They're creating criminals
Arrests of immigrants outside of immigration courtrooms puts immigrants in a catch-22. That's a feature, not a bug.
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Imagine that you’re a person who came to the United States seeking asylum, safety from persecution, or perhaps just a better life. You got into the country by whatever means you could and now you’re working your way through the immigration court system. So you go to court one day for your scheduled hearing, only for your case to be summarily dismissed while masked plainclothes men wait in the hallway outside the courtroom to arrest you.
That’s what happened in several cities across the nation this past week: Dallas, Los Angeles, Seattle, Las Vegas, New York, Miami, and Phoenix.
Immigration courthouses have long been considered no-go zones for Immigrations & Customs Enforcement (ICE) enforcement actions. Now, that’s changed. Lawyers for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have been exploiting a loophole in the system by requesting for immigration cases to be dismissed. If granted by a judge, dismissals revoke the temporary protective status of immigrants and make them eligible for arrest and deportation. In cities where judges have granted DHS requests for dismissals, ICE agents have immediately arrested individuals whose cases were dismissed, spurring outrage and protests.
In San Francisco, where ICE agents recently arrested four people at the immigration courthouse, immigration judges were not willing to dismiss cases. So ICE used a new tactic to arrest four individuals at the immigration courthouse.
Laura Sanchez told The San Francisco Standard that DHS attorneys are seeking “custody redetermination,” which allows ICE to detain immigrants while they await hearings.
“They switched their tactics,” Sanchez said. “This is new. We’ve only seen it when it was for public safety reasons. I’ve never seen this kind of systematic pattern ever, and I’ve done this for 15 years.”
These actions are a part of a shift in ICE strategy that seeks to accelerate their deportation efforts. The agency has released statements defending their tactics, claiming they are merely following the law through the policy of “expedited removal” — a process DHS says allows for deportation without a full hearing before an immigration judge, despite constitutional protections that guarantee due process. The agency has vowed to use the power more aggressively and apply it to all individuals who entered the U.S. without authorization in the past two years. Here’s a statement DHS sent to CBS New Texas.
“Secretary Noem is reversing Biden's catch and release policy that allowed millions of unvetted illegal aliens to be let loose on American streets. This Administration is once again implementing the rule of law.
Most aliens who illegally entered the United States within the past two years are subject to expedited removals. Biden ignored this legal fact and chose to release millions of illegal aliens, including violent criminals, into the country with a notice to appear before an immigration judge. ICE is now following the law and placing these illegal aliens in expedited removal, as they always should have been.
If they have a valid credible fear claim, they will continue in immigration proceedings, but if no valid claim is found, aliens will be subject to a swift deportation."
A “valid credible fear claim” basically means someone is likely to be persecuted or tortured if deported back to their country of origin. The Trump administration has sought to skirt this rule by deporting individuals to a third party country, a practice that has drawn federal lawsuits and court injunctions. One such third country where the Trump administration has tried to deport individuals is South Sudan, which is teetering on the edge of civil war.
This new strategy of arresting immigrants who are trying to fulfill their legal obligations in immigration court forces them into a catch-22, a situation in which they cannot escape a set of contradictory rules. They can either avoid the legal process and risk deportation due to a failure to appear in court, or appear in court and risk being arrested anyway.
The Trump administration has struggled to meet their ambitious deportation goals, spurring White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller to call for a tripling of immigrant arrests. Trump officials have repeatedly claimed they are mainly focused on criminal immigrants, but if they can’t reach their numbers by primarily deporting criminals, creating new criminals would be one way to pump them up.
Choosing to arrest immigrants who are actively pursuing a legal pathways available to them outside of the courtrooms where they must go to fulfill their obligations seems like a great way to disincentive immigrants from pursuing the legal pathways available to them. Given the Trump administration’s clearly stated desire for immigrants to self-deport, this paradoxical policy should be viewed as a feature, not a bug.
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