The Trump administration is planning an expansion of expedited deportations, which would include undocumented immigrants anywhere in the United States who can't prove they lived in the country continuously for two years or more, according to Politico.
The Department of Homeland Security will publish a notice in the Federal Register on Tuesday which will give the department full statutory authority to employ the expedited deportations for a wider range of undocumented immigrants, not just those near the border.
The process is known as "expedited removal" allows immigration authorities the power to remove an individual from the U.S. without a hearing before an immigration judge.
The expansion is the latest carried out by the Trump administration's zero-tolerance immigration policy which targets both legal and illegal immigration.
Undocumented immigrants who were caught within 100 miles of a land border and within 14 days of arrival were subject to the procedure of expedited removal, but the new notice drastically expands the designation to include even more immigrants outside of those limitations.
Customs and Border Patrol have arrested nearly 700,00 migrants who crossed the border this fiscal year as of June, according to CBP data.
The change is likely to face several legal challenges from immigration and human rights groups since the measure would severely bypass immigration courts.
The process would allow the Trump administration another tool to swiftly remove people without legal status from the country.
The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University said recent data indicated there is a backlog of nearly 1 million cases facing immigration courts in the U.S., so the measure would allow federal immigration officers to arrest and deport more migrants without having to add to that figure.
DHS also claims the measure is necessary to alleviate the strain placed on federal immigration detention centers.
Thousands of immigrants could lose their ability to contest their removal before an immigration judge if the measure moves forward.
The notice says ICe encountered more than 20,500 people in the interior in the fiscal year 2018 who would have been subjected to the broader expedited process.
But immigration rights advocates say the number places in the fast-track deportation process would place the onus of demonstrating the continuous presence of at least two years in the U.S. fully on the immigrant.
“The criteria in this rule are practically meaningless,” said Kerri Talbot, a director with the pro-migrant Immigration Hub. “It will be nearly impossible for many people to prove at apprehension that they have been in the U.S. for two years and there will be many false and inappropriate arrests based on racial profiling."
-WN.com, Maureen Foody
Photo:
AP / Eric Gay
