GOP Sens. Press Mayorkas to end ICE’s ‘prosecution discretion’ policy, #GOP #Sens #Press #Mayorkas #ICEs #Prosecutorial #Discretion #Policy Welcome to OLASMEDIA TV NEWSThis is what we have for you today:
Republican Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and James Lankford (R-OK) sent a letter to United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to force him to end the “freedom of prosecution U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Policy.
In April, ICE’s Office of the Principal Legal Advisor (OPLA) issued a memo to the agency giving agents of the agencies “prosecution powers” to enforce immigration laws against certain migrants that the agency considers an imminent threat.
OPLA’s memo was based on Mayorkas’s September memo to immigration officials encouraging them to “assess on a case-by-case basis whether a person poses a threat”.
As Andrew R. Arthur of the Center of Immigration Studies explained, OPLA’s memo was “essentially a guideline for ICE attorneys to address matters that didn’t fit into an earlier memo.”
Arthur continued:
In her memo, [ICE Principal Legal Advisor Kerry] Doyle has instructed ICE’s attorneys — the people you paid to represent your interests in immigration court — to review their pending cases and determine whether they are “priority” for enforcement action under the Mayorkas memo, assuming that they are not already “classified for prioritization”.
However, Mayorkas’ memo was cleared last month by Judge Drew Tipton of the US District Court for the Southern District of Texas.
The senators argued that OPLA’s directive should be discarded because a federal judge vacated Mayorkas’ underlying memo.
ICE’s OPLA is led by Kerry E. Doyle, a former professional defense attorney and frequent critic of the agency.
Grassley said:
Secretary Mayorkas and the Department of Homeland Security are charged with fully and faithfully enforcing our immigration laws. This memo from the chief legal counsel within ICE was misleading and is yet another initiative by the Biden administration designed to seriously undermine the robust enforcement of our country’s immigration laws. Given the recent federal court ruling vacating Secretary Mayorkas’s memo dated September 30, we should know that DHS will also soon retract this OPLA guidance memo and begin to do its job and enforce our laws. Otherwise, the illegal immigration crisis caused by this government’s irresponsible policies will only get worse.
Grassley and Lankford asked Mayorkas to provide an end date for the OPLA memo and more information about the agency’s application of discretion.