ICE head decries migrant database ruling
WASHINGTON: The acting director of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Thursday criticised a judge’s ruling barring his agency from relying solely on databases that have at times led to the wrongful detention of American citizens.
Speaking Thursday at the White House, Matthew Albence called the September ruling an example of “judicial overreach’’ that threatened public safety.
Following Mr Albence was a Texas sheriff who suggested the ruling would require releasing jailed immigrants who were “drunks’’ and would “run over your children”, a comment that was immediately denounced by advocates.
US District Judge Andre Birotte Jr barred Ice from issuing requests known as “detainers’’ based solely on database searches considered to be unreliable.
The ruling applies to states that do not explicitly authorise civil immigration arrests using detainers. Ice cross-checks jail rosters around the US with federal databases that track people’s nationality and immigration status.
When it detects that a person is unauthorised to be in the US, Ice will issue a detainer asking the agency to hold the person until he or she can be taken into immigration custody. Advocates say relying on electronic databases alone to issue detainers is unreliable because they often have erroneous data and can lead to falsely accusing people of being in the US illegally.
Citing Ice’s data, Mr Birotte wrote that 42 detainers between May 2015 and February 2016 were explicitly lifted because the person was a citizen. Nearly 800 detainers out of almost 13,000 issued during that time were withdrawn because the person was a citizen “or otherwise not subject to removal”, the judge wrote.
Asked about the detention of Americans, Mr Albence said he could not speak about ongoing litigation.
“Many times, individuals that we come across that are United States citizens don’t even know that they are because the laws around citizenship are so complicated,’’ he said. President Donald Trump has long assailed judges who have ruled against his administration’s efforts to ramp up arrests and deportations.
Jennie Pasquarella, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, which helped bring the lawsuit, said the ruling was “critical to protecting the rights of everyone’’ and ensuring that Ice does not subject people to baseless arrests and detention.
US immigration agencies earlier this year detained an American-born 18-year-old for more than three weeks even though he had copies of paperwork documenting his citizenship.