State aims to block ‘expedited removal’ immigrant rule

Connecticut took aim at the Trump administration again on Thursday, joining a multistate lawsuit attempting to block a new policy that allows the deportation of certain immigrants without hearings before an immigration judge or other due process.

The policy, announced last month, allows the Department of Homeland Security, to expedite the deportation of undocumented immigrants anywhere in the United States who can not prove they’ve been in the country continuously for two years.

In an amicus brief before the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the attorneys general from the District of Columbia, Connecticut and 16 other states, led by California, have asked for a preliminary injunction to halt the implementation of the Trump administration rule.

“Denying due process to people facing deportation, including access to a lawyer and a hearing before a judge, flies in the face of everything this country stands for,” Connecticut Attorney General William Tong said. “We have already read reports around the country of citizens — including children — swept up in raids, detained for hours or days under threat of deportation.”

In 2004, the Obama administration extended the use of expedited removal to include any undocumented individual who was apprehended within 14 days of arrival in the United States by land and within 100 miles of a border – which meant that those living in Connecticut were not likely to be subjected to the policy.

But the Trump administration rule allows the process to be used on any undocumented immigrant anywhere in the United States and on those who have lived here for up to two years.

In announcing the policy change last month, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan cited the Immigration and Nationality Act, which the department argues gives the DHS secretary the power to decide who qualifies for expedited removal.

“We are past the breaking point and must take all appropriate action to enforce the law along the U.S. borders and within the country’s interior,” McAleenan said. “This designation makes it clear that if you have no legal right to be here, we will remove you.”

Filed in support of a legal challenge brought by several immigrant advocacy groups, the amicusbrief says Connecticut and the other Democraticled states involved “are home to hundreds of thousands of people who have come to this country because they fear persecution, torture, or violence in their countries of origin or to seek a better life for their families.”

The suit says those impacted by the new immigration policy are “welcome members of the community” and “face severe consequences if placed in expedited removal.”

“For some, the stakes are ‘life or death, since [they] face torture or worse upon returning to their home countries,’” the lawsuit says.

Susan Haigh / Associated Press Connecticut Attorney General William Tong speaks in his office on Wednesday in Hartford about the potential effect on thousands of state residents by planned rule changes for public benefits for immigrants.