WASHINGTON, USA – US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced today the implementation of Cash Electronic Bonds Online (CeBONDS) – another step toward the modernization of the agency’s immigration processes. This web-based system provides a fully automated, online capability to request verification of bond eligibility, make cash immigration bond payments, and send electronic notifications to cash bond obligors.
“This is another step in how we continue our efforts to build and promote a fair and efficient immigration process,” said enforcement and removal operations executive associate director Corey A. Price. “CeBONDS modernizes a legacy bond process that was inconvenient, time-consuming, and costly, and transforms it to provide obligors an electronic method of requesting immigration bonds.”
This process and system enhancement increases convenience for obligors who can now initiate and process immigration bonds online from anywhere without obligating travel to a field office; saves time via electronic processing of bonds; and saves money and materials by significantly reducing paper and physical storage requirements. Individuals will still have the option of making in-person bond payments until the online system fully takes over on June 1.
Immigration bonds serve as a mechanism to encourage noncitizens to appear in immigration court and are not punitive. Bond decisions are based on a noncitizen’s flight risk and the potential threat to public safety. Each case is reviewed individually, considering factors like immigration history, criminal history, and community ties. Although it is not uncommon for a noncitizen to be afforded the option to bond out of custody, there are many exceptions and complexities surrounding releasing noncitizens from ICE custody on bond, for example those individuals subject to mandatory detention by law.
Noncitizens can appeal ICE’s bond decision to an immigration judge at various points throughout their immigration court proceedings. When an immigration judge grants a person an immigration bond or orders their release from detention, ICE complies with those decisions.
Noncitizens are afforded due process in removal proceedings before immigration judges in the immigration courts, which are administered by the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR). EOIR is an agency within the US Department of Justice (DOJ) and is separate from the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and ICE. Immigration judges in these courts make decisions based on the merits of each individual case. ICE officers carry out the removal decisions made by the immigration judges.
The immigration laws of the United States allow noncitizens to pursue relief or protection from removal; however, they remain subject to a final order of removal from an immigration judge once they have completed proceedings before the immigration court and exhausted all administrative appeals, and ICE is charged with executing that order.
