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President Donald Trump's war on immigrants apparently makes no distinction between documented and undocumented. If you are an immigrant, you are in his crosshairs.
On Wednesday, five people were detained as they made their way to scheduled appointments with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in Lawrence, Massachusetts, about 30 miles from Boston. According to local public radio station WBUR, at least three of those arrested were attempting to begin the process of becoming legal permanent residents.
According to ICE, two of the five entirely lacked a criminal history while the rest had a few traffic tickets — or, in the harrowing words of an ICE spokesman, “multiple traffic violations.”
ICE claims that they were responding to an “investigative tip” when they arrested the five. "All five individuals have final orders of removal issued by a federal immigration judge. All five will be held in custody pending removal from the United States."
Speaking to WBUR, American Immigration Lawyers Association New England chapter chair Susan Church said, "What this means is that people who are eligible to obtain their green card in the United States, who are following the law, who are following the rules, who are doing what the government is instructing them to do, are going to be too terrified to show up and follow through with the process," while also noting that this will simply mean that new categories of people will be forced into “the shadow of immigration land … living in fear."
The next day in Houston, Texas, authorities notified two prominent neurologists at the children's hospital, Dr. Monika Ummat and Dr. Pankaj Satija, that they had 24 hours to leave the country due to minor technical errors in their immigration paperwork. A married couple from India who legally resided in the U.S. for over a decade, the two were denied temporary permission to remain in the country while the kinks in their paperwork were ironed out.
Checking in during a routine visit to a Customs and Border Protection office, the couple were informed that new memos issued by the White House meant a temporary reprieve was impossible. "Somebody up there has decided you have to leave the country in the next 24 hours," an agent told the couple.
"I have 50 patients today and 40 patients tomorrow," Dr. Satija, a founder of the Pain and Headache Centers of Texas, told the Houston Chronicle. "I'm just concerned they'll be left in a lurch. They could land up in the emergency room."
After considering temporarily deporting or temporarily incarcerating the two in a detention facility, CBP officials extended a temporary 90-day reprieve to the couple. The case caused local outrage.
Even under the Obama administration, immigration authorities targeted immigrants who lacked criminal convictions or who were found to have broken civil immigration laws. However, legal advocates feel that these recent cases represent a clear change in enforcement tactics under President Donald Trump's right-wing nationalist administration.
Gordon Quan, a lawyer representing the Houston doctors, said that the recent cases show the tortuous nature of legal immigration procedures as well as the brutal nature of the Trump administration.
"These are not tough decisions. These are not criminals, not a threat to society … It's just the rigidity of the system,” he said. “(And) instead of trying to work with people, the new administration is just trying to force them out, no matter what."
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