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One of the smartest steps President Trump has taken to get our illegal immigration problem under control was ending the Obama administrations policy known as catch and release.

Border Patrol agents have long sarcastically called it the catch and run policy. Why?

Because aliens who have been caught and then released under the stipulation they show up for a scheduled hearing frequently fail to appear in court. Thats the finding of a new report produced by former federal immigration court judge Mark H. Metcalf and published by the Center for Immigration Studies.

In fact, no courts have higher failure-to-appear rates by defendants than U.S. immigration courts, the report found.

Why should this concern us?

These illegal aliens are ignoring immigration court orders to appear without fear of repercussion, leaving them free to run and disappear into the interior of the country. Chances are, they wont be found again, incarcerated or deported. In fact, over the past 20 years, 37 percent of all illegal aliens released pending trial never showed up for court. According to Metcalf, of the almost 2.5 million aliens released from detention, 918,098 failed to appear in court. Nearly 46,000 aliens disappeared each year rather than appear in court when they were supposed to.

Aliens are more likely to be ordered deported for their failure to appear than through actual court decisions on the merits of their supposed claimed right to remain in the U.S. Even in cases where aliens are ordered deported because they never showed up for court, those deportation orders are widely ignored both by those immigrants and by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement division within the Department of Homeland Security that is charged with enforcing them.

Metcalf found that almost a million deportation orders issued by federal immigration judges 953,506 to be exact have not been enforced by ICE. That is a 58 percent increase since 2002. Bottom line, immigrants who are here illegally believe that they can stay here illegally even when they have been ordered removed. Why? Because the federal government has in the past chosen to ignore these orders.

Even worse, Metcalf says, the Department of Justice has been manipulating the statistics it reports to Congress to cover up the staggeringly high failure-to-appear rate. When DOJ reported statistical data on the percentage of illegal immigrants who failed to appear in court, they made the number look misleadingly smaller by including detained aliens in the total number. Obviously, aliens being held by ICE are going to be brought to court. They dont have the ability to ignore court orders to appear.

Among the aliens who disappeared and never showed up for court are more than 3,000 from countries that the State Department says are involved in terrorism or have activist terrorist organizations. That includes aliens from Iran, Sudan and Syria, all of whose governments are classified as state sponsors of terrorism. In fact, Metcalf found, a troubling 11 percent of asylum applicants from those three state sponsors of terrorism absconded before their court proceedings. We have no idea where they are inside the country or what they are doing.

This problem illustrates a significant double standard in our legal system. There is no other court in America that lets defendants ignore orders to appear. In fact, federal law provides severe penalties for failing to show up to a federal district court. Only in immigration courts can noncitizens disappear and potentially not face the kinds of consequences that a citizen would face for failing to appear in federal district court.

When illegal immigrants ignore our courts and ICE doesnt enforce the law, it destroys the integrity of our legal system and encourages continued illegal immigration. The Trump administration is right to try and prevent illegal aliens from exploiting the loopholes in our immigration court system.

Hans Von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation, is co-author of Whos Counting? How Fraudsters and Bureaucrats Put Your Vote at Risk and Obamas Enforcer: Eric Holders Justice Department. Grant Strobl is a member of Heritages Young Leaders Program.

Read more:
von Spakovsky and Strobl: No more 'catch and release' for illegal immigrants - Boston Herald

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The detainees sued for money damages and restitution.

The lead plaintiff in the lawsuit, Alejandro Menocal, stayed in the facility for three months while he was facing deportation. He said, Its their job to run the facility, and instead they used and abused us to run the facility, and thats why were suing.

Lawyers for the defendant says no other court has ever recognized trafficking or unjust enrichment claims for cleaning bathrooms, serving meals, doing laundry, and performing other housekeeping duties. They write that in spite of this fact, the district court denied the companys motion for an immediate appeal on the merits, thereby shielding the merits from this Courts review. They assert, Such unprecedented claims deserve extra vigilance to ensure that class certification based on them follows rigorous analysis.

The contractor who operates the Colorado facility has filed court documents asking for permission to appeal the judges ruling that the illegal aliens can proceed as a class action.

Lawyers for GEO Group, Inc. (GEO) write that the district courts class certification presents legally unsettled issues of national importance and manifest errors that warrant immediate review. They ask the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit to decide whether the federal district court properly certified classes authorizing an alleged 60,000 immigration detainees to seek monetary relief.

In particular, the defendant-petitioner asks the Tenth Circuit to determine:

(1) Does a contractor operating a detention facility for the federal government compel forced labor in violation of a federal human trafficking statute by requiring detainees to periodically perform housekeeping chores, when that contractor and its housekeeping policies are subject to extensive federal contractual and regulatory requirements as well as direct federal supervision, and the housekeeping policy is both longstanding and judicially-accepted?

(2) Is the contractor unjustly enriched, and required to pay restitution to detainees for the detainees participation in a federally-created, sponsored and supervised voluntary work program, when the settled expectation for decades has been that participants are provided a daily allowance of $1?

GEO operates immigration detention facilities under contracts with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). They have operated the Aurora, Colorado detention facility since 1986.

The federal contractor urges they are subject to extensive contractual, regulatory and statutory requirements and having illegal aliens do housekeeping chores is a long-standing practice that has been signed off by the courts.

The ICE detainees sued saying the contractor was unjustly enriched under Colorado law when the defendant had them work for a daily allowance of $1. GEO argues that the Voluntary Work Program (VWP) has been authorized by Congress and the $1 daily allowance is reimbursed by ICE.

In their Petition for Permission to Appeal Class Certification, GEO argues that Congress passed the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) to punish human traffickers, not to award damages to illegal aliens who must be housed in a detention facility after they illegally enter the country. Moreover, they say that the district court did not demand any evidence but made its decision to certify the lawsuit as a class action based solely on presumptions and inferences. The district court did not have any evidence that even one detainee expected to receive more than the daily allowance. Detainees are not employees and should not expect special treatment, GEO writes.

The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) authorizes DHS/ICE to detain aliens while they are waiting for removal or hearings and requires that ICE detains certain classes of immigrants. ICE requires that detention facilities maintain the highest sanitation standards at all times in all locations without exception. There is a supervised program of daily cleaning by all detainees, and GEO implements these requirements through an ICE-approved program. Nobody trafficked them there. The district court should have granted their motion to dismiss the lawsuit, they urge.

Issuing a questionable class certification order could force the federal contractor to enter into a settlement. GEO is the only defendant in the case. The contractor urges that they based their contract with the federal government on the assumption that the sanitation policy and daily allowance would continue to withstand legal scrutiny (as it has for decades, they write). The district clerks certification of a class of plaintiffs that consists of all those detained at the facility over the past ten years presents a potentially catastrophic risk to GEOs ability to honor their contracts.

The alien detainees also claim that GEO violated Colorados minimum wage laws.

The lawyers for the detainee plaintiffs responded to GEOs petition to appeal the class certification saying they oppose the appeal. They argue that the district courts order is not a death knell for the litigation and the district court did not commit manifest error because the class certification issues are not novel.

Lana Shadwickis a writer and legal analyst for Breitbart Texas. She has served as a prosecutor and associate judge in Texas. Follow her on Twitter@LanaShadwick2.

Read more here:
Illegal Aliens Suing Detention Center for 'Forced Labor' - Breitbart News

Agents for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested 82 people in Virginia, Maryland and the District last week, including one who they said was identified as an officer in command of a Somali organization known for human rights abuses, rape, torture and killings.

The arrests included 68 people with previous criminal convictions, ICE said in a news release that described the five-day operation as a routine, targeted immigration enforcement.

Those who have outstanding orders of deportation, or who returned to the U.S. illegally after being deported, can be immediately removed from the country. Others will remain in custody awaiting a hearing before an immigration judge, or pending deportation arrangements.

The Somali, a 50-year-old male, was picked up in Falls Church and was a second lieutenant in the Somalian National Security Service and had a felony drug conviction, ICE said.

Agents also took into custody two people who have ties to the MS-13 street gang, ICE said, two who already had been given final deportation orders and three who had overstayed their visas.

(Monica Akhtar/The Washington Post)

ICE said two of the targeted individuals had pending local charges and one was wanted by a foreign law enforcement organization. Three more had unlawfully entered the U.S., the agency said.

Most were arrested in Virginia but two were arrested in the District and one in Maryland. Their names were not released.

Similar sweeps happened during the Obama administration. But there has been heightened scrutiny of such actions since the inauguration of President Trump, who promised to crack down on illegal immigration.

Those who were arrested came from 26 countries, the agency said, including:

A 40-year-old citizen of Trinidad and Tobago, who was arrested in Norfolk and has convictions for felony drug distribution and firearm possessions.

A 45-year-old citizen of the Dominican Republic, arrested in Chesterfield, who has felony convictions for sale of cocaine and attempted robbery.

A 22-year-old citizen of Honduras, arrested in Fairfax, who has felony convictions for stolen goods and grand larceny.

A 34-year-old citizen of El Salvador, arrested in Chesterfield, who ICE said is a documented MS-13 gang member who was removed from the United States in 2006.

A 57-year-old citizen of Honduras, arrested in Richmond, who has felony convictions for grand larceny and inflicting corporal injury to a spouse.

See the article here:
ICE arrests 82 in five-day sweep in Virginia, Maryland and DC - Washington Post

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Illegal immigrant Carlos Hernandez-Garcia, Carlos Santos-Cortez, and 23-year-old illegal immigrant Brayan Adalid-Lozano were arrested after local police arrived on the scene of the El Azteca Night Club shooting, finding Santos-Cortez bleeding from gunshot wounds in a parking lot, according to KFSM.

Police told local media that Santos-Cortez was shot in his stomach and waist, with the illegal immigrant telling police that he was beaten up by multiple people in the parking lot. Santos-Cortez said six gunshots were fired at him by an individual in a red Nissan truck.

Adalid-Lozano was allegedly stabbed in the neck by Santos-Cortez after he began attacking the illegal immigrant, according to police.

While Santos-Cortez was released on a $5,000 bond for a second-degree battery charge, Hernandez-Garcia is facing a first-degree battery charge, as well as immigration violations.

Adalid-Lozano is also facing immigration violation charges, along with accusations of lying to local police and for being publicly intoxicated. Neither Hernandez-Garcia nor Adalid-Lozano have bond.

John Binder is a contributor for Breitbart Texas. Follow him on Twitter at@JxhnBinder.

Originally posted here:
Illegal Immigrants Charged after Nightclub Shooting - Breitbart - Breitbart News

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention section of Kankakee's Jerome Combs Detention Center almost looks like a summer camp. There's a main floor and a mezzanine level, both packed with bunk beds. There are public showers, shielded from view by curtains, with men standing outside toweling themselves off.

But instead of campers, the facility is filled with men from across the world, from China to Haiti and Pakistan, almost all boarder violators, all awaiting deportation. And instead of T-shirts and shorts, these illegal immigrants wear standard issue jumpsuits.

The Kankakee ICE facility, which opened in October 2015, brings in $80 per day per detainee for Jerome Combs. Watched by guards on the other side of a wall of tinted glass windows, these detainees spend their time in Kankakee awaiting deportation back to their home countries.

While the detention center is in our county, many of us don't know much about the detainees and their daily lives.

There are about 10.9 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. The number has fallen every year since 2008, as immigration from Mexico slows down. According to a 2014 Pew Research Center Survey, about two-thirds of those undocumented immigrants are in the workforce, mainly in farming and construction. About two-thirds of undocumented immigrants have lived in the U.S. for more than 10 years. Detainees are held in 112 detention facilities across the country.

At any given time, there are about 100 male detainees being held at Jerome Combs. When the ICE facility opened, the first detainees were Haitian. Since then, many nationalities have been represented.

"The detainees I talked to were all border violations," said Kankakee County Sheriff Mike Downey. "That's probably the biggest legal question out there. Are they really criminals? And I don't know the answer to that."

Detainees are brought to Kankakee from across the country, many of them from California. None of the people housed there are from Kankakee County, and ICE is not performing any raids in the area.

What happens to them after they leave Kankakee?

Once a week, ICE officers arrive early in the morning to transport some of the detainees from Kankakee to the Gary/Chicago Airport via bus. From there, they're sent to facilities across the country for further processing and eventually deported to their home countries.

What are the conditions like at the detention center?

ICE detention centers are held to very specific standards and are subject to inspection. Higher grades on inspections mean the facility receives more money per detainee.

"The three most important aspects ICE looks at are medical care, food service and safety and security, and we meet all three of those things," said Downey.

During a recent inspection, Jerome Combs received a favorable review, though it was asked to make a few changes to ensure the food served to detainees was higher calorie and at a higher temperature.

Downey is pleased with the detention center's performance.

"These folks are going to be housed somewhere, and we want them to be treated as well as we'd treat our family," he said. "If you do that, you can't go wrong."

More here:
How are illegal immigrants treated? - Kankakee Daily Journal