Tong said, "They are erroneously detaining and deporting American citizens, ripping families apart, ignoring grave and legitimate asylum claims, and shackling people on one-way flights to horrific foreign jungle prisons"

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Attorney General William Tong today joined a coalition of 19 attorneys general in opposing the Trump Administration’s effort to dramatically expand “expedited removal” into the interior of the United States.

Tong claims doing so will "put untold numbers of Americans at risk for unlawful detention and deportation without due process" potentially within a "matter of hours or days" without seeing a judge or having "access to other safeguards that most Americans take for granted as a matter of basic justice."

In an amicus brief in Make the Road New York v. Noem, the attorneys general urge the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to uphold a district court’s order temporarily halting the expansion of expedited removal.

“Move fast and break things should never apply to families, lives, or our Constitution. The Trump Administration is making terrible errors everywhere. They are erroneously detaining and deporting American citizens, ripping families apart, ignoring grave and legitimate asylum claims, and shackling people on one-way flights to horrific foreign jungle prisons. The legal protections guaranteed by our Constitution cannot be erased on the whims of an erratic and impatient President,” said Attorney General Tong. 

The Trump Administration is expanding the use of expedited removal to allow federal officials to deport illegal immigrants from anywhere in the U.S. under a fast-tracked process. Initially, expedited removal occurred only at the border, and later it was authorized to be applied to illegals who were apprehended within 14 days of arrival in the U.S. without inspection and within 100 miles of the border.

Now, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is allowing expedited removal proceedings to deport illegals living anywhere in the U.S. if the individuals cannot establish, to the satisfaction of an immigration officer, that they have continuously resided in the country for at least two years. This decision is then final without any further hearing or review.

Tong's statement argues that the power of immigration officers to deport illegals "will be unchecked with the expansion of expedited removals, and the incentive to seek mass arrests through sweeps and raids will only grow."

It further asserts that, "as the Trump administration has carried out large-scale sweeps and raids, there have been reports of U.S. citizens and others with lawful status being chased, manhandled, arrested, and detained, sometimes for days. And concerns have mounted that who gets targeted depends more than anything else on factors like race, the language one speaks, and the type of work one does."

In their brief, the attorneys general note that "an expansion of expedited removals will inflict serious harm on the states’ families, communities, and the economy. Already some community members are afraid to leave their homes, even for basic necessities like food or to go to church."

The brief further argues that children in mixed-status households are "at risk of severe mental health challenges, material hardship, or even placement in the foster care system" and that the risk of expedited removal "may also discourage immigrants from reporting crime or seeking needed medical care, negatively affecting public safety and health."

"If the President’s mass deportation campaign continues, the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) could decline as much as 7.4% by 2028, prices could rise by 9.1%, and tens of thousands of U.S. workers could lose their jobs," according to Tong's statement.

In filing the amicus brief, Attorney General Tong joins the attorneys general of California, Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, Nevada, New York, Oregon, Vermont, Washington, and the District of Columbia.

A copy of the brief is available here.

It's worth adding that Make the Road New York, which brought the case against Kristi Noem, operates a chapter in Connecticut, Make the Road Connecticut (MRCT).

MRCT, which was founded in 2015, has been fully "in the fight for immigrant justice" in the state, and has become a powerful voice on things like immigrant rights, healthcare equity, worker rights, women's rights, educational equity, just cause eviction protections, expansion of Medicaid and Husky insurance access to illegal aliens (including parents and siblings of illegal alien minors), and racial justice.

The group has stands in solidarity with their comrades at the Connecticut Democratic Socialists of America and the Working Families Party.

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