“Amazon for human beings”: this is how the director of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Todd Lyons, wants migrant deportations in the United States to work.
Speaking at a Border Security conference in Phoenix, Arizona, the high-ranking official stressed that his administration must begin treating the expulsion of migrants from the country “like a business,” according to local media outlet AZMirror.
His statements come as the Donald Trump administration, which promised to carry out the largest deportation campaign in US history, is under scrutiny from the courts for detaining migrants without criminal records or with any type of legal status.
Aggressive actions
Among Trump’s most aggressive actions to accelerate expulsions and crack down on immigration is the transfer of more than 200 people, mostly Venezuelan migrants with no criminal record, to a mega-prison in El Salvador, according to a CBS report.
17th-century law known as the Alien Enemies Act
The administration invoked a 17th-century law known as the Alien Enemies Act to justify these expulsions. Several human rights organizations have already filed lawsuits to counter the use of this law.
Right to challenge their deportation
This past Wednesday, the Supreme Court lifted a federal court order blocking the expulsions of Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador, but stated that those detained have the right to notice and to challenge their deportation within “a reasonable time.”
