ICE Disobeyed Biden’s Order to Drop Trump’s Blanket Deportation Policy

It is well-known that the Biden administration has faced challenges in the courts to changing immigration policies.  Changing the direction of a massive federal bureaucracy is never easy.  Akela Lacy for the Ihe Intercept reports that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement f(ICE) resisted the Biden administration’s efforts to narrow its immigration arrests and prioritize removals of immigrants that pose threats to border security, public safety, and national security.

Shortly after President Biden took office, his administration ordered ICE to prioritize action against noncitizen who posed security risks. A report from the American Immigration Council found that about a third of ICE arrests between February and November 2021 — President in Biden’s first year in office — involved noncitizens who were not considered risks to security or public safety. Half of ICE requests for local authorities to hold a migrant —  detainers — during the same period were carried out against noncitizens who were not considered security risks. 

The non-priority enforcement actions targeted certain nationalities. “From February to November 2021, individuals of Mexican nationality comprised the largest group subjected to ICE actions classified as `other’ priority, accounting for over 12,000 enforcement actions, or 53.7 percent of the total actions in this category. Guatemalans came in a distant second, with 2,633 actions.” (bold added).

KJ