Napolitano Grilled On New Deportation Policies
Wednesday, October 19, 2011 at 3:26PMBy Adrianna McGinley
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano defended the Obama administration’s new guidelines prioritizing criminal deportations during an appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday, arguing that it makes sense economically.
Napolitano cited that each removal costs DHS between 23 and 30 thousand dollars, not including the cost to the Justice Department. She said this means DHS is only able to finance 400,000 removals per year, and with over 10 million estimated undocumented immigrants in the country, prioritization is essential.
Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) said he is concerned because ICE leaders told him the new “confusing” guidelines have caused low officer moral.
“The new standards calling on them to consider DREAM Act type issues in determining whether or not the person they detain ought to be released or not, whether they’ve got a high school diploma, whether or not they might be a witness to a crime, that these are very confusing directives and that makes it more difficult for them to act effectively to apprehend people here illegally.”
Sessions then accused Napolitano of “rolling her eyes” at the statement.
“From me as a person who worked with federal agents for years,” Sessions said. “When you hear this kind of comment and votes of no confidence, I’ve never heard of that, you should be paying real attention to them, not rolling your eyes at them.”
“I’m not rolling my eyes, what I’m suggesting is that results matter here, and priorities really matter,” Napolitano defended. “The results reflect the priorities we have set, and these are priorities that are consistent with prior administrations.”
“We could just remove anybody without any priorities, and that would be one way to do it,” Napolitano said. “Or the other way, and the better way, and probably the way you [Sen. Sessions] ran your office when you were a prosecutor, is to say we want to focus on expediting removal of those who are criminals, of those who are fugitives, of those who are repeat violators, of those who are recent entrance, meaning within five years in to the United States, and what you are now seeing is that the numbers reflect those priorities.”
Sessions also questioned reports citing a significant increase in deportations over the last few years saying, “I’m told that ICE carried over from last year 19,000 removals and they’re counting them this year, and it’s sort of a gimmick to making the removals look higher than they are.”
Napolitano denied the accusation.
“I think that what you’re referring to Senator is in the movement from FY ‘09 to FY ‘10, we made the decision that we would not count a removal until there was an actual verified departure from the country, and that had the effect of moving some removals from ‘09 in to ‘10.”
The Committee also questioned Napolitano on TSA procedures and DHS efforts to increase cyber security, as well as detainee treatment and standards of immigrant detention centers brought to light last night in a Frontline special called “Lost in Detention”.
Supreme Court Rules Against Alien, Defines "Aggravated Felony"
The Supreme Court unanimously upheld the 3rd Circuit in Nijhawan v. Holder, Attorney General on June 15th. The law says that the government may deport an alien who is convicted of an “aggravated felony.”
The question before the court dealt with the interpretation of the term “aggravated felony.” Immigration law holds that this crime includes “fraud or deceit in which the loss to the victim or victims exceeds $10,000.”
The word “felony” may be read with a “categorical” or a “circumstance-specific” interpretation. A categorical interpretation defines the crime generically, and requires a judge to examine the statute in question for a monetary threshold. The statutes used to indict the petitioner did not require the jury to rule on the amount of the loss.
However the Supreme Court ruled that the statute contains both categorical and circumstance-specific language, but the “aggravated felony” language allows for a circumstance-specific interpretation, which examines the facts of the case in question. Sentenced to pay $683 million in restitution, the petitioner had committed crimes resulting in a loss much greater than $10,000.
The petitioner also argued that in order to determine the amount of the loss, evidence presented by the government must include the ruling of the judge or the verdict of a jury. However, the petitioner had at least one opportunity to contest accusations regarding the amount of loss, which he did not do. He presented no conflicting evidence during the trial, and his sentence required him to pay $683 million. Justice Breyer delivered the Court’s opinion.