Biden tells ICE prosecutors to dismiss older cases as Title 42 ends

Courtesy of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement

There is a backlog of about 1.5 million cases pending in immigration courts. The Biden administration sent out a memo Monday instructing ICE prosecutors to dismiss older cases of illegal immigrants who are not considered public safety threats. What could possibly go wrong?

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Last fall DHS Secretary Mayorkas distributed some new rules to ICE agents. The focus of the new rules is to deprioritize deportation of illegal immigrants who are not a threat to public safety. They carried out the crime of illegally entering the United States but since then have not posed a threat to the general population. The backlog of cases has grown unsustainable during Biden’s time in the White House, thanks to Biden’s border crisis, so in order to ease the backlog, ICE prosecutors have received permission to just dismiss older cases.

Congress hasn’t reformed any immigration laws. It’s their job to do so but in the meantime, Team Biden is running roughshod over the immigration laws on the books. The memo was distributed as the end of the use of Title 42 at the southern border approaches. The date set for Title 42 to end is May 23. More than 2.2 million illegal migrants have been apprehended at the southern border since Joe Biden took office and that number could triple with the end of Title 42. Title 42 has been an effective tool used during the pandemic, at CDC’s recommendation as a way to mitigate the coronavirus pandemic, but now that the pandemic is waning the Biden administration is ending the program that progressives have demanded he end since he took office.

BuzzFeed News got a copy of the ICE memo. It allows ICE attorneys to exercise “prosecutorial discretion authority” under the guise that such discretion will help “build public confidence in our immigration system.” That’s a take. What about the public confidence of Americans who expect the president to secure our borders and protect the sovereignty of the United States?

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The guidance was written by chief ICE attorney Kerry Doyle, a Biden appointee, was sent to prosecutors on Monday and represents another attempt by the agency to emphasize the discretion prosecutors have in court and lower the backlog of cases in immigration court.

‘Prosecutorial discretion is an indispensable feature of any functioning legal system,’ reads the new guidance, written by Biden appointed chief ICE attorney Kerry Doyle.

‘The exercise of prosecutorial discretion, where appropriate, can preserve limited government resources, achieve just and fair outcomes in individual cases, and advance DHS’s mission of administering and enforcing the immigration laws of the United States in a smart and sensible way that promotes public confidence,’ Doyle wrote.

‘Consistent with the enforcement guidance issued by Secretary Mayorkas, ICE focuses its civil immigration enforcement priorities on the apprehension and removal of non-citizens who pose a threat to our national security, public safety, and border security, consistent with all legal requirements and applicable court orders,’ the ICE spokesperson said.

The exercising discretion portion of the memo means that Mayorkas’ definition of non-priority ICE cases can just be taken off the dockets. This is how Mayorkas sees handling the backlog of cases – just dismiss them. This falls in line with the general attitude of the Biden administration. None of them show any concern for the humanitarian crisis on the southern border. The open border is deliberate, as are the DHS policies that now allow thousands of illegal migrants to remain in the United States, many without monitors. They are told to show up at an ICE office when they get to their destination to continue processing their asylum claims.

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Biden promised blanket amnesty for illegal immigrants when he ran for office. This action sure looks like a step in that direction. The Biden administration has restricted how ICE lawyers and Border Patrol agents can perform their jobs. The focus now is mainly on turning back single adults that cross the southern border, allowing all unaccompanied minors and most families to remain. In order to ease the overwhelming crowding at the border, the migrants are being bussed or flown around the country. The Biden administration isn’t serious about handling the consequences of lax enforcement of our borders.

The message is if illegal migrants remain in the country long enough and don’t commit a crime like murder, then their case will be dismissed as though they never broke the law of illegal entry into the United States. All they have to do is wait it out. Cases often take years because of backlogs. The solution to backlogs is to just dismiss the cases, apparently.

‘[ICE] attorneys must be particularly mindful of the resource constraints under which we operate at a time when immigration courts docket toal (sic) over 1.5 million cases nationwide,’ Doyle wrote in the memo, according to BuzzFeed. ‘Sound prioritization of our litigation efforts through the appropriate use of prosecutorial discretion can preserve limited government resources.’

I am watching a news report of a bus full of illegal migrants arriving in Brownsville, Texas as I write this. They all look to be adult women. This scene is played out daily along the Texas border. Some reports estimate as many as 170,000 migrants waiting along the border to enter the United States. Most are waiting for the green light when Title 42 ends. The Biden administration doesn’t show much concern about the coming explosion in migrants who will be attempting to enter the United States. Dismissing cases and allowing those here illegally to remain in this country is how Team Biden plans to ease the backlog. All this will do is further encourage the waves of migrants to try to make it to the southern border. The Biden border crisis is deliberate and will only get worse.

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Ed Morrissey 12:40 PM | November 21, 2024
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