04 Apr Immigration Enforcement Tactics Under Trump Raise Concerns Over Due Process

People held in a detention facility in the border town of McAllen, Texas, on June 17, 2018. (U.S. government, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

By Malcolm Marshall

Federal immigration authorities said in court papers filed March 31 that an “administrative error” caused the wrongful deportation of a Maryland man who was sent to a notoriously dangerous prison in El Salvador despite being a legal resident with protected status. He looks to be released and returned soon as a judge ruled Friday that Kilmar Abrego Garcia must be sent back to the U.S. by Monday. But he is just one of many caught up in the Trump administration’s aggressive anti-immigration push.

President Donald Trump returned to office, in part, because of a promise to make immigration enforcement a top priority. In the first two and a half months of his second term, he has followed through, with executive orders and presidential directives. However, enforcement has expanded beyond the presumed targets of criminal offenders and those who crossed the border illegally. Recent reports reveal that legal residents, visa holders and others are now ensnared in Trump’s immigration dragnet. Some have had their protected status revoked. Others have been deported to countries other than their own, raising concerns over the administration’s tactics.

To discuss sweeping immigration policy changes and fallout, American Community Media (formerly Ethnic Media Services) hosted a news briefing March 28. The speakers were Zenobia Lai, executive director of the Houston Immigration Legal Services Collaborative; Kira Romero-Craft of the Brennan Center for Justice; David Leopold, past president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association; Todd Schulte, president of FWD.us; and Martin Kim, director of immigration advocacy at AAJC in Southern California.

The Administration’s Three-Pronged Approach

Lai outlined what she called the administration’s three-pronged approach: Let no one in, kick everyone out, and shut the back door. “During the first day of this administration, there were like 26 executive orders issued, at least seven of them directly targeted immigration,” said Lai.

She said that in addition to declaring a national emergency, the Trump administration expanded the use of presidential war powers and directed military and federal law enforcement to prioritize immigration enforcement. Local law enforcement was also deputized through the expansion of Section 287(g) of the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act, allowing them to participate in immigration enforcement.

Lai outlined Trump’s decision to shut down an app that had been a crucial tool for asylum seekers. “That’s part of the ‘let no one in’ approach — shutting down the CBP One app, which was the only mechanism, even under the Biden administration, for asylum seekers to make an appointment at a port of entry to apply for asylum,” she said. The app was shut down on Inauguration Day.

>>>Read: Barbed Wire & Glitchy Phone App Stand Between Asylum Seekers and U.S.<<<

“People had waited for six months to finally get an appointment, and suddenly, all the appointments were canceled. Tens of thousands of people are now left lost and stuck on the other side of the border,” she added. Lai explained that the asylum ban, the construction of the border wall, the resumption of the Migrant Protection Protocol and the suspension of refugee resettlement all complete the first prong of the administration’s approach.

The ‘Kick Everyone Out’ Strategy

Next, Lai discussed the second part of the administration’s approach, “kick everyone out.” She said how the administration invoked the antiquated Alien Enemies Act of 1798, allowing for so-called extraordinary renditions, which immigration.laws.com defines as “a controversial practice used by some governments to transfer individuals from one country to another without undergoing a legal process.” This included rounding up Venezuelan nationals and sending them to El Salvador, expelling hundreds to Panama, where they were unlawfully detained in a hotel. From there, they were sent to a camp just north of the border.

“There’s litigation going on about the three planes that were sent to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act,” said Lai. “The government is using the state secret as a defense to not turn over immigration information.”

Lai also pointed out disturbing reports in recent weeks, where students who had voiced opinions about the war in Gaza were taken off the streets by immigration enforcement officers in plain clothes and masks. “Very scary tactics going on.”

Shutting the Back Door

Lai also by discussed the third tactic, “shut the back door,” which she said involves plans to decimate legal access, dismantle administrative agencies, and use scare tactics against safety net programs. It also includes extreme vetting, the DHS’s “Self-Deport” ad campaign, and efforts to hunt down unaccompanied children.

“There’s over a million people with temporary protected status,” said Lai. “Many of them are from Venezuela, Haiti and El Salvador. In many cases, these people have been living in the United States for decades. It’s clear in the statute that it’s not safe to return them to their home countries. This status gives people the ability to work and fully contribute to society, and that’s incredibly important.”

Parole Pathways and the Dangers of Stripping Protections

Schulte spoke about individuals with legal status and emphasized the importance of allowing them to retain it. He highlighted people who came to the U.S. through a parole pathway, a legal option created specifically for them by the government.

“What you saw, in an effort to take existing legal tools in a failed immigration system, was an effort in the last administration to use these parole pathways,” said Schulte. “Parole authority has gone back seven decades. It’s been used by every president of every single party, and it is an effort to provide people the ability to have deportation protection, to enter the country legally, and the ability to work while they’re here.”

Schulte said these parole efforts could offer a life-saving opportunity for people fleeing dangerous situations to come to the United States. “What you saw in 2023 was an effort to create [parole pathways] for Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela,” he said.

Schulte explained those parole pathways, as well as the CBP One pathways at the border, where instead of people crossing between ports of entry as the sole means to enter and apply for asylum, they could enter the U.S. and then subsequently apply for asylum. He stressed that these parole pathways have been a tremendous success.

“There are around 900,000 people, half a million of those people have this CHNV parole,” said Schulte. “The results of these programs were that people could come to the country in a safe and orderly fashion. Also, these people were vetted, sponsored by someone in the United States, and able to work.”

Schulte said these parole programs helped alleviate border pressure and played a critical role in creating legal pathways, which contributed to a significant drop in unauthorized border crossings. He added that these were the countries where the most people had previously attempted to cross between ports of entry, but now, in 2023 and 2024, more individuals without a legal pathway are showing up.

“So we, as a country, ask people to come in, and we are now stripping that status away,” he said. “And that’s absolutely the wrong approach.”

Due Process Erosion

Leopold spoke about the lack of due process as the administration uses old laws, like the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.

“I think the through line here with all of this…is about due process, and taking all of these complicated laws together is an abridgement and an encroachment, and ultimately, if we continue to let it go, a destruction of American due process, our core values as we’ve known them.”

Leopold gave context on the use of the Alien Enemies Act, explaining that it was last invoked during World War II, leading to the internment of Japanese Americans, both those of Japanese descent and citizenship. He said the act has a troubling history, one for which President Ronald Reagan later issued an apology. Now, it is being used for the first time in modern times, for what Leopold sees as a tool to fulfill a Trump campaign promise to remove Venezuelans gang members. He emphasized that the rhetoric used during the campaign is now being reflected in immigration policy.

“The reason due process is so horribly implicated here, is that it completely bypasses, it completely cuts off, circumvents the removal, administrative removal, deportation apparatus that we have,” he said. “The government has the obligation to prove its case. So if it’s a gang member or somebody who’s been convicted of a gang-related crime, they’ve got to prove the crime.”

Creating Fear and Confusion

Kim discussed the overwhelming impact of the administration’s tactics on immigrant communities, noting that the scope of these attacks and changes designed to sow fear and confusion.

“A lot of these tactics, the breadth and depth of these attacks on immigrant communities, the changes, they’re overwhelming. It’s hard for our community to keep up with these changes, and that’s deliberate. It’s meant to sow fear and confusion in immigrant communities across the U.S,” he said.

Kim also described ICE as a rogue agency. He said some of the tactics being used — like collateral arrests, in which authorities detain “undocumented people they coincidentally encounter while serving warrants for others,” according to ProPublica — have been used in the past but are escalating.

“They are taking away some of the restrictions. Immigration enforcement…does not care about due process, does not care about the rights of immigrants, but also does not care about the rights of citizens,” Kim said. “These tactics existed before the Trump administration, but we’ve really seen an escalation that has created fear and confusion in our communities.”