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: JURIST - The Paper Chase

Bush immigration enforcement policies ineffective: FOIA documents

By Bernard Hibbitts (editor) and University of Pittsburgh School of Law students.

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[JURIST] The Cardozo School of Law's Immigration Justice Clinic announced Wednesday that it has obtained documents showing that Bush administration immigration enforcement tactics were both overly-aggressive and ineffective. The memoranda were obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, and state that in 2006 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) policy increased arrest quotas from 125 to 1000 per year and eliminated a previous requirement that 75 percent of arrests must be "criminal aliens." The documents also indicate a significant increase in the ratio of non-criminal to criminal immigrants arrested by ICE since the changes were instituted. Clinic director Peter Markowitz said the Bush administration's efforts failed by their own standards:ICE's home raids have primarily led to the arrests of individuals who posed no risk to society and have come at a significant cost to immigrant families and to ICE's own enforcement priorities. ... ICE has created tremendous bureaucratic incentives for fugitive operation teams to abandon focus on high priority targets in favor of a shotgun approach of undisciplined home raids.Also Wednesday, the Migration Policy Institute released a report on ICE fugitive operation teams and concluded that despite an increased budget, they have not met their goal of arresting dangerous individuals. Recently-appointed Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano has issued a directive calling for review and assessment of the ICE fugitive operation teams. ICE has arrested many non-criminal illegal immigrants in the past year, many of whom were imprisoned. In April, Seton Hall Law School's Center for Social Justice filed a lawsuit claiming that warrantless immigration raids violate the US Constitution.

Full post as published by JURIST - The Paper Chase on February 06, 2009 (boomark / email).