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Date: April 29, 2024 Mon
Time: 8:33 pm
Time: 8:33 pm
Results for immigration enforcement (u.s.)
3 results foundAuthor: Appleseed Title: Forcing Our Blues into Gray Areas: Local Police and Federal Immigration Enforcement. A Legal Guide for Advocates Revised and Updated Summary: The laws governing the proper role of the local police in stopping, arresting, questioning, and detaining individuals in an effort to enforce federal immigration law are far from settled, and the policy debate is moving quickly. For decades, as a result of policy directives issued by the federal government itself, it was understood that state and local police could not stop, arrest, or detain individuals for civil violations of the immigration law, such as being present in the United States without authorization. However, in recent years, the Department of Justice and some members of Congress have encouraged an expanded role for state and local police in immigration enforcement. One arm of the Department of Justice, the Office of Legal Counsel, even went so far as to opine that local police have “inherent authority” to enforce immigration laws – a position that is far from clearly supported by then-existing or present case law. In fact, the Department of Justice kept its newfound position secret from the public and refused to release the memo detailing it until required to do so by court order. This dramatic shift by some at the federal level has continued. Federal officials have increased the frequency of raids on immigrants, creating tension between local officials and the communities they seek to protect. However, in recognition of the fact that adopting local immigration enforcement policies is misguided and would actually make it more difficult to fight terrorism and crime, an increasing number of police departments, local governments, and others oppose initiatives to either mandate or encourage local police to intervene in federal immigration enforcement efforts. “Forcing Our Blues Into Gray Areas: Local Police and Federal Immigration Enforcement” contains legal and practical guidelines to combat local anti-immigrant ordinances. It also describes troubling legal and political efforts to involve local police in federal immigration matters, which leads to improper enforcement and a diversion of local safety resources. Details: Washington, DC: Appleseed, 2008. 60p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed January 24, 2013 at: http://www.waappleseed.org/media/Forcing_Our_Blues_Into_Gray_Areas2008.pdf Year: 2008 Country: United States URL: http://www.waappleseed.org/media/Forcing_Our_Blues_Into_Gray_Areas2008.pdf Shelf Number: 127382 Keywords: Illegal AliensIllegal ImmigrantsImmigrantsImmigration Enforcement (U.S.) |
Author: Manuel, Kate M. Title: Prosecutorial Discretion in Immigration Enforcement: Legal Issues Summary: The term prosecutorial discretion is commonly used to describe the wide latitude that prosecutors have in determining when, whom, how, and even whether to prosecute apparent violations of the law. The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and, later, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its components have historically described themselves as exercising prosecutorial discretion in immigration enforcement. Some commentators have recently challenged this characterization on the grounds that DHS enforces primarily civil violations, and some of its components cannot be said to engage in "law enforcement," as that term is conventionally understood. However, even agencies that do not prosecute or engage in law enforcement have been recognized as having discretion (sometimes referred to as enforcement discretion) in determining whether to enforce particular violations. Federal regulation of immigration is commonly said to arise from various powers enumerated in the Constitution (e.g., naturalization, commerce), as well as the federal government's inherent power to control and conduct foreign relations. Some, although not all, of these powers belong exclusively to Congress, and courts have sometimes described Congress as having "plenary power" over immigration. However, few courts or commentators have addressed the separation of powers between Congress and the President in the field of immigration, and the executive has sometimes been said to share plenary power over immigration with Congress as one of the "political branches." Moreover, the authority to exercise prosecutorial or enforcement discretion has traditionally been understood to arise from the Constitution, not from any congressional delegation of power. Certain decisions have been widely recognized as within the prosecutorial discretion of immigration officers. These include deciding whether to initiate removal proceedings and what charges to lodge against the respondent; canceling a Notice to Appear or other charging document before jurisdiction vests with an immigration judge; granting deferred action or extended voluntary departure to an alien otherwise subject to removal (deportation); appealing particular decisions or orders; and imposing fines for particular offenses, among other things. Enforcement priorities and resources, as well as humanitarian concerns, have typically played a role in determining whether to exercise discretion in individual cases. For example, the George W. Bush Administration temporarily suspended employer sanctions in areas affected by Hurricane Katrina, and the Obama Administration recently began granting deferred action to certain unauthorized aliens brought to the United States as children. While the executive branch's prosecutorial or enforcement discretion is broad, it is not unfettered, and particular exercises of discretion could potentially be checked by the Constitution, statute, or agency directives. Selective prosecution, or prosecution based on race, religion, or the exercise of constitutional rights, is prohibited, although aliens generally cannot assert selective prosecution as a defense to removal. A policy of non-enforcement that amounts to an abdication of an agency's statutory responsibilities could potentially be said to violate the Take Care Clause. However, standing to challenge alleged violations of the Take Care Clause may be limited, and no court appears to have invalidated a policy of non-enforcement founded upon prosecutorial discretion on the grounds that the policy violated the Take Care Clause. Non-enforcement of particular laws could also potentially be challenged under the Administrative Procedure Act if a statute provides specific guidelines for the agency to follow in exercising its enforcement powers. In addition, an agency could potentially be found to have constrained its own discretion, as some courts found that the INS had done in the 1970s with its operating instruction on deferred action. Details: Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 2013. 30p. Source: Internet Resource: CRS7-5700: Accessed January 24, 2013 at: https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42924.pdf Year: 2013 Country: United States URL: https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42924.pdf Shelf Number: 127386 Keywords: Illegal AliensIllegal ImmigrantsImmigration Enforcement (U.S.)Prosecutional Discretion |
Author: Armacost, Barbara E. Title: Immigration Policing: Federalizing the Local Summary: Recent immigration scholarship has identified two features of current immigration enforcement: the "federalization" of immigration law - meaning the growing participation of state and local police in immigration enforcement - and "crimmigration" - the increasing use of immigration law as a strategy for crime control. Scholars argue that these trends are new and that they have had a negative effect on immigration regulation. By contrast, supporters of state and local immigration enforcement point out that police officers can serve as a powerful "force multiplier" by funneling the highest priority illegal aliens - criminal aliens - into the federal immigration system. They argue that this won't change the shape of ordinary law enforcement. Neither side is correct. On the one hand, neither of these features is particularly new. For decades, federal immigration officials have been partnering with state and local officials and for nearly 100 years federal law has provided for deportation based on conviction of certain crimes. What is new is that enhanced funding and expanded programing has enlarged the scope of state and local participation and thrust it into public view. On the other hand, proponents of state and local police as "force multipliers" underestimate the extent to which this increased participation distorts both federal immigration enforcement policy and state and local law enforcement policy. These distortions result primarily from one salient feature of the merged system: the fact that state and local police involved in immigration enforcement make front-end law enforcement decisions in light of the promise of back-end immigration enforcement. This has led to the use of pre-textual stops and arrests ostensibly for traffic violations or minor crimes but actually for the purpose of feeding suspected illegal aliens into the immigration enforcement system. This article demonstrates how pre-textual enforcement actions distort federal and state/local enforcement priorities and undermine political accountability. They also lead, almost inevitably, to racial profiling that is largely impervious to legal and constitutional challenge. Assuming, as I do, that immigration policing and crimmigration are here to stay, the challenge is to harness the "force multiplier" of state and local enforcement without creating the dysfunction that can accompany it. The key is to find ways to decouple state and local law enforcement decisions from the promise of immigration enforcement. This article identifies some promising responses in this direction by ICE and state and local law enforcement agencies. While these early efforts are inadequate, they may point the way forward in a world in which immigration federalism and crimmigration are here to stay. Details: Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia School of Law, 2014. 78p. Source: Internet Resource: Virginia Public Law and Legal Theory Research Paper No. 2014-60 : Accessed March 19, 2015 at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2504042 Year: 2014 Country: United States URL: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2504042 Shelf Number: 134978 Keywords: Border ControlCrimmigrationImmigrantsImmigration Enforcement (U.S.)PolicingRacial Profiling |