Amazon Prime for Human Beings

Last April, Todd Lyons, the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said that the deportation process should be "like (Amazon) Prime, but with human beings." In the months since then, the administration of cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump has been moving to make Lyons' vision a reality. This even includes Amazon-style warehouses in which to detain those rounded up. Fundamental to the Trump's mass deportation program have been attempts to eliminate due process and other legal protections in order to create a seamless deportation system that, while perhaps unable to rival Amazon's two-day delivery, will certainly speed things up at the cost of individuals' legal rights. Today, I will take a look at several actions that are aimed at creating Lyons' Amazon Prime for human beings.

The creation of what we might call Deportation Prime began with the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. This legislation provided $170 billion over four years for immigration enforcement. As the Brennan Center for Justice reported, "That is more than the yearly budget for all local and state law enforcement agencies combined across the entire United States." The report further stated that the "largest percentage increase goes to finding, arresting, detaining, and deporting immigrants already living in the U.S., most of whom have not committed a crime and many of whom have had lawful status." Moreover, the funding neglected "processes that are needed for a fair and workable immigration system, such as immigration judges to ensure citizens or immigrants are not erroneously deported." As the Brennan Center points out, this is an "enforcement-only machine." There is little concern for due process.

I want to emphasize a couple of points before going further. Supporters of Trump's deportation program routinely refer to migrants as "illegals" and conjure the image of people surreptitiously sneaking across the border. There are certainly such individuals in this country, though many later gained lawful status through temporary protected status or other means. Many others are asylum seekers who either presented themselves at a border crossing to request asylum or used the CBP One app to apply for asylum. Such individuals were normally paroled into the country with a future court date. As a result, many of those frequently considered to be "illegals" actually have lawful status. Among those who are undocumented, many have been in the U.S. for lengthy periods of time, have established roots, are perhaps married to U.S. citizens or have U.S. citizen children, and may well have applied for asylum after arriving in the country.

Second is the importance of due process. Without due process, there is no way for U.S. citizens to prove their citizenship. Therefore, U.S. citizens may be wrongly deported. Similarly, immigrants who are legally in the country and lawfully should not be subject to deportation have no means to make their case. The Trump administration is streamlining the deportation process by eliminating due process, massively increasing the likelihood that individuals will be wrongly deported.

One of the more significant changes that the Trump administration made was in regard to who is subject to mandatory detention. Previously, most immigrants detained by immigration authorities were eligible for release on bond. However, in September, the Trump administration effectively erased the difference between those "seeking admission" to the U.S., who could be detained, and those already in the country who were normally released on bond if they did not have a criminal record and were not deemed a danger to the community. As a result of this change, anyone who had originally crossed the border without being formally admitted became subject to mandatory detention. Multiple federal courts have rejected this change as unlawful, but the practice continues in large parts of the country.

In the same month, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision that allowed racial profiling by immigration authorities. As a result, federal immigration agents were able to initiate sweeps in which large numbers of individuals with certain characteristics thought to be common among those lacking documentation were rounded up. This resulted in a significant number of so-called "Kavanaugh stops" in which U.S. citizens are detained, sometimes for days. Many of those caught in these actions would normally be released on bond but, after the September policy change, are now subject to mandatory detention. Seeking legal recourse in such a situation is time-consuming and expensive. Those detained have considerable incentive to agree to deportation rather than spending months in deplorable conditions attempting to fight through the courts.

A properly functioning immigration system that was planning to increase deportations would also require expansion of the number of immigration judges. As I have repeatedly stressed, immigration judges are not actually judges. They are not part of the judicial branch of government. Rather, they are administration employees and can be, and often are, fired when they are viewed as not supportive of the administration's desires. Nevertheless, they provide a minimum amount of due process for those facing deportation. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act not only did not fund an increase in the number of immigration judges, it actually capped the number allowed. The Trump administration has fired a large number of judges. The result is a reduced corps of judges and long waiting periods. The long delays that those detained face are not a bug, but rather a feature. Again, those facing deplorable detainment conditions often choose deportation, even when they have a winnable case to remain in the U.S., rather than spending lengthy periods of time in such circumstances.

Another Trump administration change involved the use of administrative warrants. The Fourth Amendment provides the "right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures." As a result, law enforcement normally requires a judicial warrant, which is a warrant issued by a judge or magistrate, in order to enter a home to effectuate an arrest. Immigration officials may use an administrative warrant, which is a document signed by an immigration officer rather than a judge, to arrest those who are unlawfully present in the country. However, such arrests must take place in areas in which the arresting officer is allowed to be present. Uninvited entry into a home has traditionally been prohibited. However, a whistleblower recently revealed that the aforementioned Todd Lyons wrote a memo last May in which he authorized agents to enter places of residence in order to arrest aliens who were subject to a final removal order with an administrative rather than a judicial warrant. This explains the multiple examples that we have seen lately of ICE officers breaking into homes to arrest the occupants without a judicial warrant. These arrests can obviously be challenged in court, as can the entire practice of relying only on administrative warrants to enter homes, but the administration's program is predicated on moving quickly so that those detained don't have the opportunity to petition the courts.

In May of last year, ICE attorneys began asking immigration judges to dismiss removal proceedings of those facing deportation. Removal proceedings are hearings in immigration court held to decide whether a person will be deported or not. If the proceedings are dismissed, ICE agents often immediately arrest the individual and put them in expedited removal, which allows ICE to deport the person without seeing an immigration judge. This has been one method of speeding up deportations. However, a person facing expedited removal may appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals.

This brings us to the most recent policy change, one that is so new that it hasn't even gone into effect yet. Yesterday, the Department of Justice announced a new rule that immigration lawyer Aaron Reichlin-Melnick says takes a "SLEDGEHAMMER to due process." The rule change, which goes into effect in 30 days, mandates that all appeals to the Board of Immigration Appeals be dismissed unless a majority of the board votes to hear the case. In addition, the time in which an appeal is allowed to be filed was reduced from 30 days to 10 days. An appeal costs $1,000. That means that someone facing deportation will have 10 days to find $1,000 and a lawyer to file an appeal that they will almost certainly lose. As Reichlin-Melnick says, "The goal is clear; mass deportations over due process." Someone whose appeal is denied can still appeal to a federal circuit court, but that costs another $600. Keep in mind that this is all happening while they are in detention.

Recently, ICE began purchasing "mega warehouses" to be used as immigration detention centers. Such warehouses are expected to house as many as 8,000 detainees at a time. NBC News reported seeing a spreadsheet listing more than 20 potential locations. One example is in Tremont, Pennsylvania where a former Big Lots warehouse was bought by ICE and is planned to house as many as 7,500 people. Already, ICE detention numbers are at historic levels. Currently, there are over 73,000 people in ICE custody. The vast majority have no criminal record. Obviously, there are plans to greatly increase this number.

I am very uncomfortable knowing that my government is engaging in the industrial-scale arrest, transportation, and detainment in concentration camps of what could be hundreds of thousands of people. The historical echoes this process evokes are quite ominous. Add a few boxcars, and the analogy would be almost complete. The Trump administration is chipping away at numerous legal rights in order to create a process in which arrest, detainment, and deportation occur without access to the legal system. Not only is this inhumane, but it will be rife with errors. Not only will immigrants be unlawfully deported, but U.S. citizens will likely be caught up in the process. It is almost certain that U.S. citizens will be wrongly deported. This is the Amazon Prime for human beings that Todd Lyons suggested.