The absconder initiative rounded up people who were not actually absconders

Evidence

AFTER THE INITIAL WAVE of arrests, the Bush administration announced a new program, the “absconder apprehension initiative.” The administration claimed that it was going after the 314,000 people in the United States who had “absconded” after having been served deportation notices, and it began by prioritizing Arab and Muslim absconders. Besides questions about the selective enforcement of such a program and the fact that it broke up many families, another problem quickly became apparent. Many arrested under this initiative either didn’t know they had been served final deportation orders (which can be decided in absentia) or were not “absconders” at all, living out in the open and in full knowledge of the authorities but with appeals pending in their cases (such was the case with Rasha’s family). Immigration appeals, with the current backlog of cases, often drag on for five years or more, yet under this program people were often taken into custody regardless. — Moustafa Bayoumi, How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being…, 157

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘absconder’ program resembles other cases where administrative backlog converts legal status into technical criminality — connects to the general theme of immigration enforcement discretion.