AMY GOODMAN: The White House is moving to
greatly expand the Department of Homeland
Security’s authority to deport millions
of undocumented immigrants and to increase
the number of immigration and Border Patrol
agents by 15,000.
Under rules issued on Tuesday, almost any
undocumented person in the country could be
detained and deported, even if they’ve never
committed a crime.
A traffic violation or mere suspicion of committing
a crime could now be grounds for deportation.
Any immigrant who cannot prove they’ve been
in the United States for over two years could
be deported without a hearing.
Any migrant, regardless of their nationality,
who crosses the southern border will be deported
to Mexico while they await deportation hearings.
The memos also call for the prosecution of
parents who seek to reunite their family by
using smugglers to bring their children into
the United States.
One of the memos states, quote, "With extremely
limited exceptions, DHS will not exempt classes
or categories of removal aliens from potential
enforcement."
One exception to that are the DREAMers.
According to the White House, protections
will remain in place, for now, for some immigrants
who came to the United States as children
without papers, as long as they don’t commit
any crimes.
On Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Sean
Spicer said the president wanted to "take
the shackles off" the nation’s immigration
agents.
PRESS SECRETARY SEAN SPICER: The president
needed to give guidance, especially after
what they went through in the last administration,
where there were so many carve-outs that ICE
agents and CBP members didn’t—had to figure
out each individual, whether or not they fit
in a particular category, and they could adjudicate
that case.
The president wanted to take the shackles
off individuals in these agencies and say,
"You have a mission.
There are laws that need to be followed.
You should do your mission and follow the
law."
AMY GOODMAN: Many immigrant rights activists
fear the memos will lead to the creation of
a deportation force that President Trump talked
about while running for president.
DONALD TRUMP: We are going to have a deportation
force.
...
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: How are you going to pay
for this?
DONALD TRUMP: It’s—very inexpensively.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Are they going to be ripped
out of their homes?
How?
DONALD TRUMP: Can I tell you?
They’re going back where they came.
If they came from a certain country, they’re
going to be brought back to that country.
That’s the way it’s supposed to be.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Donald Trump being questioned
by MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski in 2015.
We’re joined now by two guests.
In Ann Arbor, Michigan, at the University
of Michigan, we’re joined by Margo Schlanger,
professor of law at the University of Michigan
Law School.
She served in the Obama administration as
the head of civil rights and civil liberties
at the Department of Homeland Security.
Here in New York, we’re joined by Cesar
Vargas, who is co-director of DREAM Action
Coalition.
He is New York state’s first openly undocumented
attorney.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now!
Cesar, your response first to what has been
now presented by the Department of Homeland
Security?
CESAR VARGAS: Well, foremost, we are seeing
now a deportation force on steroids, because
the fact is that the deportation force was
created back, you know, with George Bush,
but also strengthened with President Obama,
who deported more people than any president
in American history.
So, Donald Trump has really taken the keys
of this deportation machine, and refueling
it and really aggressively pursuing and targeting
every immigrant.
And when he talks about "Not all.
We’re just going to go after the bad ones,
after the rapists, the criminals," well, he’s
not targeting just those violent criminals,
but he’s targeting potentially parents,
hard-working children, students and veterans,
who he claims to be a supporter of, champion
of veterans.
He is now about to deport veterans and the
families of these veterans.
So we are seeing Donald Trump taking the keys
of an aggressive deportation machine, that
President Obama created, and taking it over
100 miles per hour.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you, Professor Margo Schlanger,
talk about what you think are the critical
guidelines here and what they mean for millions
of immigrants in the United States?
MARGO SCHLANGER: Well, the problem is, there
really aren’t guidelines.
What the president has done, and what DHS
has now confirmed, is rendered basically every
person who’s here out of status a prospect
for deportation.
And so, it’s everyone.
If you read through what are supposed to be
the priorities, they reach pretty much everybody.
So, what used to be the limits on deportation,
which was a combination of prioritization
and capacity, the capacity of the system to
process people, he’s gotten rid of the prioritization,
and he’s amping up capacity in a bunch of
different ways.
He’s speeding the kinds of deportations
that happen, without any court process at
all.
And he’s expanding detention massively to
put people in detention while they wait for
their court process.
And he’s talked about now—the word that
he uses is "surging" the judicial capacity
in the immigration courts, which are these
kind of administrative courts.
So, pretty much we should expect to see anybody
who’s not a DREAMer is now subject to the
possibility of deportation.
And the deportation machinery, it hasn’t
ramped up yet, but it’s going to ramp up
starting, you know, today.
AMY GOODMAN: How does, Margo Schlanger, this
differ from what happened under President
Obama?
You worked for, ultimately, President Obama.
You worked at the Department of Homeland Security.
MARGO SCHLANGER: Yeah.
So, it’s true that President Obama inherited
a kind of deportation capacity of about as
many as 400,000 people a year and used that
capacity for a number of years, although in
the last two or two the numbers were down
a lot.
The difference was that the Obama administration
set up specific priorities and tried to focus
on people who had done something wrong in
addition to being here out of status, as well
as, I should say, very recent entrants, people
who had only been here a few days.
So, what this is doing is it’s describing
as recent entrants people who have been here
up to two years, which is a pretty long time,
and getting rid of the focus on the people
who have done something wrong.
So, instead of focusing, if you’re doing
speeding enforcement on the people driving
95 miles an hour, now we’re going to go
after people who are going 56.
AMY GOODMAN: On Monday, we spoke with Franco
Ordoñez, the McClatchy reporter who first
reported on the leaked DHS memos, asking him
about the policies that we’re seeing now,
may have been foreshadowed by a memo that
the now sitting Attorney General Jeff Sessions
sent to the Obama administration last year.
FRANCO ORDOÑEZ: I got a hold of this letter
that you’re referring to that Jeff Sessions
wrote in July of 2016.
And it basically outlines two of those most
controversial points that we were talking
about earlier.
Jeff Sessions, in his letter, talked about
the 60 percent of parents that—pardon me,
the 60 percent of unaccompanied minors who
come to the United States who eventually end
up meeting with their parents, who are here
illegally, and he specifically questioned
then-Secretary Jeh Johnson and then-Attorney
General Loretta Lynch why they were not being,
quote-unquote, according to them, "humanely"
removed from the country.
He also, in those letters, pointed out that
their parents were subject to prosecution.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Franco Ordoñez, the
McClatchy reporter who first reported on the
leaked memo last year of Sessions, who is
now the attorney general.
CESAR VARGAS: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: Cesar?
CESAR VARGAS: And see, that is the alarming
part of what we’re seeing with this deportation
force, is that Donald Trump’s style of managing
has been always about "Well, this is what
I want.
You execute it."
And what we’re seeing now is many staffers
that used to work for Senator Jeff Sessions,
Representative Bob Goodlatte, who was the
chair of the immigration Judiciary Committee,
who, many of them, have been immigration hawks,
anti-immigrant policies, are now leading a
lot of this execution.
And Donald Trump is just signing all these
executive orders or is just signing—the
DHS secretary of homeland security is just
signing this, without really realizing what’s
in those things.
All Donald Trump just cares about is the show.
He cares about just the signing ceremony.
But he doesn’t really care what’s in those
memos, particularly because now we—and specifically,
we are seeing that Donald Trump’s recent
DHS memos take away a lot of protections that
very—that families, American families, rely.
For example, I have many clients who are—the
sons or children are in the military, spouses,
but now they’re not going to be able to
be protected because of the possible elimination
of these programs.
So we are seeing now American families, military
families, who are no longer going to be able
to apply for this type of protection to change
their immigration status.
AMY GOODMAN: So explain what you mean by a
military family.
CESAR VARGAS: So, for example, there’s a
policy called parole in place that’s discretionary,
that allows the U.S. government to say, "OK,
you’re in this country without documentation.
We are going to allow you to stay here, change
your immigration to become a citizen, because
you are the spouse or children of a U.S. servicemember."
AMY GOODMAN: So the servicemember could be
right now in Afghanistan, in Iraq?
CESAR VARGAS: And now we’re seeing that
many of these servicemembers, whether they’re
Marines or Army—many of my clients tell
me, "I’m more afraid of my government tearing
my family apart than the foreign enemy abroad."
And now, see, that’s exactly the alarming
part that Donald Trump cannot see.
And I don’t think he’s going to see, because
he’s going to allow many of the underlings
that work for Senator Jeff Sessions and many
of these immigration—anti-immigration groups
really leading the policy, and Donald Trump
is just signing without really looking at
what’s in the papers.
AMY GOODMAN: Cesar Vargas, what about you?
You, yourself?
You’re a lawyer.
You’re representing immigrants who are threatened.
But you, yourself, are threatened.
CESAR VARGAS: Yeah.
And, you know, I do have DACA.
And I am what people would consider a DREAMer.
But I think, for me, it’s definitely living
in a very different climate, because now my
mom calls me, who is also undocumented, to
make sure if I’m OK.
I call her to make sure she’s OK.
I give her a rundown of her rights.
And it is definitely alarming.
It’s a much more different climate of fear.
And for me, you know, we cannot let fear dictate
what we’re going to do in the next four
years.
AMY GOODMAN: When you say you give her a rundown
of her rights, what do you say if agents come
knocking on your door?
CESAR VARGAS: Well, just as I’ve been doing
Know Your Rights forums across the country,
and particularly here in New York City on
Staten Island, I give her a little card that
says, "Mom, you have a right to remain silent.
If an immigration agent comes to the door,
do not open the door.
Tell them to give you the warrant, and just
say—you know, give them my number."
AMY GOODMAN: Will they have a warrant?
CESAR VARGAS: If they have.
Right?
And I think—she doesn’t know.
She doesn’t speak English.
But I tell her, "Just give her my number."
But she calls me all the time, making sure
that I’m OK.
So this is the type of atmosphere that we’re
living, where people without criminal records
or people with minor criminal violations are
really afraid and in panic, and because there’s
also the—
AMY GOODMAN: And what about this issue of
suspected crimes?
I mean, if you’re charged with a crime,
that’s not convicted.
That’s included.
Of course, if you’re convicted.
Even if you’re suspected of a crime.
CESAR VARGAS: Yeah, and this is where we’re
seeing an—
MARGO SCHLANGER: Yeah, it’s actually—
CESAR VARGAS: Go ahead.
MARGO SCHLANGER: Yeah, it’s actually worse
than that.
AMY GOODMAN: Professor Schlanger?
MARGO SCHLANGER: It’s actually worse than
that, because it’s not just suspected of
a crime.
There’s also a piece of the prioritization
which says if you’ve misled any federal
agency about anything, which means if you’ve
been working and you’ve used a fake Social
Security number or anything like that, you’re
probably—almost certainly, you’re within
the prioritization.
So, it’s pretty much everybody.
I mean, you know, it’s—this is the end
of prioritization.
That’s what we’re watching.
The only priorities that are staying unthreatened—and
even then, they are threatened—but the only
ones who are not explicitly threatened by
the memo are the DREAMers.
Everybody else is in the sights of deportation
machine at this point.
AMY GOODMAN: And yet, Daniel Ramirez, the
DREAMer, the young man, 23 years old, who
has DACA, in Washington state, he was imprisoned.
MARGO SCHLANGER: That’s right.
The administration says that if somebody does
something bad, commits a crime or is a member
of a gang, they’re retaining the right to
pull DACA away.
And they say that’s true for Mr. Ramirez.
His lawyers say that he was—that that’s
completely false.
And so they’re having that argument in front
of a federal court right now.
AMY GOODMAN: The new DHS memos explicitly
state that immigrants—immigrants protected
under President Obama’s program DACA, as
you said, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals,
are exempt, but these new DHS documents come
on the heels of this arrest of Daniel Ramirez.
And I wanted to turn to a comment.
We went to Washington state to talk to people
there.
His arrest alarmed immigrant communities,
who still fear the Trump administration might
target other DACA recipients.
This is Paul Quinones of the Washington Dream
Act Coalition.
PAUL QUINONES: If any of us had any doubt
that Trump’s regime has declared an open
war and open season on all immigrants in this
country, that doubt should have evaporated
by now.
With Daniel’s arrest, we have seen the federal
government breaking its promise and showing
that it cannot be trusted.
AMY GOODMAN: Cesar Vargas?
CESAR VARGAS: We are seeing a—agents enforcing
a broken immigration system, that is—does
not—is not able to differentiate between
someone who has been living here for many
years, contributing to the economy, paying
taxes, and someone who is a murderer.
And I think that’s exactly the alarming
part that we’re seeing in Daniel’s arrest,
that it’s not just the violent criminals.
It’s this artificial creation of the good
immigrant versus the bad immigrant, that is
entangling everyone.
AMY GOODMAN: You also have the situation where
they say they’re going to take all of these
immigrants and they’re going to deport them
to Mexico, whether they’re from Guatemala
or Honduras or El Salvador, to Mexico.
Is this going to mean refugee camps, deportation
camps in Mexico?
Right now you have both Tillerson, the secretary
of state, and Kelly, the head of the Department
of Homeland Security, who is going to meet
with Peña Nieto.
I mean, clearly, President Trump couldn’t
meet with Peña Nieto, right?
The Mexican president canceled his meeting
with Trump.
Margo Schlanger, if you could respond?
MARGO SCHLANGER: Yeah, so, I mean, we’ll
see what happens with that plan.
I mean, Mexico would have to agree to take
all of these people, who aren’t from Mexico,
who passed through Mexico to get to the United
States.
And I don’t, my own self, understand why
they would agree to that.
But just suppose it did happen.
It’s an appalling idea.
You know, the point of an immigration proceeding,
the point of doing that in front of an immigration
judge, is that some people have a claim to
be here.
And we have complicated laws where they are
entitled to due process and to assert that
claim and have it fairly adjudicated.
If we first deport and then hold a hearing,
it’s just—it’s a farce.
The idea that that hearing is actually going
to be accurately able to adjudicate their
status is just—it’s laughable.
And so, what we’re doing is we’re giving
up—we’re substituting a pretense at due
process for the real thing, even if Mexico
agrees to take these people.
And I don’t see why Mexico would agree to
that.
