Donald Trump has elevated two federal officials with ties to immigration enforcement in Atlanta to key roles in the Department of Justice.
James McHenry, a lawyer who once prosecuted in Atlanta’s immigration court, was picked to lead the DOJ as acting attorney general. The new administration has also selected Sirce Owen, a 10-year veteran of Atlanta’s outpost of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), as acting director of the Executive Office for Immigration Review — the DOJ agency that oversees the country’s immigration court system.
The Atlanta connection of both appointees underscores the federal government’s turn toward hard-line immigration enforcement.
By some measures, metro Atlanta has in recent years led the country in placing immigrants in the deportation pipeline. In 2019 and 2020, the Gwinnett and Cobb county jails accounted for more ICE referrals than anywhere else in the country, according to ICE data.
Both counties’ participation in that program, dubbed 287(g) — which deputizes local law enforcement to act as immigration agents — ended after new sheriffs won election and took office in 2021. Last year, a new Georgia law passed requiring all county sheriffs to apply for 287(g) or unspecified similar federal immigration enforcement partnerships.
Meanwhile, Atlanta’s immigration court has a track record as one of the lowest approval rates in the nation. As acting director now of the federal immigration review office, Owen is heading an immigration court system so backlogged that it effectively allows immigrants without legal status to remain in the country for years as they wait for their case to come before a judge.
During Trump’s first term, his administration moved to reform the immigration court process by instituting a quota system for judges, encouraging them to move through cases more quickly. Trump’s decision to fire Biden officials at the head of the review office immediately upon returning to office is a sign that he intends to continue to push for big reforms.
A graduate of Georgia State University’s College of Law, Owen spent 2008-2018 working as counsel for ICE in Atlanta. In 2018, she became an Atlanta-based immigration judge, a posting she retained for two years.
During that time, Atlanta’s immigration court had a 97% denial rate, with judges overwhelmingly ordering immigrants deported rather than granting requests for asylum. She was later appointed to serve as appellate immigration judge based in Washington, D.C.
Approval rates in Atlanta court dropped in the last two years but are still well above the national average.
McHenry worked for ICE in Atlanta from 2005 to 2014.
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