USA TODAY International Edition
MILLIONS COULD BE DEPORTED
Homeland Security Department orders expanded immigration enforcement
The Department of Homeland Security issued a sweeping set of orders Tuesday that implement President Trump’s plan to increase immigration enforcement, placing the vast majority of the nation’s 11 million undocumented immigrants at risk of deportation.
The memos instruct all agents — including Customs and Border Protection ( CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement ( ICE) — to identify, capture and quickly deport every undocumented immigrant they encounter.
The memos require undocumented immigrants caught entering the country to be placed in detention until their cases are resolved, increase the ability of local police to help in immigration enforcement, call for the hiring of 10,000 more immigration agents and allow planning to begin on an expansion of the border wall between the United States and Mexico.
The memos make undocumented immigrants who have been convicted of a crime the highest priority for enforcement operations. But they make clear that ICE agents should also arrest and initiate deportation proceedings against any other undocumented immigrant they encounter.
“Department personnel have full authority to arrest or apprehend an alien whom an immigration officers has probable cause to believe is in violation of the immi- gration laws,” one memo said. “They also have full authority to initiate removal proceedings against any alien who is subject to removal under any provision of the ( Immigration and Nationality Act).”
White House press secretary Sean Spicer said the memos do not represent a goal of mass deportations.
“Everybody who is here illegally is subject to removal at any time. That is consistent with every country, not just ours,” Spicer said. “But the priority that the president has laid forward ( are) the people who have committed a
crime or pose a threat to our public.”
The memos fulfill Trump’s campaign promises to crack down on illegal immigration. Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which advocates for lower levels of legal and illegal immigration, said the memos capture many recommendations his group has been making for years.
“It’s Christmas in February,” Stein said. “What ( Homeland Security Secretary John) Kelly has done is lay out a broad road map of regaining control of a process that’s spun out of control.”
Immigration advocacy groups were crushed. Although Trump recently said his focus would be to deport undocumented immigrants with criminal histories or who pose a threat to national security, the new memos make clear that nearly all undocumented immigrants are at risk.
“These memos lay out a detailed blueprint for the mass deportation of 11 million undocumented immigrants in America,” said Lynn Tramonte, deputy director of America’s Voice Educational Fund, which advocates on behalf of immigrants. “They fulfill the wish lists of the white nationalist and anti- immigrant movements and bring to life the worst of Donald Trump’s campaign rhetoric.”
One group appears to be spared for now. Homeland Security spokeswoman Gillian Christensen said Tuesday that deportation protections granted by President Obama in 2012 to undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children will continue to be honored so long as those immigrants abide by the rules of the program.
More than 750,000 undocumented immigrants have been granted deportation protections under that program, known as the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program ( DACA).
The orders also detail a broad plan to keep undocumented immigrants caught crossing the southwest border from making it to the interior of the U. S. They call for detaining all of them until their cases are resolved.
Currently, many undocumented immigrants are processed by immigration agents, released into the country and ordered to reappear for court hearings. The memos seek to end that practice, known as “catch and release,” by ordering the construction of more jails along the southwest border to house detained immigrants until their cases are resolved.
The new directives also allow Customs agents to send some people directly back to Mexico, whether they’re Mexican or not. Under previous administrations, people from Mexico and Canada could be deported directly back home. But people from all other countries, such as from Central America, had to be detained until they could be flown back to their country of origin.
The memos do not mention the idea of using National Guard troops along the southwest border, as reported by several media outlets last week.
On the campaign trail, Trump regularly highlighted crimes committed by undocumented crimes and embraced the families of the victims of those crimes. Now, there will be a permanent office within ICE to carry on that message.
The Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement Office, or VOICE, establishes a process to keep victims and their families informed about the status of criminal cases against the undocumented immigrants and any followup deportation proceedings. The new orders eliminate protections that had been granted to undocumented immigrants under the federal Privacy Act, meaning ICE will now publicly distribute information about these cases.
“I direct the Director of ICE to immediately reallocate any and all resources that are currently used to advocate on behalf of illegal aliens ... to the new VOICE Office,” Kelly wrote in one directive.