Houston Chronicle
(Op-Ed)
By David Leopold
January 8, 2016
The
Obama administration rang in the New Year with a series of heavy-handed
immigration raids aimed at ferreting out and deporting Central American
families who entered
the United States after fleeing rampant violence in their home
countries. According to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh
Johnson, the focus of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation
is families ordered deported by an immigration judge
either because their asylum claims were denied or they didn't appear
for their immigration court hearings. The raids have caused widespread
shock, fear and panic among immigrant communities in Texas and
elsewhere.
The
raids operation is shocking, outrageous and just plain wrong. This is
something we would expect from a President Trump, not President Obama.
The
president is reacting - actually overreacting - to a recent spike in
the migration of Central American families and unaccompanied children to
the United States. He
apparently wants to deter others from making the arduous,
life-threatening trip north to the United States and to show that his
administration is adhering to its Nov. 14, 2014, immigration enforcement
priorities that, in addition to criminals and national
security threats, target noncitizens who entered the U.S. or were
ordered deported after Jan. 1, 2014.
But
it's morally repugnant to send ICE agents into local communities to
arrest and detain vulnerable families, including women and children, and
deport them to places
where their lives will be threatened by unspeakable violence –
countries like El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, where gang and drug
violence force innocent families to flee north to the United States in
search of a haven.
We
know that most are eligible for asylum or other forms of protection
because U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services data show that an
overwhelming percentage of the
mothers and children in family detention centers in the United States
can show a reasonable fear of persecution in their home countries.
Other
Central Americans ordered deported in absentia may not have had a fair
chance to plead their asylum case because they did not get adequate
information from government
bureaucrats explaining their obligation to go to court. Clearly, being
ordered deported under those circumstances is not due process.
And
this is exactly what the CARA Project - which provides pro bono legal
assistance to families held at ICE detention centers in South Texas -
found among the cases of
Central Americans arrested in these raids. After project lawyers filed
emergency appeals, the Board of Immigration Appeals temporarily stopped
the deportation of at least seven Central American immigrants so their
cases could be reviewed. As CARA Director
Katie Shepherd cogently put it, "This is a clear indication that
something is very wrong."
Nor
can it be said that deporting those whose asylum cases have been denied
after a hearing before an immigration judge is any more reasonable or
appropriate. Central
Americans fortunate enough to make their case in court with a lawyer
are burdened with complicated and exacting legal standards that govern
asylum law.
An
immigration judge's refusal to grant a person's asylum claim hardly
means he or she does not face serious, life-threatening harm in the
Northern Triangle of El Salvador,
Honduras or Guatemala. The bottom line is that for many Central
Americans, deportation means the forcible return to a cauldron of
life-threatening violence.
At
a minimum, the continued ICE raids should be immediately and
unequivocally stopped. Raids destroy families, ruin economies and erode
the community trust essential to
effective local law enforcement.
Fearing
deportation, undocumented immigrants may hesitate to report serious
crimes to local law enforcement. Immigration raids targeting families,
including women and
children, should be assigned to the dustbin of history.
Unfortunately,
Obama appears to be doubling down. White House press secretary Josh
Earnest said Friday that the enforcement strategy will not change.
The
president is making a colossal mistake by viewing this crisis solely
through the lens of immigration enforcement. It's much bigger than that -
it's a regional humanitarian
crisis that demands a regional solution.
What's
needed now from Obama is leadership, not brutal enforcement policies
targeting vulnerable families. Understanding the administration's
legitimate concern about
preventing a new border surge, including its concern that those Central
Americans who flee north to the United States face a life-threatening
journey, Obama must do better than resort to ICE raids.
The
president should work with regional partners toward a comprehensive
regional solution aimed the root causes of the migration and devote
resources to improving the
economic and social situation in Central America. That solution
includes regional safe havens, so Central American families fleeing
violence can find shelter in the area rather than being forced to risk
the treacherous journey north.
In
the meantime, even if one accepts the administration's argument that
the Central American families targeted for deportation have received
fair hearings - which I don't
- that still doesn't explain why the administration is dispatching
armed ICE agents into communities to arrest, detain and forcibly deport
families. ICE has the power to allow people who've exhausted court
proceedings to leave the country on their own. This
heavy-handed approach tells me that the president is trying to send a
broader message to Central American refugees - that they need not look
to America for safety or shelter. That's reprehensible, and something
we'd expect from a President Trump, not President
Obama.
Leopold,
founder and principal of an immigration law firm in Cleveland that
carries his name, is the past president of the Washington-based American
Immigration Lawyers
Association. A version of this commentary first appeared on CNN.com.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
No comments:
Post a Comment