The Trump administration on Tuesday expanded the powers that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers have to swiftly remove some undocumented immigrants from the U.S., a move that could help President Trump carry out the large-scale deportation campaign he has promised.
The new policy, detailed in a notice posted online, makes it so the Department of Homeland Security can more quickly deport certain undocumented immigrants who, upon arrest, cannot prove they have been in the country longer than two years. Such sweeping powers — a process known as expedited removal, which allows unauthorized immigrants to be deported without court proceedings — have long been reserved primarily for the area near the southern border.
But the policy issued by the acting homeland security secretary, Benjamine C. Huffman, allows ICE officers to use it across the entirety of the United States.
“The effect of this change will be to enhance national security and public safety — while reducing government costs — by facilitating prompt immigration determinations,” the notice read.
Mr. Trump’s first administration tried to implement a similarly speedy nationwide process for deportations, but those efforts were challenged in federal court. The ensuing legal battle kept the rule from going into effect until late 2020, when a federal appeals court allowed the Homeland Security Department to move forward with expanded expedited removals while the lawsuit continued. The Biden administration rescinded the policy.
Like some of Mr. Trump’s other early actions around immigration, the rule could be met with another legal challenge.
Generally, unauthorized immigrants picked up in the U.S. are given a notice to appear in immigration court, where they could make their case to stay in the country. The courts are struggling under a backlog of more than three million cases, leading to some cases being scheduled years in the future. Deportation proceedings typically can’t begin until a judge issues a decision.
By cutting out court proceedings for immigrants who meet the parameters of the policy, the sped-up process could offer the Trump administration another tool to fulfill the president’s campaign promise to conduct mass deportations early in his presidency, experts and former ICE officials said.
“Expanded expedited removal could spur much faster deportations and increase the number of migrants removed. Unlike lengthy immigration court proceedings that can take years, expedited removal can be done in a matter of hours,” Kathleen Bush-Joseph, a policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, said in an email.
Ms. Bush-Joseph said the burden would be on migrants to provide documentation showing that “they have been in the country for more than two years, have lawful status, or a claim to protection such as asylum.”
Corey Price, a former senior ICE official who oversaw deportations at the agency, said the policy could make a big difference for ICE officers tasked with removing more people.
“I would expect they would lean into this heavily,” he said.
Immigrant rights groups quickly denounced the measure as a way to scare immigrants across the country.
“Expedited removal is a deeply flawed practice that often denies immigrants a fair opportunity to access relief, separates families unnecessarily and makes a mockery of the right to access counsel,” said Lindsay Toczylowski, president of the Immigrant Defenders Law Center, which helps represent immigrants.
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