Court to DHS: Hand over ‘Stealth Amnesty’ Docs
WND, March 7, 2013
A federal court ruled the Obama administration must turn over records related to its policy of suspending some deportations of illegal aliens, which critics have called “stealth amnesty.”
The Department of Homeland Security violated the Freedom of Information Act by failing to hand over relevant records to the D.C. watchdog group Judicial Watch, ruled Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Feb. 28.
Judicial Watch said documents it previously uncovered show DHS officials misled Congress and the public about the scope of changes in its immigration enforcement policy.
The new policy gave wide latitude to local immigration officials to dismiss illegal alien deportation cases, including the dismissal of charges against illegals convicted of violent crimes.
“This ruling shows the Obama administration is willing to go to any extent — including gaming the courts — to continue stonewalling the full story of its lawless release of illegal aliens,” stated Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.
“Now, with the prison floodgates being thrown open to illegal aliens under the phony pretense of abiding by sequester cuts, it is more important than ever that Obama’s hand be revealed,” he said.
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Since mid-February, the Obama administration has released from jail more than 2,000 illegal aliens facing deportation, the Associated Press reported. The administration reportedly plans to release 3,000 more this month.
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In its Feb. 28 decision, the District Court ruled DHS had continued to improperly withhold a substantial number of documents under the “attorney-client” and attorney “work-product” privileges.
The court declared that each of the documents “appears to concern nothing more than the implementation of an agency policy.”
Withholding the documents, the court said, runs counter to the D.C. Circuit’s earlier admonition that a government attorney’s advice on political, strategic or policy issues is not shielded from disclosure by the attorney-client privilege.
