Migrants Confront Judgment Day Over Old Deportation Orders
that Nothing is easy,
I want to make my case at this meeting, but I know
that if I go, they’re going to deport me." In an immigration system mottled with escape hatches and hobbled by scant resources, Juan, who fled Colombia six years ago, is one of nearly a million people who have managed to linger in the United States despite having been ordered out of the country by an immigration judge — some of them more than a decade ago.
The easiest way to get those numbers up are to take those people who’ve been ordered deported
and go after them." President Trump’s immigration agency has already offered what looks like a preview: Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents recently deported to Mexico an Arizona mother who had been ordered out of the country four years ago.
Since 2006, even as the overall total of unauthorized immigrants in the United States has dipped, the number
facing outstanding deportation orders has grown by more than half, to around 962,000 people from 632,726.
The Obama administration put off deportations for thousands of immigrants it did not consider priorities, including Juan, the Bronx electrician,
and Guadalupe García de Rayos, the Arizona mother, often law-abiding people with strong ties to their communities.
" she said, adding that she had asked her brother to help her husband care for her four children if she was deported.
that I don’t feel assured of what the outcome’s going to be next time,