Homeland Security unveils sweeping deportation plan
Order spares those brought to US when they were children
The Department of Homeland Security issued a sweeping set of orders Tuesday that implement President Donald 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 and Immigration and Customs Enforcement — 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 immitailed 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 officer has probable cause to believe is in violation of the immigration laws,” one memo read. “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 include 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 it clear that nearly all undocumented immigrants are at risk.
“These memos lay out a degration 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 Barack 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.
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.