DHS Issues New Memo Restricting Enforcement Activities in ‘Protected Areas’

The Division of Homeland Safety (DHS) issued “Pointers for Enforcement Actions in or Close to Protected Areas”—a brand new memo that gives a framework for when and the place DHS legislation enforcement entities can conduct enforcement actions in delicate places. The memo applies to enforcement actions of each U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Safety (CBP). It covers each the enforcement of civil and prison legal guidelines and is efficient instantly.

The brand new memo has 4 sections: an overview of the foundational rules, the definition and examples of “protected areas,” exceptions to the scope of the memo, and details about coaching officers to adjust to memo. It replaces two beforehand issued memos, one which utilized to ICE and the opposite to CBP. It retains in place the April memo which addresses enforcement exercise at courthouses particularly.

Within the newest memo, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas emphasizes that its objective is to make sure that enforcement exercise doesn’t intervene with people’ entry to important providers or engagement in important actions. It refers to places the place such actions happen as “Protected Areas.”

Whereas the memo doesn’t include an exhaustive listing of such areas, it does give a number of examples, equivalent to:

• Faculties and different locations the place kids congregate.
• Medical and psychological well being services (together with locations for vaccines and testing).
• Locations of worship or biblical studies (no matter whether or not it’s a construction devoted to these actions or briefly in use for them).
• Neighborhood facilities.
• Place the place funerals, weddings, rosaries, or different spiritual or civil ceremony happen.
• Locations the place there may be an ongoing parade, demonstration, or rally.

Whereas all these normal classes of places had been included in some type within the prior memos, the brand new coverage supplies extra examples of what sort of places ought to fall inside these classes. For instance, the brand new memo tremendously expands the class of “group facilities” to incorporate websites like home violence shelters, meals pantries, community-based organizations, and homeless shelters.

The memo additionally provides a brand new class of places the place catastrophe reduction or emergency response is being offered, equivalent to alongside evacuation routes or the place household reunification after a catastrophe is being organized. These expansions are in response to considerations raised by advocates throughout disasters equivalent to the large flooding in Houston, Texas in 2017.

Considerably, Secretary Mayorkas additionally emphasizes that the memo applies not solely to the places themselves, but in addition the areas “close to” these places. He reiterates that the aim is to keep away from interfering with immigrants’ entry to those areas.

The present memo additionally narrows the scope of the prior insurance policies, additional limiting immigration officers’ talents to hold out arrests in delicate places. Probably the most dramatic change is the elimination of a giant exception within the prior CBP coverage, which exempted all enforcement actions “at or close to a global border.” Below the previous coverage, this exception rendered limitations on enforcement virtually ineffective in border communities. The brand new change was welcomed by advocates in these border communities, who had beforehand reported CBP arrests occurring in border-area hospitals and different places that shall be protected beneath the brand new memo.

Sadly, the brand new memo doesn’t repair sure issues within the Biden administration’s April 2021 memorandum on enforcement actions at courthouses. ICE and CBP enforcement actions at courthouses are in depth, primarily attributable to expediency—it’s an easily-accessible location the place the looks of a specific particular person at a selected time and date is commonly public information.

The observe of courthouse arrests was so widespread throughout the prior administration that advocates argued it undermined the justice system. Particular person states handed legal guidelines making an attempt to forestall ICE arrests in state courthouses.

Whereas the brand new memo that applies to protected areas besides courthouses permits for enforcement actions to happen in these places if “no different protected different location exists,” the April courthouse memo additionally included a loophole that permits enforcement actions to happen at a courthouse if it “can be too troublesome to realize the enforcement motion at [an alternative location].” That extra caveat has some advocates involved that enforcement exercise at courthouses will proceed, regardless of the brand new memo.

As with something concerning DHS enforcement, questions stay about how the memo shall be carried out, and what mechanisms shall be put in place to make sure compliance by particular person officers.

FILED UNDER: Customs and Border Safety, Immigration and Customs Enforcement