Homeland Security shifts deportation focus off those with longtime roots in U.S.
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has begun a profound shift in its enforcement of the nation’s immigration laws, aiming to hasten the integration of long-term illegal immigrants into society rather than targeting them for deportation, according to documents and federal officials.
In recent months, the Department of Homeland Security, or DHS, has taken steps to ensure that the majority of America’s 11.3 million undocumented immigrants can stay in this country, with agents narrowing enforcement efforts to three groups of illegal migrants: convicted criminals, terrorism threats or those who recently crossed the border.
While public attention has been focused on the court fight over President Barack Obama’s highly publicized executive action on immigration, DHS has with little fanfare been training thousands of immigration agents nationwide to carry out new policies on everyday enforcement.
The legal battle centers on the constitutionality of a program that would officially shield as many as 5 million eligible illegal immigrants from deportation, mainly parents of children who are U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents. A federal judge put the program, known by the acronym DAPA, on hold in February after 26 states sued.
But the shift in DHS’s enforcement priorities, which are separate from the DAPA program and have not been challenged in court, could prove even more far-reaching. The new policies direct agents to focus on the three priority groups and leave
virtually everyone else alone. Demographic data show that the typical undocumented immigrant has lived in the United States for a decade or more and has established strong community ties.
While the new measures do not grant illegal immigrants a path to citizenship, their day-to-day lives could be changed in countless ways. Now, for instance, undocumented migrants say they are so afraid to interact with police, for fear of being deported, that they won’t report crimes and often limit their driving to avoid possible traffic stops. The new policies, if carried out on the ground, could dispel such fears, advocates for immigrants say.
In describing the initiatives, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson has echoed the language often used by advocates of comprehensive immigration reform, which remains stalled on Capitol Hill. “We are making it clear that we should not expend our limited resources on deporting those who have been here for years, have committed no serious crimes and have, in effect, become integrated members of our society,‘‘ Mr. Johnson said in a recent speech in Houston. He added, “These people are here, they live among us, and they are not going away.”
Since the new policies took effect in January, Mr. Johnson’s instructions have been conveyed to agents throughout the department. “We decided we’re going to draw a clear line between individuals who now have significant equities in the country versus those who are recent entrants,” said one department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe internal deliberations. “If people are not an enforcement priority,” the official said.
America’s massive dragnet is shrinking rapidly, both because of the new enforcement policies and declining flows of new immigrants crossing the southwest border, DHS officials say.
Deportations, for example, are dropping. The Obama administration is on pace to remove 229,000 people from the country this year, a 27 percent fall from last year and nearly 50 percent less than the all-time high in 2012. Fewer people are also in the pipeline for deportation.
The number of occupied beds at immigration detention facilities, which house people arrested for immigration violations, have dropped nearly 20 percent this year.
And on Mr. Johnson’s orders, officials are reviewing the entire immigrant detainee population to weed out those who don’t meet the new priorities. About 3,000 people have been released from custody or had their immigration cases dropped, DHS officials said.