Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has issued broad new directives to immigration officers, saying that the fact that someone is an undocumented immigrant “should not alone be the basis” of a decision to detain and deport them from the United States.

The Biden administration will continue to prioritize the arrest and deportation of immigrants who pose a threat to national security and public safety and those who recently crossed a border illegally into the United States. Mayorkas said Immigration and  Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers should not attempt to arrest and deport farmworkers, or the elderly.… He also said agents should avoid detaining immigrants because they spoke out against “unscrupulous” landlords or employers, or at public demonstrations. The new rules take effect Nov. 29.

“Are we going to spend the time apprehending and removing the farmworker who is breaking his or her back to pick fruit that we all put on our tables?” Mayorkas said in an interview. “Because if we pursue that individual, we will not be spending those same resources on somebody who does, in fact, threaten our safety.”

Some advocates for immigrants praised the new ICE priorities, while others were skeptical that immigration agents would exercise restraint. “This memo falls far short of delivering what our communities need: bold and fundamental transformation, not changes around the edges to the same detention and deportation machinery,” said Sirine Shebaya, executive director of the National Lawyers Guild’s National Immigration Project, in a statement.