Experts Address Trump’s Widening Deportation Dragnet Targeting Students, Families & Refugees

Washington, D.C. – American families are being separated, children are being detained, and loved ones are disappearing without a trace as the Trump administration escalates its effort to turn nearly a million vulnerable people into deportable targets. In response, legal and immigration experts–including the attorney representing Venezuelan makeup artist Andry José Hernández Romero–held a press call to outline these attacks, explain the legal implications, and underscore public opposition to this indiscriminate brutality.

In recent weeks, the administration has revoked student visas at many colleges and universities nationwide, stripped humanitarian protections from 850,000 Haitians and Venezuelans, ended parole for over 500,000 CHNV parolees, and canceled the legal status of many individuals who legally entered through the CBP One app. Following this week’s Supreme Court decision to continue allowing Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act and a new deal giving ICE access to sensitive IRS data, the administration is now emboldened to defy more court orders, more basic rights, and disappear more people to dangerous conditions with no promise of return—all while demanding $350 billion from Congress to supercharge the operation, making clear that anyone could be next.

Read excerpts from the speakers’ remarks:

Kerri Talbot; Co-Executive Director of the Immigration Hub:

“In the past few weeks, we’ve seen the administration disappear people to dangerous foreign prisons, revoke student visas, strip humanitarian protections and cancel status for more than a million people who entered legally through Biden-era programs. And now, ICE has access to sensitive IRS tax data—turning personal information into a weapon to fast-track arrests and removals. Now, the administration is asking Congress for $350 billion to supercharge this operation. Let’s be clear: this is not enforcement, it’s disappearances and family separation. It’s about using government power to punish dissent, create fear, and upend communities.”

Lindsay Toczylowski; President, Immigrant Defenders Law Center:

“The Trump administration has long found due process and fundamental fairness inconvenient to their plans of mass deportation. But these are the very things that protect people like my client Andry, and others like him, from being forcefully sent to a place where they could die, like CECOT, under the Alien Enemies Act. We are calling for the Trump administration to return Andry and every single other person that they baselessly alleged was a member of Tren de Aragua to the United States and provide them the fundamental due process they were denied in the first place. This is not an isolated incident. We call on the public to hold their government accountable to the Constitution and their legal and immoral obligations.”

Hillary Li; Counsel, Justice Action Center:

“The humanitarian parole authority has been used for more than 70 years to provide safe, legal pathways to the U.S. for people often escaping war, political strife, or natural disaster. If everyday Americans can recognize the mutual benefit of these lawful and safe processes and freely open their hearts, homes, and communities to their global neighbors, that is something to be celebrated and nurtured, not recklessly slashed. As we’ll do again in court this afternoon, Justice Action Center and Human Rights First will continue to seek justice alongside our clients to protect humanitarian parole for this generation and for future generations to come.”

Robyn Barnard; Senior Director, Refugee Advocacy at Human Rights First:

“We know that coupling harsh deterrence measures with the Trump approach of shutting down all safe pathways to our country and also punishing those who have been living for months or years in our communities, will not work in the long term. This is not good management of our immigration system and we will see the resulting chaos for years to come. Likewise, terminating protections and work permits for thousands in our country will do nothing to help our communities. Rather, it will leave employers without workers, parents unable to provide for their children, and in other worst case scenarios we have already seen playing out, families separated by these punitive and nonsensical immigration policies. We are calling on members of the public to oppose these hateful policies and for the Trump administration to halt the destruction they are wreaking on our country’s fabric and bring back those disappeared overseas to the CECOT and elsewhere so that they can receive a fair process in our country.”   

Marco Guzman; Senior Policy Analyst, Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy:

“Attempts by the Department of Homeland Security to secure private information from the IRS on people who file taxes with an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number not only violates federal privacy laws that protect taxpayers, it damages public trust, which could jeopardize billions of dollars in tax payments by hardworking immigrant families.”

Sirine Shebaya; Executive Director, National Immigration Project:

“The administration’s actions are sowing terror within communities of people who appear to be targeted just because of their country of origin. It’s also having a chilling effect on people’s ability to exercise their first amendment rights, given a quite explicit targeting of people who express political viewpoints that are disfavored by the administration. We’ve seen targeting of lawful permanent residents, threats against the lawyers who represent immigrants, as well as funding cuts that have severely impacted the ability of immigrants to access legal representation. If you put this together with high enforcement numbers and completely indiscriminate targeting, it leads to a complete lack of due process in the immigration system and inability for people to even know or invoke protections that apply to them. We’re witnessing an unprecedented attack on immigrants and the cruelty is clearly the point.”

Watch the recording

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The Immigration Hub is a national organization dedicated to advancing fair and just immigration policies through strategic leadership, innovative communications strategies, legislative advocacy and collaborative partnerships.