Immigration Reform News 2013: New Obama Policy Grants Leniency To Detained Undocumented Parents

On Friday, the Obama administration announced a new policy that will help avoid the deportation of undocumented parents who have minor children.

The policy directive instructs Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to give special consideration to an illegal immigrant who is a parent or legal guardian of a child, reports the Washington Times.  Immigration agents already have the authority to not pursue certain low-priority immigration offenders, including those who are parents of minors.  However, the new policy would grant parents picked up by ICE officials more leniency.

In a nine-page memo, the ICE stated that agents should use "prosecutorial discretion" to try to avoid detaining parents.  If parents are detained, however, agents should make sure they have the ability to visit with their children or participate in family court proceedings.

The new memo serves as a reminder that agents should consider that detention can have broader repercussions if a person has a family. Specifically, it says that federal immigration officials have the power to offer alternatives to detention for certain parents:

"It clarifies that ICE officers and agents may, on a case-by-case basis, utilize alternatives to detention for these individuals particularly when the detention of a non-criminal alien would result in a child being left without an appropriate parental caregiver," said Brandon Montgomery, a spokesperson for ICE, according to ABC News.

As a result, a person taken into custody of immigration officials could end up at a facility that's closer to their home, rather than being placed in a more remote area.

Although the action could bring some degree of relief to those in the system, it does not change the overarching issues faced by separated families, according to Marielena Hincapié, the executive director of the National Immigration Law Center (NILC)

"It is really only addressing the symptoms," she said. "The underlying problem, however -- the record number of detentions and deportations, and the number of parents and family that continue to get separated and ripped apart from each other -- is just unacceptable."