Feb. 19 (UPI) -- Federal agents can now arrest and detain refugees who have been in the United States for one year if they have not yet applied for a green card, according to a memo submitted to a court by lawyers from the Department of Homeland Security.
"When a refugee is admitted to the United States, the admission is conditional and subject to a mandatory review after one year," the memo said. It added that refugees who are detained may stay in custody "for the duration of the inspection and examination process."
The memo was signed by Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Joseph Edlow and Acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Todd Lyons. It overturns the previous government policy -- set in 2010 by the James Chaparro Memo -- which did not allow detention after a year. Chaparro was the assistant director of intelligence for ICE at the time he created the memo.
"This memo was done in secret, with zero coordination with the organizations that serve refugees," Beth Oppenheim, CEO of refugee agency HIAS, told CNN. "This policy is a transparent effort to detain and potentially deport thousands of people who are legally present in this country, people the U.S. government itself welcomed after years of extreme vetting."
