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EXCLUSIVE: The Department of National Security (DHS) issued memos Monday to repeal limits on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents imposed by former DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, and a review of the use of humanitarian parole to admit migrants.
The first memo, a draft of which was reviewed by Fox News, overrules a 2021 memo from Mayorkas that provided an expanded list of areas that are “protected areas” where ICE could not engage in the immigration enforcement. He said the policy was designed to ensure the enforcement did not limit “people’s access to essential services or participation in essential activities”.
These areas include schools, universities, healthcare facilities, places of worship, “children’s gathering places”, social service establishments, food banks, religious or civil ceremonies, and disaster or emergency relief and response centers.
“In our pursuit of justice, including carrying out our enforcement responsibilities, we impact people’s lives and advance the well-being of our country in the most fundamental ways. As a result, when we perform a enforcement action, ICE and CBP agents and officers must first examine and consider the impact of where the actions might take place, their effect on individuals and broader societal interests,” he said Mayorkas in a statement then
President Trump delivers the second executive order during the inaugural parade inside Capital One Arena on Inauguration Day of his second presidential term, in Washington, DC on January 20, 2025. (REUTERS/Carlos Barria)
The memo released Monday overruled that guidance and said common sense should be used.
“Going forward, law enforcement officers should continue to use that discretion along with a healthy dose of common sense,” the new memo said. “It is not necessary, however, for the agency head to create bright-line rules about where our immigration laws are allowed to be enforced.”
ICE agents who spoke to Fox News said they believe rescinding the Mayorkas order will free them up to go after more illegal immigrants, because illegal immigrants have so far been able to hide near schools and churches and avoid arrest.
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A separate memo, also reviewed by Fox, focuses on the use of humanitarian parole, which was used extensively by the Biden administration to allow hundreds of thousands of migrants into the United States, including nearly 1, 5 million through the CBP One application and parole processes for nationals of Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela (CHNV.) The administration also launched parole programs for nationals of Ukraine and Afghanistan
The memo notes that the statute requires the authority to be used “on a case-by-case basis,” something Republican critics say the administration has abused. He emphasizes that probation is “a limited-use authority, applicable only in a very narrow set of circumstances.”
ICE agents conduct an enforcement operation inside the US on June 2, 2022. (Immigration and Customs Control)
It also states that it “has been repeatedly abused by the Executive Branch over the past few decades in a manner clearly inconsistent with the statute.”
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“Most importantly, the parole statute does not authorize categorical parole programs that presumptively make aliens eligible based on some broadly applicable set of criteria,” he says.
The note directs the heads of (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to compile a list of parole-related instructions, policies, and procedures, review them, and formulate a plan to phase out any that do not comply with the statute.
They will then provide a report to the DHS Secretary, while pausing, modifying, or terminating programs that they believe have not been properly enacted and that they can do in a manner consistent with statutes, regulations, and court orders .
The memos came just hours after Trump signed a series of 10 executive orders related to the border, including orders to deploy the military to the border, end Biden’s parole programs and end the. citizenship by birthright for the children of illegal immigrants.
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The orders also declare a national emergency and order the resumption of wall construction on the southern border.
“All illegal entry will be stopped immediately,” Trump said moments after being inaugurated. “And we will begin the process of returning millions upon millions of criminal aliens to the places they came from.”
