ICE shutters detention alternative
Tennessee gov signs law enhancing immigrant sentences
HOUSTON, June 10, (AP): The Trump administration is shutting down the least restrictive alternative to detention available to asylum-seekers who have entered the US illegally, The Associated Press has learned.
Immigration activists consider the move a callous insult to migrants fleeing traumatic violence and poverty — nearly all the program’s participants are Central American mothers and children — by a White House that has prioritized deportations that break up families over assimilating refugees.
“This is a clear attempt to punish mothers who are trying to save their children’s lives by seeking protection in the United States,” said Michelle Brane of the nonprofit Women’s Refugee Commission. “I think it’s crazy they are shutting down a program that is so incredibly successful.”
The overwhelming majority of asylum-seekers that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement spares confinement at family detention centers — about 70,000 —have been placed in an intrusive “intensive supervision” program as they await court hearings on whether they can stay in the US
GPS ankle monitors are strapped on three in seven. The wearers, mostly women, complain of bruises and public ostracism.
The Family Case Management Program that is being shuttered had 630 families enrolled as of April 19. Essentially a counseling service, it has operated in Chicago, Miami, New York, Los Angeles and Baltimore/Washington, DC, since January 2016. Social workers help participants find lawyers, navigate the overburdened immigration court system, get housing and health care, and enroll the kids in school.
Women who previously would have been eligible can now expect to be put on ankle monitors, said Lilian Alba, program manager at the International Institute of Los Angeles, one of the community-based agencies running the program. It will end June 20, according to a letter signed by Ann M. Schlarb, an executive with GEO Group Inc., the forprofit Boca Raton, Florida, prison company that operated the program under contract with ICE.
Dated Thursday, the letter was emailed to members of an advisory group and provided to the AP by Brane, who received it at the end of business hours.
The program’s director at GEO Group, Mary Loiselle, referred all questions to ICE, which was reached by email but had no immediate comment.
Schlarb did not explain in the letter why ICE decided to shutter the program, whose contract had been renewed in September for a year.
“The families have thrived,” wrote Schlarb, president of the GEO Group division that also manages the company’s electronic-monitoring business. She noted that 99 percent of participants “successfully attended their court appearances and ICE check-ins.” That includes more than a dozen families who were ultimately deported, added Brane, a member of a DHS advisory panel on family detention.
A Mexican woman was released from custody Friday while the US government seeks to deport her after a judge rejected arguments she should wear a monitoring device because she was arrested twice while demonstrating in support of people in the country illegally.
Claudia Rueda, 22, plans to apply for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a program started in 2012 under President Barack Obama that shields immigrants who came to the US as young children from being deported. Her case has drawn attention because she has no criminal record and is an immigration activist.
The immigration judge, Annie S. Garcy, said holding Rueda without bond was “unduly severe” and allowed her to be released on her own recognizance. She noted Ruedas’ academic and other achievements and was incredulous when a government attorney asked that Rueda be required to wear a monitoring device.
Tennessee judges will have the authority to enhance sentences for defendants in the country illegally at the time of their crimes, under a bill the governor has signed into law.
According to the General Assembly’s website, Republican Gov Bill Haslam signed the bill on Friday. He had previously declined to say whether he had any concerns about the bill, which was sponsored by Republican Rep Ron Gant of Rossville and Senate Majority Leader Mark Norris of Collierville.
Senate Minority Leader Lee Harris says he’s disappointed the governor signed the bill. The Memphis Democrat says the measure will treat criminal defendants convicted of the same crime differently depending on where they were born. Harris said similar measures have been struck down by the courts in other states.
Lawmakers wrestled Friday with a proposal to sharply limit cooperation between federal immigration officials and state and local law enforcement agencies.
While some say the bill would make Massachusetts a so-called sanctuary state, backers including the American Civil Liberties Union argue the measure dubbed the Safe Communities Act would not violate federal law nor prevent Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials from doing their jobs.
Hundreds of supporters and opponents of the measure crowded a public hearing, amid heightened concerns in some immigrant communities about Republican President Donald Trump’s deportation policies.