Trump’s Justice Department Is Moving to Make It Easier to Deport DACA Recipients |
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The Trump administration is continuing its attacks on DACA, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, that has given deportation relief and work permits to immigrants who came to the United States as children. The Board of Immigration Appeals — an administrative court within the Justice Department — recently ruled that DACA status is not enough to spare someone from deportation, a decision that sets a precedent potentially putting hundreds of thousands of people at risk.
Democratic Congressmember Delia Ramirez from Illinois, whose husband is a former DACA recipient, calls the BIA decision “very concerning” and part of a larger effort “weaponizing the court system” against immigrants. She says Congress must act and pass legislation to end the legal limbo of DACA recipients and millions of other immigrants.
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show with Trump’s repeated attacks on DACA. That’s the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which has granted deportation relief and work permits to an estimated half a million immigrants who came to the United States as children. The targeting of people with DACA has intensified under Trump’s second term, with nearly 300 DACA recipients detained last year. Of that group, at least 174 have been deported, many after living nearly all their lives in the United States.
María de Jesús Estrada Juárez is among them. She came to the U.S. at the age of 15 and had been living here in the United States for over 20 years when the Trump administration detained her in February despite having DACA. She was taken during her green card appointment and deported to Mexico within 24 hours. A judge later deemed her deportation illegal and ordered her returned to the United States in March. Juárez spoke to PBS News from her home in California earlier this month.
DHS Attacks DACA Recipients, Tells Them to Self-Deport
MARÍA DE JESÚS ESTRADA JUÁREZ: We show up to the appointment at USCIS in Sacramento. We walk into the office. We have my interview. At the end of my interview, the agent, the interview agent, asked — told me that he needed to speak to his supervisor. And sooner than I know, they knock on the door, and I got arrested. And I was told that I was being detained and I was going to get deported back to Mexico. … I know that the deferred action, DACA, it protects people that were brought into the country when they were children, from deportation. That’s what the DACA program was created for.
MARÍA DE JESÚS ESTRADA JUÁREZ: We show up to the appointment at USCIS in Sacramento. We walk into the office. We have my interview. At the end of my interview, the agent, the interview agent, asked — told me that he needed to speak to his supervisor. And sooner than I know, they knock on the door, and I got arrested. And I was told that I was being detained and I was going to get deported back to Mexico. … I know that the deferred action, DACA, it protects people that were brought into the country when they were children, from deportation. That’s what the DACA program was created for.
AMY GOODMAN: DACA was enacted by the Obama administration in 2012 and has been at the center of ongoing contentious litigation, with advocates worried about the program’s future.
Well, a new decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals — that’s BIA — may make it easier for the Trump administration to continue deporting DACA recipients. The new precedent decision by a three-judge panel outlined that DACA no longer guarantees protection from deportation for hundreds of thousands of people in the program. The BIA operates within the Department of Justice. The decision came in the case of Catalina “Xóchitl” Santiago, a DACA recipient and longtime immigration rights advocate who was released from an ICE jail last October after about two months in detention.
For more, we go to Capitol Hill, where we’re joined by Congressmember Delia Ramirez. She is a Democrat from Illinois, fighting to bring legislation to the floor to protect DACA. Her husband is a former DACA recipient himself. Congressmember Ramirez is the daughter of Guatemalan immigrants.
Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Congressmember Ramirez. If you can talk about the significance of the BIA decision and, overall, the Trump administration deporting over a hundred DACA recipients?
REP. DELIA RAMIREZ: Look, this decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals is a very concerning decision, because, as you just mentioned, Deferred Action for Children Arrivals, the purpose of that was to protect these children from being deported. And the idea that now 500,000 or so DACA recipients who’ve had deferred action are now at the whelm or concerned that if they get, in fact, stopped, or if they go in to a check-in or some sort of procedure with immigration, that they, too, can now be deported, should be concerning all of us.
These are folks that have been here — Amy, you know this — since they were 2 or since they were 14, like my husband. They don’t know any other world, any other country than the United States of America. And all of a sudden, that deferred action, that protection that was afforded through this program, no longer applies, because of this panel of three judges who are ruling under whatever Donald Trump wants them to do.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Representative, The Washington Post is reporting that, quote, “More than 140 new ‘deportation judges’ have been appointed following the DOJ’s firings of … 100 immigration judges since Trump took office.” Your view of how Trump is trying to completely remake the immigration judicial system?
REP. DELIA RAMIREZ: Look, he’s weaponizing the court system. He is firing judges for doing their job, for practicing what they have taken on in their oath as a judge, following procedure, and then he’s replacing them. You know, one would call to question the judges who are more concerned with being loyal to the president so they can keep their job than actually following the law that they swore to upkeep. That’s really concerning.
Look, I’ve done a number of court visits to monitor what’s happening in the courtrooms, and oftentimes what you’re seeing is judges who are just rushing through cases, especially these merit cases, so that they can speed up these deportations of people seeking refuge in this country. It calls to question: What does our Department of Justice system truly look like when there is no justice? Because now you’re hiring judges who are loyal to the president and not loyal to the law.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: At the same time, though, there was a federal appeals court ruling in Washington, D.C., that President Trump’s claims that there’s an invasion of the United States as a reason for shutting down asylum requests at the U.S.-Mexico border, that court has ruled that that’s unlawful. I’m wondering your response, given the fact that Trump issued that proclamation on his first day back in office.
REP. DELIA RAMIREZ: Yeah, no, look, first, I want to tell you, judges and the courts are in a really difficult position right now. I mean, you’re talking about immigration judges who have been serving for 15, 20, 25 years now being called to question because they are following the law. They’re following the procedure that’s been put in place by this Congress — right? — by the Constitution. And so, when you hear the president use “invasion,” or the Department of Homeland Security this guise of protecting us from domestic terrorism, to be able to shoot people or justify the shooting of Alex Pretti or Renee Good or Silverio Villegas, you know that we have entered dangerous, dangerous territory.
At the same time, I have to make sure, Juan, that I say this clearly: This Congress also has a responsibility. We’ve had the Dream and Promise Act here for a number of years, and we have not been able to pass it through both chambers. Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley just recently used a discharge petition process to be able to extend protections for TPS holders from Haiti. We have to do the same thing here in Congress to finally bring the Dream and Promise Act to the floor to be able to bring the protections to these DACA recipients that should have already had a pathway to citizenship a long time ago.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I also wanted to ask you about a particular immigration facility, the ICE North Lake facility in Baldwin, Michigan. There’s a hunger and labor strike going on there by the detainees. Could you talk about what you know about that and what you’re calling for?
REP. DELIA RAMIREZ: Look, as you know, it’s been very difficult for members of Congress to conduct these oversight visits. In many cases, they continue to say, “You need to send an email.” They’ve denied entrance, which, again, is violation — right? — of the authority that’s been afforded to us through the appropriations process.
What is happening there is unconscionable. I have a bill to “Melt ICE.” And what it does, in fact, is ends detention. What you’re seeing around the country, whether it’s the conditions that children are being treated inside detention, and families and individuals, what is in their food, the conditions that they’re sleeping in in these private detention centers, we have to address it. It’s why this bill is so important to me. And we’re calling more members of Congress to join it. It ends detention, it disrupts enforcement, and then redirects all those billions of dollars used for private detention to really incarcerate people in these, what feel like, concentration camps, back into the communities that have been impacted by ICE enforcement. It’s why we call the bill the “Melt ICE” bill.
But we should all be looking at doing more oversight at these facilities, especially these private facilities that get to do whatever they’d like so that they can maximize their profit. And in many cases, you have seen the corruption between employees of DHS and the contracts afforded to these detention facilities.
AMY GOODMAN: Congressmember Delia Ramirez, as we begin to wrap up, you have motioned to subpoena the White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, White House border czar Tom Homan to answer questions before the House Committee on Homeland Security. What do you want to ask them? And is this going to go forward in a Republican House?
REP. DELIA RAMIREZ: Look, Amy, they’re trying to shove a reconciliation bill down our throat in the House of Representatives to get authority for over $140 billion, although they’re saying that they only need to appropriate $70 billion, but they want authorization for $140 billion. The idea that Tom Homan and Stephen Miller, the architects of these operations, have not come before the committee of jurisdiction is unconscionable. I mean, that is part of the process and responsibility. You’re asking for more money. You won’t even respond to us about the things that have happened with the money that you have already been afforded.
And so, I’m going to continue to push for a subpoena. Democrats are going to continue to push back. It is our responsibility. Because how do you ask for more money without actually coming before the committees and responding on the questions of corruption, of shootings, of the fact that you have agents who have been weaponized around the country, harming people, children, people dying in detention? And the list goes on, which is why I’m going to continue to ask for that subpoena. And Garbarino should do his job as the chair of Homeland Security to demand that these members of the Cabinet, Tom Homan, come before the committee, if they have nothing to hide, to come to respond to the committee.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, very quickly, President Trump is trying to use the attempted attack on the White House correspondents’ dinner to end the Democratic congressmembers’ hold on money for ICE, saying that, you know, from Secret Service to TSA, it’s affected them. Your response?
REP. DELIA RAMIREZ: Look, let me be very clear: Secret Service is part of law enforcement, and they have never not been paid. While TSA agents have not been paid, administrative positions within DHS have not been paid, the Secret Service continues to get paid even during the shutdown. The president, as always, continues to try to spew misinformation in order to get away with what he wants — his ballroom or no oversight or to continue to operate as if there are no other coequal branches of government. But, it’s really important for me to note, the Secret Service continues to get paid. Their funding has not been interrupted.
AMY GOODMAN: Congressmember Delia Ramirez of Chicago, fighting to bring a bill to the floor to protect DACA. Her husband was a DACA recipient himself.
Coming up, as we broadcast from Toronto, we’ll speak to Avi Lewis, recently elected head of the NDP, the New Democratic Party, after campaigning on a platform embracing ecosocialism and expanding publicly funded projects. Stay with us.
AMY GOODMAN: “These Stars Collide” by Mourning [A] BLKstar.
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Amy Goodman is the host and executive producer of Democracy Now!, a national, daily, independent, award-winning news program airing on more than 1,100 public television and radio stations worldwide. Time Magazine named Democracy Now! its “Pick of the Podcasts,” along with NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Juan González co-hosts Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman. González has been a professional journalist for more than 30 years and a staff columnist at the New York Daily News since 1987. He is a two-time recipient of the George Polk Award.