Memo: Following DHS enforcement moratorium, here’s what must come next

WASHINGTON – Today marks the beginning of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) review of immigrant enforcement practices, which includes a 100-day moratorium on deportations. The following statement is from Kelli Garcia, federal policy counsel of the SPLC Action Fund.  

“SPLC Action applauds the Biden-Harris administration's deportation moratorium, a necessary first step in the re-orientation of the government’s immigration enforcement priorities toward a more lawful and humane set of values and away from wholesale cruelty. SPLC looks forward to working with the administration during and after the moratorium to help rebuild a just, humane, and functioning immigration system. Immigrant communities deserve justice and all those who are directly impacted must be centered in the path forward. 

“While the moratorium stops some of the immediate harm that deportations cause to immigrant families and communities, it does not address the almost 15,000 people who are currently confined by ICE amid a worsening pandemic. 

“If DHS is to make good on these new enforcement priorities in the next 100 days, it must work to phase out ICE detention altogether. The Department can start by releasing every detained person absent truly compelling circumstances, including those who are medically vulnerable. No one should languish in an unsafe detention facility one day longer.”
 

Three Actions the Biden-Harris Administration and DHS Must Take by Moratorium's End ​​​​​

For the next 100 days, SPLC Action recommends that the Biden-Harris administration focus on ending the DHS policies that shatter families and communities and trap individuals in the cruel and wasteful detention to deportation dragnet. The administration should also work with Congress to ensure the budgets of ICE and CBP are decreased from their historically high levels to reflect the new priorities. Finally, given the disturbing history of DHS agents acting with impunity, the administration must remain vigilant to ensure compliance with the review period priorities and to put forward accountability and transparency for these agencies.

• Begin to phase out ICE detention. 

  ICE detention was always designed to dehumanize, and the shocking abuses that have come to light in recent years prove immigrant detention to be an irredeemable, profit-driven racket. The Biden-Harris administration must make good on their promise to end the use of for-profit prisons and instead reinvest in case management programs.

  There is no time to waste. In Georgia, survivors of medical abuse and forced gynecological procedures remain detained. In Mississippi, Black asylum seekers who were targeted and unlawfully forced to sign their own deportation orders remain in ICE custody. And across the country, medically vulnerable individuals remain susceptive to COVID-19, despite a federal court ordering their release in the Fraihat v. ICE lawsuit. One person seeking asylum who is represented by SPLC has been detained for over two years despite having respiratory issues that make him highly vulnerable to COVID-19 and despite having close relatives in the U.S.  

  Phasing out the use of detention also requires that DHS decline to detain immigrants with pending immigration cases when the law gives DHS that discretion. The Department should exercise prosecutorial discretion to close de-prioritized deportation cases and release those immigrants if they are still detained. And individuals should not be forced to fight their case from the perils of detention, like Kelvin Silva, who has been fighting a racist and obscure immigration law from ICE detention for years to avoid deportation.
   

• Disentangle federal immigration enforcement from state and local law enforcement. 

  DHS should stop issuing detainers to local jails asking them to illegally rearrest immigrants who are otherwise free to leave. Programs including 287(g) Agreements, the Warrant Service Officer program, Intergovernmental Service Agreements, S-Comm, Basic Ordering Agreements, and Operation Stonegarden should be canceled, and data-sharing should be limited.  

  In Florida, the recent trial in City of South Miami, et al. v. DeSantis, et al. revealed the extent to which this entanglement endangers our immigrant neighbors and families, making all of us less safe. Local law enforcement agencies should not be forced to rely on ICE’s faulty databases, programs, and detainer requests; such blind compliance promotes the targeting of Black and brown people, including U.S. citizens, as occurred to South Florida resident Peter Sean Brown, a U.S. citizen born in Philadelphia who was held on a detainer and turned over to ICE after an arrest for an unrelated incident.  

  When state and local law enforcement agencies are involved with federal immigration enforcement, immigrants and their families are less likely to engage with law enforcement, even when they have been witnesses to or victims of crime. Two metro-Atlanta counties recently canceled their 287(g) agreements after electing new Sheriffs, but the federal immigration agencies should not have to rely on a patchwork of local decision making to achieve these results. The federal government should cancel all such programs that make immigrant communities afraid to interact with local police and sheriff’s deputies. 
   

• Extend the moratorium on deportations until Congress passes legislation and DHS creates a new set of enforcement priorities. 

  The U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021 will provide a pathway to citizenship for the 11 million members of our communities and our friends, neighbors, and colleagues who are undocumented. DACA recipients, TPS holders, and farmworkers will be immediately eligible for legal status. No one should be deported under our current misguided laws while the administration is actively fighting to improve them.  

  There should also be no workplace raids like those that happened in Mississippi in 2019 where more than 600 people were arrested, and scores of families were separated. Victims of civil and labor rights violations and workplace exploitation should be protected from deportation.  

  Finally, DHS must create a new set of targeted enforcement priorities that focus the agency’s deportation resources only on individuals who pose national security risks. DHS must also end the use of contact with the racially inequitable and flawed criminal legal system as a proxy for risk. 

 
SPLC Action’s full immigration priorities can be found here. To schedule an interview with an SPLC Action policy expert or immigration attorney, please email jeff.migliozzi@splcenter.org.