EDITORIAL
In the summer, the Obama administration promised it would review its deportation policies, and, this week, it promised that it really means it. Maybe one day immigration officials will even tell the public the results. In the meantime, the review is a good idea, but its serious pitfalls are reminders of the rising costs of our national failure to fix a broken immigration system.
The goal, as The Times reported this week, is to speed the departure of people who have committed felonies and misdemeanors, repeat offenders of immigration laws and national security risks and to stop the deportation of illegal immigrants with no convictions who are young students, military service members, close family of American citizens, the elderly and others. (The “criminal” category is far too vague and clearly includes minor misdemeanors.)
Stage 1 is a review of all new cases in immigration courts to weed out those of low priority from backlogs growing ever bigger. Stage 2, scheduled to begin in December, will be trials in Baltimore and Denver of reviewing current cases and deciding who should stay or go.
The policy is unclear and potentially unfair in ways that are typical of the immigration system. The process of enforcement lacks transparency. The concrete factors for identifying potential beneficiaries have not been spelled out. Even the beneficiaries will remain in legal limbo, with their cases closed but not dismissed.
There seems to be no appeals process for people who believe they should be allowed to stay if they are picked to be deported. Even for convicted criminals, the standards are opaque. Someone with a minor conviction presenting no risk seems subject to deportation — sometimes even a person against whom charges were dropped.
The immigration courts are still likely to be overwhelmed by deportation cases. The pipeline is fed by programs like Secure Communities, the discredited dragnet that makes every cop a potential immigration agent, empowered to enforce federal immigration laws.
The courts themselves remain an enormous problem. As the American Bar Association reported last year, they have too few judges and too many who are mean and arbitrary. They provide too little due process and scant explanation of their decisions in cases where more than half of threatened deportees represent themselves. Until far-reaching reform increases justice throughout the system, being caught in it will remain for most people an unpredictable, terrifying experience.