ICE to Launch Expedited Removal Push

Shaun Courtney, Bloomberg Government, Oct. 6, 2020

"Undocumented immigrants anywhere in the U.S. can be deported as quickly as a day, once Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials complete mandatory training online, the agency says.  “This is huge. It can very significantly shift how immigration law is enforced,” John Sandweg, former acting head of ICE in the Obama administration, said in an interview.  All ICE personnel were told that the agency would now carry out the new, expanded authority for expedited removals in an Oct. 2 email, which Bloomberg Government reviewed.  Expedited removal since its inception had been limited to individuals encountered within 100 hundred miles of the border and within two weeks of entering the U.S. The updated Department of Homeland Security policy will apply to immigrants anywhere in the U.S. who can’t immediately prove upon an encounter with an immigration official they have been continuously in the U.S. for at least two years or have legal standing. ... “ICE, who has really never had any internal immigration use of expedited removal ever since it was passed in 1996, has now been handed the equivalent of a loaded gun and now being told to use it responsibly,” said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, policy analyst with the American Immigration Council, a non-partisan immigration advocacy group. “There are a lot of serious concerns over whether an agency like ICE, who has never had this authority before, can be trusted to establish appropriate safeguards.”