Immigration Newsletter – February 2012

February 15, 2012
NLG-Admin

Changes that make sense – It has been a while that I have seen changes from the Department of Homeland Security that made sense. I am not talking about changes in the law but changes in the implementation of the law that was assigned to the duty and task of the Department of Homeland Security. The first of these changes occurred in early 2011 when the Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) began to implement its elimination of the low priority cases from the immigration court dockets and instead to focus on its highest immigration enforcement priorities which include cases that involve national security, public safety, border security, and cases that compromise the integrity of the immigration system. I want to be absolutely clear that there is no amnesty, no stoppage in removal of foreign nationals from the United States, and there are no changes in the enforcement side of the immigration law. Rather, ICE devotes more attention and resources to the enforcement of the high priority cases. After all, how many could you deport or remove when the budget and resources do not even amount to the enforcement of one tenth of the overall population of foreign nationals that are in the United States unlawfully. Keep in mind that most of the low priority cases that were eliminated from the court dockets are cases in which the foreign nationals were eligible for relief from removal and should be granted residency status or cases in which it is not in the public interest to remove the foreign national, such as the victim of a criminal act.

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