Saturday, November 15, 2014

ILLEGALS with 'old' DUI, ID Theft Charges Spared Deportations

The Obama administration told federal immigration lawyers to release illegal immigrants with “old” drunken-driving convictions and those found guilty of stealing other people’s identities, according to a lawsuit filed by one of the lawyers at the center of the operation.
Patricia M. Vroom, a top attorney for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Arizona, filed a 67-page discrimination complaint that details repeated battles with agency higher-ups who told her to close cases and not deport people whom President Obama deemed low-priority.
“This was a very significant development, as generally, criminal aliens, particularly convicted felons, are, under the [prosecutorial discretion] memos, ‘priority’ cases that should be aggressively pursued,” Ms. Vroom said in her complaint.
But she said her superiors deemed the identity theft felons low-level offenders “since the typical alien defendant convicted under these provisions of Arizona criminal law had simply been using a fake I.D. to get and keep employment.”
Homeland Security officials said the department, of which ICE is a part, was looking over the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Arizona.
“We are reviewing the allegations in the complaint, which largely refer to events from 2012 and 2013 concerning workplace environment and various personnel decisions taken by key officials, some of whom have since left the department,” spokeswoman Marsha Catron said.
“The leadership of both [the Department of Homeland Security] and ICE take these allegations seriously and, when founded, will always take the appropriate disciplinary action,” she said.
Ms. Vroom, who filed the complaint Nov. 6, declined to comment through her attorney.
In her complaint, she detailed a September conversation in which top ICE lawyers told staff to ignore “old” DUI convictions if immigrants had enough “equities,” such as ties to the community or family responsibilities in the U.S., that would outweigh their criminal behavior.
ICE officials and Mr. Obama have defended their prosecutorial discretion, saying they have enough resources to deport only about 400,000 immigrants a year, so it makes sense to go after the most serious criminals, recent border crossers and those who have violated immigration laws repeatedly.
Read the rest of the story HERE.

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