Trump widens net on deportations
UNITED STATES: The Trump administration outlined a sweeping crackdown on undocumented immigrants yesterday, saying it would seek to swiftly deport many more people without court hearings and target migrants charged with crimes or thought to be dangerous, not just convicts.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said in a pair of memos describing the plan that, with few exceptions, the US ’’no longer will exempt classes or categories of removable aliens from potential enforcement’’.
Immigration officers should seek to deport undocumented people who have engaged in fraud or ‘‘wilful misrepresentation in connection with any official matter before a governmental agency’’ or have ‘‘abused’’ any government benefit, in addition to criminals, Kelly wrote.
Immigration authorities also could seek to deport people based on their own judgment that the immigrants represent a risk to public safety or national security.
Kelly ordered the department to hire 15,000 more border patrol and immigration agents and to begin building a wall on the Mexican border to enact executive orders signed by Trump on January 25.
The memos direct the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency to begin hiring 10,000 agents and officers while the Customs and Border Protection agency hires 5000 new agents.
A Department of Homeland Security official who briefed reporters on the plan said he wasn’t aware of how the new hires would be paid for but said the department is working on the problem of funding.
To enforce Trump’s pledge to end a policy known as ‘‘catch-andrelease’’, in which interdicted undocumented immigrants were released pending deportation proceedings, the memos call for a vast expansion of the use of detention centres to hold people caught by immigration authorities.
One of the memos directs ICE to expand a programme that allows local law enforcement agencies partnering with the federal government ‘‘to perform the functions of an immigration officer,’’ including ‘‘investigation, apprehension and detention’’.
The US deported more than 2.7 million people during former President Barack Obama’s eightyear term, according to ICE statistics. The majority were criminals, as the Obama administration focused on removing violent offenders from the US.
By lowering the bar for criminal behaviour, Trump’s immigration enforcement plan would target far more people.
Kelly’s memos were decried by immigration advocates.
‘‘These memos lay out a detailed blueprint for the mass deportation of 11 million undocumented immigrants in America,’’ Lynn Tramonte, deputy director of America’s Voice Education Fund, said.
‘‘They fulfil the wish lists of the white nationalist and antiimmigrant movements and bring to life the worst of Donald Trump’s campaign rhetoric.’’
The advocates said that one of the most troubling changes is a dramatic expansion of the government’s ability to expedite deportation of undocumented immigrants without a court appearance.
Under a process created in 1996, such expedited removals have previously been applied in instances when an immigrant is caught within 160 kilometres of the US border and within 14 days of entering the US.
Kelly and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson plan to travel to Mexico City to meet Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and other top officials. Pena Nieto cancelled a meeting with Trump last month over disagreements about immigration and funding of a proposed border wall. – Bloomberg