On Monday, the Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI) announced a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for withholding details regarding its July 2021 policy to facilitate the return of illegal aliens who had previously been deported from the United States following criminal convictions and also served in the U.S. Armed Forces.
Executives from IRLI allege that DHS has refused to disclose pertinent information about this policy.
“This administration has made clear its desire to keep criminal aliens in the country, and now they are exploiting the American people’s support of military veterans to allow more potentially dangerous aliens to stay,” IRLI Executive Director Dale Wilcox said in a statement:
To make it worse, this White House is ignoring its legal obligation to respond to requests for information about this program. We will pursue this case so our citizens can know the truth about yet another Biden Administration effort that goes against their interests. [Emphasis added]
Specifically, the lawsuit alleges that IRLI sent a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to DHS officials in April of this year, requesting “all documentation and policies related to the DHS initiative … that identifies and returns previously deported non-citizen veterans” to the U.S.
Moreover, the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request sought all records regarding any cases in which unauthorized immigrants were returned to the United States pursuant to the policy.
In response, DHS representatives stated in April that they had acknowledged receipt of the FOIA request; however, no definite decision on whether or not to grant it was provided to IRLI.
The lawsuit encourages the court to rule that DHS must release all relevant documents and information linked to this policy.
“IRLI would love to know why DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services think it’s appropriate to launch a special amnesty, by executive fiat, that gives foreign criminals special treatment merely because they served briefly in our military services,” IRLI Director of Investigations Matt O’Brien said in a statement.
The lawsuit is Federation for American Immigration Reform v. DHS, No. 1:23-cv-03136 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
