MIAMI – Attorney Wilfredo O. Allen said he is concerned about the migrants who will be getting caught in the middle of the presidential transition.
Allen was admitted to the Florida Bar when Ronald Reagan was president and he has been representing fearful immigrants in Miami for seven presidencies.
Allen said the shift from former President Joe Biden to President Donald Trump is changing lives radically.
“It’s the first time we’re learning that people in the country legally could face deportation,” Allen said adding that the changes affect the 1.5 million migrants who were protected under a humanitarian parole.
The Trump administration recently urged federal agents to implement an “expedited” deportation process that excludes an immigration court hearing.
U.S. Homeland Security recently issued the “designating aliens for expedited removal” notice reporting that it applies to “the fullest extent authorized by Congress″ so to “enhance national security and public safety.”
Allen said this is going to severely impact the migrants from Venezuela, Haiti, Cuba, and Nicaragua who the Biden administration had protected.
“They are now considered illegal aliens,” Allen said also adding that under Trump they are “easy prey to be detained -- especially Nicaraguans and Haitians.”
Allen is also concerned that Trump’s cancelation of the program invalidates the migrants’ work permits and eventually even their driving licenses.
Juan Correa Villalonga is the chief executive officer of Asociación Multicultural de Activistas Voz y Expresión or AMAVEX, a Doral-based advocacy organization.
Correa Villalonga said his family sponsored his 24-year-old cousin from Venezuela as part of the humanitarian parole in 2023.
“She lost her father to assassination before she was even born, she was born a week after that, and what this represented was the opportunity to feel safe for the first time in her life,” Correa Villalonga.
He said she applied for the temporary protected status, and hopes that this will shield her from a hasty deportation.
“I just hope that the way that this is carried out is going to take into consideration that these are human beings, these aren’t cattle, these aren’t just files and numbers on a paper,” Correa Villalonga said. “These are actually human beings who came here looking for protection and looking for safety.”
Allen estimates hundreds of thousands of migrants have not adjusted their status and have not applied for asylum, so they are vulnerable to deportation.
The Trump administration declared a national emergency over a migrant “invasion,” suspended a program for refugees, allowed immigration law enforcement at schools and churches, and is now empowering low-level federal agents to make deportation decisions.
The expedited removal powers go back to a 1996 law that applied to migrants who get arrested within two weeks of entering the U.S., or within 100 miles of the border.
The new notice warns the migrant “bears the affirmative burden to show to the satisfaction of an immigration officer” why they should not be detained and deported.
Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff for policy, warned that federal agents were using a wide array of tools “to remove” migrants.
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