WASHINGTON—In a significant shift in immigration policy, the Obama administration announced on Thursday, Aug. 18, a plan to focus immigration enforcement on illegal immigrants who are convicted criminals, or are otherwise threats to public safety, or national security.
This means that low-priority deportation cases—such as illegal immigrants who have not been convicted of a crime, are serving in the military, or who could be spared expulsion under the stalled DREAM Act—may be suspended altogether.
In a letter to Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.)—a chief proponent of the DREAM Act—and 21 other senators, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano announced that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will focus its enforcement resources on high-priority deportation cases, and that federal officials would be allowed more discretion to dismiss cases that are considered to be low-priority.
“These priorities focus our resources on enhancing border security and identifying and removing criminal aliens, those who pose a threat to public safety and national security, repeat immigration law violators, and other individuals prioritized for removal,” wrote Napolitano.
“From a law enforcement and public safety perspective, DHS enforcement resources must continue to be focused on our highest priorities. Doing otherwise hinders our public safety mission—clogging immigration court dockets and diverting DHS enforcement resources away from individuals who pose a threat to public safety.”
The announcement officially formalized guidelines first outlined in a June memorandum by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director John Morton, in which he advised some employees within his agency to follow certain guidelines for the exercise of prosecutorial discretion.
In the memorandum, Morton said that like any other agency, ICE had limited resources and must exercise prosecutorial discretion, focusing on some cases while dismissing others.
According to Morton, his agency’s top enforcement priorities include “national security, border security, public safety, and the integrity of the immigration system,” and that the agency should prioritize its efforts, and allocate its resources, accordingly.
Supporters of the new guidelines lauded it as a pragmatic and sensible approach to immigration enforcement, reasoning that the limited resources of the Department of Homeland Security and its agencies, such as ICE, should rightly be focused primarily on those who pose a threat to public safety and national security.
Critics called the new guidelines a de facto passage of the DREAM Act that circumvented Congress, and criticized the Obama administration for playing politics and only choosing to enforce parts of the law.
“The Obama administration has again made clear its plan to grant backdoor amnesty to illegal immigrants,” said Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, in a statement.
“The Obama administration should enforce immigration laws, not look for ways to ignore them. The Obama administration should not pick and choose which laws to enforce. Administration officials should remember the oath of office they took to uphold the Constitution and the laws of the land.”
The DREAM Act—which was passed last year in the House of Representatives but subsequently died in the Senate—would have provided permanent residency, and eventually a path to citizenship, to certain illegal immigrants upon fulfilling certain conditions. The bill applied primarily to immigrants who had arrived in the United States illegally as minors. DREAM is an acronym for Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors.
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