U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials and the Obama administration have repeatedly said this summer that the agency is on track to meet its stated goal -- or what its budget allows for: to remove about 400,000 people from the country this year.

The number, officials say, indicates that ICE is tougher than ever on immigration. The agency projected, however, to be "well under" that goal about halfway through the fiscal year -- at a rate 20 percent below the year before. Reaching 400,000, therefore, would be an achievement.

As of August 2nd, the agency had removed 310,013 people, about 90,000 removals shy of its 400,000 projection with two months left in the fiscal year. In the final two months of last fiscal year, the agency removed a little more than 67,000 people.

A review of ICE's own figures, as posted on the agency's web site, shows that the most removals in any month in the last four fiscal years, including FY2010 to date, is slightly more than 39,000. This year in only three months -- October, November and June -- have ICE removals exceeded the same month in FY2009.

So, is or isn't ICE on pace to reach 400,000?

ICE spokesman Brian P. Hale wrote in an email:

At this point in time indications are that we will meet or exceed our overall removal numbers from last year. The caveat is that criminal removals take longer to complete and the average length of stay (in detention) is longer too. So the lag time (in reporting the statistics) can take a few months.

Last year, ICE removed nearly 390,000 people. Including the "lag" from FY 2008, the agency removed 389,834 individuals. Excluding the lag, the agency removed 387,790.

The latest figures -- as of Aug. 23 -- show ICE has removed a total of 343,883 people, of which 167,742 are convicted criminals, Hale said. That means the agency has deported more noncriminals -- 176,141, to be precise -- than criminals so far this year. A month earlier -- as of July 22 -- the agency' figures showed total removals at 292,663.

The record the Obama administration is setting is the removal of criminals, as ICE expects to have a significantly higher number of criminal removals than last year, Hale said. Many of those people have been found through a program that enables local law enforcement to identify immigrants with criminal records who are in their custody. The program, dubbed Secure Communities, has been criticized for sweeping up noncriminals despite the stated goal of targeting the "worst of the worst" criminals.

Overall, the Obama administration seems hard-pressed to please anyone when it comes to immigration. As the rhetoric heats up this political season, the right has hammered the White House for being soft on immigration enforcement while the left has slammed Obama and ICE for being too tough. John Morton, the agency chief, just says the administration is putting more people into immigration proceedings than ever before. But some telling shifts may be happening.

ICE has begun a review of all cases in immigration courts, and in some instances is dropping efforts to deport illegal immigrants and legal residents who have committed minor crimes.

Morton also issued a memo recently instructing ICE attorneys and immigration officials to dismiss deportation charges in certain situations where, among other concerns, the person has properly requested to stay in the country, and has an application or petition that appears eligible for approval.

The issue at hand addressed in the latest Morton memo is the growing backlog -- nearly 250,000 -- in the nation's immigration courts. Morton points out in the memo that in July 2009 there were roughly 17,000 removal cases held up in immigration courts because of pending applications.

A version of this story also appeared on the Huffington Post.

A high-ranking immigration official brushed off claims that the Obama administration wants to make an end-run around Congress to grant amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants, saying the notion is "nuts."

Roxana Bacon, the top attorney at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, said that many of the administrative remedies outlined in a leaked draft memo she co-wrote are concepts that had been floating around the agency, which oversees legal immigration, for years. The memo caused a backlash among Republicans, who asserted it was proof that the Obama administration is looking for a "backdoor amnesty plan."

Bacon, who became USCIS chief counsel last October, explained that the memo is only a snapshot of a long conversation and represents government at its best: deliberative and open-minded.

"The ideas are not new ideas, and came out of many different sources: Congress, advocacy groups, academia and within government itself," she said. "It's only a collection of ideas, not a final determination."

Speaking last Friday on a panel at the American Bar Association's annual meeting in San Francisco, Bacon made her first public statements about the memo, titled "Administrative Alternatives to Comprehensive Immigration Reform." Bacon and three other officials sent the draft in April to the agency's director, Alejandro Mayorkas, according to news reports.

The unadopted memo outlines potential administrative fixes to immigration law if Congress doesn't pass new legislation. Among them is a form of immigration "relief" to exercise discretion to delay -- even indefinitely -- deportation.

Here's how the officials introduce the draft:

This memorandum offers administrative relief options to promote family unity, foster economic growth, achieve significant process improvements and reduce the threat of removal for certain individuals present in the United States without authorization. It includes recommendations regarding implementation timeframes and required resources.

Although the need for comprehensive immigration reform is frequently mentioned, Congress has not seriously debated the controversial topic since 2007. Chances appear slim that legislators will take up the matter in an election year. Nevertheless, the immigration issue has heated up in recent months as states, such as Arizona and Virginia, have waded into the debate.

Meanwhile, criminal immigration prosecution and deportation levels under the Obama administration rival or surpass those during the Bush era, according to recent reports by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University. Republicans have nonetheless blasted the White House for being lenient on illegal immigrants and lax on border security.

Figures posted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Homeland Security Department arm that detains and deports immigrants, show that the agency's removal numbers for the first nine months of Fiscal Year 2010 are down by nearly 9,000 compared to the same time period last year. TRAC notes in its report that delays in recording can result in preliminary FY 2010 figures missing some cases, making comparisons between 2009 and 2010 year-to-date unreliable.

Lucas Guttentag, director of the American Civil Liberties Union Immigrants' Rights Project and a co-panelist with Bacon, said that the memo illustrates that the Obama administration is thoughtfully considering modest steps to address some of the "perverse aspects of immigration law."

Obtained by Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, the 11-page memo outraged Republicans, who said it showed the Obama administration was trying to sneak around Congress to give amnesty for the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants living in the United States. The memo became public the day after a federal judge blocked key provisions of Arizona's controversial immigration law, known as SB 1070.

"The document provides an additional basis for our concerns that the administration will go to great lengths to circumvent Congress and unilaterally execute a backdoor amnesty plan," Grassley told The Associated Press.

USCIS could grant deferred action to an unrestricted number of illegal immigrants, but "doing so would likely be controversial, not to mention expensive," the memo states. Instead of an umbrella "amnesty," the agency could use deferred action with specific groups, such as young immigrants who would be eligible under legislation known as the Dream Act.

The proposed bill aims to create a pathway to citizenship for people who have clean criminal records, graduated from high school in the United States and have at least two years of college or military service.

A version of this story also appeared on the Huffington Post.

The draft memo ICE wants comment on

In an unusually open move, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is seeking public comment on a policy that directs immigration officers on when they can request local police to temporarily detain immigrants suspected of being in the country illegally.

The draft memo states that immigration officers generally should not issue detainers - or an immigration hold - on a person charged only with a traffic-related misdemeanor unless or until the person is convicted, except for the following reasons:

• the alien has a prior criminal conviction;
• the alien previously has been excluded, deported, or removed from the United States or allowed to voluntarily return to his or her country of nationality;
• the alien is the subject of an outstanding immigration warrant or is the subject of a final order (of deportation);
• the alien is part of an existing criminal investigation;
• an articulable reason exists to believe that the alien presents a danger to national security or a genuine risk to public safety; or
• the traffic-related misdemeanor involves driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, physical injury to a person or property, or flight from the scene of an accident.

The agency posted the draft memo on its web site Friday, and included an email address to send comments.

Request for Public Comment on Immigration Detainer Policy

ICE has drafted an immigration detainer policy to engage all interested stakeholders and solicit a broad range of views and comments. This is not a final policy and is disseminated solely to collect feedback. ICE is interested in a concrete assessment of how this draft policy, if issued and implemented, would affect the agency's law enforcement partners, the operation of the criminal justice system, communities and individuals. Please respond with your comments to ICEDetainerComments@dhs.gov by Thursday, September 30, 2010.

Not known for its transparency, ICE has pulled back the curtain in a few areas as the agency's leadership pushes various reforms, such as civil enforcement measures and overhauling immigration detention. The agency has also recently launched a new system to locate locked-up immigrants.

The draft policy comes on the heels of a federal judge's decision to block key parts of Arizona's controversial immigration law, and days after the Virginia attorney general issued a legal opinion that permits police to "inquire into the immigration status of persons stopped or arrested."

The policy defines then instructs immigration officers that they can only issue a detainer on an immigrant who has been arrested on a criminal charge. Immigration officers, which include local law enforcement officers who are given authority to issue detainers under a provision known as 287(g), are not allowed to seek an immigration hold on someone who has been temporarily detained, such as a roadside stop.

The previous policy is here.

Earlier in the week ICE chief John Morton signed an interim memo, a summary of which, posted below, was also sent to ICE employees.

10074.1 Interim Detainers Directive

Only immigration officers may issue detainers. Immigration officers shall issue detainers only after a local law enforcement agency (LEA) has exercised its independent authority to arrest the alien for a criminal violation. Immigration officers shall not issue detainers for aliens who have been temporarily detained by the LEA (i.e., roadside or Terry stops) but not arrested.

If an immigration officer has reason to believe that an individual arrested by an LEA is subject to ICE detention for removal or removal proceedings, and issuance of the detainer otherwise comports with this policy and appears to advance the priorities of the agency, the immigration officer may issue a detainer (Form I-247) to the LEA.

Immigration officers are expected to make arrangements to assume custody of an alien who is the subject of a detainer in a timely manner and without unnecessary delay. If at any time after a detainer is issued, ICE determines it will not assume custody of the alien, the detainer should be withdrawn or rescinded and the LEA notified.

Immigration officers shall take particular care when issuing a detainer against a lawful permanent resident (LPR) as some grounds of removability hinge on a conviction, while others do not [e.g. removability pursuant to INA § 237(a)(4) and INA § 237(a)(1)(E)].

David Leopold, president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said exposing the draft memo to public scrutiny may lead to better policy.

"People who work in the system day in and day out - lawyers, advocates - may be able to offer constructive criticism the government hasn't thought about," he said.

The American Civil Liberties Union and a coalition of legal advocates from Seattle to San Diego have sued the U.S. government over the detention of immigrants with mental disabilities.

The class-action suit, which the ACLU of Southern California called the first of its kind, asks a Federal District Court in California to push the government to create a system to determine which immigrants facing possible deportation are competent to represent themselves and to appoint legal representation for those who cannot defend themselves, according to a statement.

The complaint, filed late Monday, names seven plaintiffs, including lead plaintiff Jose Antonio Franco-Gonzalez, whom CIR and the Los Angeles Times previously reported on in March. Franco, who suffers from moderate mental retardation, was detained for nearly five years until ICE officials released him after another suit was filed on his behalf.

The ACLU and Human Rights Watch published last month a report on the mentally disabled in the immigration court system and detention.

The complaint can be found here.

ICE's new online detainee system Photo: Immigration and Customs Enforcement

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the federal agency that wants attention more for its complex customs and terrorism investigations than its immigration duties, has gone on a media blitz as of late.

ICE chief John Morton has popped up all over the place, from making public appearances around the country — including co-headlining a press conference Tuesday in San Francisco on a counterfeit clothing bust — to writing a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed piece with Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Alan D. Bersin to sitting for a Washington Post interview amid calls for his resignation to announcing in June a big drug bust with cohorts at the FBI, DEA and Justice Department.

(non-subscribers can find the WSJ op-ed here on the Homeland Security Department's social networking site, ourborder.ning.com)

Along with increasing Morton's visibility, the agency has also tried to raise its profile in other ways, with an organizational shake-up and a steady flow of press releases on everything from child pornography busts to its efforts to crackdown on human rights violators seeking safe haven in the United States.

Under the Obama administration ICE officials have stated that one of their priorities is to reform how the agency detains immigrants. In late July, the agency unveiled a new online system to find detained immigrants after previous reports of detainees moved around the country.

Last week the agency posted on its web site a month-by-month report of deportations. ICE has also tweaked its site, with prominent displays of the statistics, the new detainee finder system and its list of reforms. The agency, however, might take another look at some of these displays, immigration advocates say.

Notice the image of the tandem searching for someone — a friend, a sibling, a parent or a spouse — on the computer. Who are they? Mother and daughter? Aunt and niece? Tutor and pupil? Frank Sharry, executive director of America's Voice, a pro-immigration group that advocates for reform, wondered what the two are doing: Searching for a relative, or solving a homework problem?

"ICE has separated more families than any other federal agency by far, and a stock photo on a web site is a cruel joke rather than an image enhancer," Sharry said. "It just shows how tone deaf they are."

Update:
ICE replaced the image for the online detainee locator system on Wednesday. The image of a computer keyboard, below left, replaced the original image, below right.

ICE's new online detainee system (revised) Photo: Immigration and Customs Enforcement

ICE's new online detainee system (original) Photo: Immigration and Customs Enforcement

The text doesn't appear in Internet Explorer or Safari, but it's right there in Firefox:

Detainee Care and Safety
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.

The jumbled Latin phrase is, of course, often used as placeholder text.

Update:
The placeholder text was removed as of Wednesday morning.

An ICE spokesman said the agency would review the web site.

The union that represents Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers said that a probe apparently seeking to identify the source of leaked internal documents detailing arrest quotas has unfairly targeted a suspected agent, the Washington Post reported.

The American Federation of Government Employees Council 118, which represents ICE officers, accuses the agency of initiating a "witch hunt" that tried to link the agent and the Post reporter, Spencer Hsu, both of whom have Asian surnames. The union declined to name the ICE agent.

In collaboration with the Center for Investigative Reporting, the Post published in March documents and emails from ICE officials that outlined arrest quotas, which the agency has since distanced itself from.

The published story provoked an immediate response from ICE Director John Morton, who insisted the agency doesn't utilize quotas.

Immigration advocates also criticized the agency for the arrest quotas, which Morton had previously said the agency had ended. Some even called for Morton's resignation or termination.

In fact, the Post ran its story about the leak probe along with a profile of Morton, in which he said calls for his resignation were "just part of the territory."

As for the probe, "ICE leaders got caught doing something they shouldn't have been doing, and now they want revenge and are targeting their own employees," AFGE Council 118 President Chris Crane said in the statement.

An ICE spokesman told the Post that the agency's senior leadership did not request or pursue the investigation, but declined further comment on who might have launched the probe.

An interview with CIR's Andrew Becker aired on KALW yesterday. Becker discusses his recent story in the Washington Post about an Immigration and Customs Enforcement internal memo that suggests quotas to deport more illegal immigrants and maps out specific moves to increase arrests and removals.

A former Mexican police officer turned drug trafficker who acted as a U.S. government informant was released late Thursday after being held in detention for nearly six years, The Associated Press reports.

Guillermo Ramirez-Peyro, known by the nickname "Lalo," had been held for years in solitary confinement, most recently at a federal immigration detention center near Buffalo, N.Y.

After years of legal wrangling, an immigration appeals board last month suspended efforts to deport Ramirez back to Mexico. The board, echoing an 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision, cited the likelihood that he would be tortured or murdered by drug gangs or corrupt police officers in their employ if returned to his native country.

Ramirez could still face deportation once the violence subsides and safer conditions prevail in Mexico.

The informant worked for several years for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, and helped law enforcement prosecute more than 50 drug traffickers. He also allegedly participated in or witnessed several killings in Juarez, though he has denied killing anyone himself.

Immigrant advocates pushing for reform of the nation's immigration laws have called on the White House to replace John Morton, the administration's top immigration official.

The call came the day after Morton, the head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, convened a meeting at ICE headquarters in Washington, D.C. after a CIR/Washington Post story March 27 disclosed agency memos and other documents setting quotas to deport more illegal immigrants.

In preparation for immigration law reform legislation, the Obama administration has said it will concentrate on deporting violent and dangerous criminals while remaining tough on enforcement. Immigrant rights groups said that the memo contradicts earlier commitments.

ICE issued a statement the day of publication, which followed a new memo written by James M. Chaparro, the head of the agency's deportation office. Chaparro authored the initial memo that the ICE officials said was sent without Morton's approval. The second memo does "not alter or rescind" earlier strategies, according to the Washington Post story.

At the meeting Chaparro apologized to immigrant activists, according to people who attended, and was reprimanded by Morton. Unsatisfied with the response, immigrant activists from around the country on Tuesday called on President Obama and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to dismiss Morton.

"The reality is that ICE has gone rogue and needs to be reined in with dramatic action," said Deepak Bhargava, executive director of the Center for Community Change. "The President himself affirmed for us when we met with him a few weeks ago that the focus of enforcement would be on protecting the country’s security by focusing on criminal behavior."

An ICE spokesman declined to comment, according to the Miami Herald/El Nuevo Herald.

Meanwhile, the White House is rejecting the notion that the legislative effort in the Senate to overhaul immigration law this year is "dead," The Hill reports.

The Obama administration has behind the scenes been preparing for possible reform, but immigration reform activists have complained that the White House isn't pushing as hard as it should. So, the question now is, if it won't happen this year, when? And are officials considering administrative remedies if the political capital and will are wanting?

Responding to a Washington Post/CIR story about government quotas to deport more illegal immigrants, the head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement distanced the agency from a memo sent last month by a top deportation official.

"Significant portions of the memo cited in The Washington Post (3/27/10 - Becker/Hsu) did not reflect our policies, was sent without my authorization, and has since been withdrawn and corrected," John Morton, assistant secretary for ICE, said in a statement released Saturday. "We are strongly committed to carrying out our priorities to remove serious criminal offenders first and we definitively do not set quotas."

Morton convened a meeting today with immigration advocates seeking input on the issue.

Based on emails, memos and other documents obtained by CIR, The Post story reported that ICE was scrambling to meet its goal of removing 400,000 illegal immigrants this year. In doing so, officials had stepped back from a pledge to focus on deporting illegal immigrants who are dangerous or have violent criminal backgrounds.

From Morton's statement:

ICE is required by Congress to submit annual performance goals as part of the budgetary process and our longstanding focus remains on smart, effective immigration enforcement that places priority first on those dangerous criminal aliens who present risk to the security of our communities.

This focus has yielded real results – between FY2008 and FY2009, criminal deportations increased by 19% and this priority continues in FY10 with 40% more criminal aliens removed to date as compared to the same period last year.