Illegal Immigrants may Exploit US Deferred Deportation Program

Unions representing United States government immigration agencies, like the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the U.S Border Patrol, are alleging the government of providing exploiting opportunities to illegal immigrants through the deferred deportation program.

Union heads attacked the Obama administration by saying that the government has indirectly asked the law enforcement agencies to practically ignore the law and let the illegal immigrants go free to exploit the country’s immigration system. These accusations follow the Federation for American Immigration Reforms’ report that recently targeted President Obama’s administration by accusing it of trying to dismantle the U.S immigration system through this sort of programs accommodating illegal immigrants.

In a press conference, Chris Crane, the boss at the union representing ICE officers, said that the government has partially implemented the act that the congress failed to approve. Crane said that in doing so, the government is actually enabling thousands of illegal immigrants to boldly escape detention without providing any proof, whatsoever, to the agencies. He said that the officers have been deprived of their duties to demand reasonable proof, as the so called ‘Dreamers’ just need to say that they went to high school or served in the military and they must be let go.

“Officers have been told that there is no burden for the alien to prove anything,” Crane said. “At this point we do not even know why the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has criteria at all, as there is no requirement or burden to prove anything on the part of the alien.”

Crane also said that those illegal immigrants who are not eligible under this program are also taking advantage from it. He said that these ‘fakers’ were significant in number and were using this program to avoid being arrested. He also said that a number of cases have already started to come to their attention in which serious criminal offenders were not detained by the officers because of this program and due to fear of losing their jobs if they go against its provisions.

The President of Border Patrol Council union, George McCubbin, said that the DHS was unnecessarily intervening in the operations of the law enforcement agencies, “…by making it impossible for agents to do their jobs.”

The agencies did not respond to these accusations directly. Although, ICE officials did say that they were looking forward to investigating these abuse and fraud cases. The agency also said that the policies are important for its operations as it is only given a limited budget for the annual removal of up to 400,000 illegal aliens. The officials at the agency said that due to this limitation, the agency has to prioritize its operations and concentrate on those illegal immigrants who are also serious felons or criminals under the U.S law.

ICE spokeswoman Gillian Christensen said, “ICE’s efforts to target the agency’s enforcement priorities are paying big dividends. For each of the past three fiscal years, ICE has removed more criminal aliens from the country than ever before and more than 90 percent of ICE’s removals fell into one of the agency’s enforcement priority categories.”

On accusations such as those made by the Union heads, Christensen said that the agency is working hard on its heels to investigate any such cases of fraud and abuse of the policy.

Tags: Chris Crane, Deferred Deportation Program, Department of Homeland Security, Federation for American Immigration Reforms, George McCubbin, Gillian Christensen, ICE, Illegal immigrant, Immigration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, United Stattes, US Border Patrol, US Immigration