U.S. Planning Operation To Deport Central American Families

However, citing security concerns, more than 30 governors have said they won’t receive migrants from Syria, and Trump has called for a ban on Muslims entering the U.S.

Some Republican members of Congress have criticized the Obama administration for focusing on convicts, thus easing the threat of deportation for other undocumented immigrants.

Marielena Hincapié, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center, which advocates for immigrants and their families, told the Wall Street Journal that this was “the last thing we expected from the administration”.

Another of Clinton’s Democratic opponents, ex-Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, tweeted: “Holiday plans for raids to round up/deport Central American refugees fleeing death are wrong”.

The Homeland Security Department oversaw the deportation of about 235,413 people between October 2014 and September 2015.

In 2015, the United States’ Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported fewer people than it has since 2006.

The Obama administration has been lambasted by both immigrant advocates and immigration hard-liners over its border policy.

The immigration issue has often bedeviled Obama, who came into office under pressure from supporters to end the George W. Bush administration’s post-Sept. In the 1960s and 1970s, the average mother in Mexico had more than six children, leading to a surplus of young workers in the 1980s and 1990s, sparking the illegal immigrant spike that is just now receding.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection apprehended more than 134,000 migrants from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras in fiscal year 2015.

The effort was first reported in The Washington Post. “The specter of raids picking up families and sending them back to violent countries is going to put Hillary Clinton in a hard position”.

According to The Washington Post, the operation has not been given final approval by DHS.

Refugee rights activists argue the families are fleeing corruption, gang violence and drought in their homelands and should be treated as refugees. This was triggered by comments made by now front-runner Donald Trump when he entered the race and referred to those who crossed the Mexican border as rapists and criminals.

“Of the 25 largest jurisdictions that had placed restrictions on their own cooperation with ICE, 16 are now working with us again for the good of public safety”, Johnson said. To do this, Johnson said the agency was rebuilding ties with state and local law enforcement as part of the Priority Enforcement Program, which was created in November 2014 in order to replace the often-criticized Secure Communities Program.

The U.S. officials said the coming sweep is in accordance with those priorities, and they emphasized that those being targeted have been afforded due process and were ultimately ordered to return home by a federal judge.