Alan Gomez , USA TODAY
The Department of Homeland Security issued a sweeping set of orders Tuesday that implement President Trump’s plan to increase immigration enforcement, placing the vast majority of the nation’s 11 million undocumented immigrants at risk of deportation.
The memos instruct all agents, including Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to identify, capture and quickly deport every undocumented immigrant they encounter.
The memos require undocumented immigrants caught entering the country to be placed in detention until their cases are resolved, increase the ability of local police to help in immigration enforcement, call for the hiring of 10,000 more immigration agents and allow planning to begin on an expansion of the border wall between the United States and Mexico.
The memos make undocumented immigrants who have been convicted of a crime the highest priority for enforcement operations. But they make clear that ICE agents should also arrest and initiate deportation proceedings against any other undocumented immigrant they encounter.
“Department personnel have full authority to arrest or apprehend an alien whom an immigration officers has probable cause to believe is in violation of the immigration laws,” one memo read. “They also have full authority to initiate removal proceedings against any alien who is subject to removal under any provision of the (Immigration and Nationality Act).”
A Homeland Security official who briefed reporters Tuesday said that deportation protections President Obama granted in 2012 to undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children will continue to be honored so long as those immigrants abide by the rules of the program. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss details of the memos.
More than 750,000 undocumented immigrants are eligible for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program (DACA).
The also orders detail a broad plan to keep undocumented immigrants caught crossing the southwest border from making it to the interior of the U.S. They call for detaining all of them until their cases are resolved.
Currently, many undocumented immigrants are processed by immigration agents, released around the country and ordered to reappear for court hearings. The memos seek to end that practice, known as “catch and release,” by ordering the construction of more jails along the southwest border to house detained immigrants until their cases are resolved.
The new directives also allow Customs agents to send some people directly back to Mexico, whether they’re Mexican or not. Under previous administrations, people from Mexico and Canada could be deported directly back home. But people from all other countries, such as from Central America, had to detained until they could be flown back to their country of origin.
The memos do not mention the idea of using National Guard troops along the southwest border, as reported by several media outlets last week.