President Donald Trump is quickly re-shaping immigration policy with an emphasis on harsh enforcement, in part by issuing executive orders that cast a much wider deportation net.
In a telephone briefing Wednesday with members of the ethnic press nationwide, immigration attorneys discussed two orders signed Jan. 25 – two days prior to the Jan. 27 order that came to be known as the Muslim ban. The earlier pair of executive orders received scant media coverage until recently, when stories began appearing about the deportations of long-term U.S. residents who have no criminal record.
But these earlier orders – one discusses interior enforcement and the other border management — together with leaked memos outline sweeping policies that will affect families in the Sacramento Valley and elsewhere. The Los Angeles Times has reported that up to 8 million people in the country without authorization could become priority deportation targets.