The Department of Homeland Security is considering a new policy enabling the expedited deportation of undocumented immigrants. This power is already available to Immigration and Customs Enforcement under current law so long as the undocumented immigrants have been in the US for less than two years via the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act.
President George W Bush altered the implementation of this policy so that expedited deportations were only allowed if the immigrants concerned were detained within no more than 100 miles of the US border, less than two weeks after their arrival in the US. President Barack Obama retained the policy, limiting the Department of Homeland Security’s ability to expedite deportations.
The proposal by the Trump administration would see an increase in the number of days established by President George W Bush. It would enable Immigration and Customs Enforcement to deport undocumented immigrants discovered anywhere in the US, who are unable to prove they have lived in the country for more than 90 successive days. An increase to 76 days would be significant yet still less than the original time limit of two years, put in place by the 1996 law.
140,024 undocumented immigrants were apprehended between January and June 2017, according to Customs and Border Protection. This was a massive decrease on the figure of 267,746 recorded in 2016, attributed to the stricter policies on immigration adopted by the Trump administration.