better job of ensuring that the program is more focused on targeting those that pose the biggest risk to communities," Morton said.

    Critics have said Secure Communities can discourage immigrants from reporting crimes and can lead to the deportation of people who haven't been convicted of any crime. Several states have declined to participate.

    A new policy directs ICE officers and attorneys to use appropriate discretion to make sure victims and witnesses to crimes are not put into deportation proceedings.

    Morton says he's also creating an advisory committee on changing Secure Communities to focus on serious criminals. A first report, due within 45 days, will provide recommendations on how to avoid deporting people who are charged with, but not convicted of, minor traffic offenses if they have no other criminal history or serious immigration violations.

    The agency has also revised its detainer form to emphasize the current guidelines that local authorities aren't to keep any person for more than 48 hours on an immigration hold alone. The detainer form is a document ICE sends to local jurisdictions to signal potentially deportable people to the agency.

    ICE has also worked with the Department of Homeland Security's civil rights and civil liberties division to develop a new training program on implementing Secure Communities for state and local law enforcement agencies.

    Crystal Williams, executive director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said creation of an advisory panel suggests ICE is listening to critics.

    "There was enough said to make me think this may be more than window dressing," she said. "Everything remains to be seen, but the thinking is in the right direction.

    Attorneys at the association's annual meeting in San Diego said the more significant development was new guidelines on whom to target for deportation, giving field attorneys and agents more latitude to leave some people alone. Critics have complained that government lawyers have been compelled to cast too wide a net.

    "It's going to empower (the field attorneys) to be able to make the right decisions and do the right thing," said Cleveland attorney David Leopold.

    Having been in the United States a long time and having family in the country are factors that government attorneys may consider when deciding who to leave alone, said Laura Lichter, a Denver immigration attorney who was briefed by ICE on the new rules. A criminal record or a history of immigration violations would weigh in favor of deportation.

    Lichter likened the new rules to instructing a police force to go after bank robbers instead of jaywalkers.

    "This is all very commonsense," she said.

    Several immigrant rights and civil liberties groups said the changes were encouraging but not enough.

    "These changes are nowhere near sufficient to address the well-documented problems with the Secure Communities program that has, thus far, torn apart countless families across the country by funneling people into a detention and deportation system rife with abuse," said Andrea Black, Executive Director of Detention Watch Network, a coalition of organizations and individuals. "The flaws with Secure Communities run so deep that the only solution is termination of the program."

    The governors of Massachusetts, Illinois and New York have said their states will not participate in the program. The offices of each of those three governors did not immediately respond to requests for comment Friday afternoon. Cities and municipalities in other parts of the country have also declined to participate.

    The Department of Homeland Security's acting inspector general Charles Edwards said last week he would begin a review of the program in August rather than later as originally planned.

    He said the review will determine the extent to which Immigration and Customs Enforcement uses Secure Communities to find and deport immigrants who are dangerous criminals. Immigration officials check fingerprints of all people booked in local jails to find immigrants to deport.

    California Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren had asked the inspector general to investigate whether Homeland Security employees lied to the public, local governments and Congress about Secure Communities after reviewing thousands of federal emails made public.

    Lofgren's office declined to comment on the changes Friday, saying the staff hadn't had a chance to thoroughly review them.

    http://www.newsok.com/ice-announces-cha ... ional-news
    NO AMNESTY

    Don't reward the criminal actions of millions of illegal aliens by giving them citizenship.


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  2. #2
    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
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    Immigration Official Revises Enforcement Program Rules

    By JULIA PRESTON
    Published: June 17, 2011

    Moving to repair an immigration enforcement program that has drawn rising opposition from state governors and local police chiefs, senior immigration officials on Friday announced steps they said would focus the program more closely on deporting immigrants convicted of serious crimes.

    In unveiling the changes, John Morton, the head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said the deportation program would continue to expand as planned in order to be operating nationwide by 2013, despite criticism from many police chiefs and from the governors of Illinois, New York and Massachusetts, who sought to withdraw their states.

    But in making course corrections to the program, known as Secure Communities, Mr. Morton acknowledged the groundswell of local resistance, including from Latino and immigrant groups, to an effort that is central to President Obama’s approach to controlling illegal immigration.

    In a fix likely to have broad practical effect, Mr. Morton issued a memorandum that greatly expanded the authority of federal lawyers who handle cases in immigration courts to dismiss deportation proceedings against immigrants without serious criminal records.

    Under Secure Communities, tens of thousands of immigrants who were here illegally but had not been convicted of a crime were detained by local law enforcement and swept into deportation proceedings. Until now, once immigration agents in the field had started a deportation, government lawyers had little authority to decide which cases were worth pursuing in immigration court.

    Under the Secure Communities program, fingerprints of everyone who is booked into jail are checked against F.B.I. criminal databases, as has long been routine, and also against Department of Homeland Security databases, which record immigration violations. Homeland Security officials report results of fingerprint checks back to the arresting police departments, and immigration enforcement agents determine whether to detain the immigrants and initiate their deportation.

    “We believe in this program, we think it’s the right program, and we intend to continue it,â€
    NO AMNESTY

    Don't reward the criminal actions of millions of illegal aliens by giving them citizenship.


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  3. #3
    Administrator Jean's Avatar
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    Immigration officials to raise deportation threshhold


    By Elizabeth Stuart

    Deseret News

    Published: Friday, June 17, 2011 6:46 p.m. MDT


    Senior immigration officials announced on Friday steps to focus deportation efforts on immigrants convicted of serious crimes.

    Despite backlash from state governments, however, the deportation program, known as Secure Communities, will continue to expand until 2013, after which it will operate nationwide, John Morton, the head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement told the New York Times.

    Under the Secure Communities program, prisoner's fingerprints are checked against F.B.I. and Department of Homeland Security databases. Homeland Security reports results to immigration enforcement agents who then decide whether to initiate deportation.

    During each of the last two years, the Department of Homeland Security has deported nearly 400,000 people. Among those ensnared by the system are people stopped for having broken tail lights and victims of domestic abuse who called 911.

    "We believe in this program, we think it's the right program, and we intend to continue it," Morton said. "But we are not at all indifferent to the concerns raised by the governors, community groups and others."

    ICE officials and attorneys will be instructed to use "discretion" to avoid initiating deportation proceedings against crime victims and witnesses Morton said.

    "It makes a lot of sense to prioritize use of our limited resources," Mr. Morton told the Wall Street Journal. "Removing everyone here unlawfully doesn't make sense."

    Morton said he intends to form an advisory commission of police chiefs, sheriffs, state and local prosecutors, immigration agents and immigrant advocates. Within 45 days the commission is expected to assess further changes to the Secure Communities program.

    In recent weeks, the governors of Illinois, New York and Massachusetts, either withdrew their participation in the program or refused to sign on. Secure Communities was touted as a way to find and deport dangerous criminals, but when put into use the finger-print sharing system was used to deport thousands of law-abiding undocumented immigrants, the Huffington Post reported.

    "[We] share your public safety objectives and agree that serious criminals who are here illegally should be deported," Margaret Heffernan of Massachusetts's Executive Office on Public Safety and Security wrote in a letter to the Department of Homeland Security. "However, Secure Communities, as implemented nationally does not reflect those objectives."

    Foes of illegal immigration have said the administration would be jeopardizing public safety if it scaled back Secure Communities, the Wall Street Journal reported reported.

    Advocates for illegal immigrant rights called the changes "lipstick," however.

    "The Secure Communities program is a Frankenstein," Pablo Alvarado, Director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, told Deportation Nation. "It doesn't need make-up or cosmetic changes. It needs to be stopped immediately."

    www.deseretnews.com
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  4. #4
    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
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    They need to bring back the workplace raids and deport every illegal worker they find.
    Employers who hire illegal aliens should get jail the first time they are caught
    and prison if their is a second time.
    Every illegal alien identified by Secure Communities needs to be deported.
    NO AMNESTY

    Don't reward the criminal actions of millions of illegal aliens by giving them citizenship.


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  5. #5
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    Amnesty by Executive Order

    This is "Amnesty by Executive Order" and that it is the policy of the Obama administration is hardly a secret.

    What is more disturbing is the silence from the "conservative" commentariat on Obama's ongoing amnesty. Michelle Malkin did write a piece about this in 2010, but seems obsessed with the unimportant Anthony Wiener scandal now. The Republican Presidential candidates should be making the de facto amnesty their number one issue, but in reality all are RINOS. Witness the calls for essentially unlimited immigration (green cards stapled to diplomas, etc.) by Romney, Huntsman and Bloomberg.

    Big money is behind open borders and Fox News, Limbaugh, Hannity and sadly even M. Malkin have been bought.

  6. #6
    Administrator Jean's Avatar
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    Obama administration changes deportation focus

    91 comments

    By Stephen Dinan

    The Washington Times

    3:48 p.m., Friday, June 17, 201

    Under fire for its stepped-up deportation program, the Obama administration said Friday it will take a number of steps intended to focus on criminal aliens and make it less likely illegal immigrants without convictions are deported.

    John Morton, director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the arm of the Homeland Security Department that handles immigration in the interior of the country, said he is delegating prosecutorial discretion to lawyers to decide whether to pursue cases. He also said he has created an advisory panel to recommend how to change the deportation program, known as Secure Communities, that has caused consternation within the immigrant-rights community.

    Under Secure Communities illegal immigrants can be identified and put in deportation proceedings when they are arrested, but Mr. Morton said he is “strongly consideringâ€
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