{"id":21604,"date":"2019-06-14T07:48:40","date_gmt":"2019-06-14T11:48:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/?p=21604"},"modified":"2019-06-14T07:48:42","modified_gmt":"2019-06-14T11:48:42","slug":"ice-deportations-optics-meet-reality-immigrationreform-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/2019\/06\/14\/ice-deportations-optics-meet-reality-immigrationreform-com\/","title":{"rendered":"ICE Deportations: Optics Meet Reality"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Overcoming qualms of his predecessor, the new boss at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) says the agency is stepping up deportation<\/a> of illegal aliens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Acting ICE Director Mark Morgan said the focus is on migrants who missed immigration court hearings or received deportation orders. \u201cThat will include families,\u201d he announced. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Former acting ICE director Ronald Vitiello and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen reportedly were forced out<\/a> of their jobs in part over their worries about the bad optics of targeting families for removal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Morgan\nhas no such misgivings. A Border Patrol chief at the end of the Obama\nadministration, Morgan said a 2016 operation that carried out enforcement\nactions against illegal alien families in Georgia, Texas, and North Carolina\nled to a decline in illegal crossings at the southwestern border. He said\nincreased rates of deportation send a deterring message to other Central\nAmerican migrants streaming north.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ICE reportedly will concentrate its renewed removal efforts on 10 cities with large illegal alien populations, including New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere is nothing inherently illegal about trying to arrest and deport people with final [deportation]orders \u2014 it\u2019s just operationally difficult,\u201d noted Michelle Bran\u00e9, director of Migrant Rights and Justice at the Women\u2019s Refugee Commission. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Congress isn\u2019t easing the degree of difficulty, as lawmakers dither over spending $4.5 billion on emergency border security measures and more detention facilities. Worse yet, Congress caps how much ICE can spend on deportations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Douglas Rivlin, communications director for America’s Voice, a group that advocates for immigrants, observes that Congress provides ICE with only enough funds to deport about 400,000 people a year<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n