EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – President Trump vowed during his campaign to deport all criminal immigrants to make American communities safer.
Tren de Aragua and MS-13 gang members have been apprehended at the border and some caught committing crimes in the interior of the country are being prosecuted.
However, immigration advocates say most individuals illegally present in the country are not criminals. Their status may change if the Trump administration goes through with a proposed rule to criminally charge undocumented individuals who fail to register and allow themselves to be fingerprinted by the federal government.
“The administration is giving itself another tool to use against many immigrants, particularly the threat of criminal prosecution,” said Nayna Gupta, director of policy at the American Immigration Council. “This will force those who came in without inspection and have had no contact with the government for years a very hard choice. They either register as required and be subject to removal or not registering to avoid mass deportation but then be subjected to criminal prosecution.”
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem this week announced the administration will enforce a provision in the Immigration and Nationality Act compelling undocumented immigrants to leave the country voluntarily or else register with the government. Failure to register could result in a fine and jail time, she said.
The publication of an administrative rule is pending.
On Friday, immigrant advocates said the registry paves the way for Trump to say he’s deporting criminals.
“It’s not a crime to be in the U.S. without authorization. The only people who, by virtue of their presence here are committing a crime, are folks who have been deported and came back,” said David Leopold, former president and general council of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. “This registration is nothing but a hoax and a pretext to bootstrap criminal liability on folks who are hardworking.”
A practicing immigration attorney, Leopold said he’s seeing fear not only in the undocumented community but also among those who have legal immigration status, as they could be in violation of regulations for not carrying their documents. Also, when Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) goes to apprehend criminals, they could come across other undocumented. He calls this collateral damage.
“What is a collateral? It’s a grandmother sitting on her porch when ICE comes to do an arrest. It’s someone worked all day at a meat packing plant or in the fields, comes home and ICE happens to be next door,” he said.
The advocates called on immigrants lawfully here or not to be aware of their constitutional rights.
“For first time I’m giving ‘Know Your Rights’ presentations to major boards of huge healthcare systems and also to the nonprofit community.” Leopold said. “If we put it all together, it begins to resemble something that is not an open American cultural democracy; it becomes closer to a police state.”
The advocates also expressed skepticism that immigrants faced with the dilemma of the new registration rule will opt for self-deportation. Most have been in the United States for 15 years or more and are part of “mixed status” households with U.S.-born children or partners.