SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
This past week, President Trump’s administration took unprecedented actions in its effort to ramp up deportations. It sent more than 100 Venezuelan immigrants to a third country, El Salvador, where they were imprisoned – all of this without due process. And then the administration seemingly ignored a federal judge’s order to stop those deportations, even if that meant turning the planes around midflight.
This has all opened back up the major question of whether the Trump White House will follow the law and defer to courts – all of this, of course, on an issue that Trump campaigned on more than anything else. NPR’s Ximena Bustillo has been tracking all of this and joins us now. Hey, Ximena.
XIMENA BUSTILLO, BYLINE: Hey, Scott.
DETROW: Look, Trump made so many promises on this front on the campaign trail. How is he seeing those through?
BUSTILLO: He really focused on having a plan for a, quote, “mass deportation effort.” In his first two months in office, he has taken steps to see this through. Immigration and Customs Enforcement regional offices have daily arrest quotas to meet. Detention centers are maxed out, and this is according to DHS themselves. On the trail, he also promised to use things like the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to be able to deport people quickly. We saw this come through last weekend when he invoked the act and, as you mentioned, sent over 130 Venezuelans to a prison in El Salvador.
DETROW: And this act, the Alien Enemies Act, has become really important lately. Remind us what it is, why Trump says he’s using it.
BUSTILLO: It’s a wartime power only used three other times. It allows the government to detain and deport those it suspects of being part of an enemy nation. And he’s targeting those accused by the administration of being Tren de Aragua gang members. But recent legal filings from the government also acknowledged that many did not have criminal records in the U.S.
DETROW: And this was the focus of those court hearings and rulings that got a lot of attention this past week and really raised these serious questions that the administration is ignoring the federal courts. What comes next on that front?
BUSTILLO: Well, the government has until Tuesday to decide if it’s invoking a special power that would allow them to not give the judge information on deportation flights used under the act. The judge wants this information to know if his orders to turn those planes around were ignored.
DETROW: OK, so that’s the stuff that got the most attention over the past week. What else is Trump trying to do to reach this big goal when it comes to these mass deportations he’s promised?
BUSTILLO: We’re also seeing a push to remove protections from those who were given permission to be in the United States by the Biden administration. Most recently, the Department of Homeland Security said that it will revoke what’s considered a parole program for half a million people who are Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans. This means that people who are currently eligible to work, go to school and be in the U.S. are set up for potential deportations in about a month.
DETROW: So, Ximena, you were covering all of the stuff that Trump was promising as he ran for president. You’re covering all the stuff that Trump is doing now that he is president. Have those goals changed at all?
BUSTILLO: You know, so much of the president’s rhetoric on the campaign trail focused on tackling crime in relation to immigration generally, and Trump officials have changed their messaging a bit on this front. Ahead of inauguration, the message was really focused on going after people who had committed violent crimes in the U.S. And since, they have pulled back to also say that they will arrest anyone without legal status.
Earlier this month, immigration officers told reporters that they had made just over 32,000 arrests so far. But of those, more than half did not have criminal records in the U.S. There have been high-profile arrests of people being detained who are lawful permanent residents and on student visas and also reports of people who are married to U.S. citizens without criminal records having encounters with immigration officials, and even U.S. citizens have been questioned and arrested by immigration officials.
But immigration advocates warn that the administration could be skirting due process throughout all this. Even in immigration court, you have the right to argue your case, to withhold or even cancel a final deportation order, and some people might be eligible for asylum or simply proving that they’re not a member of a gang, according to immigrant rights groups.
DETROW: What’s been happening at the Department of Homeland Security as it tries to do all of these things it wants?
BUSTILLO: Several members of law enforcement across other agencies, like the Justice Department or Treasury, have been tapped in to do immigration law enforcement work, and they’re also taking part in a broader effort to reduce the size of the department by cutting people and positions they say are in the way of enforcement. Yesterday, staff at DHS, particularly within watchdog agencies, that do oversight on immigration detention and benefits processes were laid off.
DETROW: OK, so what other challenges do they still face then?
BUSTILLO: Well, border czar Tom Homan has said that they need more money, which can only come from Congress, to sustainably scale up. There just aren’t enough people or space and not enough resources to do the big operation that Trump wants, even though we have seen these efforts scale up. Plus the administration is fighting several lawsuits, like those from immigrants rights groups pushing back against the use of the Alien Enemies Act and other arrests.
DETROW: That is NPR’s Ximena Bustillo covering all of this for us. Thanks so much.
BUSTILLO: Thank you.
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