On Thursday, Homeland Security Secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, said immigration officers are no longer able to detain and deport individuals from the U.S. exclusively because they are undocumented.
People who cause a threat to the public, national, and or security safety are the focus for Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. This includes people who are suspected of terrorism or spying.
ICE officers are prohibited from arresting or deporting undocumented immigrants who have been contributing members of the U.S. community, including healthcare workers, farmworkers, or individuals in the service industry. New guidelines also permit ICE officers from detaining individuals whose documentation was revealed by corrupt businesses.
The new guidelines should alleviate the stress of undocumented immigrants who had a great possibility of expulsion from the Trump administration.
New guidelines will begin on November 29.
I think this is a great change for the United States Homeland Security. I always wondered why our leaders would leave the old guidelines in place since they separated innocent families and caused more harm than good. The fact that the process of documentation takes an extensive amount of time to complete and ICE officers were removing immigrants before they could even get a chance to be documented also never made any sense to me. People come to our country either to cause harm or to have a better life. It is extremely unfair to the people who are only looking for a better life to be deported for simply living. However, I believe ICE officers should continue to do their jobs by removing dangerous immigrants who want to cause harm.