ICE Official Sets Deportation Quotas; Pro-Reform Activists Feel Betrayed

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Beyond stating ICE enforcement goals in unusually explicit terms, Chaparro laid out how the agency would pump up the numbers: by increasing detention space to hold more illegal immigrants while they await deportation proceedings; by sweeping prisons and jails to find more candidates for deportation and offering early release to those willing to go quickly; and, most controversially, with a “surge” in efforts to catch illegal immigrants whose only violation was lying on immigration or visa applications or reentering the United States after being deported.

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The moves outlined in the memo differ from public pledges by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to focus enforcement on the most dangerous undocumented immigrants… Joan Friedland of the National Immigration Law Center criticized the ICE memo, saying quotas will encourage agents to target easy cases, not the ones who pose the greatest safety risk.

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Participant of yesterday’s Los Angeles march for immigration reform, lawyer [Jessica] Domínguez criticized the memo’s plan, now that raids will focus on detaining and deporting any [non-criminal] undocumented immigrant.

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“I know that the community will not give up, that they are hopeful, but we have to be careful because this memo is very specific in increasing the number of immigrants deportated even if the only violation is being in the country illegally,” she said.

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For Juan José Gutiérrez, one of the organizers of yesterday’s march, it’s a betrayal by President Obama.

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“He promised us there would be a reform for immigrants in the first year, and the only thing we’ve had is more raids and more deportations than in the worst year during the Bush administration,” he said. “The quotas that have been assigned to the immigration department are unjust, inhumane and they will betray the promise the president made to the people.”