Add Additional 10,000 Immigration Agents to the Federal Government’s Payroll
The embattled Trump administration isn’t taking its multiple court losses on immigration lying down. Tuesday morning the White House released new memos by the Dept. of Homeland Security detailing the president’s orders on undocumented immigrants. They are wide-reaching and almost all-encompassing. In short, any undocumented person who is in the nation’s borders is subject to not only deportation, but expedited deportation.
The memo officially leaves in place Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the Obama administration’s 2012 program known as DACA that tries to keep “Dreamers,” undocumented children who came to the U.S. at a young age, from being deported. But there are caveats, and every other Obama program and order is rescinded:
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“Almost everybody living in the U.S. illegally is now subject to deportation, and more undocumented arrivals at the southern border would be jailed or sent back to Mexico to await a hearing rather than released into the U.S.,” The Wall Street Journal reports.
“Almost everyone in the US without papers is now a priority for deportation,” Vox writes, noting the orders “make it much easier to deport children who come to the US alone to reunite with their parents — and the parents they’re reuniting with.”
Trump’s orders, which were signed by Homeland Security Director John Kelly, add an additional 10,000 immigration agents to the federal government’s payroll, despite the president’s call for a hiring freeze. “Local police will again be deputized to arrest unauthorized immigrants,” Vox adds.
“Department personnel shall faithfully execute the immigration laws of the United States against all removable aliens,” the memo states, and adds. With the exception of DACA, “the Department no longer will exempt classes or categories of removable aliens from potential enforcement.”
Calling it “a major shift in the way the agency enforces the nation’s immigration laws,” The New York Times reports “immigration agents, customs officers and border patrol agents have been directed to remove anyone convicted of any criminal offense.”
The Trump administration specifically targets for deportation people who are on welfare or other public assistance programs, who “have abused any program related to receipt of public benefits.â€
They also offer broad discretion, stating undocumented people are subject to deportation if they, “in the judgment of an immigration officer … pose a risk to public safety or national security.”
Image by Lorie Shaull via Flickr and a CC license