Plans to bypass Immigration Courts and short-circuit ‘Due Process’

President Donald Trump, meeting with business leaders at the White House on Thursday, February 23, described his administration’s moves to deport undocumented immigrants as a “military operation,” a rhetoric that runs counter to what his administration has previously said but is in consistence with Trumps Campaign promises.

Trump has used a series of executive orders to chip away at the barriers to deportations and hire new law enforcement officials to spearhead the effort, using the Department of Homeland Security to live up to the President’s tough talk on undocumented immigration during the 2016 campaign.

On Tuesday, February 21st, 2017 two (2) guidance memos were signed by Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly implementing the President’s Executive Orders on immigration enforcement. Although much attention has been focused on the building of the border wall, these new memos direct the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to escalate immigration enforcement nationwide. The memos reveal that DHS intends to take a much more “enforcement-oriented” position with regard to U.S. Immigration law.

INDIAN-AMERICANS AS PER UNOFFICIAL FIGURES ACCOUNT FOR NEARLY 300,000 ILLEGAL ALIENS.

Nearly 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.

The Trump administration is releasing more on its plans to crack down on illegal immigration, enforcing the executive orders President Trump issued in late January. Those orders called for increased border security and stricter enforcement of immigration laws.

“Everybody who is here illegally is subject to removal at any time,” Spicer said. “That is consistent with every country, not just ours. If you’re in this country in an illegal manner, that obviously there’s a provision that could ensure that you be removed.”

“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.

According to the 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 lawful immigration status.

WHAT IS IN THE IMMIGRATION MEMOS?

1. AN END TO LONG-STANDING PROTECTIONS FOR CHILDREN. DHS intends to strip many children arriving alone at our border of basic protections and to penalize their parents for seeking to reunite with their children in the United States. DHS will do this by narrowing the definition of “unaccompanied alien child” in order to limit those protections and by launching either civil or criminal enforcement against the parents.
2. A MASSIVE EXPANSION OF DETENTION. The memos contemplate a massive expansion of detention, including a requirement that DHS officers detain nearly everyone they apprehend at or near the border. This detention space expansion-a boon to the private prison industry-means that children, families, and other vulnerable groups seeking protection in the United States will end up detained, at great financial and human cost.
3. PROSECUTION PRIORITIES AND DISCRETION ARE GONE. The new memos rescind earlier policies on whom to prosecute and deport and whom to de-prioritize because they pose no threat to our communities. The new enforcement priorities are extremely broad, covering nearly all undocumented individuals in the United States. They even include individuals simply charged or suspected of having committed crimes.
4. CREATION OF A DEPORTATION FORCE. The memos order the hiring of 5,000 additional Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents and 10,000 additional Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. They direct a massive expansion of 287(g)-a provision that allows DHS to deputize State and Local law enforcement officers to perform the functions of immigration agents. The memos reinstate Secure Communities [terminating the Priority Enforcement Program (PEP)], which expand the ways in which local police collaborate with ICE.
5. PLANS TO BYPASS IMMIGRATION COURTS AND SHORT-CIRCUIT DUE PROCESS. The memos indicate that many people in the interior of the country – not just those at the border – could be subject to expedited removal or expedited deportation without going before an immigration law judge, the details of which DHS said will be forthcoming in a notice in the Federal Register. This expansion of “expedited removal,” will allow the government to bypass the backlogged immigration courts in order to remove or deport people rapidly and with little-to-no due process.

THE INDIAN PANORAMA URGES READERS TO CONSULT AN ATTORNEY IF THEY HAVE QUESTIONS OR NEED MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE WAY THAT THE NEW U.S. IMMIGRATION AND NATIONALITY LAWS MAY IMPACT THEM, THEIR FAMILY, THEI FRIENDS, OR THEIR COLLEAGUES.