The Trump Administration Wants To Deport More Immigrants Without Due Process

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, acquired authorization from the Trump administration to start deporting a lot more immigrants without due process.


The Trump administration reported on Monday that it plans to expand its use of the “expedited removal” deportation, in which immigration officials deport immigrants without a hearing before an immigration judge, for immigrants anywhere in the U.S. Who cannot immediately prove to an immigration officer that they have been in the U.S. For two years. This new expansion is set to go into effect on Tuesday, July 23.


The original “expedited removal” deportation program was traditional in 1966, and expanded by an executive group from President Donald Trump in 2017, according to the American Immigration Council. The law currently permits low-level officials to deport someone without a hearing before an immigration judge if they are in the nation without documentation, are within 100 miles of the border, and have been in the nation fewer than two weeks.


This new expansion would switch that. According to the American Immigration Council, the rule would right now permit officers to deport people without a hearing if they are apprehended anywhere while in the whole nation — not just that 100-mile zone. (According to CityLab, over 65 percent of the U.S. Population lives within that border zone.) Furthermore, the expanded rule would let those officers to deport folks who have been in the U.S. For fewer than two years — not just two weeks.


The DHS mentioned in a brief first posted to Twitter by the Managing Director of Programs at the AIC, Royce B. Murray, that the change will “enhance national security and public safety — while reducing government expenditures — by facilitating prompt immigration determinations.”


One of the several fundamental issues with that statement is that it implies that immigrants pose a “public safety” risk to Residents of the
U.S., Any time, in reality, “foreign-born Residents of the
U.S. Commit crime much less routinely than native-born citizens,” according to a study by Nazgol Ghandnoosh and Josh Rovner from the Sentencing Project.


Additionally, expedited removal gives any random immigration officer unbridled authority to deport immigrants they believe have not shown that they “have been physically present” in the U.S. For two years, the DHS brief reads. If an officer doesn’t believe any given immigrant has lived in the U.S. For two years, they can immediately deport them — without a hearing.


“In essence, the immigration officer serves both as prosecutor and judge,” the AIC tweeted on Monday. “Further, given the speed at which the process takes place, there really is rarely a possibility to group up evidence or consult with an attorney, family, or friend before the decision is made. A dramatic expansion of expedited removal might result in thousands of added deportations without due process.”


The new rule is the latest in a long line of policy changes and executive orders that target or otherwise impact immigrant people in particular. In January 2017, Trump signed an executive order that effectively banned travel from a few Muslim-majority countries; the group was immediately challenged by a few activists and politicians alike and numerous judges moved to block the categorize. And in June 2018, the administration implemented its so-called "zero persistence policy against migrants who cross the border without prior documentation, which resulted in the separation of thousands of children from their parents. All of this is additionally to xenophobic rhetoric by Trump and his administration that vilifies immigrant people, like because the president's comments calling Haiti and African countries "shitholes" and lies claiming that Mexico was actively sending "criminals" and "rapists" across the border. He has never apologized for any of his comments.


While the newly expanded rule is expected to go into effect soon, it will probably face several legal challenges. The American Civil Liberties Union has already mentioned they plan to sue.


“Under this illegal plan, immigrants who have lived here for years could be deported with much less due process than people get in traffic court,” Omar Jadwat, director of the Immigrants’ Rights Project of the ACLU, said in a press release. “We will sue to end this policy quickly.”