ACLU Promises ‘Rapid Response Team’ to Combat Deportations

By MICHAEL EDISON HAYDEN
Feb 12, 2017, 3:57 PM ET

But ACLU senior attorney Lee Gelernt told ABC News that while they were “not pleased” with Obama’s handling of deportation raids, his group is concerned that the Trump administration will expand those efforts.

The rapid response team would bring together the ACLU, private law firms and local community groups to ensure that individuals facing deportations have access to counsel right away.

“This administration is just getting started and we’re anticipating much worse,” Gelernt said in a phone interview, citing the language Trump uses about immigrants as his reasoning for his concern that Trump’s approach could be more severe than Obama’s. “His rhetoric is already scaring a lot of people in immigrant communities.”

Not just ‘bad hombres’: Trump is targeting up to 8 million people for deportation

2/5/17

Up to 8 million people in the country illegally could be considered
priorities for deportation, according to calculations by the Los Angeles
Times. They were based on interviews with experts who studied the
order and two internal documents that signal immigration officials are
taking an expansive view of Trump’s directive.

Far from targeting only “bad hombres,” as Trump has said
repeatedly, his new order allows immigration agents to detain nearly
anyone they come in contact with who has crossed the border illegally.
People could be booked into custody for using food stamps or if their child receives free school lunches….

“We are going back to enforcement chaos — they are going to give lip
service to going after criminals, but they really are going to round up
everybody they can get their hands on,” said David Leopold, a former
president of the American Immigration Lawyers Assn. and an immigration
lawyer for more than two decades.

Not just ‘bad hombres’: Trump is targeting up to 8 million people for deportation

Trump’s Immigration Order Expands the Definition of ‘Criminal’

1/27/17:

In Trump’s EO:

anyone who has “committed acts that constitute a chargeable criminal offense,” meaning anyone the authorities believe has broken any type of law — regardless of whether that person has been charged with a crime….

“fraud or willful misrepresentation in connection with any official matter or application before a governmental agency,” a category that includes anyone who has used a false Social Security number to obtain a job, as many unauthorized immigrants do….

anyone who “in the judgment of an immigration officer” poses a risk to either public safety or national security. That gives immigration officers the broad authority they have been pressing for, and no longer requires them to receive a review from a supervisor before targeting individuals…

so basically anybody. Whether or not it can be accomplished is another matter:

in order to put the 15,000 additional immigration agents he wants in place around the country and along the border, Mr. Trump needs spending approval from Congress. Even then, additional detention centers would also be needed.

The most significant hurdle is the tremendous backlog in the immigration courts. Even if immigration officials initiated thousands of deportations immediately, court dates for those immigrants would be at least a year and a half away.

Trump’s Immigration Order Expands the Definition of ‘Criminal’