Report: Flawed implementation of immigration policies

The Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, recently published a report studying a federal law that allows the federal government to delegate enforcement of immigration laws to state and local officers.

Named for Section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, the so-called 287(g) Agreements allow state and local officers to ask people their immigration status, detain people for alleged violations of immigration laws until the federal government takes custody, and issue charges that begin the process of removing people from the United States.

The report concludes that under the 287(g) Agreements, many state and local officials are not focusing on finding and removing people who have committed serious crimes, but rather are spending approximately half of their resources on identifying and detaining people who have committed misdemeanors and traffic offenses.  The report further concludes that the program is implemented very differently in different parts of the United States.

The report calls for a review of the program to ensure consistent implementation of 287(g) Agreements across the United States, and to focus primarily on serious criminal offenders rather than on people who have committed minor crimes or traffic offenses.

You can read the full report here.

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