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Trump Signs Memo Attempting to End to 'Catch and Release'
Give them credit. Trump's handlers are experts at one thing: knowing how to issue executive orders and memorandums that destroy lives with no checks and balances. It's an evil marvel to see these terrible things occur and almost no one reading this has any idea when they happen.
Trump signed a memorandum on Friday [April 6th] ordering agencies to "expeditiously end" the practice known as "catch and release" that allows immigrants caught in the U.S. without proper documents to be released from detention while their cases play out in court.... orders the Department of Homeland Security....to submit a report...."detailing all measures that their respective departments have pursued or are pursuing to expeditiously end 'catch and release' practices."
Keeping more immigrants imprisoned is unjust and infuriating. It also requires more jailing facilities...potentially private ones where Trump's buddies can profit.
The order.... is requesting "a detailed list of all existing facilities, including military facilities, that could be used, modified, or repurposed to detain aliens for violations of immigration law at or near the borders of the United States."
Fortunately, it's not as easy to end this policy as an uneducated Trump memo might imply. Also, please note this is not an "Obama policy" as Fox News and Trump claim. The concept of "catch of release" first came about in 2003 under George W. Bush.
...the memo “ending” “catch and release” actually acknowledges that Trump can’t end it on his own.
.... “catch and release” doesn’t refer to a single policy practiced by the government. It’s a label that gets applied to a handful of different practices that all have the same result: The US keeps trying to deport an immigrant, but it releases her from physical custody.
Deporting someone.... needs to be issued by an immigration judge..... wait to see a judge could take weeks; if an immigrant actually has an argument to be allowed to stay in the United States, it could be years before the case is resolved..... if it decides not to detain her at all because she’s likely to show up to court anyway, if it has to release her because of a court order, or if it simply doesn’t have the resources to keep her in detention for years — it can theoretically be accused of practicing “catch and release.”
The Trump administration can only tighten the screws on immigrants; it can’t slam the door on them entirely. The laws and policies that Trump and his officials refer to as “catch and release” are actually legal protections for specific vulnerable populations — groups like children, families, and people who claim they’re in deadly peril if they’re sent home — that Congress and the courts have decided need to be treated with extra care.
The intent of those who whisper to Trump about anti-immigration is crystal clear.
The push to end “catch and release” is designed to push the federal government as far as it can legally go right now to make detention and deportation the rule for everyone crossing into the US without papers — regardless of circumstance — and to put pressure on Congress to change the laws to let the government go further still.
Sources:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/06/us/politics/trump-immigration-policy.html
https://www.vox.com/2018/4/9/17190090/catch-release-loopholes-border-immigrants-trump