Back to News & Commentary

President Trump Is Beginning to Build the Apparatus of Human Misery He Promised During the Campaign

CBP at Border
CBP at Border
Chris Rickerd,
Senior Policy Counsel,
老澳门开奖结果 National Political Advocacy Department
Share This Page
February 22, 2017

signed by Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly on Monday are a grim blueprint for President Trump's promised mass deportations. As implementation instructions for his January executive orders on and immigration enforcement, they鈥檙e an operating manual for unprecedentedly vicious ICE and CBP crackdowns.

Heartless and cruel, the memos promise changes that will shred due process and propose to expand an already enormous federal deportation force by 15,000 new agents. Fortunately, Congress has budget control that can stop some of Trump鈥檚 terrible personnel and policy choices, including his border wall. And as with Trump鈥檚 Muslim ban, the 老澳门开奖结果 will fight to block these memos鈥 unconstitutional efforts to detain and deport millions of human beings.

We think the last administration got a lot about immigration enforcement 鈥 it鈥檚 to say that President Obama鈥檚 record deportation numbers were some kind of mirage 鈥 but the Trump administration wants to compound the cruelty. In fact, the Trump-Kelly memos aim to destroy three existing pillars of compassionate, constitutional immigration enforcement:

1) Discard Humane Discretion

The memos abandon any genuine attempt to prioritize immigration enforcement. Virtually every immigrant eligible for deportation 鈥 including almost all of the 11 million people in the United States without authorization 鈥 is now a target for detention and aggressive removal proceedings.It doesn鈥檛 matter whether that immigrant has lived in the United States for a day or a decade. It doesn鈥檛 matter whether she has a serious criminal record or not. And it doesn鈥檛 matter whether strong equities exist like community contributions; extensive family ties, including U.S. citizen children; U.S. military service; or exceptional educational achievements and potential. Last week鈥檚 powerful gave a sense of the devastating economic, humanitarian, and practical effects of banishing our neighbors, classmates, co-parishioners, relatives, and friends.

2) Dismantle Due Process

The Trump-Kelly memos try to eviscerate immigrants鈥 rights to full and fair hearings to determine whether the government鈥檚 attempts to remove them are supported by the facts and the law. Trump and Kelly threaten a massive expansion of shortcuts to deportation like expedited removal, which allows an ICE or CBP official, rather than an impartial judge, to have the on an immigrant鈥檚 future. Every immigrant deserves a real day in court and access to legal counsel to make their case, both of which are imperiled by the memos鈥 medieval prescription of detention for all, regardless of a particular immigrant鈥檚 flight risk or public safety threat.

Mandatory imprisonment of immigrants who don't need to be jailed, like asylum-seekers, primary caregivers, pregnant women, and people with medical conditions makes no fiscal or moral sense and is fundamentally contrary to due process. All mass detention accomplishes, besides needlessly tearing families apart and sending many kids to foster care, is a lucrative bonanza for substandard private-prison contractors.

3) Demolish the Protective Wall Between Immigration Enforcement and Police

The Trump-Kelly memos encourage state and local police, including those with records of racial profiling and brutality, to become immigration agents. They are a return to failed programs ended by the Obama administration that intertwined local police and immigration enforcement, which is a federal responsibility. The 老澳门开奖结果 and allies won important legal victories against state 鈥渟how me your papers鈥 legislation like Arizona鈥檚 SB1070, and the federal government terminated involvement of biased police agencies like Sheriff Joe Arpaio鈥檚 in immigration enforcement.

Yet the Trump-Kelly memos want to make every cop an immigration agent, ignoring the Department of Justice and federal courts鈥 devastating findings that Sheriff Joe and others acted unconstitutionally in racially profiling and otherwise abusing the very public they鈥檙e sworn to protect. The memos resurrect illegal and unwise programs like Secure Communities, which courts have held flouts the Fourth Amendment by detaining individuals without a judge鈥檚 probable cause determination, and , which as immigration agents. These programs only hurt public safety by making immigrants and their families , like domestic violence, that they suffer or witness.

The Trump administration has sent another gust of fear throughout the land with a mass deportation agenda that is badly out of step with fairness, due process, and liberty. Its attacks on civil liberties and civil rights affect not only immigrants but all who will suffer abuses at the hands of a vast immigration-enforcement complex the memos aspire to create. It will be defeated in courts and communities from sea to sea.

Learn More 老澳门开奖结果 the Issues on This Page