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

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 removedThis 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

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

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

Saunders: Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda scheme is a global lesson in policy stupidity

Valid critique, and not helping the Conservatives much in the polls:

…Mr. Sunak’s scheme is faring even worse. Without having managed to deport a single migrant, his government has already paid $412-million to the government of Rwandan president Paul Kagame, who has an appalling human-rights record. Britain’s National Audit Office recently estimated that it will cost more than $900-million to deport the first 300 people – more than $3-million per migrant – though it seems unlikely that as many as 300 will ever be deported.

This vast cost, extraordinary inefficiency, policy pointlessness, unnecessary cruelty and general stupidity could all have been avoided if Mr. Sunak just paid attention to the very rational decision-making processes that guide those migrants. As experts have repeatedly pointed out, Channel crossings would all but disappear if it were easily possible to apply for British humanitarian and labour visas and family-reunification admissions en route, in Europe and elsewhere, creating safe legal paths for applicants.

That would increase his country’s refugee intake by a small, manageable margin (and would require some old-style deportations of those rejected), but it would all but end deadly illegal migration and its political consequences, at far lower cost. This would allow a politician to say “I ended this terrible problem” – something no number of flights to the middle of Africa will accomplish.

Source: Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda scheme is a global lesson in policy stupidity

Human-rights groups outraged at plan to detain immigrants in federal prison

Expected:

Human-rights groups are expressing outrage at government plans to lock up immigrants who have not been convicted of a crime in federal prisons.

Tuesday’s federal budget proposes changes to the law to allow people facing deportation deemed to be high risk – including posing a potential flight risk or a threat to public safety – to be incarcerated in federal prison.

The move follows the decision by provinces to end immigration-detention agreements with the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) to house immigrants in their jails this year…

Source: Human-rights groups outraged at plan to detain immigrants in federal prison

And the Minister’s response:

Immigration Minister Marc Miller confirmed to Radio-Canada that the federal government will be using its penitentiaries to hold some foreign nationals for immigration purposes.

He said those detainees will be separated from the prison population, but that both groups could be sharing services.

“It would be separate housing and it would not be in the general population, because they are not criminals,” Miller said, following Radio-Canada’s story on the government’s proposal buried at the bottom of the federal budget tabled Tuesday.

The Trudeau government wrote it wants to “enable the use of federal correctional facilities for the purpose of high-risk immigration detention.”

The statement has angered human rights organizations, some calling the plan “completely unacceptable,” as reported by Radio-Canada Wednesday.

Source: Immigration minister responds to critics over plan to detain migrants in penitentiaries

Ottawa pausing deportations of international students affected by acceptance letter scam

Not really a surprise. Hard to see, however, given current pressures on IRCC that it will be able to review each case specifically. CIMM is starting a study on exploitation of Indian students but unlikely that will examine the complicity of governments and education institutions in a system that almost incentivizes such exploitation:

The federal government says it’s hitting pause on planned deportations of international students who may have been caught up in a foreign acceptance letter scam.

The announcement from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) comes after dozens of international students received deportation orders which accuse them of using forged post-secondary school acceptance documents to get into Canada.

Immigration Minister Sean Fraser warned that “potentially a few hundred people” could find themselves affected by the scam and removal orders.

Source: Ottawa pausing deportations of international students affected by acceptance letter scam

‘The students are victims’: Stop deporting Indian students caught in fake admission letter scandal, parliamentary committee urges CBSA

An alternative approach, given the corruption among recruiting agencies and the complicity of governments and educational institutions, would be to deport them as a high profile example to highlight risks.

A more serious alternative would be for to undertake a fundamental review of our international student policies with a focus on ensuring that their focus is on quality education, not just funding, and their contribution to increasing per capita GDP and productivity should they apply for permanent residency.

But unlikely to happen given the various interests behind international student recruitment and enrolment and am sceptical that the planned hearings will amount to much:

A parliamentary committee is calling on the Canada Border Services Agency to immediately stop deporting a group of Indian international students who have been deemed inadmissible after using fake college admission letters to enter the country.

On Wednesday, the all-party immigration committee voted unanimously to ask the border agency to waive inadmissibility of the affected students and to provide them with an alternative pathway to permanent residence on humanitarian grounds or through a “regularization” program.

“These students, I’ve met with many of them, now are just in such a terrible state. They’ve lost money and they are stuck in a terrible situation. And some of them have deportation orders. Others have pending meetings with CBSA,” said MP Jenny Kwan, the NDP immigration critic, who tabled the motions.

“So as a first step, this is absolutely essential and necessary. The students are victims of fraud and should not be penalized.”

The international students, a group estimated to be in the hundreds, claim they were duped by unscrupulous education consultants in India and were unaware that the admission letters given to them were doctored. The students only became aware of the issue, they say, when the issue was flagged by border agents after the students had finished their courses and applied for postgraduate work permits. Some cases were flagged during the students’ permanent residence application process.

The committee does not have the power to halt deportations. Its gesture Wednesday is largely a symbolic one.

The students all share similar stories: being told upon arrival in Canada that the program they’d been enrolled in was no longer available and advised to delay their studies or go to another school; some receiving their postgraduate work permits and trying to pursue permanent residence, only to find out there was a problem with their original documentation.

On Wednesday, the committee also passed Kwan’s motion to issue a news release to condemn the actions of these fraudulent “ghost consultants” and to ask Immigration Minister Sean Fraser, Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino and their staff to appear before the committee to provide a briefing on the situation.

Members of the committee also voted to undertake a study over two meetings into the targeted exploitation scheme faced by the Punjabi international students.

The study is set to examine:

  • How this situation was allowed to happen;
  • Why fraudulent documents were not detected until years later, when the students began to apply for permanent status;
  • The significant harm experienced by students, including financial loss and distress;
  • Measures necessary to help the students have their deportation stayed, inadmissibility on the basis of misrepresentation waived, and provide a pathway to permanent status; and
  • How to prevent similar situations from occurring in the future.

“I’ve spoken with the students, and they were very frustrated that no actions were happening at this committee. And I think they’ll be very pleased to see that things are happening now,” said Brad Redekopp, the Conservative MP for Saskatoon West.

Liberal MP Shafqat Ali agreed.

“We need to have empathy for those students and we should not exploit the situation and play politics on this issue of those innocent students,” said the MP for Brampton centre, where many of the affected students now reside. “They have gone through and are going through a lot.”

During the meeting Wednesday, the committee also approved the amendments to Bill S-245 to amend the Citizenship Act to allow Canadians to pass citizenship birthrights to their foreign-born children if they can pass a connection test to establish the family ties to Canada.

Source: ‘The students are victims’: Stop deporting Indian students caught in fake admission letter scandal, parliamentary committee urges CBSA

Paddington, go home: Home Office staff pin up faked deportation notices

Witty but inappropriate behaviour by public servants:

Over the past week mocked up immigration enforcement notices have begun to appear on internal Home Office staff noticeboards, featuring photographs of Paddington Bear, stating that he is wanted so he can be placed on a relocation flight to Rwanda.

Elsewhere, staff have noticed a rash of Refugees Welcome stickers, affixed to Home Office printers and pieces of furniture in departmental buildings around the country.

The organiser of the Our Home Office protest group, bringing together staff opposed to Rwanda deportations, said unease about the proposed removals has galvanised employees from all over the government department to take subversive action.

“It’s still a small, low-level campaign, but it’s growing and is already networked in offices throughout the country,” the group’s founder said, asking not to be named in order to protect his job at the department. “The announcement of the Rwanda transportation plan was really a significant moment for a lot of staff members who were quite shocked by how barbaric a proposal it is, particularly the way that it seems to be against the refugee convention and the principles that we are trying to uphold of giving people fair treatment.”

More rolls of Refugees Welcome stickers have been posted out in the past few days to members of staff who have got in touch through a protest group website, the organiser said. “No one expects working in the Home Office to be easy but this has pushed a lot of people over the edge,” the employee said.

Refugees Welcome sticker
Refugees Welcome stickers have begun to appear in Home Office buildings. Photograph: Twitter

Source: Paddington, go home: Home Office staff pin up faked deportation notices

Editorial: Tightening Japan’s immigration regs no excuse to trample human rights

Of note:

A government expert committee has submitted its recommendations for dealing with the problem of foreign citizens being held for months, and in some cases years, at Japan’s immigration detention centers.

The committee has called for a system of penalties for foreigners who ignore deportation orders, as well as for the government to consider how to handle people who make repeated refugee claims. The proposed rules are notable for their severity.

As of the end of 2019, there were 1,054 people being held at Immigration Service Agency of Japan detention facilities. Of those, 462 had been locked up for six months or more. According to the agency, the long-term detentions are due to people refusing to be repatriated. However, most foreigners without a legal residency status have left Japan after being ordered to do so. In a great many cases where a person has refused to go, it is because their lives would be endangered if they went home, or because they have families in Japan.

In light of this, it is questionable whether imposing penalties for those refusing deportation orders would have a significant impact on repatriation. We rather worry that the move will result in shrinking support for foreigners who cannot go home.

The committee’s recommendation that measures be considered to deport refugee claimants mid-application in exceptional cases was apparently based on the recognition that there are quite a few people abusing the system by filing repeated claims to avoid leaving Japan. However, deporting a person who may be a refugee is forbidden under the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees.

We must wonder if, considering the scant few people granted refugee status here compared with global norms, this country’s refugee system isn’t too strict already. A total of 10,375 people applied for refugee status in Japan last year. Of those, only 44 were accepted. Perhaps the government had best rethink its evaluation process before talking about mid-application deportations.

Taking a foreigner to an immigration detention center is supposed to be preparation for them to be deported. Many other places have legal maximums for how long a person can be detained in this way. For example, the upper limit in the European Union is six months. There is no such rule in Japan. However, the expert committee report does not address limiting detention times in a concrete way. It does call for a review mechanism to be created for cases where a person has been held for a certain length of time, to evaluate whether continued detention is appropriate. However, we believe these reviews should not be conducted by the immigration agency or its parent, the Justice Ministry, but by the courts.

The United Nations has expressed concerns about Japan’s immigration system on multiple occasions. Last year, a Nigerian man who had been held at a detention center for three and a half years died of starvation following a hunger strike.

To avoid long-term detentions, the government should consider a flexible approach to granting temporary leave permission to detainees, allowing them back out into the world for a set time. Special consideration is also needed for those detainees with families and well-established lives in Japan.

Strengthening immigration management in this country cannot be made an excuse to obviate the human rights of foreign citizens.

Source: Editorial: Tightening Japan’s immigration regs no excuse to trample human rights

Australian citizenship law change affecting New Zealanders, high commissioner says

Tens of thousands of long-term residents could fail the new test, triggering the deportation process, a parliamentary inquiry heard on Monday.

The new migration rules will give the minister or his or her delegate a new discretionary power to cancel a visa if a person is convicted of certain offences, punishable by a maximum of two years in jail.

Offences include assault, using or possessing weapons, sex crimes or breaching an apprehended violence order.

A person will fail the character test if convicted of one of these offences, regardless of the actual length of the sentence imposed.

The test will also apply retrospectively, meaning the offence to trigger the reconsideration could have occurred decades ago.

New Zealand high commissioner Dame Annette King told the Senate’s legal affairs committee 2014 changes to visa rules which lowered the threshold for cancellations on character grounds had incurred a “disproportionate” impact on Kiwis living in Australia.

New Zealanders made up 10 per cent of the foreign born population but 50 per cent of deportations.

By comparison, only 1 per cent of New Zealand’s deportations were Australians.

“We don’t believe our community is less safe than Australia’s,” Dame Annette said.

She said Australia’s tightening migration rules had “become a rub and corrosive to our relationship”.

She urged the government to revert to the pre-2014 rules.

“If that is not possible we would like special consideration of New Zealanders living in Australia, because of the relationship, it is not like any other relationship,” Dame Annette said.

The Law Council of Australia also raised concerns that previous expansions of the power had not only led to more deportations, but greater ministerial intervention.

The number of via cancellations on character grounds rose by 1400 per cent between 2013 and 2017, the council said,

“The character test expansions have led not only to more cancellations but also a greater use of the minister’s personal powers, not only through section 501 but also through section 195A, which enables the minister to grant visas to detainees even where a section 501 cancellation has taken place,” its submission said.

“This is an inefficient use of ministerial time. Detainees must remain in prolonged detention while the department and the minister consider such matters.”

But Department of Home Affairs officials said the new rules were required to set an “objective, transparent” threshold for visas to be cancelled.

“I’d like to be clear that the consequences of not meeting this subjective threshold is that there would be further consideration of a discretionary power to refuse or cancel a visa where a non-citizen is convicted of a designated offence,” acting first assistant secretary of the immigration policy division, Michael Willard said.

“It’s important to note the conviction itself does not result in the automatic cancellation of the visa or a refusal of the visa and there’s a separate process for consideration of using this discretion that delegates or the minister would undertake.”

Head of the community protection division, Sachi Wimmer, said while it was impossible to say how many of Australia’s 1.9 million permanent visaholders would be captured by the changes, the department was bracing for an increase in referrals.

Source: Australian citizenship law change affecting New Zealanders, high commissioner says

ICYMI: UK Government U-turn over anti-terror law used to deport migrants

Yet another example of apparent mismanagement by the Home Office:

The government has agreed to stop deporting people under an immigration rule designed to tackle terrorism and those judged to be a threat to national security pending a review, after the Guardian highlighted numerous cases in which the power was being misused.

The news came as the home secretary, Sajid Javid, admitted on Tuesday that at least 19 highly skilled migrants had been forced to leave the country under the rule.

A review of the controversial section 322(5) of the Immigration Act was announced in a letter to the home affairs select committee.

Javid said one person had been issued with a visa to return to the UK as a result of ongoing inquiries. He also said that all applications for leave to remain that could potentially be refused under the section have been put on hold pending the findings of the review, which is due to be completed by the end the month.

Javid’s letter to the home affairs select committee also admitted that the Home Office’s use of the clause – condemned as “truly wicked” and “an abuse of power” by MPs and experts – could have spread to other applications, including that of any migrant applying for indefinite leave to remain (ILR) who might have been asked to submit evidence of earnings.

At least 1,000 highly skilled migrants seeking indefinite leave to remain in the UK are facing deportation under the section of the act.

The high-tax paying applicants – including teachers, doctors, lawyers, engineers and IT professionals – have been refused ILR after being accused of lying in their applications for making minor and legal amendments to their tax records.

The controversial paragraph comes with devastating conditions. Migrants, some who have lived here for a decade or more and have British-born children, immediately become ineligible for any other UK visa. Many are given just 14 days to leave the UK while others are allowed to stay and fight their cases but not to work.

In addition, those deported under the terrorism-associated paragraph will have that permanently marked on their passports, making it highly unlikely they will ever get a visa to visit or work anywhere else in the world.

In one case exposed by the Guardian the applicant’s tax returns were scrutinised by three different appeal courts who had found no evidence of any irregularities.

Other cases included a former Ministry of Defence mechanical engineer who is now destitute, a former NHS manager currently £30,000 in debt, thanks to Home Office costs and legal fees, who spends her nights fully dressed, sitting in her front room with a suitcase in case enforcement teams arrive to deport her, and a scientist working on the development of anti-cancer drugs who is now unable to work, rent or access the NHS.

The same figures were nevertheless used as the basis for a refusal because of basic tax errors allegedly made by the Home Office itself.

Commenting on the home secretary’s letter, the Labour MP Yvette Cooper, chair of the committee, said: “We’ve heard of a series of cases of highly skilled workers, employed in our -public services and senior jobs legally for many years, now being told to leave apparently due to minor tax errors.

“So it is welcome that the home secretary is now reviewing all those cases and putting decisions on hold.”

A group of about 20 MPs and a member of the House of Lords have establish separate pressure groups to persuade the Home Office to stop deporting highly skilled migrants under the terms of the section.

The home affairs select committee highlighted the issue after questioning Caroline Nokes, the immigration minister, about it in early May.

A few days later, they publicly accused the Home Office of being unfit for purpose and guilty of “shambolic incompetence” after the Guardian found letters written by Nokes that appeared to contradict her claim that she had only recently learned of the Home Office’s use of the section.

via Government U-turn over anti-terror law used to deport migrants | UK news | The Guardian

And one more:

A wave of devastating incidents of vital personal papers being lost in immigration cases has led to renewed calls for the Home Office to overhaul the way it handles documents.

The problem has been so severe that at its peak the department routinely mislaid thousands of files, a former senior immigration official said.

In the wake of the coverage of the Windrush scandal, the Guardian has spoken to people whose immigration status has been left in limbo after documents submitted to the Home Office have vanished.

Despite this the Home Office has never made a voluntarily self-referral to the data protection watchdog over lost papers.

Yvette Cooper, the chair of the influential home affairs select committee, said: “This is a question of basic competence. Too often we have heard about lost documents and simple errors by the Home Office that can have deeply damaging consequences for people’s lives.

“The Home Affairs committee and the independent inspectorate have warned the Home Office repeatedly to improve the competency and accuracy of the immigration system.

“It’s crucial they get the basics right. We’ve even recommended digitising and changing the system so people don’t have to submit so many original documents in the first place, given the risk of loss and delay.

“But ultimately this is linked to weaknesses in the Home Office casework system that urgently need to be sorted out. The immigration system is far too important a public service for these kinds of mistakes to be acceptable, or for repeated warnings from the inspectorate and the select committee to be ignored.”

The Guardian has heard cases ranging from lost birth certificates, children’s passports going missing, education certificates disappearing and appeal bundles misplaced.

Vital immigration papers lost by UK Home Office | UK news | The Guardian