Feds Allege DACA Recipient Was Masterminded Behind Foiled WH Attack
Center for Immigration Studies
cis.orgSummary
A June 18 DHS (Dept. of Homeland Security) press release, “ Alleged Ringleader of UFC Terrorist Plot is a Mexican Illegal Alien ”, reports that Abraham Hermosillo Alvarez (the alien in question), was arrested in Nebraska for his role in a purported plot “to carry out a mass-casualty attack against government officials and other attendees” during an Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) event at the White House on Sunday. Subsequent reports claim Alvarez, 31, entered on a tourist visa with his family in 2001, but received quasi-status under the Obama administration’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. The failure of DREAM Act legislation led the Obama administration to create DACA , which provides quasi-legal status to aliens who entered the United States while under the age of 16 before June 15, 2007, who were born after June 15, 1981, who meet certain educational standards, and who have not been convicted of certain crimes. DACA was not created by Congress, or even by executive order or executive action, for that matter. As its name suggests, DACA is a unique flavor of “deferred action” , an “inherently discretionary” exercise of “prosecutorial discretion” to which applicants have “no legal right”, though aliens granted deferred action don’t accrue periods of unlawful presence in the United States while in that status and are eligible to apply for employment authorization. ICE (immigration enforcement agency) is quick to add that “deferred action does not confer lawful immigration status upon an individual”, meaning that an alien granted DACA exists in a nether zone between legal and not. Generally, DHS won’t place an individual who has been granted DACA into removal proceedings unless and until the department terminates the alien’s DACA status or until DACA itself ends. That said, all deferred action determinations are discretionary, and so the decision to place a given alien into removal proceedings is made on a “case-by-case” basis. Or, as the Supreme Court explained 130 years ago: The order of deportation is not a punishment for crime. And when nonimmigrants — and B-2 tourist visa tourists in particular — fail to depart as promised, it makes it more difficult their fellow countrymen to come here temporarily, but
From the source
Unless and until he’s convicted, the government’s claims that DACA recipient Abraham Alvarez masterminded an attack on the White House during an event celebrating the country’s 250th birthday are just allegations, and he’s entitled to a presumption of innocence. But if the government’s charges are proven, his case will show that not all “DACAs” are honors students — or “good Americans” in all but status.
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Published by Center for Immigration Studies on cis.org
