Donald Trump promised mass deportation from the start, telling Chuck Todd way back in August 2015 that all 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. “have to go,” repeating it again that November, and yet again during a televised Republican debate the next year.
But since the time of the general election, Trump and DHS Sec. John Kelly have lied and said that they are targeting only dangerous people and “bad hombres” for arrest and deportation, despite the plain numbers showing thousands of immigrants without any criminal record have been swept up by immigrant agents.
This week, ProPublica uncovered a February 2017 memo showing Trump and federal officials have indeed been full of it:
The head of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement unit in charge of deportations has directed his officers to take action against all undocumented immigrants they may cross paths with, regardless of criminal histories. The guidance appears to go beyond the Trump administration’s publicly stated aims, and some advocates say may explain a marked increase in immigration arrests.
In a February memo, Matthew Albence, a career official who heads the Enforcement and Removal Operations division of ICE, informed his 5,700 deportation officers that, “effective immediately, ERO officers will take enforcement action against all removable aliens encountered in the course of their duties.”
“It’s all there in black and white, and it’s just as we have been saying,” said Lynn Tramonte of immigrant rights group America’s Voice. “Trump’s deportation policy is aimed at deporting everyone. Period. It is all-out mass deportation of anyone and everyone ICE agents come across—no matter how long they have lived here, how much they contribute, or how many children or American citizens would be left behind.”
In May, USA Today reported that the arrests of undocumented immigrants with no criminal record had surged 156 percent compared to that same time last year. In the months since Trump took office, advocates have condemned “silent raids,” or the arrests of immigrants who had previously checked in with ICE without incident, of teens fleeing violence in Central America, and of parents pulled over for driving without a license because their state won’t issue them a license due to their immigration status to begin with. Not exactly “bad hombres,” but that’s who Trump and Kelly claimed they were prioritizing.
The fact is Donald Trump and John Kelly are “overseeing a policy of mass deportation,” a draconian and cruel immigration stance that is hugely unpopular among Americans according to recent PRRI polling:
The poll — conducted as part of PRRI’s 2016 American Values Atlas (AVA) survey of 40,000 interviews spanning all 50 states — found only one in ten young adults between the ages of 18 and 29 and one in nine seniors over the age of 65 support an immigration system to “identify and deport” undocumented immigrants.
Make no mistake: this administration’s immigration stance is locate and deport. Any claim otherwise is a lie. Just look at the memo ProPublica uncovered. But don’t take our word for it. Just listen to the acting director of ICE last month:
“If you’re in this country illegally and you committed a crime by entering this country, you should be uncomfortable,” Acting Director Thomas Homan told the House Appropriations Committee’s Homeland Security Subcommittee. “You should look over your shoulder, and you need to be worried.”
