Homeland defense officials are unlocking their fast-track “expedited removal” power to quickly deport illegal migrants nationwide who cannot show they have lived illegally in the United States for longer than two years.
Pro-migration progressives, lawyers, and activists are protesting the removal power, which was formerly restricted to new migrants who were caught within 100 miles of the border, often walking northwards 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,” said a statement from America’s Voice, a pro-migration group:
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 complained:
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.
Acer continued:
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.
The far-reaching deportation rule is allowed by a 1996 law and will start on Tuesday, July 23. The authority was not used by migrant-friendly presidents Barack Obama or George W. Bush.
Officials will likely use their expanded authority to first target illegal-immigrant criminals, such as MS-13 gang members, as well as recent migrants who are given deportation orders by judges. The extended authority will also minimize the risk that protests and progressive groups will be able to block deportations.
The expansion was applauded by pro-American reformers. “Trump administration to use full statutory authority applying expedited removal to illegal aliens in the country for less than 2 years,” said a tweet from Jessica Vaughan, policy director at the Center for Immigration Studies. “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.”
Pro-migrant groups are promising to block the expansion.
A statement from Kevin McAleenan, the acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, said:
DHS has determined that the volume of illegal entries, and the attendant risks to national security and public safety presented by these illegal entries, warrants this immediate implementation of DHS’s full statutory authority over expedited removal. DHS expects that the full use of expedited removal statutory authority will strengthen national security, diminish the number of illegal entries, and otherwise ensure the prompt removal of aliens apprehended in the United States.
The resident population of illlegals is estimated to be from 11 million to 22 million. That population includes from eight million to 16 million workers, who simultaneously push down Americans’ wages and drive up Americans’ rents and real-estate costs.
The resident population number is difficult to gauge, partly because it grows as illegals overstay their visas or sneak over the border. The figure also shrinks as illegals depart, get deported, die, or get legal status via marriage or “Adjustment of Status.”
In early 2017, officials denied roughly 12 percent of illegals’ requests for “Adjustment of Status” requests. The rejection rate nudged up to 14.9 percent in late 2018. In 2018, for example, 429,990 people got green cards via adjustment, including many illegals.
Immigration Numbers
Each year, roughly four million young Americans join the workforce after graduating from high school or university. This total includes approximately 800,000 Americans who graduate with skilled degrees in business or healthcare, engineering or science, software or statistics.
But the federal government then imports about 1.1 million legal immigrants and refreshes a resident population of roughly 1.5 million white-collar visa workers — including approximately 1 million H-1B workers and spouses —plus roughly 500,000 blue-collar visa workers.
The government also prints out more than one million work permits for foreigners, tolerates about eight million illegal workers, and does not punish companies for employing the hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants who sneak across the border or overstay their legal visas each year.
This policy of inflating the labor supply boosts economic growth for investors because it transfers a portion of Americans’ wages to the investors. It also ensures that employers do not have to compete for American workers by offering higher wages and better working conditions.
This policy of flooding the market with cheap, foreign, white-collar graduates and blue-collar labor also shifts enormous wealth from young employees towards older investors, even as it also widens wealth gaps, reduces high-tech investment, increases state and local tax burdens, and hurts children’s schools and college educations.
The cheap-labor economic strategy also pushes Americans away from high-tech careers and sidelines millions of marginalized Americans, including many who are now struggling with fentanyl addictions. The labor policy also moves business investment and wealth from the heartland to the coastal cities, explodes rents and housing costs, shrivels real estate values in the Midwest, and rewards investors for creating low-tech, labor-intensive workplaces.