Washington : Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Meyercas is revising guidelines that govern which immigrants in the country illegally must be targets for arrest or deportation, so that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials can be contacted by ICE officers and The Biden administration’s initial approach was also to be given more discretion after complaints from some Republicans. restrictive
Under the new set of guidelines, which will take effect in 60 days, ICE officials will have the latitude to decide which immigrants pose a public-safety threat, rather than the ones put in place by the administration earlier this year. Strict categories to be followed are only immigrants who have committed serious crimes deserving of arrest or deportation.
The updated guidelines respond to complaints from ICE officials that they were not being allowed to pursue dangerous criminals—ICE briefly shutting down an operation to chase sex offenders under the Biden administration’s initial set of guidelines. Diya—as well as lawsuits from Texas and other conservative states—claim that they were too restrictive.
Under the new guidelines, officials are given a set of factors to decide whether an immigrant presents a threat to public safety, Mr Meyerkas said on a call with reporters on Thursday.
Mr Meyerkas said: “Frankly dealing with questions of people and public safety threats in this way is not really effective and can lead to ineffective and unjust consequences.” And that’s why we need and, frankly, empower our workforce to make their decisions.”
New factors to consider include the harm caused to the victim of the crime, the length of the immigrant’s prison sentence, the sophistication of the crime, and whether the immigrant used a gun.
The guidance also encourages officials to weigh potentially mitigating factors, such as how long ago the crime occurred, whether the immigrant is too young or old, and the impact of deporting the immigrant on his family members. Will have.
Mr. Mayerkas’ guidelines also allow immigration officers to follow anyone they consider a threat to national security or border security—anyone who crosses the border illegally after November 1, 2020. is defined as. The Department of Homeland Security and the Nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute both estimate that there are about 11 million immigrants without permanent legal status in the country, and most of them will not be targets of deportation under the Biden administration’s priorities.
“We do not have the resources to capture and remove every single one of these non-citizens. Therefore, we need to exercise our discretion,” the guidelines said.
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