The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced a new memo on Tuesday, directing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to take additional steps to enforce penalties against immigration attorneys for document fraud, including filing false asylum claims. The move is the latest in the Trump administration's immigration crackdown and campaign to restrict asylum cases in the immigration court system.
The statement quoted DHS General Counsel James Percival accusing "millions of illegal aliens" of committing fraud in the United States immigration system. "No place is this more rampant than in immigration court," Percival continued, claiming, "it is standard practice for immigration attorneys representing illegal aliens to assert that virtually every illegal alien is going to be persecuted or tortured in his or her home country."
Percival also asserted that the memo grants ICE attorneys "greater authority to enforce" penalties for document fraud already in place under the Immigration and Nationality Act and "stop the abuse of our asylum system." But the DHS statement did not provide details on how ICE's new policies will work in practice, and the agency did not immediately respond to Reason's request for comment.
Although fraud does exist in the asylum system, Victoria Slatton, an immigration attorney and former DHS asylum officer, told Bloomberg Law, it is not as widespread as the Trump administration claims. "There's a difference between a weak case, a frivolous claim...
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced a new memo on Tuesday, directing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to take additional steps to enforce penalties against immigration att...