Tuesday, February 21, 2017

The White House Leaves No Doubt: It Plans Mass Roundups

Photo: Bryan Cox/AP
The raids earlier this month were no fluke. Two memos released on February 21 make it clear that Donald Trump was serious when he promised to deport millions of immigrants. The memos plan for adding 10,000 agents to the bloated enforcement apparatus, for drastically expanding the number of immigrants targeted for deportation, and for rushing asylum applicants back to their home countries. The policies were bad under the Obama administration; they will be worse now.

The memos are available here (pdf) and here (pdf) .

We can expect resistance to go on growing—but how will we protect protesters from retaliation? Some 100 workers seem to have been  fired for leaving their jobs to participate in the “Day Without Immigrants” on February 16. People have tweeted calls for boycotting the employers who did this, but it’s not clear how effective boycotts would be, especially for local businesses in areas with strong support for the anti-immigrant crackdown.–TPOI editor

Trump lays groundwork for mass deportations
DHS will hire 10,000 new immigration officers and reverse a number of Obama administration policies.

By Josh Dawsey and Ted Hesson, Politico
February 21, 2017
President Donald Trump pledged during his campaign to create a deportation force. Now, he’s equipped federal immigration agents with the tools to potentially remove millions of immigrants from the country.

The Department of Homeland Security issued a pair of guidance memos Tuesday that gives federal immigration agents wide latitude to arrest, detain and deport undocumented immigrants and legal immigrants with criminal records.[...]

Read the full article:

New Trump Deportation Rules Allow Far More Expulsions

By Ron Nixon and Michael D. Shear, New York Times
February 21, 2017
WASHINGTON — The Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday released a set of documents translating President Trump’s executive orders on immigration and border security into policy, bringing a major shift in the way the agency enforces the nation’s immigration laws.

Under the Obama administration, undocumented immigrants convicted of serious crimes were the priority for removal. Now, immigration agents, customs officers and border patrol agents have been directed to remove anyone convicted of any criminal offense.

That includes people convicted of fraud in any official matter before a governmental agency and people who “have abused any program related to receipt of public benefits.”

Read the full article:

Day Without Immigrants: More than a hundred US employees sacked for taking part in protest
The Day Without Immigrants protest shut down businesses across the US last week, but it didn’t come without consequences for employees who decided to take part in the demonstrations

By Zlata Rodionovam, The Independent
February 21, 2017

More than a hundred workers across the US were reportedly fired for taking place in the “Day Without Immigrants” protests against President Donald Trump’s immigration policies.

The demonstrations, for which support was largely drummed up online, urged foreign-born workers to refuse to participate in the US economy for a day.[...]

Read the full article:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/day-without-immigrants-latest-us-employees-lose-jobs-undocumented-workers-protest-donald-trump-a7589176.html

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