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| Donald Trump's new immigration rules allow for deportation of more undocumented immigrants than Obama | Donald Trump's new immigration rules allow for deportation of more undocumented immigrants than Obama |
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| The Department of Homeland Security has released documents that will dictate how the agency carries out President Donald Trump's sweeping immigration enforcement directives, allowing for far more deportations than those in place by the previous administration. | The Department of Homeland Security has released documents that will dictate how the agency carries out President Donald Trump's sweeping immigration enforcement directives, allowing for far more deportations than those in place by the previous administration. |
| Memos released by DHS Secretary John Kelly prioritise the remove of undocumented immigrations who "have been convicted of any criminal offence", including those who "have abused any programme related to receipt of public benefits". | Memos released by DHS Secretary John Kelly prioritise the remove of undocumented immigrations who "have been convicted of any criminal offence", including those who "have abused any programme related to receipt of public benefits". |
| Last month, the President signed two executive orders pertaining to the southern border with Mexico. The first directed the construction of a wall in the region, despite the existence of some 700 miles of barrier already in place. The second boosted the number of Border Patrol agents and immigration enforcement officers who carry out raids and deportations. Mr Kelly's memo essential makes the latter into agency policy, and provides a framework to its implementation. | |
| "Criminal aliens have demonstrated their disregard for the rule of law and pose a threat to persons residing in the United States. As such, criminal aliens are a priority for removal," Mr Kelly says in the memo, adding that he directed ICE to hire 10,000 more enforcement agents "expeditiously". | "Criminal aliens have demonstrated their disregard for the rule of law and pose a threat to persons residing in the United States. As such, criminal aliens are a priority for removal," Mr Kelly says in the memo, adding that he directed ICE to hire 10,000 more enforcement agents "expeditiously". |
| The language of the memo stirs opens the door for more wide scale deportation operations. The Obama administration carried out the largest number of deportations, tallying nearly three million. However, it prioritised undocumented immigrants who were convicted of serious crimes. The new DHS guidelines would allow Immigration and Custom Enforcement officers to remove a larger category of people committed of even petty criminal violations. | |
| In addition to the hiring of new agents, the DHS is looking to expand the number of detention facilities and establishing a new "Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement" office. It would also revive a programme, known as 287 (g), that would give local law enforcement agents the authority to act as immigration enforcement officers. | |
| Immigrants' rights advocates quickly condemned the memo as "un-American" and insisted that the Trump administration will yet again have to face the US court system. | |
| "These memos confirm that the Trump administration is willing to trample on due process, human decency, the well-being of our communities, and even protections for vulnerable children, in pursuit of a hyper-aggressive mass deportation policy," said Omar Jadwat, director of the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project. "However, President Trump does not have the last word here – the courts and the public will not allow this un-American dream to become reality." | |
| Mr Trump relied on the narrative that undocumented immigrants are carrying out violent attacks on American families during his campaign, asserting the incorrect statistic that "thousands" of people had been killed. | |
| "Thousands of Americans have been killed by illegal immigrants," he said at a late October rally in Springfield, Ohio. The remark mirrored countless others where innocent – often white – Americans fell victim to "illegal immigrants" whom he said had been deported multiple times. | |
| But these assertions of violent crime waves stemming from undocumented immigrants left out significant context and data. | |
| In fact, according to the Pew Research Centre, immigrants are less likely to commit crimes in the US. | |
| Secretary Kelly's guidelines come after the leak of a draft memo that suggested the Trump administration was considering mobilising 100,000 National Guard troops to serve as immigration enforcement officers. The DHS denied the information included in the document, saying that the agency was not considering federalising the National Guard to carryout immigration enforcement duties. | |
| Nonetheless, Texas Rep Joaquin Castro said that, regardless of the leaked memo, a meeting with ICE officials clearly indicated that they were readying the agency to enact Mr Trump's "mass deportations". | |
| "They seemed determined to go after as many people as possible because of the language of the executive order," he said. "And the ICE director was very clear that they were going to follow that message." |