detention and deportation

ICE – Detention Conditions – Ongoing

  • ICE reported the first positive case of a detainee on March 30, 2020
  • By late June, numbers of those infected in detention across the country rose to over 2,500 cases.
  • On April 30, 2 employees at Otay Mesa Detention Center sued ICE for failing to protect officers from the disease and failing to provide adequate sanitation and social distancing.
  • On May 6, 2020, 57 year old Carlos Escobar-Mejia is the first detainee to die of COVID-19 while in detention. He was an immigrant from El Salvador who had been in custody at the Otay Mesa Detention Center in California since January 10th. He had previously lived in the U.S. for 40 years and was denied bond after arrest.
  • On June 26, JudgeDolly Gee ordered that children held in detention for more than 20 days (in 3 specific family detention centers in Texas and Pennsylvania) must be released with their parents due to prolonged risk of infection. Her order states the ICE can decline release if the child has no suitable sponsor, if the parent waives rights under the Flores agreement, or if there is a “prior unexplained failure to appear at a scheduled hearing.”
  • Testing has been sporadic and officials cannot confidently assert how widely COIVD has actually spread.
  • See ICE statement here
News articles here:ICE – Deportations Continue – Ongoing
  • Despite border closures, ICE has continued deportations across borders.
  • Guatemala attempted to suspend incoming flights from the U.S. but with little success. On April 14, Guatemalan sources assert that 75% of detainees deported to Guatemala were infected with COVID-19.
  • Other countries with fragile health care systems like Colombia, Honduras, El Salvador, Mexico, and Haiti have been cooperating with the administration and are receiving deported migrants form the U.S. as well.
  • The case of a Haitian man who tested positive twice and was still deported shows that the intention is to continue deportations in spite of the risk of infection.

News articles here:

Hearings Postponed

DOJ – March 23, 2020 ; updated June 16, 2020

  • Asylum seeker court hearings were postponed for a month due to COVID-19. All preliminary and merit hearings were suspended through April 22. Recently, DHS has announced that this postponement will last through July 20, 2020.

News on this announcement:

DOJ – Updated July 17, 2020

DHS and DOJ have outlined criteria used to determine when to resume MPP hearings. Once met, a public notification will be sent out at least 15 calendar days before resuming hearings. Social distancing, temperature checks, and other precautions will be taken upon resumption. Criteria to restart hearings includes:

  • When California, Arizona, and Texas progress to Stage 3 of their reopening plans.[1]
  • When DOS[2] and CDC[3] lower their global health advisories to Level 2, and/or a comparable change in health advisories, regarding Mexico in particular.
  • When GOM’s “stoplight” system categorizes all Mexican border states (i.e., Tamaulipas, Nuevo Leon, Coahuila, Chihuahua, Sonora, and Baja California) as “yellow.”[4]

Click here to read more.

Border restrictions

DHS; CDC – First Implemented March 20, 2020; Re-implemented April 20, 2020; Extended Indefinitely June 20, 2020

  • The U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have invoked 42 U.S.C. §§ 265, 268 in order to bar “non-essential” cross-border travel in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
  • This restriction includes tourism and recreational travel across borders and effectively expels nearly all asylum seekers without valid documents, including unaccompanied minors, immediately and without any credible fear hearing, violating the principle of non-refoulement.
  • Additionally, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) will no longer detain individuals in holding facilities, they will be immediately returned.
  • The U.S. Border Patrol has used this provision to turn away more than 105,000 migrants in just five months, including a 10-year old boy who was flown back to Honduras with no word to his family. 
  • This measure was originally instated for the duration of 30 days, subject to reevaluation but has since been extended until CDC Director determines otherwise. It does not apply to U.S. citizens.
News articles on this policy

legal immigration process

White House – February 2, 2021, Executive Order

  • An Executive Order rescinds the Trump Admin memo that required family sponsor to repay the government if immigrant relatives received public benefits
  • It also will review the Trump Admin’s Public Charge Rule which began August 14, 2019 and barred legal residency for some immigrants who received public benefits for more than 12 months within any 36 month period and if “at the time of application for admission or adjustment of status, is likely at any time to become a public charge.”
  • The Task Force on New Americans, which existed during the Obama Admin will be re-established to better focus on integration of immigrants and refugees in the U.S.

News articles on this order

Family reunification task force

White House – February 2, 2021 Executive Order

  • Biden signed an Executive Order creating a Task Force that “will work across the U.S. government, with key stakeholders and representatives of impacted families, and with partners across the hemisphere to find parents and children separated by the Trump Administration”
  • The Task Force will also consider recommendation for pathways to visa attainment
  • This Order also revokes the Trump Administration’s Executive Order that sought to justify separating children from their parents and condemns the Zero Tolerance Policy
  • Acting Attorney General Monty Wilkinson announced that DOJ would revert to it’s prior practice of assessing cases of bored crossing on an individual basis

News articles on this order

Halting construction of the border wall

White House – January 20, 2021, Proclamation

  • Biden has halted construction of the border wall at the Southern border and called for a review of construction contracts before a reallocation of funding occurs. The legality of funding will also be reviewed

News Articles on this proclamation

Preserving daca

White House – January 20, 2021, Memorandum

  • This memorandum from Biden directs DHS Secretary and Attorney General to take measures to preserve and fortify the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program after the last administrations attempt to end the program.

News Articles on this memorandum

CBP Officers arrest Protesters in Portland, Oregon

CBP – July 14, 2020
  • CBP officers in unmarked vehicles have been arresting and detaining Portland protestors, under guidance from a memo called “Public Affairs Guidance: CBP Support to Protect Federal Facilities and Property” and Trump’s June 26 order on protecting American monuments.
  • The use of federal Border Patrol agents in domestic policing seems to be pushing the boundaries of the department’s authority more than ever.
  • The protests outside of the Multnomah County Justice Center and Courthouse are part of larger efforts of the Black Lives Matter movement and begun after the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers and the calls to action after deaths of Floyd and many others including Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and Elijah McClain.
  • See CBP statement here

News articles on this topic: