In May, the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) proposed a rule to increase the fee for ICE halting or “staying” deportation orders, via Form I-246.
As the National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC) explained in comments submitted to the Federal Register, ICE has created the growing need for Form I-246 by jailing and deporting individuals in violation of basic due process rights. ICE is also presumptively denying stay requests, instead of reviewing them on a case-by-case basis and balancing the equities presented in each case.
With this proposed rule, ICE is attempting to further punish people who already are at risk of wrongful deportation by forcing them to pay an exorbitant fee as the sole means of exercising their due process rights. This proposed rule is essentially a money-making scheme originating from an agency already has been awarded tens of billions of taxpayer funds in just the last year. NIJC urged ICE to rescind this proposed rule.
Read NIJC’s Federal Register comment below.
Azadeh Erfani is NIJC’s director of policy.