US authorities will deprive hundreds of thousands of immigrants of the opportunity to legally stay in the country

US Attorney General William Barr issued two decisions that limit the ability of certain categories of immigrants to resist deportation.

Фото: Depositphotos

Decisions complicate the fight against deportation of people with old, light criminal charges or multiple offenses related to drinking and driving, writes NBC News.

Secretly adopted, these decisions will help to ensure that for many people the opportunity to obtain legal immigration status in the United States closes. Lawyers fear that decisions may send more immigrants to the deportation system, giving them less opportunity to stay in the United States.

“These decisions will impact hundreds of thousands of immigrants across the United States,” said Rose Kahn, a senior attorney at the Immigration Legal Resource Center, which works with immigration advocates across the country. “This is one of many tactics we see in the federal government to make life as unpleasant as possible for immigrants.”

Barr can make such sweeping decisions on immigration law because the immigration court is part of the executive branch, not the judiciary, and is housed in the Justice Department. This makes the attorney general both the nation's chief prosecutor and, in the case of immigration courts, the chief judge.

As the Chief Justice, Barr may withdraw cases from the Immigration Appeals Commission, which is actually the appellate court of the immigration courts, for "certification." After reviewing these cases, he may issue binding orders on how immigration courts should interpret the law.

On the subject: U.S. Immigration Authorities Speed ​​Up Asylum Decisions

Past administrations used this power to narrowly refine immigration laws; the Trump administration used it to change a large part of the immigration system without writing new laws or regulations. Since taking office, Trump's attorney generals have used the certification process on a variety of immigration issues.

Barr's new decisions show that he is following in the footsteps of his predecessor, Jeff Sessions, using certification to undo long-standing precedents and limit immigrants' paths to legalization. Sessions made decisions on 5 cases during his tenure. Barr has already released 4. The Trump administration, which has not yet been 3 years old, is going to make more such decisions than any administration in recent history. Over the 8 years, the Bush administration has made 16 decisions. The Obama and Clinton administrations published 4 and 3, respectively.

Two new decisions affect immigrants with criminal convictions. In the first, the Castillo-Perez Case, Barr ruled that two or more driving under the influence charges disqualified an immigrant from being of “good moral character.”

The charge is the most common among people arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to federal data obtained by the Transactional Clearinghouse at Syracuse University. It is also one of the most common crimes in many states and is not a deportable crime in itself.

The standard of “good moral character” is used throughout the immigration system. When immigrants ask to have deportation orders lifted and apply for citizenship, including through other immigration processes, they must prove they have been of good moral character for a certain number of years.

Immigration lawyers expressed outrage at how many people will be prohibited from using these processes in accordance with the new decision.

Post-conviction rehabilitation efforts, such as staying sober, completing alcohol safety programs and attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, “are commendable but do not in themselves demonstrate good moral character,” Barr wrote in his decision.

Dan Cadman, a former immigration officer and current employee of the Center for Immigration Research, which advocates restricting immigration, welcomed the decision.

“This seems more like an exercise of common sense than a sneaky attempt to end aliens' due process rights,” Cadman said. “The public should be clear that these two decisions affect aliens convicted of serious crimes who were seeking to avoid deportation from the United States.”

On the subject: Trump administration is preparing a new financial blow to immigrants

The second decision in the Thomas Case and Thompson Case reduces the ability of state courts to influence federal deportation by adjusting old low-gravity criminal sentences.

In recent years, laws have been enacted in several states, including New York and California, to ensure that low-crime offenses do not inadvertently trigger a deportation order for immigrants. Some also have processes designed to retroactively reduce old criminal penalties for crimes below the deportation criteria of the immigration system (usually one year or longer).

Progressive prosecutors throughout the country insist on possible immigration consequences, such as deportation, which should be taken into account at the beginning of a local criminal case. Some have even added immigration lawyers to their staff to help with these efforts.

Brooklyn County Attorney Eric Gonzalez was one of the first to do so. He and 42 of other state and local elected prosecutors filed a court note in the Thomas and Thompson cases, arguing that the federal government should recognize the decisions they make when they retroactively change sentences.

Failure to do so “would undermine the role of prosecutors in the criminal justice system and the sovereignty of states to enforce their criminal laws and exercise prosecutorial discretion,” they write. For years, these sentencing modifications were accepted by immigration judges. Barr's decision changes that by limiting what changes can count in immigration court.

The Obama administration did not give priority to old minor crimes for which a person was subject to deportation, but the Trump administration did not make such a difference. Over the past 3 years, US residents whose crimes date back to the 1990 years ended up in an immigration court. Some, like many Southeast Asian people who came to the United States as refugee children after the Vietnam War, are struggling to stay in a country that has become the only home they have ever known.

Although the path to fighting deportation is narrowing, there are other options. Outside the courts, immigrants can ask the governor for clemency for old crimes, but this is rare and can take months - immigrants may not have enough time before being deported.

Immigration attorneys have appealed many of the previous Trump administration decisions to federal courts of appeal. Kang said the administration can also count on tackling these new decisions.

Read also on ForumDaily:

The politician who deported a record number of migrants under Obama, is suing trump

Unexpected effect: 14 of thousands of illegal immigrants took advantage of DACA program for citizenship

California continues to protect the rights of illegal immigrants: Newsome signed a new law

'Fake meetings': why USCIS gives wrong dates of immigration hearings in court, and what to do

Do you want more important and interesting news about life in the USA and immigration to America? — support us donate! Also subscribe to our page Facebook. Select the “Priority in display” option and read us first. Also, don't forget to subscribe to our РєР ° РЅР ° Р »РІ Telegram  and Instagram- there is a lot of interesting things there. And join thousands of readers ForumDaily New York — there you will find a lot of interesting and positive information about life in the metropolis.