If the undocumented immigrant claims fear of persecution or torture if returned to their home country, the agent is supposed to turn them over to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to determine if the detainee has a “credible fear” and should be allowed to apply for political asylum.
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“It is not meant to produce mass roundups”, a Homeland Security official said, briefing reporters on two new memos Mr. Kelly signed Monday.
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested four undocumented Guatemalan immigrants in Trenton Thursday, a spokesman for the agency said.
Undocumented immigrants, Falk said, will become easy targets for criminals because they are less likely to report a crime for fear of being deported.
Joanne Lin, senior legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, criticized the proposed guidelines as a Trump style of immigration enforcement in which “due process, human decency and common sense are treated as inconvenient obstacles on the path to mass deportation”.
A Homeland Security official who briefed reporters Tuesday said that deportation protections President Obama granted 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.
On Monday, Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly released two memos that drastically redefine federal immigration enforcement policies. In addition to calling for a massive increase in the number of immigration agents and the deputizing of local and state law enforcement across the country – described in the documents as a “force multiplier”- the memos dramatically expand the range of people who can be deported without going before a judge. A diversity visa lottery sets aside 40,000 green cards each year to people in countries without large immigrant populations in the United States.
Williams has been among the Caribbean community’s most vocal critics of the Trump’s administration immigration policies.
Two memos unveiled on Tuesday (21 February) instruct federal agents to identify, capture and quickly deport every undocumented immigrant they encounter.
Maryam and her daughter attend a January 28 demonstration at San Francisco Airport against President Trump’s executive order temporarily barring citizens of seven Muslim majority countries from entering the United States and suspending the admission of refugees. “You’re not going to ever have immigration law taken seriously if it’s just considered an afterthought”.
What it means: Under the Obama Administration, people found crossing the border were released into the USA while seeking asylum.
The United States is a nation of laws, and should not condone the violation of law, including by individuals who did not enter our country through legal processes.
The program known as 287 (g), which Congress passed in 1996 as part of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, is now in place at just a single agency in California: the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, according to the Department of Homeland Security’s roster.
But immigration rights groups are already fearful of the repercussions.
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CLARIFICATION: A previous version of this story stated Mayor Joe Hogsett had said the city would not spend money to enforce Trump’s immigration policies.
