A non-profit immigration legal advocacy organization sued the Obama administration Wednesday for refusing to provide records of Department of Homeland Security (DHS) directives telling prosecutors to stop deporting illegals.
The Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI) is looking for records from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office regarding DHS directives telling ICE attorneys to lay off deportation proceedings.
Apparently, these attorneys are relying on “prosecutorial discretion” to avoid deporting illegals.
Since the Obama administration has flat-out refused to divulge any of the information, IRLI is taking the federal government to court.
IRLI wants the ICE Office of Principal Legal Advisor (OPLA) to provide information on “orders commanding ICE attorneys to dismiss cases based on prosecutorial discretion; data and policy guidance commanding ICE attorneys to withhold appeals, to refrain from cross-examining suspected removable aliens, and to refrain from attending removal proceedings; and data showing the number of orders from OPLA denying ICE attorneys’ requests for witnesses and ICE agent testimony.”
OPLA has played a central role in executing a lot of the Obama admin’s anti-enforcement policies in the immigration world.
In essence, what OPLA has done, all the way back to 2011, is tell attorneys to look for cases pending in immigration court that meet specific criteria and consider closing some of them. That practice later morphed into attorneys for aliens affirmatively requesting ICE to close pending cases in an exercise of “prosecutorial discretion.”
This eventually led to attorneys not even bringing cases against an illegal alien unless it met the predetermined criteria. That is, they’re instructed not to file a charging document whatsoever against that particular illegal.
OPLA headquarters has also definitively directed folks to close cases or to terminate cases in certain instances. There’s a slight difference between the two terms. “Closing” a case means the case is still pending, but is just not being pursued at the moment. “Terminating” a case, however, is tearing up the paperwork and acquiescing to the person’s presence in the U.S.
There have also been some reports that administration officials have discussed how to retaliate against agents on the ground enforcing immigration laws, who are angry about issues like “prosecutorial discretion” that essentially nullify their work keeping the borders intact.
“IRLI is chagrined that it must sue again and again to force the Obama Administration to comply with our open records law, but nevertheless we will continue the fight to expose the misdeeds of this Administration and hold it accountable to the rule of law.” IRLI Executive Director Dale L. Wilcox said in a statement. “The records we expect to receive in response to our suit we hope will raise public awareness regarding Obama’s no-borders policies and the unfair burden those policies have placed on Americans and their local communities.”
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