Press. voanews.com
President Donald
Trump made clear in executive orders issued last week that he intends to
strengthen enforcement of U.S. immigration laws — and that is likely to mean an
increase in deportations. How much of an increase remains unclear. President
Barack Obama repatriated a record 2.5 million undocumented people between 2009
and 2015.
Trump said that
subject to the availability of funds, he wants to hire 10,000 additional
immigration officers and 5,000 new Border Patrol agents. That would be a
significant boost for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) workforce,
which stands at about 20,000, while there are currently a little more than
21,000 Border Patrol agents. Those additional forces will most likely increase
the number of apprehensions.
San Francisco
City Attorney Dennis Herrera announces he has filed a lawsuit against President
Donald Trump for his executive order targeting sanctuary cities, Jan. 31, 2017.
San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera announces he has filed a lawsuit
against President Donald Trump for his executive order targeting sanctuary
cities, Jan. 31, 2017.
Punishing
'sanctuary cities'
Immigration
officials identify undocumented immigrants in a number of ways: raiding
workplaces suspected of hiring undocumented workers; tracing failed applications
for asylum or green cards; acting on tips from citizens; and discovering
undocumented status when people are arrested on other criminal charges.
ICE agents make
arrests both on the basis of their own investigations and when they are
contacted by state or local law enforcement who have made an arrest — sometimes
for violations as minor as traffic stops — and suspect the person they are
holding is undocumented.
This cooperation
is a key way authorities find people who qualify for deportation, but law
enforcement officials in some cities and counties have refused to work with
federal authorities in rounding up undocumented immigrants. These places are
known as sanctuary cities and counties.
In his executive
order entitled “Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States,”
Trump says he will cut off federal grant money to jurisdictions that do not
cooperate with ICE in enforcing deportations. The city of San Francisco is
already challenging the policy in court.
Trump has said
he intends to target undocumented immigrants “with criminal records,” but in
the executive order, he seems to reach beyond that. The order expresses an
intent to go after not only those who have been charged with or convicted of
criminal offenses but also people who may have committed a chargeable offense
without charge or conviction. He also targets people who “have abused any
program related to receipt of public benefits.”
Crowded
detention centers
Jennifer D.
Elzea, acting press secretary at the ICE's Office of Public Affairs, told VOA
that ICE has a total of 203 detention facilities across the United States.
Together, they contain a little more than 34,000 beds.
About 400,000
people are detained in these facilities every year, and the average stay is
about 30 days. Some people stay much longer.
Using 2012 data,
Syracuse University's TRAC, a data-gathering site that tracks the federal
government's enforcement activities, found that 40 percent of the people
detained in these facilities stay three days or less, while 3 percent can be
there more than 180 days. TRAC says often the people who stay the longest are
those who are in the U.S. legally and trying to prove their status.
In his order,
Trump says he will build new detention facilities on the U.S.-Mexico border.
Court hearings
Immigration courts
are notoriously clogged with a backlog of more than half a million cases.
Immigrants awaiting their day in court face an average wait time of 678 days,
or close to two years.
Trump is calling
on the Department of Justice to provide immigration judges to immigration
detention centers in his executive order titled “Border Security and
Immigration Enforcement Improvements.”
Unlike American
citizens, immigrants are not provided legal counsel and must hire their own
lawyers or seek pro bono help from pro-immigration organizations. Having a
lawyer can make a difference.
Deportees are
unable to return to the U.S. for 10 years. Sometimes attorneys can negotiate
for a voluntary removal, which requires offenders only to admit they have no
legal right to remain in the U.S. and agree to depart on their own. People who
have a case for staying are even more likely to need legal help.
Officers from
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) are shown during an operation
targeting criminal aliens and other immigration violators in Philadelphia, May
11, 2016.
Officers from
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) are shown during an operation
targeting criminal aliens and other immigration violators in Philadelphia, May
11, 2016.
Removal
In 2016, ICE
conducted 240,255 removals, a 2 percent increase over the previous year. ICE
says the increase was due to a combination of increased state and local
cooperation and increased border interdictions.
Out of those,
65,332 removals were of individuals arrested inside the United States. The rest
were apprehended at the borders or ports of entry.
Fifty-eight
percent of all ICE removals, or 138,669, were people previously convicted of
crimes, while 2,057 people removed by ICE were classified as suspected or
confirmed gang members.
The leading
countries of origin for removals were Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El
Salvador, ICE reported.
Costs
The average cost
of repatriating a person outside the United States — from identification,
arrest, through removal — is $12,213, according to Elzea with ICE. “This cost
includes all costs necessary to identify, apprehend, detain, process through
immigration court, and remove an alien.”
At that rate,
the cost of the Obama removals was $30.5 billion; the Trump directives indicate
his administration will invest more, but how much is unclear.
It would take 20
years and cost the U.S. government $400 billion to $600 billion to remove all
11 million undocumented immigrants currently living in the United States and
prevent all future unlawful entry, according to the conservative think tank
American Action Forum (AAF).
Here is some of
what AAF says would have to happen using fiscal 2013 data:
— Increase
federal immigration apprehension personnel from 4,844 positions to 90,582.
— Increase
immigration detention beds from 34,000 to 348,831.
— Increase
immigration courts from 58 to 1,316.
— Charter a
minimum of 17,296 flights and 30,701 bus trips each year.
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