The New York Times reported yesterday that a community of 72 Indonesians living in central New Jersey for the past two years have been ordered to leave the United States by the Department of Homeland Security. Many of the Indonesians had escaped their homeland because of religious persecution.
The order comes as a surprise to immigration advocates. Earlier this year, the Obama administration shifted its immigration enforcement plan to focus on deporting undocumented immigrants with criminal records. The Department of Homeland Security issued a directive in June, 2011, that urged immigration agents and lawyers to use prosecutorial discretion in handling deportation cases. The report explained that prosecutorial discretion includes consideration of a variety of factors, such as the duration of time an undocumented immigrant has lived in the United States and whether the undocumented immigrant was brought here as a child.
Most of the Indonesians that are seeking help from supporters have been living in the United States for about 10 years, have American-born children, are employed, and have no criminal records - meeting many of the criteria necessary for relief provided by the new prosecutorial discretion directive.
Two members of the House of Representatives have plans to submit a bill to provide relief for the Indonesians who are facing deportation by "allow[ing] certain Indonesians who fled persecution in their homeland between 1997 and 2002 to resubmit asylum claims that had been denied because they missed a one-year filing deadline."
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