Report: Low number of immigration cases closed for prosecutor discretion Despite guidance to dismiss more matters, report shows little growth in the practice By Henry Meier Daily Journal Staff Writer Only 6.7 percent of immigration cases were closed as a result of prosecutorial discretion since October 2012 despite several government memos that many attorneys hoped would expand the practice significantly, a report released Thursday shows. The statistics, compiled by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University, do show an uptick in the number of cases in which prosecutorial discretion was used. After closing only 4.7 percent of cases by prosecutorial discretion in fiscal 2012, Immigration and Customs Enforcement lawyers closed 8.5 percent in fiscal 2013. Those gains, however, appear to be slipping. The most recent report shows that in the first six months of fiscal 2014, closures by prosecutorial discretion dropped to 7 percent, worrying some observers. The numbers show that the administrations prosecutorial discretion policy has failed, said Ahilan Arulanantham, the deputy legal director at the ACLU of Southern California. There are still a large number of people that dont fit within the administrations high priority designation that are being deported. The number of prosecutorial dismissals has varied considerably depending on an immigration courts location. The Los Angeles courts had some of the highest rates of prosecutorial discretion, with 23.7 percent of the more than 45,000 immigration cases closed by prosecutors. In San Francisco, the numbers were much lower - only 8.9 percent of the regions 19,273 cases closed via prosecutorial discretion - but still higher than the national average. Seattle had the highest percentage of closures at nearly 30 percent. Big cities with especially low percentages of prosecutorial closures included Houston at 1.7 percent and New York City at 3.7 percent. Its a low bar, Arulanantham said, but I guess it shows that at the margins L.A. is not the worst, and I suppose we can take some solace in that. The TRAC report comes on heels of President Barack Obamas announcement last month that he would order officials in the Department of Homeland Security - which includes the immigration agency - to review deportation protocols with an eye toward more discretionary case closures. Obama ordered the review in lieu of a comprehensive immigration reform package, which has been stalled for months in Congress. The announcement was the latest in a string of executive actions gong back to June 2011, when then-ICE chief John Morton issued a memo announcing revamped criteria for prosecutorial discretion. The memo set off a firestorm in the immigration law community, with many hoping their clients would find relief under the new guidelines. The memo specifically said the agency would focus its resources to deport undocumented immigrants with criminal backgrounds and put a low priority on individuals with strong family ties and no history of wrongdoing. The executive branch action has drawn the ire of congressional Republicans, who, in response to Obamas latest review announcement, sent a letter to the White House excoriating the president for allegedly abrogating his duty to uphold the Constitution. Our entire constitutional system is threatened when the Executive Branch suspends the law at its whim and our nations sovereignty is imperiled when the commander-in-chief refuses to defend the integrity of its borders, the letter from 22 U.S. senators reads. Immigration attorneys, however, remained hopeful that the latest review would bring more relief from prosecutors. The administration could institute a prosecutorial discretion policy that looks more like the deferred action program for childhood arrivals, Arulanantham said, referring to the Obama policy allowing undocumented minors to apply for relief from deportation while waiting for immigration legislation to pass. Its certainly possible, Arulanantham added. Its not like were chasing the unicorn of immigration system changes here. henry_meier@dailyjournal
Posted on: Sat, 26 Apr 2014 05:04:51 +0000
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