On May 27, 2021, John Trasvia, the Principal Legal Advisor for ICE, sent a memo to government attorneys enabling them to use prosecutorial discretion to dismiss pending cases in Immigration Court and to refrain from placing certain persons in removal proceedings.
This memo (which is yet to be released to the public) could save many thousands of people, perhaps hundreds of thousands, from deportation.
Currently, there are over 1.3 million pending cases in the Immigration Courts. Considering that there are less than 500 Immigration Judges across the U.S., most Judges are overwhelmed with thousands of backlogged cases. In most instances, it can take years to obtain a merits hearing in Court.
As a former INS prosecutor (1980-82), my view is that the deportation system is a disaster for Judges, immigrants and our country. It can take years to deport a dangerous criminal. At the same time, persons with no criminal records who were brought to the U.S. as children and who are now college graduates may soon be subject to deportation.
It is necessary that the deportation system have priorities regarding who should be placed in removal proceedings in Immigration Court.
A little history...
In 2014, ICE prioritized the following classes of persons for deportation:
Persons convicted of serious crimes;
National security threats; and
Recent border crossers.
President Obama deported more than 400,000 people in his first year of office, and well over 1 million during his first 3 years. All in all, he deported more people than any other President in history.
Because of this, President Obama was derisively referred to as the "deporter in chief". However, his establishment of priorities in determining who got deported made our country a safer place, and his DACA program protected hundreds of thousands of law-abiding young people from deportation.
