Border Patrol website gives advice on eluding Border Patrol? Or, Making Defensible Enforcement Priority Decisions?
In an article with the headline “Border Patrol website gives advice on eluding Border Patrol,” the New York Post is making a big deal out of an effort by U.S. Customs and Border Protection to make it clear on its website at which “sensitive locations” it will not engage in enforcement actions. Those places include. but are not limited to, the following:
• schools (including pre-schools, primary schools, secondary schools, post-secondary schools up to and including colleges and universities, and other institutions of learning such as vocational or trade schools);
• hospitals;
• churches, synagogues, mosques or other institutions of worship, such as buildings rented for the purpose of religious services;
• the site of a funeral, wedding, or other public religious ceremony; and
• a site during the occurrence of a public demonstration, such as a march, rally or parade.
The idea is to avoid discouraging immigrants from attending school, receiving medical treatment at a hospital, attending church, going to a wedding or funeral, or expressing political views. Immigrant rights advocates have criticized the U.S. government from engaging in enforcement actions at many of these locations, criticism which no doubt generated the policy and statement on the website.
The Post fails to mention the reasoning behind the enforcement policy and website statement but instead has a lead to the story as follows:
“Immigrants who want to enter the U.S. illegally can learn how and where to avoid the Border Patrol from an advisory on the agency’s own website, which critics say is evidence of the Obama administration’s `schizophrenic’ approach to enforcement.”
Hat tip to Professor Carter White.
KJ