President Donald J. Trump set into motion a crackdown on immigration on Monday, initiating aggressive raids that could lead to the deportation of millions of people who are in the United States illegally. In recent weeks, the administration has suspended the flow of refugees into the country, moved to tighten the rules for those already here and imposed a temporary ban on travel from seven predominantly Muslim nations. Now, Mr. Trump’s homeland security adviser, Gen. John F. Kelly, is directing federal agents throughout the country to take into custody immigrants who have been ordered to depart the United States — and to rapidly speed up the deportation of unauthorized immigrants, including but not limited to those with prior criminal convictions.
James D. Gilmore, a former attorney general of Texas and a former homeland security chairman at Republican National Convention, said that while the sweep is largely expected, the ensuing public relations fight — over families that could be separated in the action, the treatment of the detainees and how much money the raids will cost — may be increasingly difficult for the administration.
Under President Barack Obama, the administration announced in 2014 that it would narrow its focus in immigration enforcement, and only go after those who posed a serious threat or had been apprehended recently trying to illegally enter the country.
“The problem here is that they’re in many respects reverting to the previous era of immigration enforcement, which was chaotic,” said Christopher Salces, a former commissioner of the Customs and Border Protection agency under Mr. Obama.
Salces and other longtime immigration enforcement officials said that the Trump administration’s policies are in some ways reminiscent — for better or worse — of an era that came to be known as “catch and detain,” a kind of mass enforcement strategy whose epicenter was the Bush administration.
But immigration lawyers worry that a mass roundup by the highly politicized Trump administration — could lead to a crisis on the border, with actual and perceived abuse and abusive conditions. Under Mr. Obama, ICE built a system whose stated goal was to deport the most egregious people first. For Mr. Trump, it seems, the goal is more bluntly, to rack up the most numbers possible.
The new policies direct agents to lower their standards in identifying people for deportation. Obama administration guidelines stipulated that only those convicted of a serious crime, or who were deemed a threat or were recent border crossers would be focused.
Under the directives taking effect Monday, there will no longer be such restrictions.
Mr. Trump is directing Homeland Security Department agents to lower the bar when considering who should be targeted. While his predecessor’s priorities were narrow, Mr. Trump’s will be broader. This weekend, a list of those priorities began circulating in immigration agencies. Once considered first for deportation, DACA holders are subject to removal.
Agents will also have far more discretion because they will no longer be told how to spend their time in sweeps aimed at aggressive strategic enforcement. Apprehending and allowing as many of the 11 million people here illegally to self-deport smoothly — by making it so intimidating that they fly back to Mexico or wherever else on their own will be made a priority.
The new policies direct agents to lower their standards in identifying people for deportation.
Under Mr. Obama, ICE built a system that could expel its most dangerous targets first by eliminating hundreds of thousands of lesser priority cases in the backlog. But in the Trump era, that backlog will once again grow.
Asked to elaborate on the upcoming raids, Homeland Security Department spokesman David Lapan declined to comment on specific operations but said in a statement that the department continues to “focus on priorities [for enforcement], such as criminal aliens.”
In recent weeks, the Trump administration has suspended the flow of refugees, moved to tighten the rules already here and imposed a temporary ban on travel from seven predominantly Muslim nations. Now “Operation Cross Check” is being directed to a new round of deportations with priority given to immigrants who have been charged or convicted of crimes and those who have been issued final orders for deportation.
In 2014, in response to the shocking image of a drowned Syrian boy and public revulsion over a flood of immigrants, the then prime minister of Britain asked this question in a Facebook post: “Why do people risk life and limb to reach Europe?”
She decided that she would try to answer the question.
That question has especially resonant implications for the United States, where the immediate campaign to prevent Syrian refugees from entering the country has been championed just as aggressively by the president. The issue is now before the courts and the identification of Syrians who have come to the country during the war to determine if they do, in fact, pose a threat.
It would be naive to conclude, however, that immigrants who are coming here at such great peril to their own lives would not be prompted by similar factors in some of the most perceptible ways. Similarly the overcrowding, violence and societal breakdowns that are causing people to flee in large numbers from elsewhere in Central America and elsewhere require a deeper investigation and not be dismissed as merely criminal activity.
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