Department of Homeland Security – Page 238

Experts Doubt Trump’s Ability To Make Good On Campaign Promises Of Mass Deportations, But Do Expect Him To Have Major Impact On Immigration Enforcement

http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/04/politics/donald-trump-immigration/index.html

A group of immigration experts on both sides of the issue interviewed by CNN all doubted that the Trump Administration would be able to carry out mass removals on the scale Trump alluded to on the campaign trail. Among the problems: Congressional funding for more enforcement and detention, severely backlogged U.S. Immigration Courts, practical problems of locating and processing undocumented individuals within the United States, and potential large scale resistance by states, cities, counties, and universities to overly aggressive enforcement efforts.

Here’s an excerpt (full article posted above):

“Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center For Immigration Studies, a non-partisan think tank in Washington, said Trump’s campaign pledges to deport millions amounted to an “Archie Bunker moment” that should not have been taken seriously.
“He’s not going to be snapping his fingers and deporting millions of people over night,” said Krikorain, whose group’s motto is “Low-Immigration, pro-immigrant.”

“That’s not realistic,” Krikorian said. “No one thinks that’s going to happen.”

But Krikorian said “it’s very plausible” that Trump could ramp up deportations by 25% or more in 2017 and return to levels seen under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, which he said reached about 400,000 a year when Bush left office.

That, he said, could be done without significant budgetary increases and despite resistance from sanctuary cities.

“I think the other side is making it seem more complicated than it needs to be,” he said.

Stephen Yale-Loehr, who teaches immigration law at Cornell Law School, agreed that Trump would be able to have meaningful impact during the first year of his presidency, but not to the extent suggested during the campaign.

“On the campaign trail things are not nuanced. They’re black and white,” Yale-Loehr said. “It takes a while to turn the battleship of bureaucracy around.”

PWS

01/04/17

Will Workplace Immigration Raids Return Under Trump Administration?

http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/02/us/illegal-immigrants-raids-deportation.html?mabReward=A4&recp=0&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&region=CColumn&module=Recommendation&src=rechp&WT.nav=RecEngine&_r=0

“But as President-elect Donald J. Trump prepares to take office and promises to swiftly deport two million to three million undocumented immigrants who have committed crimes, bipartisan experts say they expect a return of the raids that rounded up thousands of workers at carwashes, meatpacking plants, fruit suppliers and their homes during the Bush years.

“If Trump seriously wants to step up dramatically the number of arrests, detentions and removals, I think he has to do workplace raids,” said Michael J. Wishnie, a professor at Yale Law School who represents detainees in civil rights cases.

Since the election, Mr. Trump has suggested that he plans to focus on deporting criminals. “What we are going to do is get the people that are criminal and have criminal records, gang members, drug dealers,” he told CBS News in November. “We’re getting them out of our country.”

But Mr. Trump’s advisers have said that to promptly reach his target number of deportations, the definition of who is a criminal would need to be broadened. In July 2015, the Migration Policy Institute, a bipartisan think tank, estimated that of the roughly 11 million immigrants living in the United States illegally, 820,000 had criminal records — a definition Mr. Obama mostly adhered to during his second term, evicting some 530,000 immigrants convicted of crimes since 2013.

Mr. Trump would need to expand the basket to include immigrants living in the United States illegally who have been charged but not convicted of crimes, those who have overstayed visas, those who have committed minor misdemeanors like traffic infractions, and those suspected of being gang members or drug dealers.

Targeting workers for immigration-related offenses, such as using a forged or stolen Social Security number or driver’s license, produced a significant uptick in deportations under Mr. Bush. But the practice was widely criticized for splitting up families, gutting businesses that relied on immigrant labor and taking aim at people who went to work every day, rather than dangerous criminals.”

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There is no statutory or other widely accepted definition of a “criminal alien.” As shown by this article in the NY Times, it could be narrow — covering only those who are actually removable from the United States by virtue of their crimes — or broad — covering anyone who has ever had contact with the criminal justice system and is potentially removable, regardless of whether there was a conviction or whether the crime itself is the ground for removal. For example, “driving with an expired license” is not a ground for removal. But, an undocumented individual arrested for “driving without a license” could be referred by the state or local authorities to the DHS to be placed in removal proceedings before a U.S. Immigration Judge. If the Immigration Judge finds that such an individual has no legal status in the United States, and that individual cannot establish that she or he is entitled to some type of relief from removal, the Immigration Judge must enter an order of removal, regardless of the circumstances of the arrest or the overall equities of the case.

PWS

01/04/17

The Numbers Are In — DHS FY 2016 Enforcement Stats Confirm that Obama Administration is #1 In Removals!

http://immigrationimpact.com/2017/01/04/deportation-numbers-2016/

Joshua Breisblatt writes on Immigration Impact:

“Last week, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued its Fiscal Year (FY) 2016 immigration enforcement data which, coupled with the previous years’ totals under the Obama Administration, show that the total number of removals from FY 2009 to FY 2016 totaled more than 2.7 million. Simply stated, President Obama has deported more people than any other president in U.S. history.

However, underneath those numbers belie some important lessons about the changing dynamics of who is showing up at the U.S. border and how a November 2014 enforcement priorities memo shaped the number of people deported from the interior of the nation.

. . . .

This means, more would-be-asylees are arriving at the U.S. border, rather than economic migrants as in years’ past. Yet, many are being denied asylum or put through expedited deportation processes, both unworthy of the nation’s commitment to protect those in need.

Also of note, the number of individuals picked up and deported from the interior of the country is on the decline, likely due to the 2014 enforcement priorities memo that sought to avoid deporting individuals who posed no threat and have strong economic and community ties in the U.S.”

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How much enforcement is enough? Never enough, according to some. Others disagree and think we’re going way overboard. As the Trump Administration is probably going to find out, “immigration enforcement” is more often than not a “can’t win” political proposition.

PWS

01/04/17

Will General Kelly Be A Voice Of Reason at DHS?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/gen-kelly-has-talked-about-human-rights-will-trump-listen/2016/12/30/ebabbcea-c928-11e6-bf4b-2c064d32a4bf_story.html?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-a%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.a4f5dd9f5734

Naureen Shah, director of security and human rights at Amnesty International USA, writes:

“While at Southern Command, Kelly invited critiques from human rights groups. Every year, he asked Amnesty International and other organizations to join him for a frank roundtable discussion. After one meeting, he took me aside to explain his point of view and hear me out. Dialogue and decency: In today’s hyper-polarized political climate, these are as rare as unicorns.

And they matter. If I could talk to Kelly today, I think he’d listen. I would tell him that people are afraid. Activists worry that if they speak out, the government could retaliate or put them under surveillance. Trump’s idle tweets about stripping people of citizenship for flag-burning are eerily reminiscent of foreign dictators threatening to jail people for peaceful dissent.”

PWS

12/31/16

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