by CHQ staff
Attorney General William Barr has ruled that some illegal aliens who are about to be deported must be held without bond as their deportation cases play out. According to a Department of Justice decision document released on Tuesday, Barr concluded that illegals who fit certain criteria after applying for asylum will not be eligible for release during the deportation process.
The decision reverses a George W. Bush-era ruling dating back to 2005 that allowed bond to be instituted if the deportation subjects could demonstrate a legitimate fear of either persecution or danger should they leave the United States.
“An alien who is transferred from expedited removal proceedings to full removal proceedings after establishing a credible fear of persecution or torture is ineligible for release on bond,” Barr wrote. “Such an alien must be detained until his removal proceedings conclude, unless he is granted parole.”
“I order that, unless DHS paroles the respondent under section 212(d)(5)(A) of the [The Immigration and Nationality] Act, he must be detained until his removal proceedings conclude,” Barr wrote.
Attorney General Barr’s decision has attracted broad support, even from more moderate Republicans, such as New York’s Representative Peter King (NY-2).
Attorney General William Barr is “doing what has to be done” with his ruling that some illegal immigrants facing deportation must be held without bond as their cases play out, Rep. King said Wednesday according to reporting by Sandy Fitzgerald of NewsMax.
“I think we are going to be stuck for a while until both sides realize they have to move. We are a country which has always prided itself on providing asylum, but you can’t allow it to be abused the way that it is now,” Rep. King said during an appearance on Fox News.
Barr’s decision doesn’t affect asylum-seeking families because they generally can’t be held for longer than 20 days. It also doesn’t apply to unaccompanied minors, reported Anna Hopkins of Fox News.
Due to the limited capacity, Barr said his decision should go into effect in 90 days in order to give ICE time to build bed space. The Attorney General’s decision comes during a frustrating time for the administration as the number of illegal border crossers has skyrocketed. Most of them are families from Central America who are economic migrants who are abusing the asylum system.
There was a total of 161,000 asylum applications filed in the last fiscal year and 46,000 in the first quarter of 2019, according to the Executive Office for Immigration Review, which oversees immigration courts.
Barr’s ruling means that thousands of asylum seekers who once would have been out on bond and living in the U.S. while awaiting a decision on their status will now be kept in detention centers, where the wait times are climbing from months to a year reported Julia Ainsley and Doha Madani of NBC News.
“This ruling gives [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] the legal authority to detain all of these people indefinitely,” said Sarah Pierce, a policy analyst with the Migration Policy Institute, an immigration think tank. “That’s if they have the capacity. So, I think the actual effect of this ruling will be severely limited by ICE’s capacity.”
The Attorney General’s decision comes as a group of President Donald Trump’s top national-security advisers are reported to have discussed whether the military could be used to build and run “tent city” detention camps for migrants. NBC News reported last week, citing three US officials familiar with the conversations.
The discussions have reportedly revolved around whether such a move would be legal because the Posse Comitatus Act bars the government from using federal troops to enforce domestic laws.
“To your detainee question, we haven’t received any details on that. But I expect an increase of support will occur,” Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan said according to reporting by Michelle Mark of the Business insider.
Ms. Mark reports Shanahan also said the Pentagon has not received any formal requests for assistance but that “it shouldn’t come as a surprise that we’ll provide more support to the border.” He did not clarify what type of support was expected.
The shortage of detention space is so severe private prison companies and state and local jails are awarded ICE contracts to hold surplus detainees.
On “America’s Newsroom,” Rep. King explained why the border disaster continues to fester. House Democrats, said Rep. King, will never agree to any compromises in attempts to reform immigration policies and will instead “reject everything the president proposes.”
Read the decision:
[pdf-embedder url=”https://tennesseestar.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/AG-Barr_matter_m-s-_27_in_dec._509_a.g._2019_002.pdf”]
