Circumventing Congress: Failed Dream Act Mandated by ICE Director

Written by R. Cort Kirkwood
Monday, 27 June 2011 12:18

The director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement has made official the Obama administration’s declaration that the DREAM Act — the amnesty bill for illegal aliens — is now federal law, despite the bill’s having failed in the Senate last year.

ICE chieftain John Morton published a memorandum on June 17 giving federal prosecutors and agents carte blanche prosecutorial discretion in deciding whether illegal aliens should be deported. Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas, left) declares that he will overturn Morton’s ukase with legislation, and the union representing the nation’s ICE employees says that in light of Morton’s memo, ICE officers will not know which illegals to detain or arrest, and will therefore be pressured to let them go.

The Memo

Morton’s memo creates two key lists of criteria by which an ICE employee or prosecutor can decide whether an illegal alien must be deported. In keeping with past federal policy, Morton stated that ICE is not interested in deporting ilegals who are here illegally but have committed no crimes.

Yet the list is so long that virtually that any illegal alien, except for the most dangerous felons, is covered under its blanket de facto amnesty.

Wrote Morton, “[W]hen weighing whether an exercise of prosecutorial discretion may be warranted for a given alien, ICE officers, agents, and attorneys should consider all relevant factors.â€