ICE skirts Congress by changing policy and halting deportations

ICE skirts immigration law and begins to release illegal immigrants who have already been arrested and are waiting to be deported.

A memo from released yesterday by John Morton of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), included a new policy change that could affect thousands awaiting deportation. Morton signed a memo that went out to agencies across the country stating any illegal immigrants who have been charged with deportation have their cases reviewed and be released or absolved of any legal issues with the federal government if they have not committed any serious crime.

However, there is a catch. The suspected illegal immigrants must be able to prove they are taking care of necessary paperwork with ICE and have not committed a felony crime.

The memo read in part; “This memorandum establishes ICE policy for the handling of removal proceedings before the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) involving applications or petitions filed by, or on behalf of, aliens in removal proceedings. This policy outlines a framework for ICE to request expedited adjudication of an application or petition for an alien in removal proceedings that is pending before U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services if the approval of such an application or petition would provide and immediate basis for relief to the alien. The policy will allow ICE and EOIR to address a major inefficiency in present practice and thereby avoid unnecessary delay and expenditure of resources.” Read the entire memo; http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/us/27immig_memo.pdf

This new policy at ICE comes as a major blow to agents who have already given ICE’s leader, Morton a vote of no confidence.

“It’s dispiriting for federal agents,” says Mark Krikorian of Center for Immigration Studies a Washington D.C. think tank.

While the majority of American’s don’t want amnesty given to those who entered the country illegally and have committed crimes just by crossing the border or overstaying visas the proverbial golden ticket.

Many contend management at ICE and the Obama White House has already begun a back-door amnesty process bypassing Congress.

“Is it an end run around Congress?” Krikorian asked. “In an informal sense, yes. This is a policy decision that is trying to make an end run around Congress. They are saying lets abuse our existing authority to create a defacto amnesty.”

Lamar Smith of Texas, ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee and a member of the House Committee on Homeland Security, told The Washington Times that the Obama administration is "simply not serious about enforcing all of our immigration laws."

However, ICE management officials claim the new policy outlined in the memo will reduce a burgeoning court- case backlog and free up agents to focus on those in the country illegally who are involved with serious criminal matters.

Whichever way you look at it, the new ICE policy will grant thousands of illegal immigrants slated for deportation a stay- or in layman terms a chance for amnesty.

For more stories; http://www.examiner.com/county-political-buzz-in-san-diego/no-confidence-votes-become-a-pattern-at-ice-and-border-patrol