U.S. LISTS MIGRANT ‘PROTECTED AREAS’
Guidelines limit sites where enforcement can be carried out
The Biden administration Wednesday designated the nation’s schools and hospitals, as well as a wide array of other locations, off-limits to immigration enforcement, the latest sign that it is committed to protecting millions of people living in the country without legal permission from deportation while efforts to offer them a path to legalization remain stalled in Congress.
The new guidelines, effective immediately, list “protected areas” where immigration agents are to refrain from making arrests, conducting searches, serving subpoenas or carrying out other enforcement actions.
The sites include schools and university campuses; hospitals, clinics and other medical facilities, in addition to COVID-19 testing and vaccination sites; places of worship; and sites where children gather, such as playgrounds, day care centers and foster care facilities.
The new list is significantly longer and more specific than the one put in place during the Obama administration in 2011, which barred enforcement actions at schools and churches. President Donald Trump largely ignored that policy.
“Individuals should not be restrained or limited in their access to essential services,” Alejandro Mayorkas, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, said in an interview Wednesday before the official
announcement.
“Children should not be afraid to go to school. Their parents should not be scared to drop them off or pick them up,” he added.
Other protected sites include shelters for victims of domestic violence and homeless people; drug and alcohol treatment facilities; food pantries; and sites offering help to those fleeing natural disasters. Immigration enforcement action is also to be avoided at or near funerals, parades and demonstrations.
The guidelines represent the third policy issued by the Biden administration in recent weeks with the goal of bringing “greater humanity” to immigration enforcement, Mayorkas said.
They mark a profound shift in interior enforcement and are intended, he said, to improve the day-to-day lives of millions of immigrants.
Most of the 11 million immigrants in the United States without legal permission have lived here for a decade
or longer, often with U.S.-born children and deep ties to their communities. About two-thirds of these adults participate in the workforce, according to the Pew Research Center.
A memo detailing the policy, which applies to field agents for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, said that agents must “to the fullest extent possible” refrain from enforcement action in the types of locations on the list “at all
times.”
Any exceptions must be approved by agency headquarters, the memo said.
The guidelines come as Democrats continue to struggle to add immigration provisions to a sprawling social safety net and climate bill. Possibilities include offering protected status without citizenship to some people living in the U.S. illegally and allowing immigrants who have been in the country for more than a decade to apply for permanent legal residence. Since taking office, President Joe Biden has moved away from his predecessor’s tough approach to illegal immigration; the new guidelines are the most recent in a series intended to soften interior enforcement, away from the nation’s border regions.
This week, two House Republicans sent a letter to Mayorkas demanding answers about the changes in enforcement priorities.
Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona deemed the new approach “an affront to the rule of law.”
“Instead of preventing ICE from enforcing the law, the Biden administration should be empowering them to keep our country safe,” he said in a statement.
Biden has kept in place some of the border policies introduced by Trump to stanch the influx of migrants at the border. Still, border officials encountered a record 1.7 million migrants in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30.
During the Trump administration, many immigrants living in the U.S. without legal permission refrained from spending time outdoors with their children and limited outings to a minimum, typically to buy groceries and go to work, knowing that they could be apprehended even if they had not committed a crime.
Trump rejected the prosecutorial discretion that former President Barack Obama had exercised in enforcing immigration, instead making everyone who was in the country unlawfully vulnerable to deportation.