An important development today surrounding the removal of President Obama restrictions and policies protecting illegal aliens.
Today Homeland Security Secretary General John F. Kelly officially ordered federal agents to begin using current administration policy to streamline the immediate repatriation of illegal aliens caught in the U.S.
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DHS issued two guidance memos [#1 HERE] and [#2 HERE] which expands the process of apprehension and deportation, again following through on one of President Trump’s chief campaign promises.  The memos cover a large set of immediate initiatives including:

  • Prioritizing criminal illegal immigrants and others for deportation, including those convicted or charged with “any criminal offense,” or who have “abused” any public welfare program
  • Expanding the 287(g) program, which allows participating local officers to act as immigration agents – and had been rolled back under the Obama administration
  • Starting the planning, design and construction of a U.S.-Mexico border wall
  • Hiring 10,000 Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and officers
  • Hiring 5,000 Border Patrol agents
  • Ending “catch-and-release” policies under which illegal immigrants subject to deportation potentially are allowed to “abscond” and fail to appear at removal hearings

The status of young adult illegal aliens “Dreamer or DACA recipients” remains unchanged; however, agents were told there are no longer any other special classes of people that should be considered off limits for deportation.

Those caught at the border are to be swiftly shipped back, Mr. Kelly said, and he freed agents to target a broader universe of illegal immigrants for deportation from within the interior of the U.S. The secretary said agents are still to give priority to those with criminal rap sheets, but are free to use discretion — taken away from them in the Obama years — to detain anyone they believe to be in the country illegally.  (link)
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(Via Fox News) […] The DHS directives come as the Trump White House continues to work on rewriting its controversial executive order suspending the U.S. refugee program as well as travel from seven mostly Muslim countries. The order was put on hold by a federal court, and Trump’s team is said to be working on a new measure.
The directives also come as the Trump administration faces criticism from Democratic lawmakers and immigration advocacy groups for recent ICE raids of illegal immigrants.
DHS officials on Tuesday’s conference call stressed that they are operating under existing law and once again shot down an apparently erroneous news report from last week claiming National Guard troops could be utilized to round up illegal immigrants. That will not happen, an official said.  (read more)

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