[4][1] An exception can be made to removing an alien who fits these priority categories if in the judgment of an ICE Field Office Director, CBP Sector Chief, or CBP Director of Field Operations, there are compelling and exceptional factors that clearly indicate the alien is not a threat to national security, border security, or public safety and should not therefore be an enforcement priority.
[20] Through the rollout to state and local agencies, ICE could automatically be notified if a fingerprint in their database gave a positive hit for anyone run through a state or local jail or booking facility, enabling ICE to issue detainers and hold requests for persons who may have been stopped for nothing more than a minor traffic violation.
For instance:[3] Other cases that would later be cited as reasons for discontinuing S-COMM include Morales v. Chadbourne, Moreno v. Napolitano, Gonzalez v. ICE, Villars v. Kubiatoski, and Uroza v. Salt Lake City.
[3] Another direction of criticism was that cooperating with the detainers imposed significant additional expenditures on state and local authorities, for which ICE did not reimburse them.
[31] In November 2014, a number of announcements were made by the administration of then United States president Barack Obama surrounding changes to immigration enforcement.
[31][32] While Obama's main announcements were focused on affirmative programs (and therefore under the purview of USCIS), there were also updates on the immigration enforcement side, relevant to ICE as well as to CBP.
[7] As of August 2015, a month after the rollout began, many law enforcement agencies that had previously withdrawn from S-COMM were in talks with ICE and undecided about PEP.
[37] In October 2015, San Francisco's city government chose not to participate in PEP, and to restrict cooperation with federal law enforcement only for people convicted of serious crimes.
[38] In contrast, the Los Angeles County Sheriff Department, that had withdrawn from the 287(g) program and was generally averse to local law enforcement cooperating with ICE, is participating in PEP.
[40][41] In January 2017, Donald Trump took office as President of the United States, after a campaign where he promised stricter immigration enforcement policies.
The backgrounder noted that whereas PEP was a step in the right direction, the "probable cause" definition was still too loose, and insufficient to address the Fourth Amendment-based challenge to S-COMM.
[46][47] The National Immigration Law Center was also critical of PEP, citing both constitutional concerns and its effect of causing the separation of families.
[16] Angela Chan, policy director of the Asian Law Caucus, said that there were alarming similarities between S-COMM and PEP, and also said that Obama's slogan of "felons, not families" should be considered in the context of many communities being overpoliced and overcriminalized.
[45] The Immigration Policy Center has taken a more cautious approach, noting that PEP is an improvement over S-COMM in principle, but awaiting further details on the implementation.
In remarks at a press conference hosted by the Texas Sheriffs Association, Jessica Vaughan of the Center for Immigration Studies (a think tank that advocates low immigration levels), said that "PEP will result in the release of even more criminal aliens back to the streets, with local communities — and especially law enforcement agencies — left to deal with the consequences."
Based on the report, Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte argued that the implementation of PEP endangered communities (relative to S-COMM).