DHS Secretary Mayorkas issues final enforcement guidelines narrowing ICE priorities

DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas issued final civil immigration enforcement guidelines on September 30, 2021, effective November 29, 2021. The memo directed ICE to focus exclusively on people who posed threats to national security, public safety, or border security, and to exercise prosecutorial discretion in all other cases. Mayorkas also ended 287(g) task force model agreements with most jurisdictions, limiting the program to jail-based screening. A federal court in Texas vacated the memo in June 2022, and the Supreme Court reinstated it in June 2023 in United States v. Texas.