WASHINGTON – A year after federal officials announced a program of “prosecutorial discretion” aimed at reducing nearly 300,000 pending immigration cases, only 1.5 percent of the backlogged cases have been closed.
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement policy allows prosecutors to exercise discretion on which cases to pursue, meaning they could choose to dismiss or put on hold cases that did not meet the agency’s top priority of finding and deporting serious criminals.
Of the 298,173 cases that were pending at the end of September, only 4,585 had been closed under the program by the end of May, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University. Arizona accounted for 69 of the closed cases.
The number is far fewer than opponents of the policy feared, and far fewer than supporters had hoped for.
Frank Sharry, who said he was doing “back handsprings” when the prosecutorial discretion policy was announced, said this week that it is “clear that it failed.”
“The idea was to focus the limited resources on the worst of the worst, but that promise was clearly unfulfilled,” said Sharry, executive director of America’s Voice, an organization that advocates for immigrants.
But ICE spokeswoman Gillian Christensen said it can be “somewhat of a lengthy process” from the time the agency decides a person is a good candidate for discretion and the time a motion is filed in court.
“This is not something that happens over night,” she said. “It takes some time.”
Christensen said ICE’s numbers are actually slightly lower than TRAC’s, with the agency reporting 4,363 cases have been closed. ICE has identified more than 20,000 cases that are “amenable” to discretion, she said, but a lot of the cases are stuck somewhere in the pipeline.
Opponents, meanwhile, were not comforted by the small percentage of cases that have been closed under the program.
“I find it ridiculous that they (ICE) even release them on their own recognizance,” said state Sen. Ron Gould, R-Lake Havasu City. “That’s saying, ‘We’ve caught you, now we’re going to release you and send you on your merry way.’”
Gould said the policy allows illegal immigrants to be “released back into the public and never seen again.”
Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, an architect of Arizona’s SB 1070 immigration law and similar measures, said the concept of prosecutorial discretion was flawed to begin with.
“Taxpayers have spent a lot to get those cases to court, and to drop them mid-stream doesn’t make a lot of sense,” Kobach said.
ICE Director John Morton proposed the policy last year, saying it would allow the agency to focus its energies on its top priority – apprehending serious criminals. He directed ICE officials to exercise discretion when faced with cases of low-priority illegal immigrants, such as those with children who are U.S. citizens, those who came to the country as minors or served in the military, among other categories.
The Obama administration approved the program in August and immigration officials began a review of the backlogged cases in December.
If a prosecutor decides to exercise discretion in a case, it can either be completely dismissed or closed administratively, meaning it is shelved for now but can be reopened at any time. About 75 percent of closed cases have been administrative closures, according to TRAC, and the rest have been dismissals.
While individuals whose cases have been closed administratively are not prosecuted, they are also not generally granted a work permit.
To date 3,998 individuals eligible for prosecutorial discretion have declined the offer, according to ICE. Crystal Williams, executive director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said those people probably “calculated they are better off going in front of a judge” where they could be eligible to become legal residents instead of granted temporary relief, she said.
After his initial optimism over the program, Sharry said he quickly became dismayed.
“We were thinking, ‘This is a big deal, we’re thrilled,’” he said of the program’s unveiling. “It promised to usher in a whole new era in immigration enforcement.”
But Christensen said ICE is keeping to its promise of focusing on the “top-priority” illegal immigrants.
“I think what is really important is the incredible work our agency has done over the past few years,” she said.
For now immigration reform advocates appear to be putting their hopes on another Obama administration announcement, made this June, that it would stop deporting young illegal immigrants who meet similar criteria, but are under age 30.
Williams said there is some overlap between the groups eligible for prosecutorial discretion under the ICE program and those eligible under the program announced last month by the president, but that one is not a subset of the other.
“There are early signs that the (newer) program is working quite well,” Williams said. “There seems to be a clear understanding of who it is that will benefit from it and what is that will happen to them … the June 15 announcement changes the landscape.”
But Kobach said they might not want to pin too much hope on the newer program – he claims it ignores a 1996 law that forbids prosecutorial discretion in the handling of immigrant removal cases.
chatmandu002 posted at 10:59 am on Sat, Jul 14, 2012.
Nothing but incompetence from our government and judicial system. Stop the pandering to illegal immigrants and enforce all the laws all the time.
Arizona Willie posted at 11:23 am on Sat, Jul 14, 2012.
If anyone ever believed that the Federal Government actually intended to remove any of the illegals under this program --- I have some ocean front property 5 miles outside of Phoenix you can buy -- sight unseen -- and I guarantee you will love it.
samkat posted at 5:21 pm on Sat, Jul 14, 2012.
The caseload could be reduced by bringing more immigration judges on board but do not expect it to happen on Obama's watch.
DaveFrancis posted at 11:17 am on Mon, Jul 16, 2012.
The deaths caused illegal alien drivers, inebriated or not has caused the town of Milford, Massachusetts and two other towns to sign up for the ICE Mutual Agreement between Government and Employers (IMAGE) program. Employers that sign up for IMAGE agree to: apply E-Verify for new hires; undertake an I-9 form audit to expose illegal aliens currently in the workforce; plus hold training sessions for human resource employees on how to avoid hiring illegal aliens (e.g., on spotting document fraud). Since IMAGE helps extract currently employed illegal aliens, it is considered the best overhaul innovation for maintaining a legal workforce. After illegal-alien drunk drivers slaughtered two citizens a few years ago, Milford officials begin to scrutinize options for reducing illegal immigration. A third death last year forced the town, and local state legislators, into action.
The state legislators from the area led the charge on enforcement legislation that became law in Massachusetts this week. Each few months counties and cities are learning about the significance of E-Verify and what it would do for the overall populations of their communities. However, salvos of rhetoric and lies have been spread about E-Verify, the Legal Workforce Act (H.R. 2885). But even so E-Verify is spreading --so fast and hundreds of thousands of business entities are now signed up. Of course either sides one way or another are courting the illegal alien invasion, whereas the Republicans to a lesser extent.
THE FED’S REFUSE TO ENFORCE IMMIGRATION LAWS; OTHERWISE ILLEGAL ENTRY WOULD BE A FELONY?
What American citizens must be aware of is the Democratic indifference to non citizens voting in our elections. The Liberal airwaves, including TV and radio broadcast, then especially the media deny this, but the avid reader can observe this for themselves. Just type into any search engine ‘Voter Fraud’ and the truth will be hard to conceal, certainly when Obama before being president, was employed by the notorious ACORN canvassing organization. What went on in its ranks was a serious violation of election laws.
With both the majority of the Democratic and Republican base failing to enact a mandatory E-Verify law, it’s easy to read between the lines why? Both political parties have been heavily corrupted by either corporate influence or for the Democrats a whole host of adversaries, as large radical minority groups, unions and even the church high echelons. Meanwhile low income Americans are suffering, not excluding teenagers who once looked forward for a part time job as it was in the not so distant past.
Today we have the Constitutional TEA PARTY, the ‘People’s Party’ who are not just represented by white people as the open border progressives would like you to think. The TEA PARTY is a mix of ordinary decent citizens and green card holders of different skin colors, but with one endearing agenda to rid us of illegal invaders; ObamaCare and everything that qualifies to raise taxes. If you don’t already know anything about Obama’s health care law, the hiring has begun for recruitment. ObamaCare means to recruit least 400.000 enforcement federal officers, which just adds up to the greatest expansion of Washington, that America has ever seen under this Democratic Party.
Doesn’t matter who is in control of America; either for Obama for another term or his antagonist Mitt Romney? Both must be held accountable by the TEA PARTY.
Although Obama started his president well in flushing out illegal aliens, the enforcement has slowed to a crawl. Not just to gain points in the ethnic groups by bypassing Congress, undermining the ‘Rule of Law’ but by enacting a loosely effective Dream Act, so that the illegal alien parents should be held accountable for their violating immigration laws, but now the administration is placing a strain on certain sectors of the border, by closing down entry ports. It’s all to do with votes and where the Democrats they are unconcerned who votes, shown by the attitude of the U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. He is expanding his power by not only enforcing states who are enraged they have to support their population of illegal aliens, but this nasty little man is determined to let non citizens vote. He has attacked the sacred sovereignty of not only Arizona, but Alabama, Georgia and a bunch of others, who cannot sustain the huge financial burden of education, schooling, low income housing, benefits for low income Mothers, cash payments, children’s breakfast and lunch at school, interpreters for bilingual education and a great deal more welfare programs, that foreigners have been allowed to consume; which citizens cannot even touch.
While you’re working to pay your annual taxes to cover the cost of Obamacare, the IRS will be extorting even more money from you to pay for the free health care of illegal aliens, plus unknown numbers of ‘freeloaders’ and we know there are plenty of them. If Obama gets his way, a person will not even to have some reasonable excuse to gain acceptance for food stamps? Eventually we will turn into another country like Greece and the flow of the money from the government coffers, taxpayers will not be able to contribute enough funds to a least balance our debts.
Other than the exception of highly paid immigrants holding PhDs ‘s in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), who should be given expedited preference visas, all others should be deported. America has become a magnet from over 20 million plus foreign nationals, who have ignored our laws and through corporate favors both parties are handing out a million new visas annually than low skilled recipients. Then illegal females have hooked up to a free pass, by smuggling unborn children into this sovereign country. The 14th Amendment has mutated, that originally was for the emancipation of slaves and now used to allow pregnant females to gain a ‘foothold’ into the U.S. This is the inception of the Dream Act of illegal parents bringing unborn babies into America. Once here the female can then receive free health care, education for the child that is costing taxpayers a hundred billion dollars a year. The Birthright Citizenship bill (H.R. 140) sitting in Congress, should be passed—instead its gathering dust in some legislators filing cabinet.
Time to wake up the politicians in Washington and inform them all, they are swaying on a tightrope. That tightrope is the TEA PARTY and they are quietly infiltrating both political parties. YOU THE VOTER CAN ALSO CONTRIBUTE BY INVESTIGATING YOUR LOCAL POLITICIAN AND THEN VOTING THEM OUT ACCORDING TO HIS UN-AMERICAN PLANS. THE TEA PARTY LEADERSHIP HAS GAINED ACCEPTANCE BY MILLIONS OF VOTING AMERICANS AND IS RELEASING THEIR FURY ON THE DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS. BOTH PARTIES ARE CORRUPT AS THEY COME, WITH JUST A FEW REPRESENTATIVES WHO STAND FOR THE PEOPLE.
MANY Governors, Mayors, Police Chiefs and wide web of ‘oath of allegiance’ impersonators, who have signed such ordinances as Sanctuary Cities, allowing the illegal alien criminals to run rampant, because the police are not allowed to question the immigration status. There was ugly death of 3 family members at the bloody hands of a gang member in San Francisco, because of the dire incompetence of the prior Governor and his retinue. Nobody should think the deaths of innocent victims are isolated and very few, as throughout America death drives the highways; illegal alien drivers with no license, no insurance and hardly able to recognize the highway codes. Illegal aliens have been able to turn amok, because the government is badly flawed and remained unconcerned of the disastrous invasion.
There should be no acceptance of the illegal immigration invaders and the TEA PARTY agenda will have as many leaders they can fit into the seats in the Senate and House of Representatives, to do the bidding of the American People. If you want to see change—REAL CHANGE—in Washington, locate your local chapter of the TEA PARTY. It’s the time to look after our own future, our own people; not other countries problems?
URGENT NOTICE: Investigation of President Obama’s background history is due to be released by Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio on July 17, 2012 and could stun everybody. The upcoming press conference is set to be held at 2:30 p.m. local time at the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office in Phoenix, Arizona, with World Net Daily again providing live streaming video coverage.