ICE flexes authority to sharply expand detention without bond hearing
SAN DIEGO AP U S Immigration and Customs Enforcement has moved to detain far more people than before by tapping a legal authority to jail anyone who entered the country illegally without allowing them a bond hearing Todd Lyons ICE s acting director wrote employees on July that the agency was revisiting its extraordinarily broad and equally complex authority to detain people and that effective directly people would be ineligible for a bond hearing before an immigration judge Instead they cannot be circulated unless the Homeland Safety Department makes an exception The directive first announced by The Washington Post signals wider use of a law to detain people who had previously been allowed to remain free while their cases wind through immigration court Related Articles Pentagon ends deployment of National Guard troops in Los Angeles What to know about Good Trouble Lives On rallies honoring John Lewis Trump tells Texas Republicans to redraw the state congressional map to help keep House majority Federal judge reverses rule that would have removed biological debt from credit reports Republicans look to tweak Trump s request for billion in spending cuts Urged Tuesday to comment on the memo a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press Homeland Safeguard spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin declared The Biden administration dangerously unleashed millions of unvetted illegal aliens into the country and they used several loopholes to do so President Donald Trump and Secretary Kristi Noem are now enforcing this law as it was certainly written to keep America safe McLaughlin declared ICE will have plenty of bed space after Trump signed a law that spends about billion on boundary and immigration enforcement It puts ICE on the cusp of staggering advancement infusing it with billion over five years or nearly times its current annual budget That includes billion for detention Greg Chen senior director of regime relations at the American Immigration Lawyers Association began hearing from lawyers across the country last week that clients were being taken into custody in immigration court under the new directive One person who was detained lived in the United States for years While it won t affect people who came legally and overstayed their visas the initiative would apply to anyone who crossed the confines illegally Chen explained The Trump administration has acted with lightning speed to ramp up massive detention strategy to detain as multiple people as feasible now without any individualized review done by a judge This is going to turn the United States into a nation that imprisons people as a matter of class Chen declared Matt Adams legal director of the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project mentioned the administration is adopting a draconian interpretation of the statute to jail people who may have lived in the U S for decades have no criminal history and have U S citizen spouses children and grandchildren His organization sued the administration in March over what it mentioned was a growing practice among immigration judges in Tacoma Washington to jail people for prolonged mandatory periods Lyons wrote in his memo that detention was entirely within ICE s discretion but he acknowledged a legal challenge was likely For that reason he communicated ICE attorneys to continue gathering evidence to argue for detention before an immigration judge including feasible danger to the district and flight jeopardy ICE held about people at the end of June near an all-time high and above its budgeted quota of about Homeland Safeguard mentioned new funding will allow for an average daily population of people In January Trump signed the Laken Riley Act named for a slain Georgia nursing apprentice which required detention for people in the country illegally who are arrested or charged with relatively minor crimes including burglary theft and shoplifting in addition to violent crimes
