On the campaign trail, President Donald Trump promised to carry out the largest deportation effort in U.S. history, focused on deporting people with criminal records. But now, immigration officials are also going after people seeking asylum, a legal process intended to protect those fleeing persecution.
Records show hundreds of thousands of people have sought asylum in the U.S. in recent years, choosing to navigate a complicated legal process to seek refuge in the United States.
“So these include many people who have done things, quote, 'the right way,' like they came in lawfully, they were processed in,” said Lynn Marcus, the director of the Immigration Law Clinic at the University of Arizona. “And then when they showed up at their courts, all of a sudden there was this trickery.”
The scheme
Marcus said the Trump administration is now using a gimmick to circumvent asylum seekers’ the due process rights.
She said prosecutors with the Department of Homeland Security are asking immigration judges to dismiss asylum seekers’ cases, claiming the federal government had no interest in the case.
“As they were leaving the courthouse, they were arrested, taken into custody … and then, oftentimes, just immediately deported,” Marcus said.
NBC News reported that the Justice Department sent a memo to immigration judges, who work for the department, notifying them of the plan to seek the dismissal of asylum cases to facilitate expedited removals.
Witnesses say they’ve seen this multiple times outside the Phoenix Immigration Court and other courts around the country.
“I’m out here because the Trump administration is doing anything they can to circumvent the law to deport immigrants without giving them their due process,” said protester Samantha Cooley, who joined a gathering outside the U.S. Immigration Court in Phoenix last month after immigration agents began detaining asylum seekers there.
ICE agents briefly stopped those activities after being confronted by protesters, though they soon restarted those efforts in a more discreet manner, observers said.
A campaign promise
An ICE spokesperson said the agency was detaining people using what’s called expedited removal, which allows fast-tracked deportations for people who have been in the country without legal status for less than two years.
Jessica Cadavid, a Phoenix immigration attorney, said that’s making some asylum seekers afraid to show up for court. But if they skip their court date, that can be used to justify deportation.
“All avenues are leading to deportation when you do have a real, legal claim,” she said.
Federal law allows people to seek asylum if they qualify for protection. That includes proving they were persecuted due to race, religion, nationality, politics or membership in a “particular social group.”
ICE officials did not respond to requests for an in-person interview.
At a press conference in Los Angeles, Homeland Security Director Kristi Noem declined to directly address allegations that ICE is violating due process.
“Here’s the deal, guys: my job is not to pick and choose which laws we enforce and which ones we don’t. We have laws in this country and they matter,” Noem said.
Trump won Arizona by more than five points in 2024, in part, by promising to ramp up deportations.
And voters like Mario Fischbach said this new policy is what they voted for.
“He’s doing a good job. It’s not easy. He has to be flexible, and I think he’s being flexible in a good way,” Fischbach said.
'I want ICE to go after the criminals'
But critics, including Democratic Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, said Trump is going well beyond what he promised on the campaign trail.
After Trump was elected, Hobbs said she was open to working with the Trump administration to secure Arizona’s border. But she has made it clear, she doesn’t support the administration's current actions.
“I want ICE to go after the criminals. I want them to focus on those deportations,” Hobbs said. “That’s what President Trump ran on, and now they’re targeting people who are just trying to comply with the law.”
Marcus, the law professor, says she fears the administration is using these tactics to meet its goal of deporting 1 million people this year, which Marcus called unrealistic.
“So the idea is, if you can skirt due process and interpret the laws in ways that are as restrictive as possible, then you can get your numbers,” she said.
The Trump administration said it had deported around 200,000 people at the end of May. That pace suggests it's behind the president’s goal to deport 1 million undocumented residents this year.
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