Snyder: Trump’s mass deportation policy is taking American democracy with it

2025/12/18 Leave a comment

Uncomfortable but valid parallel with the rise of the Nazis:

…It was foreseeable that U.S. President Donald Trump would seek to exploit such violence. He announced his intention to target “Third World countries,” and blamed all of America’s problems on migrants. He expressed his desire to deport millions of people and to strip citizenship from Americans whom he deems incompatible with “Western civilization.”

For the Nazis, the mass deportations and pogrom of 1938 were steps toward creating a centralized national police agency. In the U.S., something similar is unfolding with Immigration and Customs Enforcement: initially tasked to carry out deportations, ICE has taken on espionage roles and been reinforced by the National Guard. In these respects, it is becoming something like a national police force, with ideological propaganda and links to the armed forces. 

In one way, mass deportations and Kristallnacht advanced the consolidation of the Nazi regime. But this kind of instability was unpopular in Germany – much as ICE raids are unpopular in U.S. cities. The radical next steps were possible only under cover of war. For Mr. Trump, starting a war with Venezuela (or someone) would be the next logical move in advancing regime change at home. It is not hard to see that Mr. Trump understands this, given his escalating provocations since the U.S. began attacking alleged drug smugglers in the Caribbean. 

The past never repeats, but it does instruct. The people who want authoritarianism in America know that seizing on the emotions associated with political belonging can lead to turmoil and regime change. And the people who want democracy in America can see the pattern and, by naming it, take the crucial first step toward bringing the process to a halt. 

Source: Trump’s mass deportation policy is taking American democracy with it

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Chris Selley: Upset about the state of Canada? Why not pretend it’s better? [non-deportation of immigrants accused of sexual abuse]

2025/12/04 Leave a comment

Agree, risk of losing immigration status should not be a “get out of jail” card except in extremely rare circumstances:

Again in theory, that should include a 47-year-old non-citizen, living in Bradford, Ont., who recently pleaded guilty to various charges with respect to sexually abusing a young girl — including once when he was on bail for charges of sexually abusing the same girl, whom he reportedly impregnated twice when she was no older than 13. News outlet BarrieToday reports the accused was at one point during his trial “permitted an adjournment to explore the effect his eventual guilty pleas would have on his immigration status.”

Which is, obviously, insane.

Because this is Canada, however, and we can’t ever let anything be simple, the 47-year-old’s immigration status has become something of a controversy in Ottawa.

I don’t have empirical data before me, but I suspect deportation would not strike most Canadians as an intemperate or unjust punishment for Mr. 47-year-old Child-Impregnator from Bradford. It’s neither lenient nor draconian; it’s just common sense. It’s pretty hard to get a six-month sentence in this country, after all. The absolutely vast majority of Canadians, regardless of where they’re born, manage to avoid imprisonment for their entire lives, and they hardly even have to break a sweat avoiding it. I think that’s a reasonable expectation of immigrants as well.

Alas, some of us don’t like this rule, or at least we feel honour-bound not to like it. It’s just so terribly unfancy, if not downright American-style. Judges and Liberals seem to suffer from this disproportionately. So what judges have been doing, in certain cases, is discounting the sentences non-permanent residents are handed, rather than bringing those immigration consequences down upon an offender’s and his family’s heads.

This has been widely reported. It’s not some kind of conspiracy theory. But some of us seem to have great trouble admitting it (perhaps because it’s so obviously inappropriate). In August, Radio-Canada ran an article headlined “Conservatives say the justice system favours non-citizens. Experts disagree.” Only Radio-Canada’s experts didn’t actually disagree; they mostly just seemed to object to the notion that one sentence might be compared to another to begin with, as opposed to each being considered a standalone, perfectly honed diamond of wisdom.

When (a judge) is considering a sentence, they can’t be blind to the fact that this person is not a naturalized Canadian, is still an immigrant and therefore will have additional consequences as a result of the sentence,” a Toronto immigration lawyer told Radio-Canada — which was, of course, the whole question, and it’s not a rhetorical one. Can judges be blind to that? Should they?

The Conservatives, led by immigration critic Michelle Rempel Garner, want to make a law that says no: Judges wouldn’t be allowed to consider immigration consequences in handing down sentences, such as against that creep from Bradford, Ont. In the unlikely event I were advising the Liberals, I would suggest agreeing to support that law as quickly and enthusiastically as possible….

Source: Chris Selley: Upset about the state of Canada? Why not pretend it’s better?

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Globe editorial: Crime and punishment, and deportation

2025/11/27 Leave a comment

Agreed, important to public support of immigration:

…It is a deeply Canadian impulse to emphasize second chances, rehabilitation, and mercy. Yet does anyone ask whether Canadians would want these offenders as citizens? Hasn’t Parliament already pronounced on that issue?

We would not remove all discretion at this point. It would be harsh treatment in certain cases for permanent residents who have been here decades, or young special-needs people deserving of empathy. But judges need to abide by and enforce the rules Parliament has set out for newcomers and permanent residents, and stop skewing the results.

Source: Crime and punishment, and deportation

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Almost 600 foreign nationals with criminal records due to be deported are missing, CBSA says

2025/07/30 Leave a comment

Will likely not contribute to perception of government managing immigration, along with related broader issues of removals and visa overstays:

Canadian border agents are trying to track down almost 600 foreigners with criminal records who are due to be deported but have gone missing – 431 of whom have been found guilty of serious crimes such as sexual assault.

Figures from the Canada Border Services Agency show that 1,635 foreign nationalsguilty of committing crimes in Canada are currently facing deportation, but 599 of them have failed to attend deportation proceedings and have been placed on the agency’s “wanted” list. 

Of those 599, 315 have been evading deportation for more than three years. Another 46, according to CBSA figures obtained by The Globe and Mail, have been evading the authorities for more than two years. 

Of the foreign nationals due to be deported, 401 are serving a prison sentence and must leave the country after they get out of custody. …

Source: Almost 600 foreign nationals with criminal records due to be deported are missing, CBSA says

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How the Supreme Court Made Legal Immigrants Vulnerable to Deportation

2025/06/02 Leave a comment

The US keeps on making it harder to justify maintaining the STCA:

The government knows their names.

Their fingerprints have been scanned into government computers. The Department of Homeland Security knows where most of them live, because the immigrants in question — more than 500,000 of them — reside in the United States legally.

But two new Supreme Court decisions have left them open to deportation, an abrupt turn for a population that has been able to remain in the country by using legal pathways for people facing war and political turmoil at home.

“Thousands of people — especially Haitians, Cubans and Venezuelans — instantly shift from ‘lawfully present’ to ‘deportable,’” said Jason Houser, a former official with Immigration and Customs Enforcement during the Biden administration.

Now, with their protections revoked while legal challenges move through lower courts, many immigrants have found themselves in a vulnerable position. Because so many of them have shared detailed information with the government, including addresses, biometrics and the names of their sponsors, they could be easy to track down at a moment when the Trump administration is looking for ways to deport people quickly.

Whether and how aggressively the administration might move to begin rounding up people whose legal protections have been revoked remains unclear, though officials signaled several months ago that they feel they have the authority to do so.

“It’s chaotic and unnecessary, and we’re already receiving panicked calls and emails, and the crescendo will only grow,” said Karen Tumlin, founder and director of Justice Action Center, an immigrant advocacy group that has challenged last week’s rulings in court.

“The Supreme Court has effectively greenlit deportation orders for an estimated half a million people, the largest such de-legalization in the modern era,” she said.

The Supreme Court acted in both cases on emergency applications by the Trump administration, which has pushed for more arrests and deportations, even for people who are in the United States legally. The administration argues that some immigration programs are being abused and allow people into the country who would otherwise be turned away.

The court gutted two such programs in the last couple of weeks, humanitarian parole and Temporary Protected Status, which together have shielded more than a half-million people from deportation. The decisions were unsigned and gave no reasoning, which is typical of emergency proceedings….

Source: How the Supreme Court Made Legal Immigrants Vulnerable to Deportation

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Trump Promises To Deport Immigrants For Their Foreign Policy Views

2025/03/14 1 Comment

Litigation to watch:

The Trump administration’s attempt to deport a lawful permanent resident protest leader may raise significant First Amendment issues. Arresting an immigrant who was a leader in pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University has ignited controversy over the U.S. government’s deportation policies and their potential use to stifle dissent. Donald Trump has promised additional arrests, writing on Truth Social, “We will find, apprehend, and deport these terrorist sympathizers from our country—never to return again.

The Arrest Of An Immigrant Protester

On March 8, 2025, Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a lawful permanent resident who graduated from Columbia University in December. Khalil was among the student leaders of Columbia University Apartheid Divest.

“His lawyer, Amy Greer, said the agents who took him into custody at his university-owned home near Columbia initially claimed to be acting on a State Department order to revoke his student visa,” reported the Associated Press. “But when Greer informed them that Khalil was a permanent resident with a green card, they said they would revoke that documentation instead.” According to the AP, Khalil was born in Syria and is being detained in Louisiana at an immigrant detention center.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted on X: “We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported.”

“According to a White House official, the Department of Homeland Security started looking for individuals at Columbia University based on Trump’s January antisemitism executive order,” reported the Wall Street Journal. “The White House official said the department found Khalil had participated in ‘pro-Hamas rallies’ and in distributing fliers. The agency presented the information to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who personally signed off on revoking his legal status.”

On March 10, 2025, in the Southern District of New York, U.S. District Judge Jesse M. Furman ordered, “To preserve the Court’s jurisdiction pending a ruling on the petition, Petitioner [Mahmoud Khalil] shall not be removed from the United States unless and until the Court orders otherwise.”

Using Foreign Policy Grounds To Deport Immigrants Who Protest

According to CNN, the Trump administration plans to arrest and deport individuals using foreign policy grounds. Under the law, “An alien whose presence or activities in the United States the Secretary of State has reasonable ground to believe would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States is deportable.” (Section 237(a)(4)(C)(i) of the Immigration and Nationality Act.)

Trump seemed to confirm that provision would be used when he wrote on Truth Social: “If you support terrorism, including the slaughtering of innocent men, women, and children, your presence is contrary to our national and foreign policy interests, and you are not welcome here.” (Emphasis added.)

An exception in the law is that an alien shall not be excluded or deported “because of the alien’s past, current, or expected beliefs, statements, or associations, if such beliefs, statements, or associations would be lawful within the United States, unless the Secretary of State personally determines that the alien’s admission would compromise a compelling United States foreign policy interest.”

In a deportation proceeding, that exception can be overcome by a letter from the Secretary of State. “A letter from the Secretary of State conveying the Secretary’s determination that an alien’s presence in this country would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States, and stating facially reasonable and bona fide reasons for that determination, is presumptive and sufficient evidence that the alien is deportable under section 241(a)(4)(C)(i) of the Act, and the Service is not required to present additional evidence of deportability,” according to Matter of Ruiz-Massieu, decided as amended June 10, 1999, in the U.S. Department of Justice Executive Office for Immigration Review Board of Immigration Appeals.

“I do not think one can challenge Secretary Rubio’s determination in an immigration court that the noncitizen’s presence or activities in the United States would have potentially adverse foreign policy consequences described in the letter,” said immigration attorney Cyrus Mehta. “On the other hand, the very constitutionality of the provision may be challenged in the Court of Appeals after the noncitizen has received a removal order under First Amendment principles and their ties to the United States.”

Mehta believes a lawful permanent resident would have the best chance to challenge the law, but a temporary visa holder could succeed, particularly an H-1B and L-1 visa holder. Those visas are dual intent, and the individuals can show ties to the United States.

Temporary visa holders who believe they could be targeted for their foreign policy views might be careful about leaving the United States since Trump administration officials would consider it easier to refuse a visa or deny entry (at a port of entry) than to place an individual in deportation proceedings.

Mehta notes that a lawful permanent resident seeking readmission from a trip abroad who is placed in removal can assert the burden is on DHS to establish through clear and convincing evidence that the individual is inadmissible. However, the burden is on a temporary visa holder to establish they are entitled to admission clearly and beyond doubt.

The Trump administration may use other grounds, such as support for a terrorist organization, to attempt deportation of individuals involved in protests. That may be challenging if the administration is unable to establish some link or coordination with the terrorist organization and the individual who is being deported.

Source: Trump Promises To Deport Immigrants For Their Foreign Policy Views

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Ahead of Day 1, Trump’s Team Works to Temper Expectations on Immigration

2025/01/20 Leave a comment

Reality. But still expect degree of “shock and awe.” Risks disappointing base and perhaps reducing some anxiety given contrast between rhetoric and action:

President-elect Donald J. Trump vowed throughout his campaign to carry out the “largest deportation program in American history,” including a “Day 1” effort to send millions of immigrants “back home where they belong,” and putting “no price tag” on the effort.

But as he transitions from the campaign to the White House, Mr. Trump’s team is encountering a harsh reality of immigration policy: Easier said than done.

In public remarks and private conversations with members of Congress, Mr. Trump’s immigration team has conceded that his aspirations for mass deportations will be both costly and time-consuming.

Stephen Miller, the architect of Mr. Trump’s immigration agenda and his pick to be deputy chief of staff, met with congressional Republicans on Wednesday for a “level setting” of expectations and needs for immigration enforcement, according to a congressional member who participated in the meeting.

Tom Homan, Mr. Trump’s pick to oversee the deportations, has told Republicans to expect a phased approach that first prioritizes those with a criminal record, rather than a national sweep of any immigrant with uncertain or contested legal status. And he has made clear there is, indeed, a price tag for the efforts, saying they will need Congress to approve billions of additional dollars to carry them out.

That is a tall order on Capitol Hill, where Republicans hold slim majorities and Democrats are all but certain to oppose the funding of a mass deportation effort. Some lawmakers expect that after an initial wave of deportations of those easiest to remove, Mr. Trump will spend the rest of his time in office haggling with Congress over money for more.

“Congress needs to fund this deportation operation,” Mr. Homan told Fox Business in December. “It’s going to be expensive, and everybody is focused on how expensive it’s gonna be.”

Mr. Trump will still find ways to call attention to his early efforts to crack down, such as spotlighting deportations in Democratic-led cities or work site raids in the first days of his presidency. While appearing on Donald Trump Jr.’s podcast in November, Mr. Homan said the public should expect immigration action that creates “shock and awe.”…

Source: Ahead of Day 1, Trump’s Team Works to Temper Expectations on Immigration

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CBSA lost track of nearly 30,000 people wanted for deportation orders

2024/12/12 Leave a comment

Sigh….

Nearly 30,000 individuals wanted for deportation are currently at large in Canada, newly-released documents suggest.

In a response to an order paper question filed by Fort McMurray-Cold Lake MP Laila Goodridge on deportation cases currently before the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), 29,731 people are listed as “wanted” by immigration authorities — described as those who failed to appear for deportation proceedings, including those with immigration warrants issued against them.

The vast majority — 21,325 — went missing from Ontario, the largest cohort of immigration absconders in the country.

As Canada’s affordability crisis, plus threats of punitive tariffs from U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, has the federal government rethinking Canada’s problematic and ineffective border policy, the Trudeau Liberals’ plans on slowing Canada’s record population growth and tightening our immigration space involves relying on the voluntary departure of nearly 2.4 million people over the next two years.

In October, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced plans to cut the number of permanent residents coming into Canada from current targets of 500,000 — down to 395,000 next year and 380,000 by 2026.

According to the newly-released data, there are 457,646 people in various stages of being deported from Canada as of Oct. 21 — 27,675 people are listed in the “working” category, or those in the final stages of the removal process; 378,320 people being “monitored,” or those awaiting refugee status decisions, pending permanent status resident or facing “unenforceable” removal orders; 20,921 people granted a stay from removal proceedings; and 29,730 who were ordered removed but their location isn’t known.

After Ontario, Quebec saw the most people wanted by the CBSA with 6,109, followed by 1,390 in British Columbia, 705 for Alberta, and between 0 and 100 for other provinces and territories.

Of those who have already been successfully deported,  Mexicans represent the largest number, with 7,622 people.

That’s followed by 3,955 Indians, 1,785 Americans, 1,516 people from China, 864 from Pakistan, 858 Nigerians and 794 Colombians.

Source: CBSA lost track of nearly 30,000 people wanted for deportation orders

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Semotiuk: Deporting 11 Million U.S. Undocumented Immigrants: Mission Impossible

2024/07/23 Leave a comment

Indeed:

Recently, America’s Voice, a pro-immigration NGO, spoke up about the ramifications of former President Donald Trump’s plan to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants. “It means detention camps full of immigrants waiting to be removed. This would affect all undocumented people living in the US, even those who have lived here for decades.” It added, “The moral cost to the country would be unimaginable. It would also lead to economic disaster. The cost to deport 11 million people would come to more than $265 billion. The deportation of every 1 million immigrants would cause an estimated 88,000 American job losses. We would lose trillions in immigrant taxes, economic contributions, and payments into Social Security and Medicare.”

Legally Speaking

Legally speaking, the complications of such an endeavour have been summarized as follows: “Even undocumented immigrants in America have certain constitutional rights, particularly those who have been here for longer periods of time. For example, longer-term noncitizens are entitled to the right to counsel, albeit at their own expense. They are also protected by at least the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment rights to due process. These immigrants also have other legal protections.

These constitutional rights mean that removing illegal immigrants from America would require legal hearings in courtrooms. In addition to considering the rights of the defendants, this would create a logistical nightmare, tying up the courts from dealing with other substantive issues. Judges, prosecutors, defence counsel as well as the persons concerned would all have to coordinate their calendars to schedule mutually agreeable dates for hearings before illegal immigrants could be deported. If you multiply this by some millions of cases, you have a better idea of why legally removing these immigrants from America is going to take a long time and will be very expensive.” What is more, trying to do it without respecting these legal rights essentially involves converting America into a dictatorship and is, therefore, unacceptable.

Other Consequences

But one other consequence of all this has not been considered: its impossibility and the likely destabilization of other states if it were done.

At least 15 countries that will not accept the return of their nationals due to deportation. These include China, India, and Russia, for example. Indeed, it can be anticipated that as many as 150 countries will refuse the return of large numbers of their nationals from the U.S. Trump’s threats to cut American aid to them may work on some, but few, and certainly not on most. Thus, the proposal becomes impossible to implement.

Case In Point: Mexico

Special problems arise in the case of Mexico. Over four millionundocumented Mexicans live in the United States. When added to the problem of the flow of hundreds of thousands of migrants seeking to enter the U.S. through Mexico, the addition of four million returning Mexicans would be overwhelming for the country. There is no guarantee of cooperation in this venture.

What About Canada?

In the case of Canada, the commencement of deportation measures in the U.S. against 11 million people would likely drive many undocumented immigrants northward, legally or illegally. Each year, Canada’s current immigration levels come in at about 500,000. In past years, irregular crossings from the U.S. to Canada of about 100,000 migrants at Roxham Road were a major burden for Canadian authorities. It is not hard to imagine the dislocations in Canada that could be caused if, say, even one million noncitizens of the U.S. decided to make their way northward to avoid U.S. deportations back to their homelands.

Conclusion

In short, deporting 11 million noncitizen migrants from the United States is a mission impossible. But instead of deportations, there is another more reasonable way of dealing with this problem. It would be to allow those undocumented immigrants who have been here for many years to stay by moving the registry date forward but to require them to do some community service to atone for their undocumented entry. Let reasonable minds prevail and avoid the disaster former President Trump has in mind for America.

Source: Deporting 11 Million U.S. Undocumented Immigrants: Mission Impossible

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What Would It Take to Deport Millions of Immigrants? The G.O.P. Plan, Explained

2024/07/19 Leave a comment

Good long read on the practicalities and virtual impossibilities of doing so. Any such efforts would of course be divisive, disruptive, costly and likely only partially successful (like the partially completed wall in his presidency):

When Donald Trump ran for president in 2016, he vowed to build a wall to seal the border and keep criminals from entering the country. This campaign season, his immigration agenda has a new focus: a mass deportation program unlike anything the country has seen.

His party’s platform, ratified at the Republican convention in Milwaukee, promises the “largest deportation effort in American history,” and immigration was the theme of Tuesday’s gathering.

What would it take to deport millions of people? Is it even possible?

There were 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States in 2022, according to the latest government estimates, and more than eight out of 10 have been in the country for more than a decade. Mr. Trump said during the debate last month that there were 18 million, which is unsubstantiated.

Fleeing political and economic turmoil, migrants from countries like Venezuela have crossed the border in record numbers during the Biden administration.

Mr. Trump and the Republican platform have made broad declarations but thus far offered scant details about their intended operation.

The former president has suggested that any undocumented immigrant is subject to removal.

The party platform states that “the most dangerous criminals” would be prioritized.

It also said: “The Republican Party is committed to sending illegal aliens back home and removing those who have violated our laws.”

The consensus among immigration experts and former homeland security officials is that logistical, legal, bureaucratic and cost barriers would make it virtually impossible to carry out the mass deportations Mr. Trump seeks in the span of a four-year presidential term.

“It’s enormously complicated and an expensive thing to decide to deport people who have been here years,” said Laura Collins, an immigration expert at the George W. Bush Institute in Dallas.

Currently, ICE agents focus on locating and deporting convicted criminals, such as child molesters and others suspected of being a threat to public or national security.

Some one million immigrants with final removal orders living in the country could be a targeted group.

“Let’s say you find these people. You then have to detain them,” said Mr. Neifach. “How are you going to expand detention in a way that won’t blow the bank?”

Every potential deportee is held in a detention facility, and in the current fiscal year, Congress funded the detention of 41,500 immigrants daily at a cost of $3.4 billion, which would need to increase exponentially.

And many immigrants hail from countries that do not have diplomatic ties with the United States or that refuse to take back their nationals. They cannot be immediately flown out of the country, and the Supreme Court has ruled that people cannot remain detained for limitless periods awaiting removal.

The ICE budget for transportation and deportation in fiscal 2023 was $420 million, and the agency deported 142,580 people that year.

Another Trump administration could speed up deportations by terminating programs that the Biden administration has introduced.

For example, since 2022, some 500,000 people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela have been allowed to fly to the United States and live and work for two years, provided they have a financial sponsor. Mr. Biden has also allowed nearly 700,000 migrants who make an appointment on a mobile app to cross the border through an official port of entry and receive work permits.

“Trump could flick the switch and revoke it,” said Mr. Neifach. But, he added, many of the migrants could make asylum claims and become part of the clogged courts.

Expedited removal at the border enables the swift deportation of migrants without a hearing, unless they convince an agent that they would face the threat of violence back home, and Mr. Biden in June issued an executive order currently being challenged in court to amplify use of this tool.

Mr. Trump could try to extend it to the interior, though he would likely face court challenges.

Mr. Trump has not addressed whether he would exercise any discretion, or make any exceptions.

More than one million Americans are married to an undocumented person, and a large share of undocumented immigrants have children who are U.S. citizens.

“When you are talking those kinds of numbers and law enforcement presence, you have to think at the end — what does that do to the atmosphere in the country?” said Ms. Napolitano, the former Homeland Security secretary.

Source: What Would It Take to Deport Millions of Immigrants? The G.O.P. Plan, Explained

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