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MGH Community News |
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MGH Community News |
| February 2017 | Volume 21 • Issue 2 |
Heightened Immigration Enforcement and Resources – The Undocumented – “They’re all Targets Now” Sections
See also- accompanying story: Draft Executive Order Would Further Limit LEGAL Immigrant Access to Benefits Social Service staff can access a new patient handout Non-Citizens: Know Your Rights that includes legal clinics and referral services, civil rights when interacting with ICE agents, safety planning, ICE’s “sensitive locations” policy and details about protections are offered by “Sanctuary Cities” and the limitations of those protections. What’s Happening in Boston- Rumor vs. Reality As rumors about ICE raids have been swirling around our communities, MIRA checked in with the local office to and sent the following in an e-mail bulletin dated February 21. Here's their response: "We continue to conduct targeted enforcement, like we always have. Priorities change, and we change accordingly.” The statement about priority changes refers to the expansion of priorities contained in one of the Executive Orders (EOs) issued on January 25. This EO added to the list of ICE enforcement priorities for undocumented immigrants: 1) those charged but not convicted of a crime; 2) all those with outstanding removal orders; and 3) those presumed to have committed "acts" that could be charged as a crime -- which could include acts like crossing our border (a federal misdemeanor), driving without a license, or using a false SSN. Prior to this EO, only those with convictions and those with removal order after January 1, 2014 were considered priorities for deportation. Although it is difficult to know for certain, here is MIRA’s take on what is happening locally. The local ICE office is not conducting large scale raids like we have seen in other states. However, because of the change in priorities, they are out on the streets more than they have been in the past and are going after people they have in their system who, in the past, they have left alone. Because of this, their enforcement actions are more visible in our communities, creating the impression of raids. It is also hitting social media, which is creating a greater sense of panic. While these enforcement actions are taking place across the state, we have heard of a concentration of actions in Framingham. MIRA believes that it is more important than ever for folks to speak to an attorney especially if they have a pending deportation order and especially if they have check-ins with ICE. Local Police Can’t Prevent ICE Immigration Raids Police Commissioner Bill Evans recently reported zero cases turned over to ICE in 2016. So what happens when ICE comes to Boston? According to Evans, ICE has the right to perform deportation raids in Boston, without any local approval whatsoever. “If they have civil process and they have the right to do it under federal guidelines, they can, but we won’t participate in anything like that,” Evans said during an interview with Boston Public Radio. “They don’t even have to notify us.” Trump’s executive order contains a policy calling to expand a federal effort to use local law enforcement as de facto immigration agents, a program that was scaled back in the Obama administration. “I’ve always said we’re not the immigration police,” Evans said. “If someone is a violent felon, obviously they will get turned over, but other than that, we won’t participate in any immigration raids.” Ultimately, Evans says, the most important decision in these cases is whether or not to grant bail, which is decided by neither immigration officers nor local police. “We have nothing to do with raids right now anywhere in the city of Boston,” Evans said. “Our procedure hasn’t changed, if we lock someone up, we fingerprint them, and the fingerprints get sent to the state police, FBI, Homeland Security and ICE. If they want to put a detainer on it, that’s their decision, but everyone has access to bail. The ultimate decider of whether or not anyone goes loose in the bail commissioner. We don’t make that call at all.” Despite resistance from local police to act as immigration officers, it is technically within the legal right of ICE agents to pretend to be local police during raids in an effort to gain entry to private residences and perform arrests. With ICE agents using ‘deportation ruses’ and other tactics to find and arrest illegal immigrants, Evans says local immigrant communities are becoming less trustworthy of local police. “I’m fearful because we have large immigration communities like East Boston, where we’re having major issues around young kids getting killed [due] to violence,” Evans said. “It’s hard enough now to get them to talk and to build trust and respect, and I think what’s going on now is hurting our efforts and the whole idea of community policing, especially in immigrant communities.” Evans spoke at a church in East Boston in early February, alongside Mayor Walsh and Cardinal Séan O’Malley, and urged the immigrant community to maintain their trust in the local police. “I made it clear that we’re not the immigration police, we’re here for you,” Evans said. “Don’t be afraid of us, because that’s not who we are, and that’s not who the mayor wants his police department to be.” -See the full WGBH story including a link to the full interview. Additional Memos Pave Way to Expedited Removals In addition to the January EO, two draft memos signed on February 17 by John F. Kelly, the retired Marine general who is now secretary of homeland security, outline an aggressive mission for the immigration authorities that would rescind policies put in place by President Barack Obama that focused mainly on removing serious criminals. The directives appear to spare many younger immigrants brought to the country illegally as children, known as Dreamers (DACA holders). But some parents of children who enter unaccompanied could face prosecution under the guidelines. The memos, have not been finalized and are subject to change by the White House. Among the most significant changes in the memos, which were obtained by McClatchy newspapers and The Washington Post, would be an expansion of so-called expedited removal proceedings to cover thousands more undocumented immigrants. Under expedited removals, agents from the Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement can deport detained individuals immediately. Under Obama administration directives, expedited removal was used only within 100 miles of the border for people who had been in the country no more than 14 days. Mr. Kelly’s memos would expand that to those who have been in the country for up to two years anywhere in the nation. The memos also call for the possible prosecution of the parents of children who arrived as unaccompanied minors and are later reunited with the parents. Under Mr. Kelly’s directive, the parents could be charged with smuggling or trafficking. But the memos appear to exempt the Dreamers, the young immigrants protected under Mr. Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, called DACA. Mr. Kelly’s directives would also instruct Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as well as Customs and Border Protection, the parent agency of the Border Patrol, to begin reviving a program that recruits local police officers and sheriff’s deputies to help with deportation, effectively making them de facto immigration agents. The effort, called the 287g program, was scaled back during the Obama administration. Another new provision would be to immediately return Mexican immigrants who are apprehended at the border back home pending the outcomes of their deportation hearings, rather than house them on U.S. property, an effort that would save detention space and other resources. The guidelines also aim to deter the arrival of a growing wave of 155,000 unaccompanied minors who have come from Mexico and Central America over the past three years. Under the new policies, their parents in the United States could be prosecuted if they are found to have paid smugglers to bring the children across the border. The memos instruct agency chiefs to begin hiring 10,000 additional ICE agents and 5,000 more for the Border Patrol, which had been included in Trump’s executive actions.
-See the full The New York Times article.
Sensitive Locations Memo May be Rescinded - Allowing Arrests at Hospitals
Buried in the memos is a separate provision that is worthy of attention. That provision raises the possibility that under Trump, enforcement officers will have an easier time than under President Obama of arresting undocumented immigrants who are in schools or hospitals or are seeking sanctuary in churches. This would be politically explosive if it came to pass, and a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security has said that the Obama-era protection of people in such venues will remain in place. But immigration and civil rights lawyers say they still want to see a much firmer assurance to this effect once DHS formally announces the new deportation policies. And they say fears are already circulating in immigration communities that these protections will not meaningfully exist under Trump. The worry arises from a line in one of the newly leaked memos stating that “all existing” Homeland Security “memoranda or field guidance” regarding enforcement “are hereby immediately rescinded,” with a few exceptions. If all previous Obama DHS memos are rescinded, this would theoretically include another Obama-era memo, one that protects undocumented immigrants in places such as schools and churches. That memo is known as the “sensitive locations memo,” and it establishes that enforcement actions will not take place in “sensitive locations” such as schools, hospitals and places of worship, without express consent from agency supervisors, and must be exercised with excessive care. Advocates say this is necessary to ensure a fundamental humanitarian commitment: that undocumented immigrants can attend school or places of worship or seek needed medical care. Asked for comment, Gillian Christensen, a spokesperson for DHS, emailed: “The sensitive locations memo will remain in place.” But advocates insist this is not yet a firm enough commitment, for several reasons. DHS will soon release the final version of its deportation guidance memos, and David Nakamura reports that the newly leaked draft memos are currently being reviewed by White House counsel for potential changes. If the final versions rescind all previous memos and do not make an exception for sensitive locations — as is the case with the current drafts — the commitment to defending sensitive locations will remain ambiguous. The final version needs to explicitly exempt the sensitive locations memo. Now, it’s perfectly plausible that Trump’s DHS may clarify that it remains fully committed to the sensitive locations policy and may do so in practice. But it’s worth noting that Trump and his advisers have deliberately kept their intentions on deportations vague, sometimes suggesting that only criminals will be targeted, even as the concrete policies that are emerging seem to target many millions more. This ambiguity, some advocates think, is deliberately designed to instill fear among undocumented immigrants, perhaps encouraging them to “self-deport.” “If the commitment to the sensitive locations policy also remains vague, the broader effect may be that undocumented immigrants and their families stay away from schools, hospitals, churches, and mosques,” immigration attorney David Leopold says. “That could serve the larger end of instilling fear and panic in the community, which could encourage people to leave the country, regardless of their contributions and family ties.” So this bears watching. -See the full Washington Post blog post.
Editorial: The undocumented- They’re all targets now This month a domestic violence victim went to a courthouse in El Paso County, Texas, to seek a protective order against her alleged abuser. When she got there, though, she was apprehended by federal immigration officials, who were acting on a tip, presumably from her abuser. “I cannot recall an instance where ICE agents have gone into the domestic violence court, specifically looking for a victim of domestic violence,” a shocked prosecutor told the local media. Now that immigrant women know immigration officials might be lurking at the courthouse, authorities fear that domestic violence victims will avoid police. It’s not hyperbole to conclude that women might die as a result. To the what-part-of-illegal-don’t-you-understand crowd — the hard-liners who now include the president of the United States — the consequences of such indiscriminate immigration enforcement are irrelevant. After all, the domestic abuse victim, a Mexican national known only by her initials, I.E.G., was in the United States illegally. And that’s all that seems to matter now. Judging by Trump’s executive orders and words, and ICE’s actions, it’s clear that immigration authorities have abandoned the concept that some illegal immigrants should be higher-priority cases for deportation than others. Throwing illegal immigrants out of the country however and wherever authorities find them might seem like Trump fulfilling a campaign promise. But as with so many of his other policies, the result of the deportation binge may well be the opposite of its stated purpose. By lumping all 11 million illegal immigrants together, and making them all vulnerable to deportation, the administration isn’t making America safer, or its economy healthier. First, the kitchen-sink strategy wastes federal resources. Every hour that ICE officials spend arresting someone like the El Paso domestic violence victim is time they could have spent focusing on finding and deporting the small number of violent criminals in the immigrant community. The arbitrary deportations will also make immigrants afraid of talking to police, going to court, or interacting with the wider community. And all US residents — citizens and noncitizens, legal and illegal residents — will be less safe as a result. If you were hit by a drunk driver, and the only witness was an illegal immigrant, would you want him to run away when the police came? Nor will American workers benefit. Rather than help the nation’s economy and open up more jobs for Americans, the result of deporting workers — or scaring them away from their jobs — will be reduced productivity and higher prices in domestic agriculture and construction, among other sectors. If last year’s campaign proved anything, it’s that Trump and many of his supporters view illegal immigrants as people who have cheated the system and have no right to expect leniency or sympathy. But that simplistic, gut-level reaction is now pushing immigration policy down a dangerous path. Trump’s executive orders, along with the actions of ICE, have sent waves of confusion and fear through immigrant communities. Indeed, that seems to be at least part of the administration’s motive, since the government doesn’t actually have the ability to deport 11 million people. The message that all illegal immigrants must watch their backs may satisfy Trump’s urges, but it comes at an enormous cost to public safety for all residents. -See the full The Boston Globe Editorial.
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