Agreements

 Biden’s Unfulfilled Promise to End 287(g) Agreements with Local Law Enforcement

During the 2020 campaign, President Biden pledged to end all 287(g) agreements made by the Trump administration. More than 150 days into his presidency, the promise remains unfulfilled.

The 287(g) program allows the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and state or local law enforcement agencies to enter into formal agreements to permit state and local law enforcement officers to enforce some aspects of federal immigration law.

Currently, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has 287(g) agreements with 146 law enforcement agencies in 25 states. This includes 126 jurisdictions that signed 287(g) agreements during the Trump administration.

287(g) agreements can be terminated at any time by either party. But action taken by the Biden administration to end them has been limited so far.

As of June 2021, just one 287(g) agreement—with the Bristol County Sheriff’s Office in Massachusetts— has been terminated by DHS. This termination only occurred after several documented civil rights violations in Bristol, including a violent incident in May 2020 that resulted in the hospitalization of three immigrant detainees.

The Fiscal Year 2022 DHS budget requests that the Biden administration put forward also did not seek any cuts to the $24.3 million allocated for the 287(g) program. This is despite acknowledging that “the program is not universally regarded as the most effective or appropriate model” for immigration enforcement.

287(g) Agreements

A Call to Rebuild

 

On World Refugee Day, A Call to Rebuild U.S. Refugee Resettlement

World Refugee Day is celebrated internationally on June 20 every year. It honors the struggle of refugees around the world who are fleeing violence and persecution and are unable to safely return to their home countries.

Over this past year, in the middle of a devastating global pandemic, the number of refugees worldwide hit an all-time high of over 26 million. At the same time, the Trump administration continued its drastic reduction in the number of refugees annually accepted into the United States.

This year’s World Refugee Day brings hope that the United States will reassert itself as a humanitarian leader under the Biden administration. But it also serves as a reminder – more actions are needed to undo the damage of the Trump-era and rebuild the capacity of the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP).

On the campaign trail, President Biden pledged to change course dramatically by raising the annual refugee cap to 125,000. In April, he flip-flopped on this commitment and decided to maintain Trump’s historically low admissions cap of 15,000. After backlash from advocacy groups and members of Congress, Biden finally raised the cap in May from 15,000 to 62,500. He also pledged to double the cap to 125,000 for fiscal year 2022.

Despite these changes, the United States is on pace to resettle a historically low number of refugees in FY 2021. As of May 31, only 3,250 refugees have been resettled this year. At the current rate, fewer than 5,000 refugees would be resettled in FY 2021 – lower than any year during the Trump administration.

DNA Collecting

 Collecting DNA From Asylum Seekers at the Border Raises Privacy Concerns

U.S. Customs and Border Protection is collecting DNA from asylum seekers at the border, recent media reports confirm. This is the latest expansion of DNA collection as part of a program initiated under the Trump administration that targets nearly all immigrants in government custody. A growing number of noncitizens are being subjected to this invasive collection of sensitive personal information with little knowledge or understanding of how their information will be used or stored by the federal government.

While the southern border remains largely closed to asylum seekers due to the Biden administration’s continuation of the Title 42 expulsions policy, some families and particularly vulnerable individuals are being allowed to enter to pursue their claims. And it is this population that is being subjected to DNA collection as they enter the United States.

The Biden administration has continued this policy despite privacy concerns and no clear justification. It contradicts the administration’s recent decision to withdraw a Trump-era rule that would have expanded biometrics collection to petitioners and beneficiaries of immigration benefits.

Proponents of the program argue it can help investigate crimes and reveal the immigration history of people who misrepresent their identity at the border. But the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has acknowledged that it won’t be able to process the DNA fast enough for it to be useful in ongoing criminal investigations. Also, the program is estimated to cost DHS nearly $14 million over its first three years.

Watchdog Finds Hundreds of Parents Separated

Government Watchdog Finds Hundreds of Parents Separated by Trump Never Given Opportunity to Reunify

The Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General (DHS OIG) recently found that the Trump administration deported as many as 348 parents that had been separated from their children without ever giving them an opportunity to reunify.

The blistering new report tracks deportations throughout 2017 and 2018 during the prior administration’s Zero Tolerance policy and the pilot project that preceded it. Senior DHS officials testified repeatedly to Congress that every parent received the choice to reunify before deportation—statements that the OIG’s report makes clear were false.

During Zero Tolerance, thousands of families seeking asylum in the United States were separated at the border, with Border Patrol officials at times dragging children from their parents’ arms. Officials then sent parents to be prosecuted. Meanwhile, the children were turned over to the custody of the Office of Resettlement as newly “unaccompanied” minors. After the parent finished any criminal sentence (usually a matter of days), they would be turned over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for the deportation process – not released or reunified with their children.

The announcement Friday also indicated that one goal of the dedicated docket is to reduce the years-long immigration court backlog. Yet data from 2019, just after another rocket docket for families was used, indicate that rushing through these cases would have virtually no effect on the court backlog.

From 2014 to 2017, the Obama administration ran a similar rocket docket for families, called the “adults with children” docket. Officials at the immigration courts later admitted that the docket “coincided with some of the lowest levels of case completion productivity in [the court’s] history and, thus, did not produce significant results.”

The new Dedicated Docket program could also lead to more families being put in electronic monitoring ATDs who would otherwise be released on their own recognizance, expanding the government’s surveillance of non-detained migrants. Data makes it clear that the majority of asylum seekers appear for court without the need for surveillance or other restrictive ATDs.