Politico
By Seung Min Kim
June 24, 2015
Under fierce
pressure from Democratic lawmakers and immigration advocates, the Obama
administration said Wednesday that it would take steps to minimize the
controversial practice of detaining immigrant women
and children who cross the southern border.
But frustrated Democrats are already saying the administration plan doesn’t go far enough.
Homeland Security
Secretary Jeh Johnson announced a series of measures intended to limit
how long immigrant women and children are held in custody.
“I have reached the
conclusion that we must make substantial changes in our detention
practices with respect to families with children,” Johnson said
Wednesday. Once a family shows they are eligible for asylum,
Johnson said detaining them for the long term is “an inefficient use of
our resources and should be discontinued.”
Johnson added: “In substance – the detention of families will be short-term in most cases.”
Key House
Democrats, who had assembled for a press conference Wednesday to talk
about their visit to two immigrant detention facilities in Texas earlier
this week, were quick to call DHS announcement insufficient.
They and immigration advocates say the immigrant detention centers
should be shut down.
Other Democrats
weren’t as polite. California Rep. Zoe Lofgren, the top Democrat on the
House panel overseeing immigration, argued that regardless of the Obama
administration’s new policies, immigrants would
still be held in custody in jail-like conditions when they haven’t
committed crimes
“In the secretary’s
statement, he posed two alternatives: Jail, or you go to the bus stop
and disappear,” she said. “The secretary’s a smart guy. He knows those
are not the two alternatives.”
The issue of
detaining immigrants, particularly women and children, is one of the
rare components of immigration policy that has opened a rift between the
Obama administration and Democratic lawmakers on
Capitol Hill.
A majority of both
House and Senate Democrats has signed letters urging DHS to shut down
the centers. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton also
brought attention to the issue when she criticized
immigrant detention, particularly of children and the mentally ill.
The new policy on
detention centers announced by Johnson include several changes. One
allows immigrant families who prove that they face “credible or
reasonable fear of persecution in their home countries”
to be released on bond while they await immigration court hearings.
That bond amount, Johnson said, would be “reasonable and realistic.”
Another change
requires immigration officials to do interviews with immigrants who
could qualify for asylum in a “reasonable time frame” – a change that
Johnson indicates is meant to shorten how long immigrant
families could be detained.
Kevin Appleby, the
director of migration policy for the U.S. Conference of Catholic
Bishops, said the DHS’s new measures were policies that should have
already been in place, calling the new steps “backtracking.”
Still, the
announcement Wednesday was a notable shift for the administration. After
last summer’s border crisis – in which tens of thousands of immigrants,
particularly unaccompanied children, arrived at
the U.S.-Mexico border – top officials said the detention facilities
were needed to deter immigrants from trying to cross the border
illegally.
Key House Democrats are meeting with Johnson at the Capitol on Wednesday afternoon to discuss the changes.
“For an
administration … that has been very conscientious on many major American
issues — whether it’s been ending ‘don’t ask don’t tell,’ pushing for
marriage equality, whether it’s been making sure that
every American has the ability to afford health care — we would ask the
administration to also be conscientious in this realm and finally close
these detention camps,” Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) said.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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