US to Strip Undocumented Immigrants of Legal Rights in Order to Expedite Deportations
The Trump administration’s massive crackdown on immigration and refugees continues to rage on as it was recently announced that the US will provide immigration officers with authority to arrest and deport undocumented migrants without a hearing before a judge.
As of now, this applies to any undocumented immigrants who are unable to prove they have been residing in the US for more than two years.
Previously, anytime a person was apprehended by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), they would be subject to a legal process unless they had a prior removal order on their record. They would usually appear in front of a judge at least twice before a deportation was ordered.
In fact, expedited deportations were only reserved for migrants who crossed into the US by land if they were to be arrested within 100 miles of the border within 14 days after their arrival in the US.
But the new policy lifts all geographical limitations and legal rights, allowing ICE to conduct rapid removal proceedings for all undocumented immigrants who have been in the country for less than two years and strip them of due-process protections such as the right to an attorney and to a hearing before a judge.
The San Francisco-based Immigrant Legal Resource Center has estimated that approximately 328,000 undocumented immigrants would be subject to expedited removal under this new policy.
According to Global News, the American Civil Liberties Union and American Immigration Council have called the plan “unlawful” and announced their intention to launch a lawsuit to block the policy from being enforced. The American Civil Liberties Union has spearheaded multiple legal battles against Trump’s other restrictive immigration policies.
“Under this unlawful plan, immigrants who have lived here for years would be deported with less due process than people get in traffic court,” Omar Jawdat, director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project said to the Associated Press.
The measure is the second major announcement from the Trump administration regarding harsh immigration policy changes this past week
The US also announced it would deny refugee protection to asylum seekers that passed through other countries while travelling to the US without seeking refugee status there first. Two lawsuits have since been filed in an effort to challenge the decision.
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Arghavan Gerami
Arghavan Gerami is the Founder and Senior Counsel at Gerami Law Professional Corporation ('PC'), a full-service immigration law firm in Ottawa, Ontario. Since 2011, Ms. Gerami has focused her practice on immigration and refugee litigation. Prior to that, Ms. Gerami worked at the Ministry of Attorney General and the Department of Justice and had the privilege of serving the Honourable Mr. Justice M. Evans at the Federal Court of Appeal on immigration and administrative law appeals. Ms. Gerami contributes to the Immigration Law Section of the Canadian Bar Association, the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Ms. Gerami has also published numerous journal articles and presented at various immigration and refugee law conferences and events across Canada.