Last year the administration added a revolutionary new weapon to its immigration enforcement arsenal -- common sense.
In June, John Morton, Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, announced that the agency would employ "prosecutorial discretion" in its enforcement of the immigration law, prioritizing the deportation of illegal immigrants who pose security risks -- dangerous criminals and terrorists. Prosecutorial discretion gives ICE agents the ability to decide how to best use finite resources to enforce the immigration law so that our communities and country are protected from those who would do us harm. Clearly, the danger to a community is less likely to come from a breast-feeding mother or gifted student than from a dangerous felon or terrorist.
That smart enforcement policy was extended to the immigration courts a few months later by Janet Napolitiano, Secretary of Homeland Security, when she ordered a review of the nearly 300,000 pending deportation cases in an effort to ensure that resources are being used wisely. After an initial review of 12,000 deportation cases in Denver and Baltimore the department has reportedly recommended "Administrative Closure" of 1,667 cases, about 14 percent, of those reviewed.
Not surprisingly anti-immigrant restrictionists on and off Capitol Hill are crying foul, relying on their favorite pat sound bite, "backdoor amnesty." Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, complained, "If these results play out nationwide, tens of thousands of illegal immigrants will benefit and tens of thousands of Americans will find it harder to get jobs. How can the Obama administration justify granting work authorization to illegal immigrants when so many American citizens don't have jobs?"
Chairman Smith's knee-jerk response failed to explain that an administratively closed case is not the same as a dismissed case. It remains on the deportation docket and can be reactivated by ICE at any time. Translated into plain English, administrative closure merely means an immigrant's deportation case is placed on the back burner while higher priority cases are prosecuted and aliens who pose a security risk to America are deported.
Smith's statement also incorrectly suggests the program threatens American jobs. Nothing could be further from the truth. Administrative closure of a deportation case does not take a single job away from a U.S. worker. Nor does it give anyone a green card or automatic employment authorization. What it does is free up ICE prosecutors to go after those who pose a threat to our communities. If implemented successfully nationwide, the policy will help unclog immigration courts, freeing up the Department of Homeland Security to enforce the immigration law in a way that will keep American citizens safe.
To be sure, temporarily closing low priority immigration cases has its challenges. For immigrants seeking refuge from persecution or whose U.S. citizen family member faces exceptional and extremely unusual hardship, the better course might be to seek the input of all parties concerned, including the immigrant, and consider allowing the case to proceed to trial before an immigration judge. This way a final decision can be made -- up or down -- on whether or not the immigrant should be deported. It would also promote judicial economy and efficient use of government resources.
Rep. Lamar Smith might be shy to admit it, but he deserves a lot of credit for the administration's implementation of prosecutorial discretion in immigration enforcement. In 1999 he and other members of Congress championed the issue by writing a letter to then-Attorney General Janet Reno in which they implored her to use prosecutorial discretion in immigration cases. The lawmakers reminded her that "the principal of prosecutorial discretion is well established" in the law, and gives immigration agents discretion to "terminate" deportation proceedings in appropriate circumstances.
Smith and his colleagues were spot on. Smart enforcement of the nation's immigration laws makes sense. It will help secure our borders, protect American families, and enhance our national security.
Follow David Leopold on Twitter: www.twitter.com/DavidLeopold
No, it's not automatic, but administrative closure makes the alien eligible for work authorization. That person can then compete with U.S. workers for scarce jobs. Pretty simple refutation of your "not a single job" argument.
Standard practice for pro-illegal immigration supporters; it's in practically every article on illegal immigration and David Leopold's is no different: Refer to those who are against illegal immigration as against ALL immigration, and you make the other side look evil and unfair. Plus, as we all know, when you're FOR illegal immigration, i.e., people breaking the law, and you actually have to refer to it as "illegal immigration," you've already lost your argument.
Thankfully people are finally seeing this and we can simply dismiss entire articles such as Leopold's as soon as we note the tell-tale "anti-immigrant" reference.
Apparently the Author is unfamiliar with the statistics released by both the DHS and the Pew Center that state there are 7.5 million Illegal Immigrants currently working illegally in the USA. And apparently this Author has not read the Pew Studies and the USBLS unemployment reports that show a strong correlation between jobs filled by the 7.5 million working Illegal Immigrants and the 19.5 million unemployed Americans, the majority of whom used to work in those same jobs.
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Wow.. this puppy is spinning like crazy. Yet another Immigration Lawyer must be in big trouble on the BMW.
Huffington Post has gone to great lengths to publish authors who tell us how they intend to beat any effort to stop the illegal aliens from getting jobs. Working 'under the table' and making all the wages take-home enables the Illegals to pay those fees to the Immigration Lawyers that support that BMW.
One thing is very scary in that article: there are a whole bunch of assertions and no references that support him. What we are left with is the obvious bias of the Immigration Lawyer that probably looking at the future of his job.
What a wonderful thought for me.
"Chairman Smith's knee-jerk response failed to explain that an administratively closed case is not the same as a dismissed case. It remains on the deportation docket and can be reactivated by ICE at any time. Translated into plain English, administrative closure merely means an immigrant's deportation case is placed on the back burner while higher priority cases are prosecuted and aliens who pose a security risk to America are deported."
Why should we have to trade the economic prosperity of millions of poor, unemployed American families for America's security? Why not let the 1% pay for America's security by increasing America's capacity for dealing with deportation of the illegal aliens?
And the number 1 danger is unlicensed illegal aliens driving uninsured down the streets in our communities. The streets our children cross to go to school and play on. These illegals have never been tested or approved to drive anything. This woman was caught driving and then 23 days later she was picked up again. No regard for the law.
20 Jan 2012
"On Sept. 7, 2011, an immigration judge in Baltimore granted Rodriguez-Vega voluntary departure until Jan. 5, 2012, according to ICE. Agents said she failed to comply, then removed and destroyed a detention ankle bracelet. The act made her an ICE fugitive.
Rodriguez-Vega has been cited with several misdemeanor driving violations in Washington County since 2008, according to court records. Those violations primarily included driving without a license and driving with a suspended license.
The most recent local driving violation occurred Sept. 30, 2011, or about three weeks after Rodriguez-Vega was ordered to leave the country. Hagerstown Police Chief Arthur Smith said that citation was issued when an electronic tag reader recorded Rodriguez-Vega driving with a suspended license in the 600 block of Northern Avenue.
"She apparently was insistent on driving around with a suspended license," Smith said. "I think describing her as law-abiding would be a little inaccurate."
http://articles.herald-mail.com/2012-01-20/news/30649706_1_ice-agents-deportation-police-chief-arthur-smith
Yes, but those people granting Administrative Closure have SAID that they will be giving work permits to those people whose cases are so closed. Just becaused the law does not grant it does not mean it is not going to happen.
And the author obviously hasn't heard of "broken windows" policing, which worked so successfully in New York City. That policy is based on enforcing ALL laws to show that the police are serious about enforcement. What the Obama Administration has done is the opposite--to show the world that it's NOT serious about enforcing immigration laws.
I am, by the way, a lifelong labor Democrat, and will not be voting for any candidate that supports amnesty for illegal aliens.