Immigrants, attorneys don't see much change with new approach to deportation. Feds say final numbers aren't in.
Minnesota immigrants hoping to catch a break from new rules on who can stay in the country and who must leave haven't had much luck yet.
More than six months after the Obama administration ordered a landmark review of 300,000 pending deportations to focus on dangerous criminals, there's little sign of change in Minnesota's immigration court. Confusion is spreading among immigrants and the lawyers who represent them.
"We have not seen a big shift," said Dick Zonneveld, president of the Minnesota/Dakotas chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.
The chapter recently polled its members to see how many had won reprieves for clients based on the new guidelines, and the results were "overwhelmingly negative," Zonneveld said. People who would seem to qualify as low priority for deportation -- meaning they haven't committed serious crimes in the United States and pose no threat to national security -- have seen their appeals denied.
Hard facts will not clarify the situation any time soon. Immigration, Customs and Enforcement officials would not release numbers showing how many cases in Minnesota have been reviewed and how many have been approved for "favorable exercise of prosecutorial discretion."
Data will be released only after all 300,000 cases have been reviewed, according to local ICE spokesman Shawn Neudauer. But at a congressional hearing earlier this month, ICE director John Morton said the agency is halfway through the review and, so far, 1,500 out of 150,000 cases have been put on hold.
Read More: New rules, but few changes for immigrants trying to stay
