Stipulated removal is a summary deportation procedure used in immigration enforcement in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
. Stipulated removal occurs when a noncitizen who is facing
removal proceedings
Removal proceedings are administrative proceedings to determine an individual's removability under United States immigration law. Removal proceedings are typically conducted in Immigration Court (the Executive Office for Immigration Review) by an ...
and is scheduled for a hearing with an immigration judge signs a document stipulating that he is waiving the right to trial and to appeal, and is prepared to be removed immediately. The stipulation of removal must still be signed off by the judge before whom the hearing is to take place, but the noncitizen need not be physically presented to the judge. It is authorized under Section 240(d) of the
Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965
The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, also known as the Hart–Celler Act and more recently as the 1965 Immigration Act, is a federal law passed by the 89th United States Congress and signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson. The l ...
According to Muhammed awwal July 28, 2015, publisher =
Legal Information Institute
The Legal Information Institute (LII) is a non-profit, public service of Cornell Law School that provides no-cost access to current American and international legal research sources online alaw.cornell.edu The organization is a pioneer in the del ...
Stipulated removal applies only to those who are scheduled for regular removal proceedings, and does not apply to people who are being removed through other summary procedures such
History
Stipulated removal was formally launched in 1995 with the stated goal of alleviating overcrowding in federal, state, and local detention centers.
However, it began to be used in a significant way only starting 2004, when
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...
, the
President of the United States
The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United Stat ...
at the time, started ramping up immigration enforcement.
[ Between 1999 and 2003, a total of 6 people were subject to stipulated removal. On the other hand, the number of people subject to stipulated removal increased from 5,491 in 2004 to over 30,000 by 2007.][ Between 2004 and 2009, the detention facilities at Eloy and ]Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
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together accounted for over a third of the stipulated removal orders.[ The total number of stipulated removals exceeded 160,000 as of September 2011,][ and the majority of individuals targeted for stipulated removal hailed from ]Mexico
Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...
.[
In September 2010, the 9th United States Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that immigration officials at Eloy had violated the rights of Isaac Ramos, an illegal immigrant from Mexico with prior criminal convictions, in 2006.][ In response, new guidelines for stipulated removal were issued according to which the noncitizen could sign the stipulated removal order only if he or she had legal representation (legal representation is not provided at taxpayer expense).][
In November 2011, it was reported that the use of stipulated removal in Arizona (including the ]Eloy Detention Center
The Eloy Detention Center is a private prison located in Eloy, Pinal County, Arizona, owned and operated by CoreCivic, formerly the Corrections Corporation of America, under contract with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
...
) had stopped after the changes triggered by the ''Ramos'' case.[
]
Related procedures
A "Just Facts" summary by the Immigration Policy Center
The Immigration Policy Center (IPC) is the research and policy arm of the American Immigration Council, a 501(c)(3) organization in the United States dedicated to promoting immigration to the United States and protecting the rights and privileges ...
identified a few other summary removal practices similar to stipulated removal:
* Reinstatement of removal Reinstatement of removal refers to an immigration enforcement procedure in the United States in which a previously deported immigrant can be again deported for subsequent illegal entries with no required judicial review except in very limited circum ...
: This applies to noncitizens who return illegally to the United States after having previously been deported. Essentially, DHS “reinstates” the original removal order without considering the individual's current situation, reasons for returning to the United States, or the presence of flaws in the original removal proceedings.
* Expedited removal Expedited removal is a process related to immigration enforcement in the United States where an alien is denied entry to and/or physically removed from the country, without going through the normal removal proceedings (which involve hearings before ...
: Here, a person who recently entered the United States without authorization may be deported without going through regular removal proceedings. Expedited removal is applied only to third-country nationals (those not from Mexico or Canada), or those with criminal records.
Reception
Concerns about confusion, strong-arming, and lack of due process
Law resource NOLO notes that people have a common confusion about stipulated removal, believing that stipulating to be removed improves a person's chances for re-entry, possibly due to the conflation of stipulated removal with voluntary departure. In fact, stipulated removal is treated like any other removal for the purposes of future re-entry.
A review of stipulated removal by the Stanford Law School
Stanford Law School (Stanford Law or SLS) is the law school of Stanford University, a private research university near Palo Alto, California. Established in 1893, it is regarded as one of the most prestigious law schools in the world. Stanford La ...
noted: "The government targets undocumented individuals for stipulated removal while they are in immigration detention, most likely because they cannot afford to post thousands of dollars in bond money to obtain release from detention. If these individuals were able to post bond, they could continue to challenge their removal cases instead of simply accepting deportation. Unfortunately, these individuals also are typically unable to obtain or afford legal representation."[ Karen Tumlin of the ]National Immigration Law Center The National Immigration Law Center (NILC) is a center in the United States that "engages in policy analysis, litigation, education and advocacy, to achieve hevision" of "a society in which all people—regardless of race, gender, immigration or ec ...
(an immigrant rights advocacy group and support center) told the ''Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...
'' that of the more than dozen detainees she interviewed at the Mira Loma Detention Center in Lancaster, none understood what they had agreed to and what the legal consequences for them would be.
Positive reception and defense
Immigrations and Customs Enforcement
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is a federal law enforcement agency under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. ICE's stated mission is to protect the United States from the cross-border crime and illegal immigration tha ...
officers have argued that stipulated removal helps both the government and the individuals deported: the government saves on detention costs whereas the individuals involved are freed from confining and highly restrictive detention. They have also argued that the program has adequate safeguards to make sure that people with a legal basis to stay in the United States are not subject to stipulated removal.[
Jessica Vaughan of the ]Center for Immigration Studies
The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) is an anti-immigration think tank and a SPLC designated hate group. It favors far lower immigration numbers, and produces analyses to further those views. The CIS was founded by historian Otis L. Graha ...
, a think tank that advocates reduced immigration to the United States, has argued that the stipulated removal program should be expanded rather than scaled back. She has also been critical of the changes to the program after the ''Ramos'' decision, noting that offering stipulated removal only to immigrants who hire their own lawyers bogs down the judicial process and defeats the purpose of the program: to quickly remove illegal immigrants with no legal grounds to remain in the U.S. who want to go home.[
]
References
{{reflist
Immigration to the United States