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IMMIGRATION
Immigration Detention and Enforcement Are a Mixed Bag in Biden’s First Year BY REBEKAH WOLF
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mmigration detention and enforcement in the United States under the first year of the Biden administration has been a mixture of improvements and setbacks. The Trump administration implemented nearly 400 changes to interior enforcement with the goal of subjecting all undocumented immigrants to enforcement actions, and President Biden assumed office having made significant commitments to limit enforcement activities in an effort to reduce the hardship experienced by many immigrants and their families. The President’s first year has brought a number of significant changes to immigration enforcement within the U.S., but with mixed results. Though 2021 saw steps away from some of the Trump administration’s most egregious policies, the implementation of the Biden administration’s new priorities has varied across the country. The number of people in immigration detention increased significantly and disturbing trends also continued in the use of private prisons for immigration detention.
President Biden. Editorial credit: Ron Adar / Shutterstock.com
A Return to Enforcement Priorities On January 20, 2021, Acting DHS secretary David Pekoske issued an interim memorandum that provided the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) with a framework of priorities for enforcement. This outlined who DHS should—and should not—prioritize arresting, detaining, issuing notices to appear to, and deporting. This was followed up with a memo issued on February 18, 2021 that further carved out specifics for who was considered a priority for enforcement. The intention of these priorities is to focus enforcement efforts on a subset of indi-
viduals, presumably leaving others in relative safety from enforcement activity. These priorities included people who were considered national security threats, entered the country on or after November 1, 2020, or were convicted of aggravated felonies. The enforcement priorities were challenged in federal court by Texas and Missouri, who argued that the priorities unfairly restricted ICE’s ability to pursue enforcement against other groups of people. While a district court judge initially agreed with the states, that decision has been stayed by the 5th circuit while the case winds its way through the courts.
On September 30, 2021 the administration issued another, more final, version of the enforcement priorities which was considered an improvement on the previous memo, though it notably no longer applied to release from detention. This memo moved away from the categorical approach of the previous memos and instead listed aggravating and mitigating factors in favor of or against enforcement. These memos stood in contrast to the Trump administration’s approach of arresting and detaining everyone ICE encountered. But while the return to a set of priorities was a welcome move by many, it did not go far enough for many advocates. Legal service providers and other advocates regularly noted that the memos still left discretion entirely in the hands of the field offices, and there were significant discrepancies between field offices in how they were applied. There was also no clear way to request review of a decision by the field office of a decision to designate someone as an enforcement priority. Finally, field offices rarely gave explanations for how they came to a continued on page 13
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