Legislation vs. Administrative Reliefs, Part II

This is the continuation of a series of articles on Legislation vs. Administrative Reliefs and the Memo of March 2, 2011 issued by John Morton, Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), to all concerned officials with regards to Civil Immigration Enforcement – priorities for the apprehension, detention, and removal of aliens.

2. Memo of June 17, 2011 from John Morton, Director of ICE to all concerned officials with regards to Exercising Prosecutorial Discretion Consistent with the Civil Immigration Enforcement Priorities of the Agency for the Apprehension, Detention, and Removal of Aliens.

Background

One of ICE’s central responsibilities is to enforce the nation’s civil immigration laws in coordination with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). ICE, however, has limited resources to remove those illegally in the United States. ICE must prioritize the use of its enforcement personnel, detention space, and removal assets to ensure that the aliens it removes represent, as much as reasonably possible, the agency’s enforcement priorities, namely the promotion of national security, border security, public safety, and the integrity of the immigration system. These priorities are outlined in the ICE Civil Immigration Enforcement Priorities memorandum of March 2, 2011, which this memorandum is intended to support.

Because the agency is confronted with more administrative violations than its resources can address, the agency must regularly exercise “prosecutorial discretion” if it is to prioritize its efforts. In basic terms, prosecutorial discretion is the authority of an agency charged with enforcing a law to decide to what degree to enforce the law against a particular individual. ICE, like any other law enforcement agency, has prosecutorial discretion and may exercise it in the ordinary course of enforcement1.When ICE favorably exercises prosecutorial discretion, it essentially decides not to assert the full scope of the enforcement authority available to the agency in a given case.

In the civil immigration enforcement context, the term “prosecutorial discretion” applies to a broad range of discretionary enforcement decisions, including but not limited to the following:

  • deciding to issue or cancel a notice of detainer;
  • deciding to issue, reissue, serve, file, or cancel a Notice to Appear (NTA);
  • focusing enforcement resources on particular administrative violations or conduct;
  • deciding whom to stop, question, or arrest for an administrative violation;
  • deciding whom to detain or to release on bond, supervision, personal recognizance, or other condition;
  • seeking expedited removal or other forms of removal by means other than a formal removal proceeding in immigration court;
  • settling or dismissing a proceeding;
  • granting deferred action, granting parole, or staying a final order of removal;
  • agreeing to voluntary departure, the withdrawal of an application for admission, or other action in lieu of obtaining a formal order of removal;
  • pursuing an appeal;
  • executing a removal order; and
  • responding to or joining in a motion to reopen removal proceedings and to consider joining in a motion to grant r