U.S. Plans Mass Deportation of Illegal Central American Migrants...WSJ
Molly Molloy
U.S. Plans Mass Deportation of Illegal Central American Migrants
Authorities face influx of migrants escaping violence in El Salvador and Honduras
To staunch the flow of illegal migrants to the U.S., the Department of Homeland Security has been preparing a national operation to deport Central American families who have evaded removal orders, according to a government official.
Starting early next month, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a DHS unit, plans to start rounding up hundreds of families that entered the U.S. illegally and who have ignored a final order to leave the country, said the official. Such an order is issued by a judge in immigration court.
The number of families showing up at the southwest border has spiked in recent months as gang-related violence grips El Salvador and Honduras. The region also has been plagued by drought.
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Typically, the migrants, many of them women and children, turn themselves in at the border and make asylum claims. U.S. authorities then release them, often to live with relatives here, while their cases are adjudicated.
DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson in recent months has warned that those whose claims are denied in immigration court could be removed from the country.
A spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement didn’t dispute an operation has been planned to pursue Central Americans with removal orders. In a statement, the spokeswoman said the agency “focuses on individuals who pose a threat to national security, public safety and border security.”
‘It is time that administration acknowledge once and for all that these mothers and children are refugees just like Syrians.’
—Marilena Hincapie, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center in Los Angeles
“As Secretary Johnson has consistently said, our border is not open to illegal immigration, and if individuals come here illegally, do not qualify for asylum or other relief, they will be sent back consistent with our laws and our values,” the statement said.
The operation, which was first reported by the Washington Post, has caused controversy in Mr. Johnson’s agency, the official said, with some within DHS opposed to targeting people who have fled violence in their countries of origin.
The official said that the operation’s goal is twofold: It aims to send the message to would-be crossers that they won’t be allowed to remain in the U.S. It also seeks to address safety concerns involved as adults entrust their lives and those of their children to human smugglers.
“Jeh Johnson wants to send a message to Central Americans: Don’t come north. But Washington hasn’t solved the underlying problem of massive violence in their home countries that is causing them to come north in the first place,” said Margaret Stock, an immigration attorney in Anchorage, Alaska.
Roy Beck, president of NumbersUSA, which advocates for limited immigration, said “we would love to believe DHS is serious about sending a different message to the rest of the world that our borders are not open, but we won’t believe it until we see it.”
Mr. Beck called the plan “far too little and too late.”
Despite an overall sharp drop in illegal entries in recent years, the Obama administration has been bracing for a surge of unaccompanied children and families from Central America in coming months. In recent weeks, it had begun to add capacity to handle the increase, because migrants are housed at least temporarily in government facilities.
More than 12,000 individuals in so-called family units were apprehended at the border in October and November, compared with about 4,500 in the same months last year.
The number of unaccompanied minors caught during those two months topped 10,000, compared with about 5,000 in the same period last year.
In the summer of 2014, the peak of the crisis, more than 10,000 Central American minors a month entered the U.S. In interviews, many of the arrivals said they had heard they could stay in the U.S. if they reached the interior of the country.
Some mothers who had crossed with their children were forced to wear electronic bracelets to track their movements and ensure they reported for immigration hearings.
Many families remained detained at the border for months, drawing strong criticism from human-rights groups and immigration attorneys.
‘Jeh Johnson wants to send a message to Central Americans: don’t come north. But Washington hasn’t solved the underlying problem of massive violence in their home countries that is causing them to come north in the first place.’
—Immigration attorney Margaret Stock
A federal judge ruled this year that immigration officials must quickly release families with children from detention centers, posing a further challenge to the administration’s efforts to curb the flow. The administration has appealed.
The Obama administration has been lambasted by both immigrant advocates and immigration hardliners over its border policy. Advocates call President Barack Obama “deporter in chief” and Republicans accuse him of failing to secure the border.
Critics said the planned operation amounts to a public-relations stunt.
“As much as anything, this is the Obama administration trying to convince the American public they are taking this seriously and doing something about it,“ said Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, an organization that lobbies to curtail all immigration to the U.S.
“But, in fact, the message getting back is that if you show up at the border, especially with kids in tow, chances are you will be allowed to remain here,” he said.
The possible roundup for deportation of families caught immigrant advocates by surprise.
“This is the last thing we expected from the administration at this point, given the court decision,” said Marielena Hincapie, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center, an advocacy organization in Los Angeles. “It is time that the administration acknowledged once and for all that these mothers and children are refugees just like Syrians.”
Ms. Hincapie said such a plan “really puts immigrant families on edge.”
In November 2014, Secretary Johnson outlined in an enforcement-policy memo that anyone who had illegally entered the country after Jan. 1 that year would be a priority for removal. That would include many families and children who have swarmed the border.
But this would be the first time that a large-scale operation is mounted specifically to deport Central Americans.
Targeting such families when the administration is faced with terrorism risks “seems like an about-face from the president’s actions in prioritizing the enforcement of immigration laws,” said Angelo Paparelli, a Los Angeles immigration attorney.
“These families are a very low enforcement priority,” Mr. Paparelli said. “I worry that a terrorist incident might occur because the eyes of DHS are distracted.”
In these kind of operations, immigration agents compile lists of targets for deportation in three categories: those who have been ordered removed in absentia because they didn’t attend a scheduled immigration hearing; those who have fought to stay in the U.S. in court and lost; and those who accepted voluntary removal but failed to leave the country.
Before raiding a home or site, field agents conduct surveillance to verify that individuals on their lists are at the address that authorities have for them.
The media spotlight on the operation is likely to undermine it by inducing immigrants to move. The Central American families and children targeted have settled across the U.S., with large pockets in Houston, New Orleans, Los Angeles and the Washington, D.C., area.
On Tuesday, DHS announced it deported 235,413 in the year that ended Sept. 30, a 25% drop from the previous year and the lowest since Mr. Obama took office. In fiscal 2014, the U.S. removed 315,953 people.
Secretary Johnson attributed the decline to the overall drop in the number of apprehensions at the border, a key indicator of the number of individuals trying to illegally enter, and the focus on removing convicted criminals and those who are a public-safety threat.
Critics said the latest deportation figure was further proof of lax enforcement by Mr. Obama.