» The Trump administration plans to expand a fast-track deportation process that bypasses immigration judges.
Proposal to allow more removals without hearing
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration said Monday that it would speed the deportations of unauthorized immigrants who cannot prove they have been in the United States for more than two years, allowing federal agents to arrest and deport more people without a hearing before a judge.
Critics warned that the new rule, set to take effect Tuesday, could also prevent asylum-seekers from applying for refuge in the United States before they are deported. Within hours of its announcement, the American Civil Liberties Union vowed to block it in court.
The shift will expand the use of an immigration law that, until now, was used only to fast-track deportations for migrants who had been in the United States for just a few weeks and were still within 100 miles of the southwestern border. The change was announced a week after Trump administration officials said they would severely restrict asylum at the border.
Kevin McAleenan, the acting secretary of homeland security, said the rule would “help to alleviate some of the burden and capacity issues,” including room at detention facilities for immigrants.
The rule will ensure that deportations could be carried out over “weeks — not months or years,” said Theresa Cardinal Brown, the director of immigration and cross-border policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center. Omar Jadwat of the ACLU said it would deport immigrants who lived in the United States for years “with less due process than people get in traffic court.”
In the 2018 fiscal year, migrants who were deported by the Department of Homeland Security under the expedited process were held for an average of 11 days. It usually takes an average of 51 days to remove migrants from the United States, officials have said.
Taken together, the Trump administration’s recent spate of restrictive immigration policies could bar significant numbers of people from seeking asylum in the United States.
Last week, the administration announced that it would deny protections to immigrants who failed to apply for asylum in at least one country they passed through on their way north. The shift prevents nearly all Central Americans who are seeking asylum from entering the United States, and was challenged in court by a coalition of immigrant advocates the day after it was announced.
“It’s a pile-on,” said Royce Murray, a managing director of the American Immigration Council, a nonprofit advocacy organization that also planned to challenge the program’s expansion in court.
The former rules for fasttracking deportations, as enacted in 1996, made clear that the program could be expanded if faced with a surge of illegal immigration.
Brown, who worked at the department from 2005 to 2011, said officials then were concerned about how someone stopped by immigration agents could prove they had been in the United States for more than two years.
Immigrant rights advocates, who had been preparing for the announcement since early in President Donald Trump’s term, shared those concerns Monday.
“This is a national ‘show me your papers’ law,” Murray said, referring to a nowinfamous Arizona immigration statute that required the police to question the legal status of anyone who was suspected of being in the United States illegally.
“The burden is on the individual to prove that expedited removal does not apply to them,” she said. “So if you don’t have the necessary paperwork on you — to show that you have a lease, or that you have status — then you could be taken into custody to try to fight this. And the problem is that this is a fast-tracked process.”
Immigrants who are eligible for asylum and placed into expedited removal proceedings will still be entitled to an interview with an asylum officer if they claim a fear of returning to their country.