First, the Obama administration can do better to enforce prosecutorial discretion, focusing government resources on deporting dangerous criminals rather than those who pose no threat.
White House and immigration officials said they would exercise "prosecutorial discretion" to focus enforcement efforts on cases involving criminals and people who have flagrantly violated immigration laws.
The change followed a memo issued by ICE Director John Morton encouraging immigration authorities to use prosecutorial discretion to focus on deporting serious criminals and repeat offenders.
Most Republicans criticize him for doing too little to eliminate unauthorized immigration, and have taken action to block the Obama administration from using prosecutorial discretion to focus on some undocumented immigrants rather than others.
The National Immigrant Youth Alliance has organized sit-ins in congressional offices and "infiltrated" detention centers to verify whether the Barack Obama administration has made good on its promise to use prosecutorial discretion to focus on hardened criminals.
We then discuss whether 44 was violating the law by citing "prosecutorial discretion" to focus deportation efforts on undocumenteds with criminal records rather than young people who finished school.
Both Civil Rights Corps and the ACLU are placing a new focus on prosecutorial accountability.
Our view is the federal prosecutorial resources ought to focus on major drug kingpins, international drug cartels, very serious cases, and those that require the resources that the federal government has, like cases across state lines.
But, lacking the focus or prosecutorial muscle of its predecessor, the task force turned out to be what critics called "a clearinghouse of information and resources to facilitate enforcement by other government agencies".
