Report: ICE raids targeted non-criminals
An immigration enforcement program sold to the U.S. Congress as targeting criminals has instead detained thousands of non-fugitives, documents show.
Government records obtained by researchers and shared with The New York Times show that administrative moves within U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement switched the emphasis of a house-raid strategy from arresting and deporting illegal immigrants with criminal records to randomly sweeping up undocumented people, the newspaper reported Wednesday.
The program obtained bigger funding increases from Congress than any other program ICE runs after immigration officials told lawmakers they would concentrate on rounding up the most dangerous criminals among more than 500,000 immigrants with outstanding deportation orders.
But the emphasis changed in 2006 after ICE managers discarded rules dictating that 75 percent of those arrested be criminals, memos obtained by a professor and students at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law through a Freedom of Information lawsuit revealed, the Times said.
The information revealed that a vast majority of those arrested in the ICE sweeps had no criminal record and many had no deportation orders against them, either, the newspaper said.
UPI
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