WASHINGTON (Sputnik) – US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is not implementing US President Barack Obama’s executive order to use prosecutorial discretion in deciding to deport illegal immigrants and grant temporary work permits, Reverend Noel Andersen of the relief organization Church World Service told Sputnik.
"We are not seeing the field offices of ICE institute prosecutorial discretion that would mostly benefit community and family members,” Andersen said on Wednesday, adding families are still being separated by ICE.
The Obama administration issued an executive order in November 2014 making changes to a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). DACA allowed certain undocumented immigrants who entered the country before their sixteenth birthday and before 2007 to receive a renewable two-year work permit and exemption from deportation.
The executive order came in response to cases of illegal immigrant parents being separated from their children when being detained or deported.
However, Andersen said ICE is still separating families and greater prosecutorial discretion is needed.
"We are focused…… on the reality the deportation machine is still functioning at high levels after executive action,” Andersen said. “People need prosecutorial discretion now even more.”
“We are still seeing the separation of families,” he said.
Church World Service is a ministry of 37 Christian denominations and communions focused on providing sustainable self-help, development, disaster relief, and refugee assistance.
