When the President announced he would instructe DHS to revise its policy and end inhumane practices in immigration enforcement in the Spring of 2014, undocumented and immigrant experts gathered as the #Not1More Blue Ribbon Commission to generate 14 policy points that his administration could enact immediately.

With the expansion of deferred action blocked in the courts, we revisit five of the agenda items drafted a year ago that the President could still do today for immigrant communities. Each make clear that this administration has the responsibility and the options available to reduce suffering caused by inhumane policy and provide much needed relief. 

1. Release Transgender and LGBTQ Detainees and End Immigrant Detention. Transgender immigrants are 1 in 500 detainees but 1 in 5 who are sexually assaulted in detention. ICE cannot keep anyone safe in a detention system built on cruelty and profit but that is especially true for gender non-conforming detainees. While they face disproportionate violence in detention, every person who enters ICE custody is vulnerable to its abuses. Numerous suspicious deaths and suicides have been reported in detention centers, prompting unanswered calls for investigation and reform. Towards that goal, the President could urge Congress to eliminate the arbitrary detention bed quota, it can direct the Department of Justice to guide judges to lower bonds, and can direct the Department of Homeland Security to eliminate or drastically reduce the use of detention.




2. End all ICE Access Programs Involving ICE and Local-Law Enforcement Collaboration including the Priority Enforcement Program (PEP), all 287-(g) agreements and the Criminal Alien Program (CAP). These programs use local law enforcement as an extension of deportations and detention, urging communication between local agencies and DHS. They also cultivate racial profiling by local law enforcement agencies and further endanger over-policed communities. Just as the President ramped up these programs during most of his administration, he can diminish or end them. PEP was created by DHS, and just as the agency ended the infamous Secure Communities program, it can put an end to PEP, a directive that the President can give. CAP is also a discretionary operation that relies on jail access to records. Instead of increasing access  and actively asking Congress for more funding, the President could direct DHS to dial back the program.




3. Ensure Human, Labor, and Civil Rights with Protections for Whistleblowers within Immigration Enforcement. In the month of October alone there were hunger strikes by detainees in Louisiana, California, and two Texas detention centers, with several still going, asking to be released and highlighting abuses and medical neglect by guards. At each of these hunger strikes there have been testimonies of harsh retaliation,including deportation of leaders and isolation of hunger strike participants. Beyond those in ICE custody, even individuals who have official civil rights claims that led to investigations by DHS or workers who have open labor claims have been kept in detention and deported. The President has the power to direct DHS to use deferred action and release individuals who come forward to file civil, labor, or human rights complaints – especially when they are about the immigration enforcement agencies themselves; individual who are detained by immigration authorities during a labor strike; and individuals involved in a pending matter before a federal agency in which they are participating/providing evidence.




4. End Operation Streamline and Stop Criminal Prosecutions of Immigrants for Crossing the Border. Operation Streamline sentences thousands of immigrants to serve criminal sentences for crossing the border in a process that has been described as a violation of due process and human rights. It was created by the Executive branch, which can also ended. Over the last year of the Obama administration, prosecutions for immigrants for entering the country have also risen and alarmingly have appeared as a tactic to retaliate against public organizing efforts. Obama and the Department of Justice have the constitutional authority not only to decline to prosecute, but to pardon any and all violations of criminal immigration laws—in advance or after the fact, for any reason or no reason at all, on an individual or a categorical basis.




5. Apply Sentencing and Incarceration Reforms Taking Place in the Criminal Justice System to the Immigration System. At the same time there is an effort to reform the criminal justice system to decrease incarceration rates and unfair sentencing caused by the Drug War, immigration enforcement is aggressively pursuing the detention and deportation of immigrants with similar charges. Just recently the Department of Justice announced that out of 6,000 people being released from federal prison, about 2,000 would be deported. The President could direct the Department of Homeland Security to re-examine its deportation and detention priorities to include the same considerations being made within the criminal justice reform discussion.

Read the full #Not1More Blue Ribbon Commission here.
Support individuals who are facing imminent deportation by signing their petitions here.