Access a recording of the virtual briefing HERE
Washington, DC — Last Friday, immigration experts held a press webinar to address facts surrounding Donald Trump’s deportation agenda. The discussion focused on the risks posed to immigrant communities, including individuals with Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), and the dangerous implications of Trump’s mass deportation agenda.
The experts discussed Trump’s claims about targeting “criminals” for deportation and explained how his policies would eliminate enforcement priorities, endangering all of us while also repurposing local police or even the military for immigration enforcement. For example, the speakers highlighted why focusing enforcement against those with “final orders of removal” is an imprecise term that does not equate to a focus on actual “criminal” bad actors and public safety threats. Speakers included:
David Leopold, former President of the American Immigration Lawyers Association and legal advisor to America’s Voice, said, “Trump’s mass deportation scheme will target the hard working immigrants who’ve been here for years, raised children, enriched the fabric of our communities but who are prevented from earning U.S. citizenship by Congress’s decades old failure to fix the immigration law. Trump talks tough about deporting violent criminals but, as we saw during his first four years in office, he’ll remove anyone he can get his hands on.”
David Bier, Director of Immigration Studies at the Cato Institute, said: “If you claim you’re prioritizing everyone, you’re deprioritizing the most serious offenders. This is exactly what we saw during four years of the first Trump administration: releasing convicted criminals, while detaining and arresting noncriminals.”
Angela Kelley, Chief Advisor at the American Immigration Lawyers Association and the American Immigration Council, said: “The 11 million living here without status have resided in the U.S. for an average of 16 years. Over two-thirds live with a U.S. citizen, such as a spouse or child. They are not accidental tourists. They have put down roots, not robbed banks. It is bad policy and harmful to the U.S. to conflate people with a criminal record with people who lack papers.”
Additional Resources:
- Read CATO’s recent paper, “New Data on Trump’s Border Security Record: Releasing Criminals to Jail Asylum Seekers,” which includes a table with government statistics showing why “criminal” is not a precise definition: “of those with criminal convictions, 48% were felons ((9,960+20,440)/63,200). It’s 37% of “criminals” when people with pending charges are included.”
