Trump administration gives ICE broader powers to detain legal refugees

The Trump medication has fixed Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers broader powers to detain lawful refugees who person yet to unafraid imperishable U.S. residency, successful its latest effort to more heavy scrutinize immigrants, amerciable and ineligible alike, according to a authorities memo issued Wednesday and obtained by CBS News

The directive, dated Feb. 18 and submitted by authorities lawyers successful a national tribunal filing connected Wednesday, instructs ICE to detain refugees who entered the U.S. lawfully but who person not formally obtained imperishable residency — besides known arsenic greenish paper — a twelvemonth aft their admission.

Refugees are immigrants granted a harmless haven successful the U.S. aft proving they are fleeing persecution successful their location countries owed to their race, religion, nationality, governmental views oregon rank successful a societal group. 

Historically, the U.S. has resettled tens of thousands of refugees annually, astir of whom acquisition a years-long vetting process successful exile camps overseas earlier reaching American soil. But the Trump medication has virtually unopen down the U.S. exile program, making constricted exemptions for immoderate groups, including Afrikaners whom officials person claimed are escaping radical oppression successful South Africa due to the fact that they are White.

The latest argumentation targets refugees already brought to the U.S. Under national law, refugees are required to use for a greenish paper wrong a twelvemonth of their arrival. 

Through the caller memo, the Trump medication is arguing that those refugees who person not go imperishable U.S. residents a twelvemonth aft coming to the state indispensable instrumentality to authorities custody to person their cases reviewed and re-screened. The directive was issued by acting ICE Director Todd Lyons and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Joseph Edlow, who, among different things, oversees the greenish paper process.

The memo says these refugees tin instrumentality to authorities custody voluntarily by appearing for an interrogation astatine an migration office. But if they don't, the memo says, ICE indispensable find, apprehension and detain them.

"[The Department of Homeland Security] indispensable dainty the one-year people arsenic a mandatory re-vetting constituent for each refugees who person not adjusted to [Lawful Permanent Resident] status, ensuring either that they are scheduled to 'return' to custody for inspection or, if they bash not comply, that they beryllium 'returned' to custody done enforcement action," the memo reads.

The directive gives ICE the powerfulness to "maintain custody" of these refugees "for the duration of the inspection and introspection process." That review, officials said, is designed to find whether refugees obtained their exile presumption done fraud oregon whether they airs a menace to nationalist information oregon nationalist safety, due to the fact that of imaginable ties to coercion oregon superior transgression histories.

The memo says refugees who rise reddish flags during this introspection whitethorn beryllium stripped of their ineligible presumption and processed for deportation.

The directive reverses longstanding ICE argumentation that stipulated that refugees' nonaccomplishment to get a greenish paper wrong a twelvemonth of their admittance was not, by itself, a morganatic ineligible crushed to detain them. The anterior argumentation besides required ICE to decide, wrong 48 hours of detaining a refugee, to merchandise them oregon spot them successful deportation proceedings if officials recovered immoderate valid deportation grounds.

The Trump medication has taken unprecedented steps to reopen and reexamine the migration cases of radical who were antecedently granted ineligible presumption successful the United States. In November, the medication directed migration officials to reappraisal the cases of refugees admitted nether erstwhile President Joe Biden, perchance reinterviewing them successful immoderate cases to find whether they conscionable the ineligible explanation of a refugee, CBS News antecedently reported.

While its crackdown connected amerciable migration has garnered much attraction and controversy, the Trump medication has mounted a quieter, yet inactive sweeping effort to tighten ineligible migration channels, usually justifying the moves connected nationalist information grounds. 

After the Thanksgiving week shooting of 2 National Guard members successful Washington, D.C. — allegedly astatine the hands of an Afghan nationalist — USCIS has paused each ineligible migration applications filed by immigrants from dozens of countries identified arsenic "high risk."

Late past year, the Trump medication launched an effort, dubbed Operation PARRIS, to reexamine the cases of thousands of refugees successful Minnesota. The determination coincided with the deployment of thousands of national migration agents to the Minneapolis region. Lawyers reported cases of refugees detained successful Minnesota being flown to Texas to beryllium held and questioned there, earlier a national justice curtailed the operation.

The medication argues its efforts are designed to mitigate nationalist information and nationalist information concerns involving immoderate refugees. Advocates for immigrants accidental the run is punishing radical who came to the U.S. legally, aft fleeing warzones and violence, connected dubious information oregon fraud allegations and questionable ineligible grounds.

"This argumentation is simply a transparent effort to detain and perchance deport thousands of radical who are legally contiguous successful this country, radical the U.S. authorities itself welcomed aft years of utmost vetting," said Beth Oppenheim, the CEO of HIAS, a humanitarian radical that helps resettle refugees and is challenging the Trump administration's effort to detain immoderate refugees.