XPost: ucb.politics.progressive, alt.religion.scientology, alt.p   
   litics.usa.republican   
   XPost: sac.politics   
   From: daily.beaner@gazette.com   
      
   Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly has signed sweeping   
   new guidelines that empower federal authorities to more   
   aggressively detain and deport illegal immigrants inside the   
   United States and at the border.   
      
   In a pair of memos, Kelly offered more detail on plans for the   
   agency to hire thousands of additional enforcement agents,   
   expand the pool of immigrants who are prioritized for removal,   
   speed up deportation hearings and enlist local law enforcement   
   to help make arrests.   
      
   The new directives would supersede nearly all of those issued   
   under previous administrations, Kelly said, including measures   
   from President Barack Obama aimed at focusing deportations   
   exclusively on hardened criminals and those with terrorist ties.   
      
   “The surge of immigration at the southern border has overwhelmed   
   federal agencies and resources and has created a significant   
   national security vulnerability to the United States,” Kelly   
   stated in the guidelines.   
      
   He cited a surge of 10,000 to 15,000 additional apprehensions   
   per month at the southern U.S. border between 2015 and 2016.   
      
   A White House official said the memos were drafts and that they   
   are under review by the White House Counsel’s Office, which is   
   seeking some changes. The official, who spoke on the condition   
   of anonymity because the process is not complete, declined to   
   offer specifics.   
      
   [Read the memos signed by DHS Secretary Kelly on new guidelines   
   for deporting illegal immigrants]   
      
   In a series of executive actions in January, President Trump   
   announced plans to make good on his campaign promises to build a   
   wall on the border with Mexico and to ramp up enforcement   
   actions against the nation’s estimated 11 million unauthorized   
   immigrants. Kelly’s memos, which have not been released   
   publicly, are intended as an implementation blueprint for DHS,   
   formally establishing the new policies and directing agency   
   employees to begin following them.   
      
   However, many specifics of achieving the goals of Trump’s   
   executive orders remain unclear. For example, Kelly’s memos   
   direct federal officials to seek all available funding for the   
   border wall, but most of the funds, estimated at more than $20   
   billion, must be appropriated by Congress.   
      
   Kelly, a retired Marine Corps general, was sworn in to oversee   
   the Department of Homeland Security hours after Trump was   
   inaugurated Jan. 20. His memos are copied to officials at   
   Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs   
   Enforcement and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. A   
   Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman declined to comment   
   on the documents but did not dispute their authenticity.   
      
   The memos do not include measures to activate National Guard   
   troops to help apprehend immigrants in 11 states that had been   
   included in a draft document leaked to reporters on Friday.   
      
   DHS officials said Kelly, whose signature did not appear on the   
   draft document, had never approved such plans.   
      
   Immigrant rights advocates said the two memos signed by Kelly   
   mark a major shift in U.S. immigration policies by dramatically   
   expanding the scope of enforcement operations.   
      
   The new procedures would allow authorities to seek expedited   
   deportation proceedings, currently limited to undocumented   
   immigrants who have been in the country for two weeks or less,   
   to anyone who has been in the country for up to two years.   
      
   Another new provision would be to immediately return Mexican   
   immigrants who are apprehended at the border back home pending   
   the outcomes of their deportation hearings, rather than house   
   them on U.S. property, an effort that would save detention space   
   and other resources.   
      
   The guidelines also aim to deter the arrival of a growing wave   
   of 155,000 unaccompanied minors who have come from Mexico and   
   Central America over the past three years. Under the new   
   policies, their parents in the United States could be prosecuted   
   if they are found to have paid smugglers to bring the children   
   across the border.   
      
   “This memo is just breathtaking, the way they really are looking   
   at every part of the entire system,” said Marielena Hincapié,   
   executive director of the National Immigration Law Center.   
      
   Joanne Lin, senior legislative counsel at the American Civil   
   Liberties Union, said in a statement that “due process, human   
   decency, and common sense are treated as inconvenient obstacles   
   on the path to mass deportation. The Trump administration is   
   intent on inflicting cruelty on millions of immigrant families   
   across the country.”   
      
   The memos don’t overturn one important directive from the Obama   
   administration: a program called Deferred Action for Childhood   
   Arrivals that has provided work permits to more than 750,000   
   immigrants who came to the country illegally as children.   
      
   Trump had promised during his campaign to “immediately   
   terminate” the program, calling it an unconstitutional   
   “executive amnesty,” but he has wavered since then. Last week,   
   he said he would “show great heart” in determining the fate of   
   that program.   
      
   The memos instruct agency chiefs to begin hiring 10,000   
   additional ICE agents and 5,000 more for the Border Patrol,   
   which had been included in Trump’s executive actions.   
      
   Kelly also said the agency will try to expand partnerships with   
   municipal law enforcement agencies that deputize local police to   
   act as immigration officers for the purposes of enforcement.   
      
   The program, known as 287(g), was signed into law by the Clinton   
   administration and grew markedly under President George W.   
   Bush’s tenure. It fell out of favor under the Obama   
   administration.   
      
   Currently 32 jurisdictions in 16 states participate in the   
   program, according to Kelly’s memo.   
      
   Kelly called the program a “highly successful force multiplier,”   
   and instructed his deputies to expand it “to the greatest extent   
   practical.”   
      
   Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council,   
   which represents federal agents and officers, had not seen the   
   memos as of Saturday afternoon. In an interview, he said his   
   organization fully supports the Trump administration’s agenda on   
   border security.   
      
   Judd said he thinks the effort to crack down on enforcement is   
   already paying dividends. He said that apprehensions of   
   unauthorized immigrants in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, one   
   of the heaviest traveled areas of the border, have fallen by   
   about 1,000 between the first two weeks of January and first two   
   weeks of February.   
      
   Those figures could not be independently corroborated by The   
   Washington Post.   
      
   Judd attributed the purported decline to fear among immigrants   
   of the new Trump administration policies, including requirements   
   that those who are apprehended will not be released before their   
   immigration court hearings.   
      
   “They’re heading in the right direction,” Judd said.   
      
   https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/memos-signed-by-dhs-   
   secretary-describe-sweeping-new-guidelines-for-deporting-illegal-   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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