TPS is the refugee program that brought refugees from Haiti to Springfield Ohio. In a CNN article from August 2018, CNN reported that Brandon Prelogar argued in an email that the conditions in several Central American countries – where the Trump Administration was trying to end overly generous Temporary Protected Status (TPS) protections for refugees –were “bad.” These emails, which surfaced as part of a lawsuit seeking to overturn the revocation of TPS for these countries, were ultimately used to bolster the case against the Trump Administration’s actions:

…In the emails, Trump administration political officials repeatedly pushed for the termination of TPS for vulnerable countries, even as they faced pushback from internal assessments by career staffers and other parts of the administration…

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…Staffer Brandon Prelogar responded that "it IS bad there."

"We can comb through the country conditions to try to see what else there might be, but the basic problem is that it IS bad there (with regards to) all of the standard metrics," Prelogar wrote. "Our strongest argument for termination, we thought, is just that it is not bad in a way clearly linked to the initial disasters prompting the designations. We can work with RU to try to get more, and/or comb through the country conditions we have again looking for positive gems, but the conditions are what they are."…

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…The emails show that Gene Hamilton, a close ally of Attorney General Jeff Sessions who was a senior counselor at DHS before moving to the Justice Department, made some of those last-minute revisions, attempting to remove references to human rights violations, among other changes.

When presented with Hamilton’s changes to some language already agreed to with the State Department, Prelogar wrote that “we’d just say that this could be read as taking another step toward providing an incomplete and lopsided country conditions presentation to support termination, which may increase the likelihood of criticism from external stakeholders to that effect.”

The Trump Administration wanted to end TPS in several countries where conditions on the ground no longer warranted that designation. Despite this effort from the President and his appointed staff to end these overly generous TPS designations, career bureaucrats like Brandon Prelogar openly disagreed with the assessments of Trump political appointees and ultimately provided ammunition to left-wing immigrants rights groups by memorializing their disagreements with Trump staff in writing.  

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Brandon Prelogar spoke at a UN Human Rights Council conference in September 2009 in Geneva, Switzerland regarding the “human rights of migrants in detention centers.” Prelogar claimed that DHS, under President Obama, was “refashioning its current detention system” to be better suited to the “civil detention authority of ICE.” Prelogar argued that “the majority of the ICE detention population is non-criminal” and that ICE reforms should include “seeking to maximize the availability of alternatives to detention”. By saying most of the ICE detentions are "non-criminal" Prelogar seeks to minimize the criminality of illegal aliens entering the united states fueling the crisis we see today

…Notwithstanding that there are already many protections for migrant detainees under United States law, President Obama recently directed a review of our immigration detention system.

The Department of Homeland Security is refashioning its current detention system into a new model that is better suited to the civil detention authority of ICE Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. It is a model that takes into account the fact that the majority of the ICE detention population is non-criminal, and that the average length of detention is just one month. It will be designed to flexibly adjust the degree and kind of custody used to match the wide variety of aliens ICE detains. In all cases, it will ensure humane treatment of detainees, including access to needed medical care and legal resources.

A few of the specific changes currently underway to initiate this shift in approach include, formation of a two new offices within ICE, one with the sole function of planning and designing a civil detention system tailored to ICE’s needs–and another to conduct routine and random inspections and investigate detainee grievances. In addition, we are hiring a number of experts on health and other elements of conditions in custody, as well as detention managers to oversee significant facilities. Advisory groups of local and national organizations focused on detention practices will advise policy. Further, the ICE reforms underway will be seeking to maximize the availability of alternatives to detention.

The United States is a nation with a strong history of welcoming immigrants, and we are proud of this tradition. Our experience shows the incredible value of orderly and humane migration. We are committed to protecting the human rights of migrants, and will continue to work vigorously to uphold safe and humane standards in our policies and practices.

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Prelogar’s statement is illustrative of his attitude towards immigration enforcement – that illegal immigrants subject to ICE deportation are “non-criminals.” Further, Prelogar’s statement about DHS reforms seeking to maximize “availability of alternatives to detention,” means letting illegal immigrants roam free outside of ICE custody.

(source)

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