Little response by the illegal immigrants for “Scheduled Departure”, US

More than 500,000 so called deserter immigrants have received deportation orders. If these illegal immigrants come forward in August then they will get about 90 days to organize their affairs without any disturbance.

Anna Gorman reported that according to the immigrant officials, the program that is named ‘Scheduled Departure’ was as a result of the criticism from the advocacy groups. Earlier, advocacy group criticized the early morning raids by the armed agents and said that it disturbs families and communities. Jim Hayes, acting director of the detention and removal operations for Immigration and Customs Enforcement said, the step was taken in order to show the advocacy groups and the community based organizations that proper suggestions are always welcomed and they are open to various approaches.

Virginia Kice, of Immigration and Customs Enforcement said that these immigrants may own property in the country, they may have vehicles and they may have children in school as well. Therefore, they need opportunity to work with the ICE in order to close out their affairs before they abide by the law and return to their countries of origin.

Hayes said that the program will also reduce the agency’s detention cost, because the immigrants will be detained if they are arrested. However, according to an ICE official, only one person in Phoenix has accepted the offer so far.

Immigrant advocates say that signing up any document, including one for voluntary departure, would be the end of their chances of acquiring the status of legal citizenship.

Angelica Salas, Coalition for Human Immigrant Rights, said that what is happening is not any solution. She said that an ideal solution would be to allow them to live in the country with their families and continue to help in the strengthening of the country. Actually, there are holes in the system itself. Some of the deserter immigrants are still unaware of the fact that they are in the deportation list simply because their papers had been mishandled by unlicensed paralegals.

Some people hold the opinion that sending the immigrants to their native countries would be a big step backward and therefore it would be better if the plans are made after thinking properly.

Currently, the immigrant courts have huge backlogs and the detention centers are completely full. So, the Federal officials are hoping that the introduced program will ease off some pressure.