Professor Stumpf chimes in on federal immigration enforcement in New York Times
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Juliet Stumpf, professor of law, chimes in on federal immigration enforcement in a New York Times article about the Obama administration’s Priority Enforcement Program, which ended the Secure Communities programs ahead run into constitutional barriers and policy quagmires. The new program, nicknamed PEP, establishes three priority tiers for enforcing immigration law domestically and mandates of that Immigration agents follow those priorities.
“For four years Arturo Hernández García, an immigrant from Mexico, tried every legal move to stop his deportation. As a last resort, he camped out in the basement of a church here, seeking sanctuary from federal agents trying to expel him.
Obama administration officials have long said they are not looking to deport undocumented immigrants like Mr. Hernández García — a taxpaying business owner and parent of an American citizen. But after he was arrested over a workplace argument in 2010, the immigration authorities were alerted to his status by a federal monitoring program. They began deportation proceedings that have continued to this day, even though he has been cleared of the criminal charges.
Mr. Hernández García was ensnared by an enforcement program known as Secure Communities, which connected local and state police departments across the country with federal immigration enforcement. Now the program, which generated the majority of the 2.3 million deportations under the Obama administration, is at the center of the battle between the president and Republicans over his executive actions to transform the deportation system.”
