Trump on immigration: Legal expert gives unique perspective on what could happen on day one

NEW YORK (WABC) — From day one, President-elect Donald Trump said he was going to crack down on illegal immigration.

Trump and his team haven't given many details about exactly how they will proceed, but a former prosecutor is sharing her unique perspective on what she thinks could happen.

As the daughter of immigrants, Veronica Cardenas knows what it means to struggle and build a better life.

“Growing up, I always had this desire to do more, to be more,” Cardenas said.

She now works as an attorney representing undocumented immigrants trying to become legal citizens. Before that, she worked on the other side of the courtroom as an ICE prosecutor.

“It was very, very heartbreaking,” she said. “It was really overwhelming, there were so many cases. The courtrooms were full of people and the judges were literally having to tell people to get out, not to come into the courtroom.”

Cardenas has worked for the last three presidents, starting with former President Barack Obama.

“When I started in the Obama administration, there was a lot of latitude to make decisions that seemed fair and consistent with the law,” Cardenas said. “The decisions seemed fairer. When President Trump came to power, it was a universal policy for everyone, from the person who committed crimes to the father, mother and child .”

Cardenas said she did not experience a drastic change once President Joe Biden was elected.

“President Biden tried to turn back the clock, but the inhumanity of the system, the way it changed over his four years, it never changed and went back to the way it was before him,” he said. she declared.

She thinks some changes will take place once the president-elect is sworn in.

“First, most people will be detained at the border when they cross, there are currently exceptions,” she said.

She thinks not only will more people be detained and turned away at the border instead of traveling to places like the Tri-State before appearing before a judge, but she thinks the process will move more quickly.

“Right now, an asylum application can take three to five years,” she said. “I think what Trump is going to do and what he did in the first place is when people ask for more time to find a lawyer, it's going to be no, we're going to pursue your case because we have to continue . mobile.”

She said noncitizens who have been arrested for crimes or are facing deportation orders are already a priority for the government and will continue to be under Trump's presidency.

ICE records show more than 4,600 noncitizens were arrested in the New York area last year.

More than 139,000 non-citizens of New York State are subject to permanent deportation orders.

“My main concern is that people are heard fairly and to achieve that, a lot of things need to change,” Cardenas said. “Judges are not independent, they have to follow the attorney general and the president's rules, which means every four years there are policy changes.”

“Under Trump, as a trial lawyer, I didn't even need to say anything, I just needed to be in that place to show the government's presence, the law was already written and their cases were already decided before they even sat before the judge and made their arguments,” Cardenas said.

There are more than 11 million noncitizens in the United States and the federal government has said it does not have the resources to apprehend them all.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement sets priorities. The current administration claims that it targets those who pose a threat to national security or public safety and that it benefits from due process of law. As for how that policy might change, the Department of Homeland Security asked Eyewitness News to contact the president-elect's transition team, who did not respond.

ICE spokesperson Marie Ferguson said in a statement:

“U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's intelligence-driven enforcement and removal operations target public safety threats, such as non-citizen criminals and gang members , who have violated our nation's immigration laws, including those who re-enter the country illegally after being deported and immigration fugitives ordered removed by federal immigration judges. ERO prioritize enforcement actions consistent with the Civil Immigration Enforcement Guidelines issued by Secretary Mayorkas on September 30, 2021. and reinstated on June 28 – obtain and review the full criminal and administrative records and any other available investigative information, when taking decisive law enforcement action.

Noncitizens placed in removal proceedings receive their due process from federal immigration judges in immigration courts, which are administered by the Executive Office for Immigration Review. EOIR is an agency within the U.S. Department of Justice and is separate from the Department of Homeland Security and ICE. Immigration judges in these courts make decisions based on the merits of each individual case. ERO agents execute removal decisions made by federal immigration judges.”

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