by Jim Lamare
Hispanic Link
In a 2-1 opinion, the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Feb. 6 temporarily halted five deportation cases involving seven undocumented immigrants.
The lead case, Aranda Rodríguez v. Holder, involves Mexican David Aranda Rodríguez, who has resided in the United States for more than two decades and cares for his two U.S.-born children. He has no criminal past.
The other six plaintiffs have a similar profile.
In issuing the order, the Court instructed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) to determine if Rodríguez and the others should be granted relief from deportation under the new policy of prosecutorial discretion.
ICE director John Morton issued a memorandum on June 17 last year announcing the exercise of prosecutorial discretion in handling deportation cases. ICE officials and DOJ’s immigration courts are to give “positive consideration” in deciding the fate of:
• veterans and members of the U.S. Armed Forces;
• long-time lawful permanent residents;
• minors and elderly individuals;
• individuals present in this country since childhood;
• pregnant and nursing women;
• victims of domestic violence, trafficking or other serious crimes; and,
• individuals with serious health conditions.
Undocumented immigrants in these categories are to be assigned low priority in determining their deportation status. Implementation of prosecutorial discretion was delayed until specific operational criteria were formulated to enforce the new policy.
In mid-November, ICE announced it was ready to apply the new rules. Federal officials were asked to review, case by case, some 300,000 deportation proceedings pending before the nation’s 59 immigration courts using the new criteria.
To assist in this tedious labor-intensive process, officials were required to attend a half-day training session by Jan. 13. They were presented several scenarios about appropriate deportation outcomes.
According to Julia Preston of The New York Times, who observed an orientation session, one scenario involves a young undocumented woman “arrested by a state trooper for driving without a license. She has been living in this country since 1993 and has an infant son [a U.S. citizen]. But she lied to ICE officers, failing to tell them she had a conviction for shoplifting in 1995.”
What should the immigration courts and federal prosecutors do?
In this instance, she should not be deported because “she is not a threatening criminal and may still be nursing her American baby.” Her case should be closed.
What about an undocumented immigrant who in 1996 crossed the border illegally and failed to appear at a “critical” immigration court hearing back then? He has committed no other crime “and he coaches soccer at the school where his twin daughters, both citizens, are enrolled.” Again, the answer:“case closed.”
Application of these new criteria was trialed in the immigration courts of Denver and Baltimore during December and January. The courts determined that 16% of the 7,923 deportation cases pending in Denver involved low risk individuals, thus allowing 1,301people to stay in the United States.
In Baltimore, of the 3,759 cases reviewed, 366, about 10 percent, were closed.
Based on these findings, the New York Times projected that 39,000 deportation cases nationwide stand to be closed by the end of the year. Closed, but not cancelled. At any time, these low priority cases can be reopened. Federal officials have until March 19 to respond to the 9th Circuit Court’s order to apply prosecutorial discretion to the seven plaintiffs in the five pending cases.
In other related news: FEDS PAY LATINOS $350,000, SETTLE SUIT OVER RAIDS.
By Griselda Nevárez & Estuardo Rodríguez Eleven Hispanic men rousted from their homes in New Haven, Conn., and jailed after a raid conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents nearly five years ago were awarded a total of $350,000 as compensation in an agreement reached Feb 13 between the federal government and the plaintiffs.
The 11 men were among 29 persons, nearly all of Hispanic origin, apprehended on June 6, 2007, after federal agents barged into their homes without warrants. Lawyers and law students from the Worker & Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic at the Yale Law School filed a federal civil lawsuit on their behalf.
The plaintiffs claimed ICE agents had violated their constitutional rights by racially profiling them and conducting unreasonable search and seizure.
The settlement gave the plaintiffs the option of terminating any pending deportation proceedings or deferring any immigration action brought against them for four years and allowing them to reapply for legal residency.
The settlement is the largest ever paid by the government in a suit over a residential immigration raid and the first to include monetary compensation and immigration relief. Prior to the settlement, five of the 11 plaintiffs had already won termination of the deportation actions against them. Laura Huizar, one of the Yale students representing the plaintiffs, told Hispanic Link that at least four of the others who were arrested are still in removal proceedings, while some have won release.
She said the plaintiffs are “hoping to use this victory to pressure the government to stop all of the removal proceedings resulting from the same raid.” ICE spokesperson Ross Feinstein said the settlement is not intended to be an admission of fault on the part of the U.S. government. “The government is settling in order to avoid the additional time and expense of further litigation,” he said in a statement.
Another involved Yale law student, Mark Pedulla, who told Hispanic Link the agreement makes it clear that “agencies of the judicial (system) need to follow the Constitution and respect the rights of the people.”
