{"id":25304,"date":"2021-12-21T11:16:26","date_gmt":"2021-12-21T16:16:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/?p=25304"},"modified":"2021-12-21T11:16:28","modified_gmt":"2021-12-21T16:16:28","slug":"doj-protecting-criminal-aliens-again-immigrationreform-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/2021\/12\/21\/doj-protecting-criminal-aliens-again-immigrationreform-com\/","title":{"rendered":"Mental Disorders: Criminal Aliens\u2019 Next Deportation Dodge?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland is seeking to block removals of criminal aliens<\/a> on mental health grounds \u2013 a dodgy move that circumvents the Administrative Procedure Act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Deportations of criminal aliens have tumbled to historic lows<\/a> as Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, evidently on the same page as Garland, issued a memo<\/a> directing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers to consider any \u201cmental condition [as]mitigating factors that militate in favor of declining enforcement action.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mayorkas\u2019 memo and Garland\u2019s maneuver fly in the face of a 2014 case decided by the Board of Immigration Appeals<\/a> (BIA). There, the panel categorically ruled, \u201cMental health is not a factor to be considered in assessing whether [the alien]has been convicted of a particularly serious crime.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Angling to overturn the BIA, which operates under his Justice Department, Garland is attempting an end-run around the Administrative Procedure Act<\/a> (APA). By referring the matter to himself through a process called \u201ccertification,\u201d the attorney general intends to dispense with the legal requirements for publishing proposed changes in the Federal Register and inviting public comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Trump administration suffered several legal smackdowns<\/a> when it tried to execute orders outside the parameters of the APA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If Garland\u2019s shortcut is questionable on procedural grounds, it\nis even more problematic for public safety. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act<\/a> expressly bars admission of aliens who have a \u201cmental disorder and behavior associated with the disorder that may pose, or has posed, a threat to the property, safety, or welfare of the alien or others.\u201d The BIA reasoned that persons disqualified from entering the country for specific causes are also subject to removal on those same terms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Andrew Arthur, at the Center for Immigration Studies, notes that\nremovals of criminal aliens are\n\u201cintended to protect the community. \u2026 The mental disorder is not the issue; the\nconsequences of the alien\u2019s actions are.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe INA should be enforced \u2014\nand enforced impartially and objectively,\u201d states Arthur, formerly an assistant\ngeneral counsel at the old Immigration and Naturalization Service. \u201cRequiring\nICE officers or immigration judges to consider whether criminal aliens have any\nof the nearly 300 identified mental disorders in taking enforcement actions on\nthe one hand, or extending protection on the other, poses a significant risk to\nthe people of the United States and will lead to unequal justice.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland is seeking to block removals of criminal aliens on mental health grounds \u2013 a dodgy move that circumvents the Administrative Procedure Act. Deportations of criminal aliens have tumbled to historic lows as Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, evidently on the same page as Garland, issued a memo directing U.S. Immigration<\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":13876,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[6],"tags":[848,374,1524,12741],"yst_prominent_words":[1985,3099,3093,2019,2705,6261,1922,2691,1995,10731,6260,5089,1963,3022,12740,4551,3098,12739,12738,1939],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25304"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25304"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25304\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25305,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25304\/revisions\/25305"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25304"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=25304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}