The Trump administration is extending Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) power to detain legal refugees who are in the process of securing permanent residency, according to a Department of Homeland Security memo.
As first reported by the Washington Post, the administration’s decision to grant additional powers to ICE agents was submitted by government lawyers on Wednesday and will upend years of protections, potentially putting thousands of people who entered the United States under President Biden at risk of deportation.
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The updated policy revokes an existing 2010 rule that said failing to obtain residency within a year of being granted entry into the U.S. was not grounds for detaining refugees who entered the country legally.
Wednesday’s memo, written by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Joseph Edlow and Acting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Todd Lyons, appeared to undermine that long-established practice.
“When a refugee is admitted to the United States, the admission is conditional and subject to a mandatory review after one year,” reads the memo, in part.
It also notes that refugees who are detained may remain in custody “for the duration of the inspection and examination process,” which could lead to refugees being detained indefinitely.
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In a statement to The Hill, Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of Global Refuge, said refugees might now be subject to “open-ended detention.”
In response to a CNN report on the memo, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) wrote in an X post on Wednesday that it was “complying with the law as written,” and directed readers to the specific code. (At the time of publication, this webpage was non-functioning.)
The memo comes about a month after the department launched “Operation PARRIS” (Post-Admission Refugee Reverification and Integrity Strengthening), which officials said would focus on 5,600 refugees as part of “a sweeping initiative reexamining thousands of cases through new background checks and intensive verification of refugee claims,” to be examined in a vetting centre by “adjudicators conducting thorough background checks, reinterviews, and merit reviews of refugee claims.”
It also said it would not allow refugees in Minnesota to weaponize the immigration system to “defraud the American people.”
“American citizens and the rule of law come first, always,” the department wrote in a statement on Jan. 9.
Operation PARRIS was launched two days after Renee Good, an American citizen and mother of three, was fatally shot by an ICE agent.
Wednesday’s memo pertained to a scheduled court hearing in a Minnesota court on Thursday, where, in January, Judge John Tunheim temporarily blocked the Trump administration from detaining more refugees with legal status and ordered the release of 100 more in the wake of a class-action lawsuit brought by several refugee groups following the launch of “Operation PARRIS.”
During its broader immigration crackdown in Minnesota, which the DHS said was targeting perpetrators of fraud and dangerous criminals residing in the U.S. illegally, ICE arrested people from Somalia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Cuba, Vietnam, Mexico, Sierra Leone, Laos and El Salvador, among others.
On Thursday, Tunheim condemned the detention of people residing legally in the U.S.
“Refugees have a legal right to be in the United States, a right to work, a right to live peacefully,” he wrote, according to The Guardian.
The memo comes less than a week after the federal government pulled border agents out of Minnesota following weeks of public pushback over its immigration clampdown in the state and beyond.
Look at a pic of an ICE ‘agent’. Put it beside a pic of a terrorist. There are no differences. All black and tactical gear, face masks, weapons up the yang. A terror squad or army just like Iran employs or any other dictatorial, fascist country.
Their mandate is the same. To ‘imprint’ the ‘law’ on the people. Go against the regime and die. Or be brutalized and watch your family get taken away and split up. No difference at all.
The problem is not staying longer than a year on a refugee claim. The problem is the number of people claiming to be refugees, and the inability of the system to process them in a timely manor.
Improve the refugee system, It should not take more than a month to verify if someone is truly a refugee or just a criminal trying to escape justice.