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New Deportation Threat: ‘Reprehensible and Dishonest’
Posted on Jun 18 2019
June 18, 2019 – Last night’s Twitter threat to deport “millions” of long-time U.S. residents goes hand-in-hand with the official kick-off of Trump’s re-election campaign. This White House bluster aims to stir up the president’s supporters, while sowing terror and confusion in the immigrant community.
Nearly two-thirds of unauthorized immigrant adults have been in the United States for more than 10 years. They work and contribute to the United States economy. They have homes and families here. Many are married to U.S. citizens and legal residents and have U.S. citizen children. Our antiquated and punitive immigration laws give them no way to legalize their status. Reforming those laws, not separating and deporting families, is where our government should focus.
“Last night’s presidential Tweet represents a reprehensible and continuing policy of terrorizing and intimidating immigrant communities while appealing to the worst xenophobia and racism of an unrepresentative but vocal minority in the United States,” said Lenore Millibergity, interim executive director of the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota (ILCM). “This threat is not only disgusting, but also dishonest: deporting ‘millions’ of unauthorized immigrants is a legal and logistical impossibility.”
The highest numbers of immigrants deported in a single year came in 2012-2014, when more than 400,000 immigrants were deported each year. Currently, immigration detention centers are full and immigration courts have years-long backlogs. There is no way that the president’s threat can be carried out. The government does not have the capacity to do so.
“We have no doubt that the administration will try to implement some high-profile arrests and speedy deportations in the next weeks,” said Millibergity. “Immigrants, including millions of families with mixed immigration status, need to be aware of their due process rights. Legal services offices like ours will respond in any way that we can, although our capacity is already stretched to the maximum. We call on elected officials at local, state, and national levels to denounce this continuing attack on the immigrant community.”