What specific enforcement memos and priority guidelines did the Obama DHS issue and how did they change removal practices?
Executive summary
The Obama-era Department of Homeland Security issued a sequence of enforcement memoranda—beginning with ICE Director John Morton’s 2010–2011 prosecutorial-discretion memos and culminating in DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson’s November 20, 2014 DHS‑wide guidance—that redefined who would be prioritized for arrest and removal, narrowed interior enforcement to national‑security threats, serious criminals and recent border crossers, and replaced the Secure Communities fingerprint‑sharing program with the Priority Enforcement Program (PEP) to limit routine use of detainers [1] [2] [3] [4]. Those changes shifted removals toward higher‑risk populations, increased the share of criminal removals, and altered how local law enforcement interacted with federal immigration officials [5] [4].
1. The Morton memos: ICE’s first formal prioritization and three tiers
John Morton’s 2010–2011 memoranda for ICE set the initial internal framework for prosecutorial discretion by creating three prioritized categories of removable noncitizens—placing national‑security threats, serious criminals and recent border crossers at the top—and directing ICE officers to deprioritize certain cases, including many misdemeanors, to concentrate resources on more serious cases [1]. Those Morton memos were agency‑level guidance from ICE and did not, at first, bind the entire DHS enterprise, which left variations in practice across Customs and Border Protection (CBP), USCIS and local enforcement interactions [1].
2. Jeh Johnson’s November 20, 2014 memoranda: DHS‑wide priorities and enforcement tools
Secretary Jeh Johnson issued DHS‑wide enforcement priorities on November 20, 2014 that built on the Morton framework but extended application across all DHS components, explicitly naming three core enforcement priorities—national security threats, serious criminals, and recent border crossers—and providing operational direction intended to focus scarce resources on those groups [2] [3]. Those memos also announced administrative changes such as replacing Secure Communities with the Priority Enforcement Program (PEP) to narrow use of ICE detainers and require probable cause and priority status before seeking local custody for removable individuals [2] [4].
3. Practical effects on removal practices: concentration and reclassification
The 2014 DHS guidance produced measurable shifts: analysts and DHS reporting show that removals became more concentrated on top priorities—by FY2015, roughly 92 percent of removals and returns were in Priority 1 and rose to about 94 percent in FY2016—while interior enforcement focused increasingly on noncitizens with criminal convictions, a change from earlier, broader interior sweeps [5]. The administration also pursued more formal removal proceedings for recent border crossers rather than voluntary returns, which increased the number of apprehensions placed into formal removal channels [5].
4. Changes to local cooperation: from Secure Communities to PEP
Replacing Secure Communities with PEP was meant to limit indiscriminate federal reliance on local detainers by specifying that detainers would be used only when an individual met PEP’s priority criteria and there was probable cause to believe the person was removable, and by promoting coordination and community outreach to jurisdictions wary of earlier detainer practices [4] [2]. Supporters argued this reduced racial‑profiling risks and protected community policing; critics said it limited federal ability to remove potentially dangerous individuals if local jurisdictions opted out [4].
5. Outcomes, tradeoffs and critiques: tougher on criminals but high overall removals
The administration touted a tougher focus on criminals—claiming criminal removals rose significantly and noting an over‑80 percent increase in removals of people classified as criminals in some statements—yet Obama’s DHS also carried out more than two million removals over his terms, producing a complex legacy that critics framed as “deporter‑in‑chief” and defenders described as targeted enforcement that prioritized public‑safety threats [3] [6]. Scholars note the 2014 DHS‑wide guidelines narrowed the universe of interior priorities compared with earlier ICE‑only guidance, but also institutionalized priorities that produced both concentrated enforcement and continued high aggregate removal counts [5] [1].
6. Alternative viewpoints and limits of available documents
Advocates for the Johnson memos emphasize that applying priorities DHS‑wide created uniformity and focused resources on the most dangerous cases, while opponents contend any formal prioritization fails to insulate families or low‑level offenders from enforcement and that high aggregate removal numbers undercut claims of leniency [3] [6]. The publicly released memos and policy summaries explain priorities and program changes, but they do not capture every operational decision at field offices or quantify all downstream effects, which remain subjects of empirical debate and further study [2] [5].