ICE Buckles Down Nationwide

They mean business.

Homeland defense authorities are unlocking their “accelerated removal” authority to rapidly deport illegal migrants nationwide who have been living illegally in the U.S. for more than two years.

Progressive migrants, attorneys, and activists are protesting against the removal authority that was previously limited to fresh migrants caught within 100 miles of the frontier, often walking north in the brush or being smuggled by truck.

“This is a nationwide ‘show me your papers’ law that will have devastating racial profiling and family separation implications,” a statement from America’s Voice, a pro-migration group stated:

Picture this: using whatever pretext they want, ICE detains an individual. Unless that person is carrying on them right now evidence of their citizenship, legal status in this country, or documentation that they have been continuously in the U.S. for more than two years, they could be on a plane out of the country that day without speaking to a lawyer, a hearing, a judge or the right to appeal. This escalated expedited removal policy will allow the Trump administration to rapidly deport anyone without so much as a trip home to gather evidence of status or to say goodbye to loved ones, let alone a hearing, judge or attorney to provide actual review or due process.

Eleanor Acer, the chief of Human Rights First opposed:

This sweeping move will give ICE and CBP officers the power to bypass immigration courts across the country and order individuals they detain to be summarily deported … Expedited removal is a summary procedure that allows an immigration officer to issue a deportation order—a power previously entrusted to immigration judges. Increasing deportation without due process will also likely lead to the summary expulsion of people who have been in the country for many years, simply because they are not carrying proof of their years of residence when immigration officers take them into custody.

Officials are likely to use their extended power to target illegal immigrant criminals first, such as members of the MS-13 gang, as well as latest migrants ordered by magistrates to be deported. The expanded power will also minimize the danger of deportations being blocked by demonstrations and progressive organizations.

Pro-American reformers have applauded the development. “Trump administration to use full statutory authority applying expedited removal to illegal aliens in the country for less than 2 years,” Jessica Vaughan, policy director at the Center for Immigration Studies, tweeted. “Long overdue. The 1996 law allows illegals who have been in the United States for more than two years to appeal their deportation in the courts.”

📣 We are suing to quickly stop Trump’s efforts to massively expand the expedited removal of immigrants.

Immigrants that have lived here for years will have less due process rights than people get in traffic court.

The plan is unlawful. Period.

— ACLU (@ACLU) July 22, 2019