As Border Crisis Continues, Mayorkas Doubles Down on Shielding Illegal Aliens From Deportation

When faced with an overflowing bathtub – which very much resembles Joe Biden’s illegal migration crisis at the southern border – the first instinct of the vast majority of people would undoubtedly be to quickly shut off the water. Such basic common sense, however, seems to be completely foreign to the Biden administration. Rather than securing the border and reducing incentives that attract hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants each month, the White House continues to do the exact opposite by making it as easy as possible for illegal aliens to remain in the country and attracting never-ending droves of new ones.

Such is the case with Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas’ Guidelines for the Enforcement of Civil Immigration Law, a September 30 memorandum that will go into effect on November 29. The memo rescinds and replaces previous Biden administration anti-enforcement guidelines, essentially doubling down on Team Biden’s desire to shut down practically all deportations. It also follows the administration’s semantic policy, employing the politically correct euphemism of “undocumented noncitizens” in place of illegal aliens.

Framing the (extremely) broad “exercise of prosecutorial discretion” as the memo’s “foundational principle,” Mayorkas lists both “aggravating factors that mitigate in favor of enforcement action,” such as “the gravity of the offense of conviction and the sentence imposed,” or “a serious prior criminal record,” and a much longer, extremely extensive list of “mitigating factors.” The latter includes “advanced or tender age,” a “lengthy presence in the United States,” the “impact of removal on family in the United States,” and “whether the noncitizen may be eligible for humanitarian protection or other immigration relief.”

But, as Mayorkas makes clear in the memo, the guidelines are about more than just making it even easier for illegal aliens to remain in the U.S. unlawfully. It is ultimately about paving the way for eventual amnesty. “In exercising our discretion,” the DHS head states, “we are guided by the fact that the majority of undocumented noncitizens who could be subject to removal have been contributing members of our communities for years. (…) Numerous times over the years, and presently, bipartisan groups of leaders have recognized these noncitizens’ contributions to state and local communities and have tried to pass legislation that would provide a path to citizenship or other lawful status for the approximately 11 million undocumented noncitizens.”

The long outdated 11 million figure is a gross underestimate. FAIR has shown that there were at least 14.5 million illegal aliens here as of last year. But Mayorkas’ intention is clear: the administration is drastically limiting deportations because their political goal is to reward those who violated our borders and laws with legal status and citizenship. Of course, that is not at all surprising coming from an administration which puts its own ideology above our laws, essentially nullifying countless federal statutes by exempting the overwhelming majority of violators from compliance. Mayorkas puzzlingly asserts that “[t]he fact an individual is a removable noncitizen therefore should not alone be the basis of an enforcement action against them”.

Mayorkas’ enforcement guidelines are yet another signal to prospective illegal migrants: take your chances and come to the United States, and we will make it extremely unlikely that you will ever be deported. Although Mayorkas’ guidelines state that anyone “apprehended in the United States after unlawfully entering after November 1, 2020,” will be subject to removal, the department’s actions (or, inactions) speak far more loudly than the words he puts on paper. Such policies are part of a disturbing pattern and continue to undermine the rather charitable view that the Biden border crisis is an act of mere incompetence. And they demonstrate that the Biden administration approach is to put illegal aliens first, at the expense of American citizens and legal immigrants.