U.S. plans raids to deport families who surged across border
A one-year-old from El Salvador clings to his mother after she turned
themselves in to Border Patrol agents on Dec. 7, 2015 near Rio Grande City,
Texas. They had just illegally crossed the U.S.-Mexico border into Texas. (John
Moore/Getty Images)
By Jerry Markon and David Nakamura December 23 at 9:06 PM
The Department of Homeland Security has begun preparing for a series of raids
that would target for deportation hundreds of families who have flocked to the
United States since the start of last year, according to people familiar with
the operation.
The nationwide campaign, to be carried out by U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) agents as soon as early January, would be the first
large-scale effort to deport families who have fled violence in Central
America, those familiar with the plan said. More than 100,000 families with
both adults and children have made the journey across the southwest border
since last year, though this migration has largely been overshadowed by a
related surge of unaccompanied minors.
The ICE operation would target only adults and children who have already been
ordered removed from the United States by an immigration judge, according to
officials familiar with the undertaking, who spoke on condition of anonymity
because planning is ongoing and the operation has not been given final approval
by DHS. The adults and children would be detained wherever they can be found
and immediately deported. The number targeted is expected to be in the hundreds
and possibly greater.
The proposed deportations have been controversial inside the Obama
administration, which has been discussing them for several months. DHS
Secretary Jeh Johnson has been pushing for the moves, according to those with
knowledge of the debate, in part because of a new spike in the number of
illegal immigrants in recent months. Experts say that the violence that was a
key factor in driving people to flee Central America last year has surged
again, with the homicide rate in El Salvador reaching its highest level in a
generation. A drought in the region has also prompted departures.
The pressure for deportations has also mounted because of a recent court
decision that ordered DHS to begin releasing families housed in detention
centers.
CONTENT FROM RyderLeave supply chain management to the experts
Outsourcing supply chain roles requires active business management and
engagement.By Ryder
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Although Johnson has signaled publicly for months that Central American
families not granted asylum would face deportation, the plan is likely to
trigger renewed backlash from Latino groups and immigrant advocates, who have
long accused the administration of overly harsh detention policies even as
Republicans deride President Obama as soft on border security.
Advocates have not been briefed on the plans and on Wednesday expressed
concern. They cited what they called flaws and abuses in the government’s
treatment and legal processing of the families, many of whom are fleeing danger
or persecution in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.
“It would be an outrage if the administration subjected Central American
families to even more aggressive enforcement tactics,” said Gregory Chen,
director of advocacy for the American Immigration Lawyers Association. “This
administration has never acknowledged the truth: that these families are
refugees seeking asylum who should be given humanitarian protection rather than
being detained or rounded up. When other countries are welcoming far more
refugees, the U.S. should be ashamed for using jails and even contemplating
large-scale deportation tactics.”
Groups that have called for stricter immigration limits said the raids are long
overdue and remained skeptical about whether the scale would be large enough to
deter future illegal immigration from Central America.
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the
Center for Immigration Studies. “What share is this going to be?. . . It’s a
drop in the bucket compared to the number they’ve admitted into the country. If
you have photogenic raids on a few dozen illegal families and that’s the end of
it, it’s just for show. It’s just a [public relations] thing, enforcement
theater.”
Marsha Catron, a DHS spokeswoman, would not comment on any possible ICE
operations but pointed out that Johnson “has consistently said our border is
not open to illegal immigration, and if individuals come here illegally, do not
qualify for asylum or other relief, and have final orders of removal, they will
be sent back consistent with our laws and our values.”
The raids could become a flash point on the 2016 campaign trail, where GOP
presidential contenders, including frontrunner Donald Trump, have made calls
for stricter border control a central issue. Trump’s rise has come as he has
promised to deport all undocumented immigrants and bar entry to the United
States for Muslim refugees in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Paris and
San Bernardino, Calif., policy prescriptions denounced by Democratic
candidates, including Hillary Clinton.
The immigration issue has often bedeviled Obama, who came into office under
pressure from supporters to end the George W. Bush administration’s post-Sept,
11, 2001, crackdown on illegal migrants. Instead, the administration increased
deportations in its early years, drawing repeated fire from Latino groups and
immigration advocates. Then, in summer 2014, came the surge of children
flocking across the southwest border.
While most public attention focused on minors who were crossing the border
alone, the number of children who came with a family member — known as “family
units’’ in DHS parlance — also spiked dramatically.
With the government overwhelmed at first, many of the families were simply
released and told to appear at later immigration court dates to determine if
they would be granted asylum.
Some never showed up or had their asylum claims rejected and were ordered
deported by immigration judges, officials familiar with the process said. That
population is among those expected to be targeted in the upcoming raids, they
said.
Immigrant rights advocates and legal experts say the families and minors were
in many cases not granted adequate representation and were confused by the
asylum procedures in court.
DHS, meanwhile, reacted to the surge by opening family detention centers, two
in Texas and one in Pennsylvania. Those centers now house more than 1,700
people, DHS officials said Wednesday. But even as DHS officials have long vowed
that the migrants will be treated humanely, their advocates have said
conditions are crowded and inhumane in the centers, which often house women
with children.
As the administration wrestled with how to handle the families, Johnson in
November 2014 issued a set of new immigration enforcement priorities. Much of
the attention focused on his public statements that undocumented immigrants who
had been in the country for years should be integrated into society rather than
deported. And Obama, on the same day, announced an executive action intended to
shield up to 5 million illegal immigrants from deportation.
But Obama’s action has been blocked in the courts. And Johnson has also made
clear that families, children and others who had illegally crossed the border
recently and did not obtain asylum status — and anyone ordered deported
starting on Jan. 1, 2014 — would be subject to removal.
DHS “will also continue to expedite, to the greatest extent possible, the
removal of those who are not eligible for relief under our laws,’’ Johnson said
in a September statement about the family detention centers. “We take seriously
our obligation to secure our borders.’’
In August, a federal judge in California ordered the administration to begin
releasing in October children and family members from the detention centers.
The judge said DHS had violated a 1990s consent decree that said minors taken
into custody, whether accompanied by an adult or not, had to be treated
humanely and allowed to quickly contest their incarcerations.
The administration has said it is complying with the ruling, but it has also
filed an appeal with a federal appeals court, and officials said the decision
left them feeling hamstrung. “It doesn’t allow us to hold onto people, to
detain them until we can deport them,’’ said one person familiar with the
internal debate.
Then, in recent months, the flow of families crossing the border suddenly shot
up again. The numbers of family units apprehended rose 173 percent in October
and November, compared to the same period last year, according to DHS data
analyzed by the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank.
The court decision and the sudden spike led to the decision to begin planning
the upcoming raid, said officials familiar with the deliberations, who said DHS
knows the deportations will be inflammatory but feels like it must enforce the
law.
"" frameborder="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no"
style="border: 0px currentColor; vertical-align: bottom;"
Politics
U.S. plans raids to deport families who surged across border
A one-year-old from El Salvador clings to his mother after she turned
themselves in to Border Patrol agents on Dec. 7, 2015 near Rio Grande City,
Texas. They had just illegally crossed the U.S.-Mexico border into Texas. (John
Moore/Getty Images)
By Jerry Markon and David Nakamura December 23 at 9:06 PM
mailto:jerry.markon@xxxxxxxxxxxx;david.nakamura@xxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=Reader
feedback for 'U.S. plans raids to deport families who surged across border'
The Department of Homeland Security has begun preparing for a series of raids
that would target for deportation hundreds of families who have flocked to the
United States since the start of last year, according to people familiar with
the operation.
The nationwide campaign, to be carried out by U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) agents as soon as early January, would be the first
large-scale effort to deport families who have fled violence in Central
America, those familiar with the plan said. More than 100,000 families with
both adults and children have made the journey across the southwest border
since last year, though this migration has largely been overshadowed by a
related surge of unaccompanied minors.
The ICE operation would target only adults and children who have already been
ordered removed from the United States by an immigration judge, according to
officials familiar with the undertaking, who spoke on condition of anonymity
because planning is ongoing and the operation has not been given final approval
by DHS. The adults and children would be detained wherever they can be found
and immediately deported. The number targeted is expected to be in the hundreds
and possibly greater.
The proposed deportations have been controversial inside the Obama
administration, which has been discussing them for several months. DHS
Secretary Jeh Johnson has been pushing for the moves, according to those with
knowledge of the debate, in part because of a new spike in the number of
illegal immigrants in recent months. Experts say that the violence that was a
key factor in driving people to flee Central America last year has surged
again, with the homicide rate in El Salvador reaching its highest level in a
generation. A drought in the region has also prompted departures.
The pressure for deportations has also mounted because of a recent court
decision that ordered DHS to begin releasing families housed in detention
centers.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/brand-connect/transforming-the-future-of-the-modern-supply-chain
CONTENT FROM RyderLeave supply chain management to the experts
Outsourcing supply chain roles requires active business management and
engagement.By Ryder http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/brand-connect/
Although Johnson has signaled publicly for months that Central American
families not granted asylum would face deportation, the plan is likely to
trigger renewed backlash from Latino groups and immigrant advocates, who have
long accused the administration of overly harsh detention policies even as
Republicans deride President Obama as soft on border security.
Advocates have not been briefed on the plans and on Wednesday expressed
concern. They cited what they called flaws and abuses in the government’s
treatment and legal processing of the families, many of whom are fleeing danger
or persecution in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.
“It would be an outrage if the administration subjected Central American
families to even more aggressive enforcement tactics,” said Gregory Chen,
director of advocacy for the American Immigration Lawyers Association. “This
administration has never acknowledged the truth: that these families are
refugees seeking asylum who should be given humanitarian protection rather than
being detained or rounded up. When other countries are welcoming far more
refugees, the U.S. should be ashamed for using jails and even contemplating
large-scale deportation tactics.”
Groups that have called for stricter immigration limits said the raids are long
overdue and remained skeptical about whether the scale would be large enough to
deter future illegal immigration from Central America.
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the
Center for Immigration Studies. “What share is this going to be?. . . It’s a
drop in the bucket compared to the number they’ve admitted into the country. If
you have photogenic raids on a few dozen illegal families and that’s the end of
it, it’s just for show. It’s just a [public relations] thing, enforcement
theater.”
Marsha Catron, a DHS spokeswoman, would not comment on any possible ICE
operations but pointed out that Johnson “has consistently said our border is
not open to illegal immigration, and if individuals come here illegally, do not
qualify for asylum or other relief, and have final orders of removal, they will
be sent back consistent with our laws and our values.”
"" frameborder="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no"
style="border: 0px currentColor; vertical-align: bottom;"
The raids could become a flash point on the 2016 campaign trail, where GOP
presidential contenders, including frontrunner Donald Trump, have made calls
for stricter border control a central issue. Trump’s rise has come as he has
promised to deport all undocumented immigrants and bar entry to the United
States for Muslim refugees in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Paris and
San Bernardino, Calif., policy prescriptions denounced by Democratic
candidates, including Hillary Clinton.
The immigration issue has often bedeviled Obama, who came into office under
pressure from supporters to end the George W. Bush administration’s post-Sept,
11, 2001, crackdown on illegal migrants. Instead, the administration increased
deportations in its early years, drawing repeated fire from Latino groups and
immigration advocates. Then, in summer 2014, came the surge of children
flocking across the southwest border.
While most public attention focused on minors who were crossing the border
alone, the number of children who came with a family member — known as “family
units’’ in DHS parlance — also spiked dramatically.
With the government overwhelmed at first, many of the families were simply
released and told to appear at later immigration court dates to determine if
they would be granted asylum.
Some never showed up or had their asylum claims rejected and were ordered
deported by immigration judges, officials familiar with the process said. That
population is among those expected to be targeted in the upcoming raids, they
said.
Immigrant rights advocates and legal experts say the families and minors were
in many cases not granted adequate representation and were confused by the
asylum procedures in court.
DHS, meanwhile, reacted to the surge by opening family detention centers, two
in Texas and one in Pennsylvania. Those centers now house more than 1,700
people, DHS officials said Wednesday. But even as DHS officials have long vowed
that the migrants will be treated humanely, their advocates have said
conditions are crowded and inhumane in the centers, which often house women
with children.
"" frameborder="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no"
style="border: 0px currentColor; vertical-align: bottom;"
As the administration wrestled with how to handle the families, Johnson in
November 2014 issued a set of new immigration enforcement priorities. Much of
the attention focused on his public statements that undocumented immigrants who
had been in the country for years should be integrated into society rather than
deported. And Obama, on the same day, announced an executive action intended to
shield up to 5 million illegal immigrants from deportation.
But Obama’s action has been blocked in the courts. And Johnson has also made
clear that families, children and others who had illegally crossed the border
recently and did not obtain asylum status — and anyone ordered deported
starting on Jan. 1, 2014 — would be subject to removal.
DHS “will also continue to expedite, to the greatest extent possible, the
removal of those who are not eligible for relief under our laws,’’ Johnson said
in a September statement about the family detention centers. “We take seriously
our obligation to secure our borders.’’
In August, a federal judge in California ordered the administration to begin
releasing in October children and family members from the detention centers.
The judge said DHS had violated a 1990s consent decree that said minors taken
into custody, whether accompanied by an adult or not, had to be treated
humanely and allowed to quickly contest their incarcerations.
The administration has said it is complying with the ruling, but it has also
filed an appeal with a federal appeals court, and officials said the decision
left them feeling hamstrung. “It doesn’t allow us to hold onto people, to
detain them until we can deport them,’’ said one person familiar with the
internal debate.
Then, in recent months, the flow of families crossing the border suddenly shot
up again. The numbers of family units apprehended rose 173 percent in October
and November, compared to the same period last year, according to DHS data
analyzed by the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank.
"" frameborder="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no"
style="border: 0px currentColor; vertical-align: bottom;"
The court decision and the sudden spike led to the decision to begin planning
the upcoming raid, said officials familiar with the deliberations, who said DHS
knows the deportations will be "" frameborder="0" marginwidth="0"
marginheight="0" scrolling="no" style="border: 0px currentColor;
vertical-align: bottom;"
Politics
U.S. plans raids to deport families who surged across border
A one-year-old from El Salvador clings to his mother after she turned
themselves in to Border Patrol agents on Dec. 7, 2015 near Rio Grande City,
Texas. They had just illegally crossed the U.S.-Mexico border into Texas. (John
Moore/Getty Images)
By Jerry Markon and David Nakamura December 23 at 9:06 PM
mailto:jerry.markon@xxxxxxxxxxxx;david.nakamura@xxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=Reader
feedback for 'U.S. plans raids to deport families who surged across border'
The Department of Homeland Security has begun preparing for a series of raids
that would target for deportation hundreds of families who have flocked to the
United States since the start of last year, according to people familiar with
the operation.
The nationwide campaign, to be carried out by U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) agents as soon as early January, would be the first
large-scale effort to deport families who have fled violence in Central
America, those familiar with the plan said. More than 100,000 families with
both adults and children have made the journey across the southwest border
since last year, though this migration has largely been overshadowed by a
related surge of unaccompanied minors.
The ICE operation would target only adults and children who have already been
ordered removed from the United States by an immigration judge, according to
officials familiar with the undertaking, who spoke on condition of anonymity
because planning is ongoing and the operation has not been given final approval
by DHS. The adults and children would be detained wherever they can be found
and immediately deported. The number targeted is expected to be in the hundreds
and possibly greater.
The proposed deportations have been controversial inside the Obama
administration, which has been discussing them for several months. DHS
Secretary Jeh Johnson has been pushing for the moves, according to those with
knowledge of the debate, in part because of a new spike in the number of
illegal immigrants in recent months. Experts say that the violence that was a
key factor in driving people to flee Central America last year has surged
again, with the homicide rate in El Salvador reaching its highest level in a
generation. A drought in the region has also prompted departures.
The pressure for deportations has also mounted because of a recent court
decision that ordered DHS to begin releasing families housed in detention
centers.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/brand-connect/transforming-the-future-of-the-modern-supply-chain
CONTENT FROM RyderLeave supply chain management to the experts
Outsourcing supply chain roles requires active business management and
engagement.By Ryder http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/brand-connect/
Although Johnson has signaled publicly for months that Central American
families not granted asylum would face deportation, the plan is likely to
trigger renewed backlash from Latino groups and immigrant advocates, who have
long accused the administration of overly harsh detention policies even as
Republicans deride President Obama as soft on border security.
Advocates have not been briefed on the plans and on Wednesday expressed
concern. They cited what they called flaws and abuses in the government’s
treatment and legal processing of the families, many of whom are fleeing danger
or persecution in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.
“It would be an outrage if the administration subjected Central American
families to even more aggressive enforcement tactics,” said Gregory Chen,
director of advocacy for the American Immigration Lawyers Association. “This
administration has never acknowledged the truth: that these families are
refugees seeking asylum who should be given humanitarian protection rather than
being detained or rounded up. When other countries are welcoming far more
refugees, the U.S. should be ashamed for using jails and even contemplating
large-scale deportation tactics.”
Groups that have called for stricter immigration limits said the raids are long
overdue and remained skeptical about whether the scale would be large enough to
deter future illegal immigration from Central America.
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the
Center for Immigration Studies. “What share is this going to be?. . . It’s a
drop in the bucket compared to the number they’ve admitted into the country. If
you have photogenic raids on a few dozen illegal families and that’s the end of
it, it’s just for show. It’s just a [public relations] thing, enforcement
theater.”
Marsha Catron, a DHS spokeswoman, would not comment on any possible ICE
operations but pointed out that Johnson “has consistently said our border is
not open to illegal immigration, and if individuals come here illegally, do not
qualify for asylum or other relief, and have final orders of removal, they will
be sent back consistent with our laws and our values.”
"" frameborder="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no"
style="border: 0px currentColor; vertical-align: bottom;"
The raids could become a flash point on the 2016 campaign trail, where GOP
presidential contenders, including frontrunner Donald Trump, have made calls
for stricter border control a central issue. Trump’s rise has come as he has
promised to deport all undocumented immigrants and bar entry to the United
States for Muslim refugees in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Paris and
San Bernardino, Calif., policy prescriptions denounced by Democratic
candidates, including Hillary Clinton.
The immigration issue has often bedeviled Obama, who came into office under
pressure from supporters to end the George W. Bush administration’s post-Sept,
11, 2001, crackdown on illegal migrants. Instead, the administration increased
deportations in its early years, drawing repeated fire from Latino groups and
immigration advocates. Then, in summer 2014, came the surge of children
flocking across the southwest border.
While most public attention focused on minors who were crossing the border
alone, the number of children who came with a family member — known as “family
units’’ in DHS parlance — also spiked dramatically.
With the government overwhelmed at first, many of the families were simply
released and told to appear at later immigration court dates to determine if
they would be granted asylum.
Some never showed up or had their asylum claims rejected and were ordered
deported by immigration judges, officials familiar with the process said. That
population is among those expected to be targeted in the upcoming raids, they
said.
Immigrant rights advocates and legal experts say the families and minors were
in many cases not granted adequate representation and were confused by the
asylum procedures in court.
DHS, meanwhile, reacted to the surge by opening family detention centers, two
in Texas and one in Pennsylvania. Those centers now house more than 1,700
people, DHS officials said Wednesday. But even as DHS officials have long vowed
that the migrants will be treated humanely, their advocates have said
conditions are crowded and inhumane in the centers, which often house women
with children.
"" frameborder="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no"
style="border: 0px currentColor; vertical-align: bottom;"
As the administration wrestled with how to handle the families, Johnson in
November 2014 issued a set of new immigration enforcement priorities. Much of
the attention focused on his public statements that undocumented immigrants who
had been in the country for years should be integrated into society rather than
deported. And Obama, on the same day, announced an executive action intended to
shield up to 5 million illegal immigrants from deportation.
But Obama’s action has been blocked in the courts. And Johnson has also made
clear that families, children and others who had illegally crossed the border
recently and did not obtain asylum status — and anyone ordered deported
starting on Jan. 1, 2014 — would be subject to removal.
DHS “will also continue to expedite, to the greatest extent possible, the
removal of those who are not eligible for relief under our laws,’’ Johnson said
in a September statement about the family detention centers. “We take seriously
our obligation to secure our borders.’’
In August, a federal judge in California ordered the administration to begin
releasing in October children and family members from the detention centers.
The judge said DHS had violated a 1990s consent decree that said minors taken
into custody, whether accompanied by an adult or not, had to be treated
humanely and allowed to quickly contest their incarcerations.
The administration has said it is complying with the ruling, but it has also
filed an appeal with a federal appeals court, and officials said the decision
left them feeling hamstrung. “It doesn’t allow us to hold onto people, to
detain them until we can deport them,’’ said one person familiar with the
internal debate.
Then, in recent months, the flow of families crossing the border suddenly shot
up again. The numbers of family units apprehended rose 173 percent in October
and November, compared to the same period last year, according to DHS data
analyzed by the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank.
"" frameborder="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no"
style="border: 0px currentColor; vertical-align: bottom;"
The court decision and the sudden spike led to the decision to begin planning
the upcoming raid, said officials familiar with the deliberations, who said DHS
knows the deportations will be inflammatory but feels like it must enforce the
law.
inflammatory but feels like it must enforce the law.
