By Myles Miller and Alicia A. Caldwell, Bloomberg News (TNS)
When it comes to immigration policy, President Donald Trump is applying his own brand of brazen showmanship.
Trump’s government is making public images and recordings of officials escorting migrants into C-17s, which are military aircraft usually used to transport troops, after they had long been done in secret. They have announced figures on the number of persons they have detained, detailed the arrests of suspected criminals, and blocked flights of migrants headed to the US.
The changes that Trump has implemented in the first few days of his new term, however, go far beyond the highly visible measures. For example, he has given federal agents new powers to enforce immigration laws, expanded the authority of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol, and allowed arrests in previously restricted locations like schools and churches. Meanwhile, there are major additional obstacles for anyone seeking refuge outside of the United States or here under temporary protection.
All things considered, the actions mark a dramatic change in U.S. policy as Trump launches what he claims would be the largest mass deportation in the history of the country.
Doris Meissner, a senior fellow and director of the U.S. Immigration Policy Program at the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, stated that the government has quickly fulfilled its promise of shock and awe.
According to Meissner, a former commissioner of the now-defunct Immigration and Naturalization Service, the measures have altered public discussions about immigration and heightened already elevated anxieties within immigrant communities. The current concern is how long these and anticipated more significant changes can be maintained, supported, and endure the growing number of legal challenges they face.
A court in Seattle declared the executive order signed on the first day of Trump’s presidency to be flagrantly unconstitutional, temporarily halting one of his main plans: reducing birthright citizenship. While his top Justice Department official, Emil Bove, cautioned prosecutors that they must follow Trump’s objectives, the Justice Department issued a statement stating that it will forcefully defend the order.
More than 500 people have been arrested by ICE as of Thursday, including over 300 individuals they labeled criminal aliens; however, the agency could not specify whether or not all of those individuals had prior criminal convictions.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt posted a picture of a group of guys in ankle shackles on an airport tarmac making their way up a ramp into a military aircraft on X on Friday. According to Bloomberg News, the government was deporting people to El Salvador and Guatemala.
According to a senior administration official, ICE highlighted the arrests of multiple males convicted of serious crimes in the United States, the most of whom were from Mexico or Central America. According to the official, they were found guilty of rape, attempted murder, aggravated battery, and assault with a deadly weapon.
As he landed in North Carolina on Friday, President Donald Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One that the deportation was proceeding smoothly. We are removing the hard-core crooks. They are killers. These individuals are as awful as you can find, as bad as anyone you’ve ever encountered. First, we’re going to take them out.
According to ICE, at least 165 noncriminals were among those arrested.
Democratic leaders in Newark, New Jersey, reported that a U.S. military veteran was originally held after a raid on one of the city’s businesses on Thursday. Ras Baraka, the mayor of Newark, denounced the raids and declared that the city will not tolerate the illegal terrorization of its citizens.
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker denounced the event after Chicago public school officials said they turned away ICE agents at one school on Friday.Axiosthat was informed by an ICE spokesperson that it was not their staff.
Trump has pledged to target the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the nation. He has directed a fresh influx of military personnel to the border to assist in preventing unauthorized migration. About 5,000 arrested migrants from El Paso, Texas, and San Diego will also be deported with the assistance of at least four military aircraft, according to the Defense Department.
A fast-track deportation authority that permits the removal of migrants from the country for a period of two years without first appearing before an immigration judge is another tool that the Trump administration announced it was extending. Foreigners caught within 100 miles of the border and two weeks after crossing it were previously exempt from the expedited removal process, unless they requested asylum or other safeguards.
Meanwhile, organizations that keep an eye on migrant planes criticized the deportation flights. Given that military cargo planes carry fewer passengers than the ordinary charter flights that DHS has been using for a number of years, Thomas Cartwright, a refugee advocate with Witness at the Border, described the images that Leavitt shared as theater of the ridiculous. According to Cartwright, the United States has already been dispatching ten deportation flights to Guatemala on average each week.
According to Cartwright on X, the only new aspect of this is that passengers are being transported on cargo planes rather than charter ones, and there are fewer people on board.