New Obama Deportation Policies: Good for Some; Caution for Others

Julianne Hing writes for Colorlines:

Manuel Guerra Casas was 14 days away from his last immigration hearing. As the days inched closer to his September 1 hearing date, he was running out of legal options. Guerra, who’s undocumented, had been the victim of an immigration scam years ago. An unscrupulous notario had promised to help him get work authorization. The papers never materialized, but Immigration and Customs Enforcement did.

Yesterday, ICE called his attorney to tell him they’d dropped his case. The phone call came on the same day that the Obama administration announced that it would review its 300,000 open deportation cases, and pull people out of the queue who aren’t a high priority for removal, people who have no criminal record and came to the U.S. as kids and pose no threat to the country’s national security. Guerra was one of them.

“It was the biggest news I have ever seen,” Guerra said by phone from his home in West Palm Beach in Florida. Guerra had been fighting his deportation since 2006. “This news just yesterday from the White House, this was awesome. I was in shock.”

So are many immigrant rights advocates, whom have celebrated yesterday’s news even as others point out how few people it will help and that the move still leaves those who win a stay in a precarious position. Those who are undocumented will remain so.

. . . .Michael Tan, an attorney with the ACLU’s Immigrant Rights Project urged caution around the news, because much is still unknown about how this policy change will be carried out.

“People with criminal histories often have the equities that warrant closure of their cases under this new policy,” Tan said.

How, for instance, will the administration deal with the many people with criminal convictions on their record, whose convictions are old or extremely minor, and who may also otherwise be eligible for relief because they too came to the U.S. as children and have deep family ties in the country and are no threat to national security? Indeed, many young people who are otherwise eligible for the DREAM Act have also had interactions with the criminal justice system. What will happen to them is still yet to be determined. The lives of immigrants are far more complex than policymakers would make it seem.

“We don’t know how serious the administration is going to be in recognition of this,” he said. “As we know there is a significant disconnect between D.C. and how ICE operates on the ground, so the devil is in the details.” Read more…

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