Immigrants with temporary protections are on a fast road to deportation under Trump policy

By Oliver

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Immigrants with temporary protections are on a fast road to deportation under Trump policy

WASHINGTON — According to an internal memo, the Trump administration is giving immigration officers more authority to deport immigrants quickly, including those who were temporarily allowed into the country under parole authority during the Biden administration.

According to a memo issued Thursday by U.S. Department of Homeland Security Acting Secretary Benjamine Huffman, officials can attempt to cancel parole for immigrants who arrived in the country within the last two years, which the agency has the authority to do because parole is a discretionary immigration status. The parole granted those immigrants temporary legal status.

The New York Times was the first to report on the memo revoking parole status.

Such cancellation could result in quick deportation proceedings for those immigrants, which is now possible thanks to the separate reinstatement of a 2019 policy known as expedited removal this week.

President Donald Trump, who campaigned in 2024 on a promise to implement mass deportations, oversaw the policy during his first administration.

Immigrants without authorization anywhere in the country who are apprehended by federal agents must demonstrate that they have been in the United States for more than two years.

If they are unable to produce that proof, they will be deported without first appearing before an immigration judge.

The Trump administration’s policy is far broader than former President Joe Biden’s expedited removal policy. It was limited to 100 miles from the southern border and applied to undocumented immigrants who had to prove they had been in the country for at least 14 days.

According to immigration experts, the expedited removal process can endanger a large number of people, including American citizens.

According to Kathleen Bush-Joseph, an attorney at the Migration Policy Institute, expedited removal requires migrants to demonstrate their presence in the country for more than two years, legal status, or persecution claim.

“You could even have a lawful permanent resident or U.S. citizen mistakenly arrested or even deported because of how fast the procedure works.”

The CBP One app, which has been used by nearly 1 million asylum seekers to schedule appointments with U.S. officials, is one of the parole programs that could be affected by the Thursday memo. Those who used the app and have been in the United States for less than two years may face expedited deportation.

Another is the initiative that allowed approximately 530,000 people from Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Haiti to work and live in the US. It could also include people from Ukraine who have received parole.

Trump has frequently criticized the use of the programs, and on Monday he issued an executive order terminating parole for Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Haiti, as well as shutting down the CBP One app.

This means that immigrants who participated in those programs may face expedited removal.

Karen Tumlin, an attorney who challenged several immigration policies during the first Trump administration, described the recent memo as “very sweeping and quite unlawful.”

“I believe it is intended to clearly apply to (Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela) parolees. Tumlin, director of the immigration advocacy group Justice Action Center, said he still has many questions about how they do it. “I don’t believe it’s legally valid. “Certainly, we will not hesitate to challenge that in court.”

Because parolees are required to provide so much information in order to be approved, DHS can easily locate and prioritize them for removal, according to Bush-Joseph.

“So unlike people who have been living in the shadows, who the government doesn’t know that they exist, the government does know that these people exist, and knows where they live,” according to her.

The memo came after Huffman issued a separate directive on Thursday to expand immigration enforcement powers to several law enforcement agencies within the Department of Justice, including the U.S. Marshals, Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, and the Federal Bureau of Prison.

Expedited removal

During the first Trump administration, expedited removal was implemented in 2019, but due to legal challenges, the policy was only in effect for three months before Trump’s first term expired.

What’s different this time, according to Bush-Joseph, is that more people have been paroled into the country in the last two years, and there is no injunction blocking the 2019 notice’s implementation.

On Wednesday, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a new lawsuit in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, challenging the Trump administration’s return to the 2019 policy.

Anand Balakrishnan, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project and lead counsel on the case, said in a statement that the policy will fuel Trump’s promise of mass deportation.

“Expanding expedited removal would give Trump a cheat code to circumvent due process and the Constitution, and we are again here to fight it,” he told reporters.

In the first week of his second term, Trump also increased ICE enforcement. He revoked a memo that restricted immigration enforcement to so-called sensitive areas, such as schools, places of worship, hospitals, and funeral homes, among other social services and relief facilities.

On Thursday, ICE agents raided a business in Newark, New Jersey, and detained a US military veteran and several undocumented residents without a warrant, according to city officials.

Last updated at 4:02 p.m., January 24, 2025.

Wisconsin Examiner is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network funded by grants and a donor coalition that operates as a 501c(3) public charity. The Wisconsin Examiner maintains editorial independence.

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