Trump Proposal Would Deport More Immigrants Immediately

[Deportation Time]

PALM BEACH, Fla. — Federal authorities would be empowered to
immediately deport vastly more undocumented immigrants as part
of a broad crackdown being developed by the Trump administration
that would significantly change the way federal agencies enforce
immigration laws.

Two draft memos signed on Friday by John F. Kelly, the retired
Marine general who is now secretary of homeland security,
outline an aggressive mission for the immigration authorities
that would rescind policies put in place by President Barack
Obama that focused mainly on removing serious criminals.

The directives appear to spare many younger immigrants brought
to the country illegally as children, known as Dreamers. But
some parents of children who enter unaccompanied could face
prosecution under the guidelines.

The approach laid out in the memos, which have not been
finalized and are subject to change by the White House, reflects
Mr. Trump’s campaign promise to harden the border and deport
people who entered the United States illegally. He has returned
to that theme in recent days: At a rally on Saturday in
Melbourne, Fla., Mr. Trump highlighted a recent spate of
deportations and characterized those being sent out of the
country as dangerous criminals.

“We will have strong borders again,” he told supporters, who
cheered robustly. “You’ve seen it on television. General Kelly,
now Secretary Kelly, he’s really doing the job. You’re seeing
it. The gang members — bad, bad people. I said it Day 1. And
they’re going out, or they’re being put in prison. But for the
most part, get them the hell out of here. Bring them back to
where they came from.”

Among the most significant changes in the memos, which were
obtained by McClatchy newspapers and The Washington Post, would
be an expansion of so-called expedited removal proceedings to
cover thousands more undocumented immigrants.

Under expedited removals, agents from the Border Patrol and
Immigration and Customs Enforcement can deport detained
individuals immediately. Under Obama administration directives,
expedited removal was used only within 100 miles of the border
for people who had been in the country no more than 14 days. Mr.
Kelly’s memos would expand that to those who have been in the
country for up to two years anywhere in the nation.

The memos also call for the possible prosecution of the parents
of children who arrived as unaccompanied minors and are later
reunited with the parents. Under Mr. Kelly’s directive, the
parents could be charged with smuggling or trafficking.

But the memos appear to exempt the Dreamers, the young
immigrants protected under Mr. Obama’s Deferred Action for
Childhood Arrivals program, called DACA. Mr. Trump has signaled
that he is not eager to completely reverse that initiative,
since those young immigrants were not responsible for their
entering the country illegally.

“The DACA situation is a very, very — it’s a very difficult
thing for me, because, you know, I love these kids,” Mr. Trump
said at a news conference on Thursday. “I love kids. I have kids
and grandkids. And I find it very, very hard doing what the law
says exactly to do. And you know the law is rough.”

The White House cautioned on Sunday that the details of the
directives were still being reviewed but suggested final orders
may be issued this week. “None of those are final and have not
been signed off by the White House,” Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a
deputy press secretary for Mr. Trump, told reporters in Florida,
where the president was spending the weekend. The Department of
Homeland Security declined to discuss the memos.

The changes in immigration enforcement, outlined in executive
orders signed by Mr. Trump last month, have drawn praise from
agents in the Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs
Enforcement.

“For the first time in my 19 years, I feel like I can do the job
I was hired to do, the job they tell you you’ll be doing when
you leave the academy,” said Shawn Moran, a Border Patrol agent
in San Diego and spokesman for the National Border Patrol
Council, the union representing 16,000 of the agency’s 21,000
agents.

But immigration advocates called the policy changes dangerous
and expressed disappointment in Mr. Kelly, who they had hoped
would be a more moderate voice on immigration policy in the
Trump administration because he had expressed sympathy for women
and children arriving in the United States after fleeing
violence in Central America.

“That hope is now gone,” Tom Jawetz, the vice president of
immigration policy at the Center for American Progress, a
liberal research organization, said on Twitter. “The border
security memo mentions Honduran, Salvadoran and Guatemalan kids
coming without pretending to care why.”

Omar Jadwat, the director of the Immigrants’ Rights Project of
the American Civil Liberties Union, said he hoped the
administration would rethink the approach.

“All of these things are unfortunately not surprising but deeply
worrisome, both for the people who are going to be directly
affected and for the country as a whole,” Mr. Jadwat said. “This
kind of inhumane approach and the disregard for fundamental due
process values that’s embodied in these memos can do real damage
to our country.”

Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, said that while
he supported the removal of unauthorized immigrants who are
dangerous criminals, Mr. Trump’s policies seemed to lump all
undocumented immigrants together.

“Ultimately, anyone who is found in an undocumented status would
ultimately be apprehended and deported, with due process totally
eroded under the proposals that I’m hearing about,” he said on
“State of the Union” on CNN. “And that’s not only going to lead
to massive deportations, they are going to affect every element
of our society and our economic sector as well.”

Expanding the immigration authorities’ reach would require a
considerable increase in resources. With an estimated 11 million
people in the country illegally, the government has long had to
set narrower priorities, given the constraints on staffing and
money.

But Mr. Kelly’s memos envision hiring 10,000 new immigration and
customs agents, expanding detention facilities and creating an
office to help families of those killed by undocumented
immigrants. Mr. Trump had some of those relatives address his
rallies in the campaign, and several were present when he signed
an executive order on immigration last month at the Department
of Homeland Security.

Mr. Kelly’s directives would also instruct Immigration and
Customs Enforcement, as well as Customs and Border Protection,
the parent agency of the Border Patrol, to begin reviving a
program that recruits local police officers and sheriff’s
deputies to help with deportation, effectively making them de
facto immigration agents. The effort, called the 287g program,
was scaled back during the Obama administration.

The program faces resistance from many states and dozens of so-
called sanctuary cities, which have refused to allow their law
enforcement workers to help round up undocumented individuals.

In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott has said he will cut state funding
for sanctuary cities and remove any elected official who
promotes such policies. Mr. Abbott’s office canceled a $1.5
million grant to Travis County because the newly elected
Democratic sheriff, Sally Hernandez, said her department would
not respond to requests from Immigration and Customs Enforcement
to flag inmates for possible deportation.

In Kansas, Kris Kobach, the secretary of state and a transition
adviser to Mr. Trump, is promoting a bill that would require the
Kansas Highway Patrol to seek agreement with the federal
government to deputize state troopers to enforce immigration
laws. The Highway Patrol says it was not consulted on the bill.
The measure faces opposition from Democrats and some moderate
Republicans.

Kick the criminals out. You cannot trust those who break the
law to invade a country regardless of their intentions. Kick
them out. We have enough Democrats. We don't need any more
habitual criminals.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/19/us/politics/trump-immigration-
deportations.html?_r=1