AILA Report “Cogs in the Deportation Machine” Shows Massive Escalation of Immigration Enforcement
Earlier this week, the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) released a new report detailing how the Trump administration has systematically increased enforcement, using harsh, indiscriminate methods to deport thousands of families, asylum seekers, and people who have lived and worked for years in the United States.
Detailed in the report are policies including:
- The elimination of two existing forms of protection from deportation, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Temporary Protected Status (TPS), that combined protected nearly a million people.
- The expansion of indiscriminate enforcement, targeting those who the agencies can easily identify and deport, even those who have been complying and checking in exactly as required by the agencies or those who were scooped up as “collateral arrests” during other investigations.
- The escalation of aggressive enforcement tactics by, among other things, ramping up actions in sensitive locations, threatening the sponsors of unaccompanied minors who are trying to help their young family members while they seek asylum protections, and the targeting of victims or witnesses to crimes who are trying to help police.
- The blanket prosecution of cases in immigration courts rather than the efficient use of administrative closure and prosecutorial discretion, both longstanding elements of U.S. law.
- The enactment of policies that threaten the independence and integrity of immigration courts, including establishing case completion quotas to force immigration judges to act as though they are on an assembly line rather than making vital decisions based on complex areas of law, as well as pressuring immigration judges to no longer grant continuances, even in circumstances where additional evidence may prove key to a case decision.
Listen to a recording of the March 14, 2018, press briefing about the report.
KJ
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