Amid what New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and a coterie of her fellow Democrats describe as âa racial reckoning in our country,â federal officials are being told not to make deporting illegal immigrant gang members a priority.
In February, temporary guidance issued for Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel called for reduced deportations, with a few exceptions. One category was âpublic safety,â which said illegal immigrants could be considered a priority for deportation if they committed an aggravated felony or were members of a gang.
In a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and ICE acting Director Tae Johnson, Ocasio-Cortez and 34 co-signers claim the U.S. legal system is so riddled with discrimination that there is no way criminal illegal immigrants will get a fair shake.
The ICE rule targeting gang members âinvites racial profiling by presuming that an immigrant is a public safety enforcement and removal priority,â the Democratsâ letter said.
The letter said ICE has no business deciding whether participation in a gang was connected with an illegal immigrantâs criminal activity.
The rationale is based on race.
âIt is well documented that law enforcementâs practices of labelling people as âgang-involvedâ is often faulty, based on arbitrary and racist factors, and not subject to due process,â the letter said.
It said law enforcement cannot be trusted on issues of race.
âGiving ICE the discretion to determine what qualifies as âgang activityâ doubles down on an arbitrary and discriminatory framework used by law enforcement,â the letter said.
âWe are in a moment of racial reckoning in this country, with communities across the country calling for an end to mass incarceration and racist policing. It is time to end the carceral approach to immigration, which relies on these same flawed systems,â the Democrats wrote.
The notion that anyone who committed an aggravated felony should be deported also raised their hackles.
âThe definition of âaggravated feloniesâ is itself flawed â a relic of the racist War on Drugs â and should not guide the agencyâs enforcement priorities,â the Democrats said in the letter, adding that charging people with aggravated felonies is a tactic âdesigned to ensure that people have as few rights as possible to fight detention and deportation.â
They said the guidance documentâs call to deport those who arrived after Nov. 1, 2020, âdoes not adequately protect the liberty interests of asylum seekersâ and opposes the âliberty interests of recently arrived immigrants seeking humanitarian relief and further criminalizes and dehumanizes immigrants by relying on the discriminatory criminal legal system.â
The letter was signed by multiple left-wing lawmakers, including several members of the so-called squad of progressive Democrats: Reps. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Cori Bush of Missouri.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.