Donald Trump is reportedly trying to extend deportation power to federal agents outside of the Department of Homeland Security.
The Wall Street Journal reportedly viewed a memo from acting Homeland Security Secretary Benjamine Huffman saying that the department plans to extend immigration-enforcement powers to agents at the Justice Department, which oversees the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, and the US Marshals Service.
The memo also noted that FBI agents already possess immigration-enforcement powers — called Title 8 authority — but the agents typically stick to criminal investigations.
A person familiar with the memo told the Wall Street Journal that the Trump administration wasn’t planning to immediately deputize agents for anti-immigration crackdowns, but did expect agencies to lend agents.
The ATF and DEA don’t typically deal with immigration enforcement. The US Marshals do more often, but generally only when a fugitive also happens to be illegally in the US.
Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove told federal prosecutors on Tuesday to begin investigating and potentially pressing charges against state and local officials in “sanctuary cities” who refused to cooperate with Trump immigration orders.
The Department of Homeland Security is reportedly forming task forces to ensure local and state law enforcement are enforcing immigration laws.
Trump has already threatened to restart immigration raids in cities like San Francisco, Chicago, Detroit, New York City, and others.
The president isn’t just wrapping federal agents into his war on immigrants, but the US military as well. On Wednesday, the Pentagon announced that it planned to send 1,500 active-duty troops to the southern border to “seal” the crossing. That move was made in accordance with a day-one Trump executive order declaring an emergency at the border.
Those troops will join the 2,500 troops that were already stationed at the border as part of the Joint Task Forth North out of El Paso, Texas.
Texas Governor Gregg Abbott’s existing border force, Operation Lone Star, is also in the El Paso area. Abbott has forced members of the state’s National Guard to sit at the border for the last several years.
The mass deportations that Trump seems to be moving towards have prompted Mexican authorities to start construction on a massive shelter to house deportees. The shelter is being built by the Mexican Navy and municipal employees along the Mexico-Texas border in Matamoros.
According to Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement has already begun rounding up migrants. The agency reportedly arrested 308 illegal migrants on Tuesday.
“ICE is doing its job,” Homan said.
On Wednesday, Trump canceled flights for refugees waiting to fly to the US from various points around the world. While Trump curbing refugee admissions was expected, resettlement organizations were caught off-guard by how quickly he shut the gates.
“The indefinite refugee ban came early, a particularly cruel, unexpected, and unconscionable decision,” John Slocum, Executive Director of Refugee Council USA, told USA Today. “Denying refuge to the persecuted is not who we are as a nation.”
In addition to threatening raids, mass deportation, and banning refugees from entry, Trump has also issued an executive order to end birthright citizenship to children born to undocumented migrants. The concept that anyone born on American soil is automatically an American citizen is enshrined in the US Constitution.
At least 22 states and pregnant women whose children’s citizenship is up in the air have sued the Trump administration over the executive order.
