Department of Homeland Security Unveils ...

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Department of Homeland Security Unveils Comprehensive Immigration Enforcement Strategy

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Julie L. Myers, Assistant Secretary for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), today unveiled a comprehensive immigration enforcement strategy for the nation’s interior.

The new interior enforcement strategy represents the second phase of the Secure Border Initiative (SBI), which is the Department of Homeland Security’s multi-year plan to secure America’s borders and reduce illegal migration. The first phase of the SBI remains focused on gaining operational control of the nation’s borders through additional personnel and technology, while also re-engineering the detention and removal system to ensure that illegal aliens are removed from this country quickly and efficiently.

The interior enforcement strategy will complement the Department’s border security efforts by expanding existing efforts to target employers of illegal aliens and immigration violators inside this country, as well as the many criminal networks that support these activities. The primary objectives are to reverse the tolerance of illegal employment and illegal immigration in the United States. To meet these objectives, the strategy sets out three primary goals or courses of action that will be carried out simultaneously:

• The first is to identify and remove criminal aliens, immigration fugitives and other immigration violators from this country.
• The second is to build strong worksite enforcement and compliance programs to deter illegal employment in this country.
• The third is to uproot the criminal infrastructures at home and abroad that support illegal immigration, including human smuggling / trafficking organizations and document / benefit fraud organizations. Read more at dhs.gov

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