Federal immigration detention centers in Georgia and across the nation have started releasing detainees under a far reaching plan President Barack Obama announced last month to protect millions of immigrants from deportation.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement confirmed the releases Friday but could not say how many people have been freed and from which detention centers. But an ICE official said the number would not be “big” because many detainees have serious criminal records or are recent border crossers, making them ineligible for relief. The federal agency is expected to provide statistics in the coming days.
“ICE has immediately started to screen individuals in our custody who may be affected by executive actions,” the agency said in a prepared statement issued Friday. “ICE will continue to focus its priorities on national security threats, convicted felons, gang members, and illegal entrants apprehended at the border.”
Detainees may also ask ICE to review their immigration cases. ICE has set up a “Detention Reporting and Information Line” for people to call about specific immigration cases at 1-888-351-4024.
The centerpiece of Obama’s plan provides three-year deportation deferrals for people who don’t have legal status in the U.S. but do have children who were born here or are legal permanent residents. To be eligible, they must have lived in the U.S. for at least five years, submit to background checks and pay taxes. More than 4 million people are expected to be eligible nationwide.
Obama’s initiative also expands a program granting temporary deportation deferrals to immigrants who were illegally brought here as children. The move eliminated the age cap in the program – now at 31 – and requires them to have continually resided in the U.S. from January of 2010 to the present, a change from June of 2007. The White House estimated 270,000 more people will qualify for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
ICE is responding to instructions in a memo U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson issued on Nov. 20. The memo says ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection should "immediately begin identifying persons in their custody, as well as newly encountered individuals," who may be eligible for relief under the president's plan "to prevent the further expenditure of enforcement resources" connected to them.
Customs and Border Protection had no immediate comment Friday afternoon.
Julio Moreno, an Atlanta area immigration attorney, said he hopes ICE’s Atlanta field office “complies with the new directives as quickly as possible in order to prevent family separation and focus on detaining and removing dangerous felons.”
“We have not seen a mass release of inmates in Georgia who would qualify under the new executive order yet and hope that removals are stopped while a full review of every detained case is completed,” he said in an email.
Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform — a Washington-based organization that supports reducing immigration levels — criticized the Obama administration’s actions Friday. Mehlman said the government has spent a substantial amount of money “building cases against people – countless man hours – and the administration is just saying, ‘Let’s forget about it.’”
“There needs to be some accountability,” he said, “on the part of [the Department of Homeland Security] to the American people about who it is they are releasing — what sort of records these people have.”
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