Mon. 9/23: Asylum America – Write a comment today! Deadline 11:59 pm EST.

Unless our people came here unwillingly, or were standing on the shore watching the first ships land, we are beneficiaries of asylum – our people were refugees from failed crops and starvation, from joblessness, from poverty, from corruption, from religious persecution and from threats against their lives. (Even Swedish German former brothel owners were welcome to return after being banished from the country of their birth for draft dodging.) In our forefather’s shoes, we walked down a gangplank into America and a new life.

We owe a debt, those of us who got here before cruel immigration limits kicked in, for there was nowhere else to go. Pay it back by standing indivisible with the people coming here now. They too, are running from failed crops and starvation, from joblessness, from poverty, from corruption and from threats against their lives, and they need our help.

Action: Write a comment to oppose Trump’s proposal to further bloat the anti-American “Expedited Removal” rule. Due tonight!

“Expedited removal . . . represented a dramatic assault on the due process rights . . . . [It grants] extraordinary and unprecedented power to low-level immigration officers to remove individuals without review and without a fair hearing.” – ACLU

Your voice matters and is needed now more than ever. Your comment doesn’t need to be long. A few sentences are fine. It just needs to sound exactly LIKE YOU.
PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, don’t copy anyone else’s comment verbatim. It will be thrown out by the moderator. Don’t bother with petitions either, as all the signatures only count as “1”.

Comment here

  • Here is the proposed rule here.
  • Here are other people’s comments for inspiration only: here.

Basic Information

The Trump administration recently announced a new policy that would fast-track the deportation of thousands by massively expanding “expedited removal.” Under the latest proposal, all geographical limitations would be lifted (currently 100 miles in from our borders) and rapid removal proceedings would be applied to all undocumented immigrants who have been in the country for less than two years. These people can be detained and deported without seeing an immigration judge. Or before they can find legal representation. Or before they can say goodbye to their families. Not only does the expansion of expedited removal threaten due process, but the new policy is also sowing fear throughout the nation – a form of psychological terrorism that has been used against our minority communities over and over.

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The new policy went into effect on Tuesday, July 23. An estimated 300,000 people in the United State are now at risk of being arrested and deported within the space of a day based on the say-so of a low level Border Patrol officer. The change also increases the risk of U.S. citizens and other immigrants with legal status to be erroneously detained and potentially deported. “Once you’re caught up in the immigration system, it’s really hard to get out, even if you are a U.S. citizen,” states Elora Mukherjee, professor of law at Columbia University and director of the university’s Immigrants’ Rights Clinic, adding that it can be even harder for immigrants with mental health issues and cognitive impairments to prove how long they’ve lived in the U.S. “This is really a disturbing development.”

Deeper dive – What are we capable of? (An incomplete history)

Déjà vu – This is not our first rodeo at denying people basic rights.

There are so many but we’re going to start here:

“We did not cross the border, the border crossed us.” (ssc.wisc.edu)

This was because the Mexican American War (1846-1848) ended with the U.S. getting the land that became all or part of California, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Colorado, Wyoming, Oklahoma, and Kansas. Mexico got $15 million dollars and the new states got the 80,000-100,000 Mexican citizens who lived in the area. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, signed in 1848, granted U.S. citizenship to these newly minted Mexican-American citizens, who were counted as “white” by the U.S. census until 1930. Then a growing population of immigrants combined with local racism led to the creation of a new category in the census of that year.

Despite having been in the country first, the newest citizens were almost universally considered foreigners by the U.S. settlers who moved into the new territories. Within a generation, their property rights were manipulated away in U.S. Courts and they became a disenfranchised, poverty-stricken minority.

However, the border between Mexico and the US remained open for the flow of laborers critically necessary to American agriculture until the imposition of the racist Immigration Act of 1917. Enforcement became more strict in 1924, when the US Border Patrol was created. Because of the previous lax immigration enforcement, and porousness of the border, many citizens, legal residents, and immigrants, did not have the official documentation proving their citizenship, or had lost their documents, or just never formally applied for citizenship.

Then came the crash of 1929, the Great Depression and the nativism that followed…white nativism. “The Republicans decided the way they were going to create jobs was by getting rid of anyone with a Mexican-sounding name,” former California state senator Joseph Dunn told The Atlantic. William Dill, President Hoover’s attorney general, instituted a “fast-moving, extralegal deportation process” that ran roughshod over due process rights.

The Mexican Repatriation:

From 1929-1936, between 400,000 – 1,800,000 residents of the U.S. were forcibly “repatriated” to Mexico, with county agents knocking on doors telling residents they had two weeks to get ready to go to Mexico and handing out train tickets. An estimated 60% of those deported were birthright citizens of the US. Also, without the media spotlight and citizen outrage that the the Trump Administration just faced trying to deport migrants seeking life-saving care, the LA Welfare Department successfully emptied hospitals and other institutions of patients of Mexican descent, leaving them to fend for themselves in Mexicali.

Because the forced removals were based on race, and frequently ignored citizenship status, some scholars argue the process meets modern legal definitions of ethnic cleansing. With federal support, the actual deportations were largely organized and carried out by city and state governments, often with support from local private entities, which also soundseerily modern.

“The raids tore apart families and communities, leaving lasting trauma for Mexican- Americans who remained in the U.S. as well. Former California State Senator Martha M. Escutia has said that growing up in East Los Angeles, her immigrant grandfather never even walked to the corner grocery store without his passport for fear of being stopped and deported. Even after he became a naturalized citizen, he continued to carry it with him.”

Legally, the repatriation program violated the rights of persons of Mexican ancestry in almost too many ways to mention. Violations of the U.S. Constitution, as well as international law, are clear-cut. The Due Process, Equal Protection, and Fourth Amendment rights of persons stopped, detained, and deported from the United States were sacrificed.

Oh, yeah, we did it again in 1954.

The next big deportation (and mass violation of due process) started in part because of the Bracero Program, which helped an estimated 4.6 million Mexicans to enter the country legally to work in California’s agriculture industry. More came without permission and found employers willing to hire them in south Texas, whose farmers had refused to join the program, and who getting getting their laborers to work for less wages.

Border Patrol head Harlon B. Carter—a convicted murderer who killed a Latino as a teenager in 1931 and who later headed the National Rifle Association (NRA) – (The acquisition of guns by violent criminals and the mentally ill is the “price we pay for freedom“). He was frustrated by the sheer numbers of Mexican immigrants, both legal and undocumented, in the United States and he convinced President Eisenhower to ramp up immigration enforcement efforts. In 1953, he tried to get the National Guard to help round people up, but, like the Trump administration, he came up against the prohibition against using the the U.S. military for domestic issues. (Trump wants to use the Insurrection Act to get around this issue.)

In 1954, Carter introduced the massive operation known as Operation Wetback, which was coordinated by General Joseph Swing, head of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. It was planned like a war strike, utilizing using military tactics as well as propaganda. Border Patrol agents and local officials engaged in a coordinated, tactical operation to remove anyone suspected of being here without documentation from as far away as Chicago.  “In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Carter promised sweeps of factories, farms and other workplaces, ending with the detention of undocumented workers in holding facilities to await deportation. It would be “the biggest drive against illegal aliens in history,” Carter told the paper. News of the raids terrified Latinos in the United States, many of whom remembered the wave of forced deportations in the 1930s.”

Operation Wetback resulted in the mass deportation of approximately 800,000 Mexican immigrants and Mexican-American citizens and resembled the repatriation in important respects, with both groups indiscriminantly rounded up and deported, leaving behind families wondering where they were. 

Operation Wetback “was lawless; it was arbitrary; it was based on a lot of xenophobia, and it resulted in sizable large-scale violations of people’s rights, including the forced deportation of U.S. citizens,” UCLA historian Kelly LytleHernandez told CNN in 2016. During INS raids, agents would demand that Mexican laborers display birth certificates proving citizenship and would deport them if they did not have these documents on their person. Draft cards or Social Security cards were not considered sufficient evidence. People were killed in the inhumane rush to “return” them to Mexico, including 88 workers who died when they were left in the back of a truck in 112-degree heat.

The final solution involved border patrol line agents negotiating “back room deals with employers and growers.” Their real goal was to force growers to stop using undocumented workers and hire legal Mexican “braceros.” What Mr. Trump may not know is that Operation Wetback massively expanded legal immigration, giving legal status to the workers that farmers needed. 

And again in 1997…

The militarization of the border that began in the 1990s has resulted in the deaths of hundreds, if not thousands, of people, almost all of Mexican ancestry. In the Chandler Roundup, local police, with the assistance of the U.S. Border Patrol, stopped, questioned, and detained persons of Mexican ancestry, including many U.S. citizens. In an effort to rid the area of undocumented immigrants; police staked out public places believed to be frequented by undocumented immigrants and questioned people who spoke Spanish, and who fit a crude profile of the undocumented immigrant. The incident reveals how persons of Mexican ancestry continue to be stereotyped as foreigners in the United States who are presumptively subject to the immigration laws. A political outcry followed, which led to various investigations and the promise by local not to engage in similar operations in the future. The lawsuits arising from the civil rights violations caused by the operation led to costly settlements.

Update: Arizona SB1070, a 2010 law requiring local law-enforcement officers to check the documentation of suspected illegal aliens, has been compared to the Chandler Roundup by critics who predict that the new law will lead to similar civil rights violations.

2001 – Then came 9/11 and “The War on Terror”.

(This section comes from this great article here. “The Forgotten Repatriation of Persons of Mexican Ancestry and Lessons for the War on Terror.”)

“The federal government’s response to September 11 demonstrates the close relationship between immigration law and civil rights in the United States. Historically, noncitizens have been the most vulnerable to civil rights deprivations because the law permits, if not encourages, extreme governmental conduct with minimal protection for the rights of noncitizens. Immigration history is filled with episodes that are considered today to constitute unfair treatment of certain groups of immigrants…Like the Mexican repatriation of the 1930’s, the incursions on civil rights in the name of fighting terrorism may have long term adverse impacts on the civil rights of U.S. citizens as well as immigrants in the United States. The measures generated great fear in the Arab and Muslim community, among both U.S. citizens and noncitizens. Hate crimes directed at Arabs and Muslims occurred at alarming rates, as passions ran high in the days immediately following September 11. 

Moreover, the security measures generated fear in and directly affected all immigrant communities and many minority communities. Today, immigration law disproportionately affects Latinos, the largest immigrant population in the United States. Consequently, the laws and policies put into place in the name of fighting terrorism have disproportionately affected Latino immigrants…Recent years have seen record levels of deportations, with 80-90 percent of those deported from Mexico and Central America, for immigration violations wholly unrelated to terrorism..

…The “war on terror” has come to dominate any debate over policy issues touching on immigration and immigrants. For example, a public discussion about the issuance of driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants in California became a debate about national security. 

In such times, as history has shown time and time again, the nation often has acted aggressively but mistakenly, frequently punishing minorities-in no small part because that tack was feasible politically and legally in ways that we as a society later regret. Years from now, we may look back on the days after September 11, 2001 in a way that we look today at the Alien and Sedition Acts, the Chinese exclusion laws, the Palmer Raids, the Japanese internment, the McCarthy and surveillance of Martin-Luther King Jr. and other civil rights activists in the 1960s.”

Historical side note..

In 2003, a class action was filed on behalf of those exiled to Mexico in the 1930’s, to remind Americans of the original repatriation, and to make a case for reparations similar to those paid to Japanese-Americans. The California legislature passed a bill to create a comission to document the history of the repatriation, but it was vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger.

…and more abuse in 2004. “The right to travel freely…”

“Several immigration raids of public places in Mexican immigrant and Mexican-American communities, struck fear in the hearts of many persons of Mexican ancestry. Latina/os regularly claim that immigration and other law enforcement officers engage in unlawful racial discrimination. Indeed, racial profiling has been sanctioned to a certain degree in immigration enforcement. In United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, the Supreme Court found that the immigration stop in question violated the Fourth Amendment because Border Patrol officers relied exclusively on “the apparent Mexican ancestry” of the occupants of an automobile.

The Court, however, further stated that “It]he likelihood that any given person of Mexican ancestry is an alien is high enough to make Mexican appearance a relevant factor” in an immigration stop.” What? (Video below is from an Arizona 4th amendment activist, Terry Bressi)

Operation Streamline – 2005

(Read the whole report here from No More Deaths)

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You’ve seen reports of mass hearings. Under Operation Streamline, magistrate judges conduct en-masse hearings during which up to 80 defendants (some of whom may be legal residents or citizens), may be tried simultaneously. As part of the  Department of Homeland Security “zero-tolerance” immigration enforcement zones along the U.S.-Mexico border, unauthorized migrants face criminal prosecution and potential prison sentences in addition to formal deportation and removal from the United States. “Operation Streamline” has drastically increased immigration prosecutions, making ‘Illegal Re-entry’ the most-commonly filed federal charge.

Being in the United States without proper documentation is a violation of immigration law ( 8 U.S.C. § 1325), – a CIVIL, not a criminal, matter. Prior to Operation Streamline, U.S. attorneys were able to exercise prosecutorial discretion, initiating civil deportation proceedings against most undocumented immigrants while reserving criminal charges for repeat entrants or those with criminal records. Now, unauthorized entrants are charged with criminal violations of federal law, facing prosecution for ‘Illegal Entry’ as well as ‘Illegal Re-entry’ if they have previously been deported, and are placed in the custody of our private prison system for a sentence of up to two years. 

Lawyers who may represent dozens of clients at a time, meeting with each one for only a few minutes before their court appearance. The entire criminal proceeding including initial appearance, plea and sentencing into a single day.

Advocates also worry that refugees are getting caught up in the Streamline system and being deported before they receive a “credible fear” interview, which is required by US and international law to determine whether they may seek asylum in the United States. Others are being imprisoned before a hearing, and may have to serve their prison term despite being eligible for asylum. After the prison term is completed and they are being processed for expedited removal, they are asked if they would like to request asylum and, if so, are scheduled for the credible fear interview. A 2015 report by the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General also raised this concern, arguing that putting asylum seekers through Streamline “may violate U.S. treaty obligations.”

“Operation Streamline violates the Constitution and threatens the rule of law in this country. The program’s accelerated, en masse hearings result in “assembly-line justice” that deprives migrants of procedural due process. Operation Streamline also jeopardizes the constitutional rights of U.S. citizens. If border district courts are allowed to cut procedural corners, that sets a precedent that will apply equally to U.S. citizens and non- citizens, nationwide – a precedent the Ninth Circuit recently described as “subversive.” In the words of Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Carolyn King, we “can’t have a rule of law for the southwest border that is different from the rule of law that obtains elsewhere in the country.”

Background on Expedited Removal

“Expedited removal . . . represented a dramatic assault on the due process rights . . . . [It grants] extraordinary and unprecedented power to low-level immigration officers to remove individuals without review and without a fair hearing.” – ACLU

It started in 1996...

(from AmericanImmigrationCouncil.org) “Created by the Illegal Immigration Reform and immigration Responsibility Act (IRAIRA), expedited removal is a process by which low-level immigration officers from the U.S Customs and Border Protection (CBP) can quickly deport certain noncitizens who are undocumented or have committed fraud or misrepresentation.

Under expedited removal processes, noncitizens are deported in a single day without an immigration court hearing or other appearance before a judge. CBP officers exclusively conduct the process, which is usually completed within a couple of hours, affording little to no opportunity for the noncitizen to collect evidence or consult with an attorney.

Since 2004, immigration officials have used expedited removal to deport individuals who arrive at our border, as well as individuals who entered without authorization if they are apprehended within two weeks of arrival and within 100 miles of the Canadian or Mexican border.

…and then Trump “super-sized” it!!!

As of July 23, 2019, the new rule means undocumented immigrants ANYWHERE in the U.S. who can’t prove they’ve lived in the country continuously for at least two years can be detained and deported without seeing an immigration judge or, advocates say, before they have the chance to find legal representation.

How is “Expedited removal” different from normal “removal” proceedings?

Expedited removal is substantially different from removal proceedings in immigration courts (8 U.S.C. § 1229a).There, an actual immigration judge hears the case and non-citizens may have an attorney represent them (at their own expense). They may apply for relief from removal, and are entitled to substantial due process protections.

Overview of the Expedited Removal Process.

After an CBP immigration enforcement officer comes in contact with the person believed to be eligible for expedited removal (arrests), this officer asks the person if he or she wants to apply for asylum or fears persecution or torture if returned to his/her home country.

  • If the person answers affirmatively, he or she is issued a Form M-444 Information About Credible Fear Interview and referred for a credible fear interview with a USCIS official.
  • If they are able to demonstrate to the officer that they have a credible fear of persecution or torture, they may no longer be subject to expedited removal, but go through a regular immigration hearing before a judge.
  • If the person answers negatively, or after the person answers positively but receives an unfavorable determination in the credible fear interview, the person is issued Form I-860 Notice and Order of Expedited Removal.
  • The person may now be physically removed from the United States.
  • An expedited removal order from the CBP officer cannot be appealed. However, it is possible to submit a challenge to the order to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection to reconsider an expedited removal order.

Problems with this system and questions we should be asking…

(Note: Ok, this particular section is for the wonks amongst you. For the TLDR crowd –  the takeaway is that people can be sent to their deaths from countries they were willing to risk their lives to leave, over procedural errors, and technical or clerical omissions, by people who have no legal training and who may be closet racists and xenophobes. All without oversight.)

  • The CBP officers-in-charge are neither lawyers, nor judges, but act as both. 
    • “[T]he deportation process can begin and end with a CBP officer untrained in the law. . . . There is no hearing, no neutral decision-maker, no evidentiary findings, and no opportunity for administrative or judicial review. This lack of procedural safeguards in expedited removal proceedings creates a substantial risk that noncitizens subjected to expedited removal will suffer an erroneous removal.” – Judge Pregerson
    • “The troubling reality of the expedited removal procedure is that a CBP officer can create the . . . charge . . . then that same officer, free from the risk of judicial oversight, can confirm his or her suspicions of the person’s intentions and find the person guilty of that charge. The entire process . . . can happen without any check on whether the person understood the proceedings, had an interpreter, or enjoyed any other safeguards.” – Court remark 2010
  • The abbreviated process increases the likelihood that a person who is not supposed to be subject to expedited removal—such as a U.S. citizen or LPR—will be erroneously removed. Moreover, individuals who otherwise would be eligible to make a claim for “relief from removal” (to argue they should be permitted to stay in the United States) may be unjustly deprived of any opportunity to pursue relief. For example, a witness or victim of a crime might be eligible for status but is prohibited from making such a claim in expedited removal proceedings.
  • A report by the Immigration Policy Center cited a number of attorneys as saying their clients were given misinformation by CBP about the credible fear process, with some even told that the US does not grant asylum to people from Mexico. Human Rights Watch has similarly claimed to find that CBP’s initial contact does not follow procedural guidelines, and that it was failing to flag for a credible fear interview many individuals who were seeking asylum
  • The CBP officers are not migrants’ friends – Laziness, errors, xenophobia and other issues which can get an asylum seeker deported. (Villanova.edu)
    • Secondary inspectors sometimes fail to provide  with crucial information about the proceedings against them and the possible availability of protection, including the I-867 A form (See page 176) in a language that the applicant understands. However, “In approximately half of inspections observed, inspectors failed to inform the alien of the information in that part of the script. Aliens who did receive this information were seven times more likely to be referred for a credible fear determination than those who were not.“
    • Inspectors sometimes fail to ask the mandatory questions designed to elicit information about possible claims of asylum, and orders expedited removal based on incomplete statements.
      • Whydidyouleaveyourhomecountryorcountryoflastresidence?
      • Do you have any fear or concern about being returned to your homecountry or being removed from the United States?
      • Would you be harmed if you are returned to your home country or country of last residence?
    • Contrary to requirements, individuals who express credible fear during a secondary inspection interview sometimes are not referred to an asylum officer, but rather are expeditiously removed.
    • During the interview, the inspector can review any documents an individual is carrying, but passengers arriving by sea or air are not allowed to retrieve documents from checked luggage.
    • Applicants cannot seek the help of a lawyer or assistance from friends or family during the interview. An applicant must verbally tell the office their story, a requirement that is especially problematic when, as is sometimes the case, the interview is conducted in a language that the applicant does not adequately understand.
    • Expedited removal laws expressly authorize secondary inspectors to deny admission to persons who arrive at an airport, seaport or land border without proper travel documents.
      • Genuine asylum seekers – who by definition are fleeing persecution based on race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group – disproportionately likely to find themselves in a secondary inspection interview.
      • The government that normally grants travel documents is the government from which they are fleeing. For such individuals, to seek travel documents, or to show authentic identifying documents to government officials, could be dangerous; accordingly, asylum seekers often do not carry any documents that would properly identify them. In addition, asylum seekers fleeingimminent harm may not have had time to obtain the usual documents. As a result, asylum seekers often come to the United States without valid travel documents, and hence such potential asylees become ensnared in the secondary inspection process.
    • Officers allow sworn statements to be signed without being verified
    • Officers fail to include important information conveyed by applicants
    • Officers fail to provide adequate interpretive assistance.
    • Supervisory Review of the Expedited Removal Process is ineffective.
    • Supervisors accept incomplete sworn statements
    • In some cases, there are no record document that any review was conducted.
    • Supervisory reviews are sometime conducted by unauthorize officials
    • Supervisors rely on inadequate telephonic review of records.
    • High-Level Managers and Supervisors have inexcusably confused the standard to be applied when applicants express fear in the secondary Inspections interview

Due process – Are we still a nation of laws?

  • Question: Does the U.S. Constitution apply to undocumented immigrants?
  • Answer: Yes. “Most of the provisions of the Constitution apply on the basis of personhood and jurisdiction in the United States.” – Cristina Rodriguez, a professor at Yale Law School.

4th Amendment – Right against unreasonable search and seizure

The Fourth Amendment establishes the right “against unreasonable searches and seizures.” While this law would generally apply to both citizens and noncitizens, there is a key caveat known as the “border search exception.” This exception dates back to the very first Congress, which passed a law allowing searchers at the border as a means to collecting duties. However, making the border everywhere is could become a problem for the president…

  • The Fourth Amendment’s requirement of a neutral judge prior to detention was the basis of successful litigation challenging ICE’s detainer practices.
  • The Court held in 1984 that the exclusionary rule did not apply in deportation proceedings, but confirmed that the Fourth Amendment applied.
  • The Court also has recognized “border exceptionalism” in the Fourth Amendment context.
  • The government’s interest may be at its “zenith” at the border, but that border cannot be stretched to cover every inch of the United States.
  • “Expedited removal itself raises major due process concerns because arrest, detention, being placed in expedited removal, and ultimately removal with a five-year ban on return, are all in the hands of executive agents. (Scholarly commons, pg. 1336)

5th Amendment – Right to due process

  • The Fifth Amendment states that “no person … shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”
    •  The issue of due process is at the heart of many immigration cases, including Reno v. Flores, the 1993 Supreme Court case that has returned to the spotlight with the surge in family separations. The case led to an agreement requiring the government to release children to their parents, a relative or a licensed program within 20 days. In the ruling, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote “it is well established that the Fifth Amendment entitles aliens to due process of law in deportation proceedings.”
    • In real life: The process of “expedited removal” was created by the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996. (IIRAIRA)

Sixth Amendment – Right to legal counsel

The Sixth Amendment states that “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall…have the assistance of counsel for his defense.” The Supreme Court ruled in the 1963 case Gideon v Wainwright that if a person is too poor to hire an attorney, the government must appoint one.Because most deportation proceedings are civil rather than criminal cases, the right to legal counsel often doesn’t apply. The Trump administration’s zero-tolerance policy now requires most illegal border crossings to be tried as criminal cases, the exception being parents who cross the border illegally with children. The head of Customs and Border Protection stated that the agency has stopped referring parents for prosecution. Other immigrants will still be charged with a crime.

Other issues to think about when writing your comments

Use the same argument:  Operation Streamline violates the Constitution and threatens the rule of law in this country and so does Expedited Removal. The program’s 1-day removals, deprives migrants of procedural due process and the constitutional rights of U.S. citizens. If courts are replaced with non-legal officers who are allowed to cut procedural corners, that sets a precedent that will apply equally to U.S. citizens and non-citizens, nationwide – a precedent the Ninth Circuit recently described as “subversive.” In the words of Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Carolyn King, we “can’t have a rule of law for the southwest border that is different from the rule of law that obtains elsewhere in the country.”

How does one prove the 2-year rule?: The proposed rule requires noncitizens to demonstrate they have lived in the U.S. for more than two years but does not explain what evidence will be considered adequate or whether people will be given time to gather the necessary documentation. Accordingly, the rule will lead to wrongful deportations, of both immigrants, legal residents and citizens, expulsion from the country without any meaningful process, and will violate people’s legal rights. Will all citizens need to carry documentation to be safe? (Video below – truth in jest. This should not be happening.)

“Give me your tired, your poor: This is the best part of America. When you run through our actual history, we can see, well, that we have a lot of room for improvement there. The people who are coming now are doing so because they want to be safe. They want their kids too be safe. Just like our people did.

We now know that people who are deported are being killed. Or dying, homeless,  in a place they’ve never been. Just like they said they would. Because of an arbitrary decision by some low level functionary. And by our President. Maybe he’s all talk about starting wars everywhere he looks. But there’s already blood on his hands.

History repeats itself: The rule permits the fast track removal of people without any consideration for their family ties, including those with U.S. citizen or green-card holder family members. Families will be ripped apart or forced to make impossible decisions to relocate to countries where they may have no resources, support networks, or may face unsafe conditions.

The rule removes safeguards provided by the courts and puts unchecked power to remove undocumented people who cannot prove that they have been in the United States for more than two years–or demonstrate a fear to return to their home country–into the hands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection officers. As a result, noncitizens and their family members will live in fear, afraid to go to work or school, seek medical attention when needed, or go to the police if they are survivors of domestic abuse or other crimes. The rule will also create an environment where undocumented immigrants and others may be targeted or racially profiled by U.S. government officials who can now more easily use their actual or perceived immigration status against them.

Immigrants rights are human rights and our country is committing human rights violations by not allowing refugees due process. Expedited removal violates the Fifth Amendment Due Process rights of people in the interior of the United States who have been living in the country for extended periods of time, who are entitled to meaningful process before removal from the country, and

Expanding expedited removal increases the likelihood of racial discrimination and abuses of power by immigration and border officials. Stop racist immigration policies.

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