How Will Trump’s Administration Address the Issue of Deportations?

As hysteria sets in regarding what Trump’s deportation policies will be, allow me to provide my perspective. I have been practicing immigration and nationality law for 42 years, so I guess you can say I know a little bit about the topic of immigration and its historical perspective.

What I Believe Will Happen
The Trump administration will actively go after and seek to deport quickly those unlawful immigrants who are deemed national security threats. At the same time, it will pursue unlawful immigrants with criminal records from the U.S. or other countries. It will further assign priority to those unlawful immigrants whose cases in Immigration Courts have already been adjudicated and ordered removed. In practice, the deportations will start with a list of people on the Department of Homeland Security’s list. In essence, the Trump administration will not be seeking to deport all those who are in the United States without status or expired status.

Trump did say that his administration would make provisions for families in the country unlawfully with U.S. citizen children, but he did not elaborate on what those will be. I believe it means that he will not seek to deport these individuals. I also believe that in the future there may be some form of amnesty program for those who are currently in the United States without status and who have no criminal records or removal orders. Historically, there have been numerous amnesty programs.

We will have to wait and see, but I, for one, am somewhat optimistic.

For further information or questions you may have, please do not hesitate to contact The Law Offices of Michael H. Markovitch.