Hindustan Times ST (Jaipur)

US crackdown on immigrants may hit 300,000 Indians

- Press Trust of India letters@hindustant­imes.com

NOWHERE TO HIDE 11 mn undocument­ed immigrants at risk, Mexico gears up for flood of OTMs thrown out by US

300,000 Indian-Americans are likely to be impacted by the Trump administra­tion’s sweeping plans that put the nation’s 11 million undocument­ed immigrants at risk of deportatio­n.

President Donald Trump has laid the groundwork for potentiall­y deporting millions of undocument­ed immigrants by issuing new guidance that drasticall­y broadens the ways in which federal immigratio­n laws should be enforced.

“The department no longer will exempt classes or categories of removable aliens from potential enforcemen­t,” the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in an enforcemen­t memo.

“Department personnel have full authority to arrest or apprehend an alien whom an immigratio­n officer has probable cause to believe is in violation of the immigratio­n laws,” it said.

The Department of Homeland Security has issued two enforcemen­t memos, which among other things, tightens deportatio­n of illegal immigrants.

The emphasis is on criminal aliens, though, but opens up the door for others too.

Indian-Americans as per unofficial figures account for nearly 300,000 illegal aliens.

The Trump administra­tionhas also announced plans to hire 5,000 new border patrol agents and 10,000 immigratio­n and customs enforcemen­t agents, and to stop providing legal protection to child immigrants caught crossing the border alone, if they are reunited with their parents or a legal guardian inside the US. Such children may now face fasttracke­d deportatio­n.

According to one memo, the DHS Secretary has the authority to apply expedited removal provisions to aliens who have not been admitted or paroled into the US, who are inadmissib­le, and who have not been continuous­ly physically present in the US for the two-year period immediatel­y prior to the determinat­ion of their inadmissib­ility, so that such aliens are immediatel­y removed unless the alien is an unaccompan­ied minor, intends to apply for asylum or has a fear of persecutio­n or torture in their home country, or claims to have

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 ?? REUTERS FILE ?? People participat­e in a protest against Donald Trump's immigratio­n policy in New York City.
REUTERS FILE People participat­e in a protest against Donald Trump's immigratio­n policy in New York City.

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