President Donald Trump’s administration has urged justices to speed up the dismissal of pending immigration cases so that federal agents can arrest their subjects, according to a report.
This comes as part of an attempt to bolster the total number of undocumented migrants being held in detention.
Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration has intensified in the last week, inspiring the protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Los Angeles that have since spread to other cities.
The new tactic to increase the number of arrests was outlined in a memo from the Justice Department sent to immigration judges, which was seen by NBC News.
The justices in question, who answer to the executive branch and are not part of the independent judiciary, are instructed to permit Department of Homeland Security (DHS) attorneys to make oral motions to dismiss. Then, justices are told to move swiftly to grant those dismissals, rather than allow immigrants the 10-day response time.
“Oral decisions must be completed within the same hearing slot on the day testimony and arguments are concluded,” states the memo, which is dated Friday, May 30.
It also instructs the judges that no “additional documentation or briefing is required,” in the hope of cutting down on bureaucratic delays.
Once the cases in question are dismissed, the immigrants concerned can be entered into expedited removal proceedings or deemed “subject to mandatory detention” by ICE without being granted an opportunity to present their case for asylum in the United States before they are deported, the memo advises.
A source close to the judges’ union told NBC that, while the move was legal, it has nevertheless caused consternation to many immigration judges.
“They think it makes a mockery of the whole process and that it flies in the face of what Trump ran on,” the insider said. “Immigration enforcement means it’s done in a fair manner… and this isn’t fair.”
The memo notes a provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act that outlines the conditions under which the U.S. government can move to dismiss an immigrant’s case. Still, it misstates the wording of the statute in doing so.
Judges may grant motions to dismiss a migrant’s case when “circumstances have changed to such an extent that continuation is no longer in the best interest of the government,” the memo claims.
However, the precise wording of the act makes clear that this can only happen when “circumstances of the case have changed to such an extent that continuation is no longer in the best interest of the government.”
Greg Chen, senior director of government relations at the American Immigration Lawyers Association, told NBC that he believes the Justice Department’s guidance order is not legal because it omits those crucial three words.
“The omission of the words ‘of the case’ is deliberate because DHS is trying to avoid having to speak to the individual case,” he said.
“The law requires them to provide particular reasons for their motion, and they are not doing that. The email is the written policy that contradicts the law.”
Former ICE chief of staff Jason Houser said that the purpose of speeding up case dismissals was to enable agents to arrest more people, but, in practice, it would not actually help with Trump’s mass deportation push because there is simply not enough space at already-overcrowded detention centers to accommodate more detainees.
Over 51,000 immigrants were being held in ICE custody as of May 23, according to the agency’s own official data, while it only has the funding to hold 41,500, which means it risks keeping people in substandard living conditions that fall below court-mandated standards.
“Flooding the system with thousands of non-criminals wastes time and resources when federal law enforcement should be focused on national security threats,” he said.
