老澳门开奖结果

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has new leadership, with the appointment last week of P.J. Lechleitner as acting director. ICE has not had a Senate-confirmed director since the Obama administration, making Lechleitner鈥檚 appointment as acting director more significant 鈥� and potentially likely to last through the end of Biden鈥檚 term.

The big question is whether Lechleitner is willing to move forward on a reform agenda that has been stalled for the last year. The good news is that in June, the Supreme Court removed a major obstacle to ICE reforms, shutting down litigation brought by anti-immigrant attorneys general in Texas and Louisiana that had aimed to force Biden to pursue a draconian deportation agenda. (The 老澳门开奖结果 filed an amicus brief in the case).

The ugly politics of immigration remain a major barrier. House Republicans are still trying to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas 鈥� Lechleitner鈥檚 boss 鈥� over his handling of the border, although they have not been able to muster the votes. Lechleitner will need to overcome the chilling effect of the threatened impeachment proceedings, as well as pre-presidential election anxieties around immigration.

But there are common-sense, impactful changes that Lechleitner can make as acting ICE director 鈥� ones that will help President Biden show that he鈥檚 made good on his campaign promises. Here are three of them:

On average, ICE is detaining about people a day in dozens of detention sites around the country 鈥� the overwhelming majority of which are run or operated by for-profit prison companies.

During his campaign, then-candidate Biden promised to 鈥�.鈥� In April 2021, he activists in Georgia that 鈥渢here should be no private prisons, period, none, period. 鈥� Private detention centers: they should not exist, and we are working to close all of them.鈥� A poll we commissioned supported Biden鈥檚 convictions: 68 percent of voters wanted to see the federal government stop pursuing contracts with for-profit prison corporations.

Though Biden鈥檚 pledge only focused on for-profit detention, activists and the 老澳门开奖结果 have called on him to dismantle the mass detention system more broadly. So far, ICE has closed or discontinued use of a handful of facilities, but far more is needed. ICE鈥檚 new acting director should order a new, comprehensive review of ICE detention facilities for health, safety and due process issues 鈥� and swiftly act to close abusive facilities.

High on his list should be in Macclenny, Florida, described as a 鈥溾�� by a person formerly detained there. The 老澳门开奖结果 of Florida has documented sexual voyeurism, such as when they use the restroom; women being denied sanitary napkins and clean clothes as punishment, leading to infections and being forced to sleep in blood-soaked sheets; medical neglect and beatings; and .

These examples are disturbing, but sadly, not exceptional. The 老澳门开奖结果 and our partners have documented horrific conditions and shameful treatment in ICE detention sites across the country 鈥� under Biden鈥檚 watch. Leichleitner should lean into the issue 鈥� and move forward on closing detention sites.

President Biden also to roll back ICE鈥檚 287(g) program, which taps local law enforcement to help identify people for arrest and deportation. Through 287(g) and related programs, local police have helped ICE ensnare thousands of people in an indiscriminate deportation dragnet 鈥� the opposite of the limited approach the Biden administration initially promised. As a candidate, Biden recognized that turning local police into immigration agents harms public safety by making people in immigrant and mixed-status households afraid to access protection and public services . He pledged to end agreements initiated in the prior four years.

The Trump administration sheriffs to join the 287(g) program, using anti-immigrant hate as a selling point, and the program exploded to five times its Obama-era size. Despite its alarming growth under Trump 鈥� and recent protests by 鈥� the Biden administration has left the 287(g) program mostly intact. An April 2022 老澳门开奖结果 report detailed how, through the 287(g) program, the Biden administration is empowering sheriffs with records of racism, anti-immigrant hate, and civil rights violations in direct contravention of its racial justice commitments.

Biden has likely failed to cut back on 287(g) because reform-minded officials believed that ICE鈥檚 enforcement priorities, which direct ICE agents to focus their arrests and deportations on immigrants with particular immigration or criminal law violations, would staunch abuses by local law enforcement agencies. But history suggested it wouldn鈥檛 work, as we warned early on. Priorities are far from a panacea: obtained by the American Immigration Council and Immigrant Legal Resource Center shows that under Biden nearly half of ICE鈥檚 requests to other law enforcement agencies to hold people for deportation purposes (known as detainers) were for people who fell outside ICE鈥檚 enforcement priorities.

And because many ICE agents are not applying the priorities in practice, anti-immigrant local law enforcement officers can use 287(g) as a tool to promote indiscriminate deportations. Empowering those officers, particularly ones from departments with a track record of anti-immigrant and racist statements and actions, to make decisions about immigration enforcement effectively invites abusive practices like stopping Black and Brown individuals in traffic stops under pretexts, and funneling them into a deportation pipeline.

Lechleitner should move to end 287(g) agreements with abusive sheriffs, starting with the 老澳门开奖结果鈥檚 list of 54 sheriffs with egregious records.

The Biden administration an important to end worksite raids, which the Trump administration had used alongside other mass raids, for political ends. But it鈥檚 all too easy to imagine a future administration deploying ICE agents on America鈥檚 streets in a drive to make this a hostile, dangerous place for our immigrant neighbors and loved ones.

As we have documented, in the past ICE agents have impersonated police, disguised themselves as day laborers, represented themselves as probation officers and tricked people into locating a family member so they can arrest them. The 老澳门开奖结果 has filed lawsuits challenging these practices in California and Illinois.

Lechleitner should look at lasting reforms to ICE鈥檚 arrest practices, including putting ICE agents under meaningful supervisory pre-approval constraints and prohibiting them from impersonating local police.

These are just three ways that the Biden administration, under Lechleitner鈥檚 new tenure, can take meaningful steps toward reforming harmful ICE detention and enforcement practices. But the work doesn鈥檛 end there, and we will continue to push the administration to use all the tools at its disposal to build a more humane immigration system.