Tag Archives: Illegal Immigration

Hungary outlines ‘Stop Soros’ legislation against immigration

: A man rides his moped past a government billboard displaying George Soros in monochrome next to a message urging Hungarians to take part in a national consultation about what it calls a plan by the Hungarian-born financier to settle a million migrants in Europe per year, in Szolnok, Hungary, October 2, 2017.

BUDAPEST (Reuters) – Hungary’s nationalist government outlined legislation on Wednesday to tackle illegal immigration that it says is undermining European stability and has been stoked in part by U.S. financier George Soros.

Right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orban is embroiled in an escalating feud with Soros, who has rejected an extended Hungarian government campaign against him as “distortions and lies” meant to create a false external enemy.

Orban is expected to secure a third straight term in a general election due on April 8.

The legislative package, dubbed “Stop Soros” by government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs, includes mandatory registration of some non-government organizations that “support illegal immigration”, according to an emailed government position paper.

Kovacs told a news conference that a 25 percent tax would be imposed on foreign donations that such NGOs collect, and activists could face restraining orders that preclude them from approaching the EU’s external borders in Hungary. Those borders have been fortified since a migrant influx in 2015.

Kovacs added that third-country nationals could also be subject to a restraining order anywhere in the country.

Details were not immediately clear as the bills will only be published and submitted for public debate on Thursday.

But pro-government media reported that the bills could lead to a ban on Soros, who has U.S. and Hungarian citizenship, entering the country.

Soros, 87, is a Hungarian-born Jew whose longtime support for liberal and open-border values in eastern Europe have put him at odds with right-wing nationalists, especially in Hungary.

Orban’s government said in its position paper that it opposed migration through “every means possible.”

“Illegal mass immigration is a problem that affects Europe as a whole, posing serious security risks,” it said.

Asked about implications for Soros himself, Kovacs said: “If Soros is found to have engaged in such activity, meaning he organizes illegal immigration, then the rules will apply to him.” An aide for Kovacs declined to elaborate.

Last year, the Orban government introduced a measure requiring NGOs that get money from abroad to register with the state, raising alarm in the European Union and United States.

The European Commission said late last year it was taking Budapest to the EU’s top court over its NGO laws as well as a higher education law that targets Central European University in Budapest founded by Soros.

Orban is locked in a series of running battles with the EU, where Western member states and the Brussels-based executive Commission decry what they see as his authoritarian leanings, the squeezing of the opposition and the free media.

(Reporting by Marton Dunai; editing by Mark Heinrich)

Judge in California blocks Trump’s order on sanctuary cities

Judge in California blocks Trump's order on sanctuary cities

By Jon Herskovitz

(Reuters) – A federal court judge in California on Monday blocked an executive order from President Donald Trump to deny some federal grants to so-called sanctuary cities, undermining the administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration.

The judge, who blocked the order provisionally in April, issued a permanent injunction in the suit brought by the city and county of San Francisco and Santa Clara County, which said the order was unconstitutional.

“The Counties have demonstrated that the Executive Order has caused and will cause them constitutional injuries by violating the separation of powers doctrine and depriving them of their Tenth and Fifth Amendment rights,” U.S. District Judge William Orrick for the Northern District of California wrote in his order.

Trump issued the order in January, shortly after he was inaugurated, slashing funding to jurisdictions that refuse to comply with a statute that requires local governments to share information with U.S. immigration authorities.

As part of that policy, the Justice Department has sought to punish cities and other local jurisdictions that have joined a growing “sanctuary” movement aimed at shielding illegal immigrants from stepped-up deportation efforts.

“The district court exceeded its authority today when it barred the president from instructing his cabinet members to enforce existing law,” Department of Justice spokesman Devin O’Malley said in a statement. “The Justice Department will vindicate the president’s lawful authority to direct the executive branch.”

The department has already appealed the judge’s prior ruling from April.

The Trump administration contends local authorities endanger public safety when they decline to hand over for deportation illegal immigrants arrested for crimes.

Dozens of local governments and cities, including New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, have joined the growing “sanctuary” movement.

Supporters of the sanctuary policy argue enlisting police cooperation in rounding up immigrants for removal undermines communities’ trust in local police, particularly among Latinos.

The Justice Department is concerned about localities’ compliance with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement requests to detain people up to 48 hours beyond their scheduled release time so that immigration officials can pick them up.

Some cities say they will only honor such requests when accompanied by criminal warrants, and that compliance is voluntary and not required under the statute.

Chicago also sued the federal government in August over the threats of funding cuts by the Justice Department. A federal judge sided with the city in September and issued a preliminary injunction barring the U.S. government from denying the public-safety grants.

(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz and Alex Dobuzinskis,; Editing by Christian Schmollinger)

California, three other states sue over Trump action on ‘Dreamer’ immigrants

FILE PHOTO: A sign is seen during a rally against the rescindment of DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) program outside the San Francisco Federal Building in San Francisco, California, U.S., September 5, 2017. REUTERS/Stephen Lam

By Dan Levine

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – California and three other states sued President Donald Trump’s administration on Monday over his decision to end protections for people brought to the United States illegally as children, the latest bid by Democratic state attorneys general to salvage the policy.

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said Trump’s move to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program that protected these immigrants from deportation and gave them work permits would be “an economic travesty” for the most populous U.S. state, which depends on immigrant labor.

Minnesota, Maryland and Maine joined California in filing the lawsuit in federal court in San Francisco.

Trump last week said he would end the program, which was created in 2012 by his Democratic predecessor Barack Obama, effective in March, giving Congress six months to determine the fate of the nearly 800,000 young adults covered by DACA, dubbed “Dreamers.”

A Justice Department spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment. The department last week said Obama overstepped his constitutional authority when he bypassed Congress and created the program unilaterally.

Last week, 16 other state attorneys general filed a separate lawsuit in a Brooklyn federal court saying Trump’s decision violated constitutional protections for Dreamers, as well as other claims. The California lawsuit asserts similar legal grounds.

If people protected under DACA lose their work authorization, the California lawsuit also said, then they would face the loss of employer-provided health insurance, which would potentially increase the state’s expenditures on the uninsured.

“In California you don’t become the world’s sixth-largest economy, just because,” Becerra said.

Trump’s move drew criticism from business and religious leaders, mayors, governors, Democratic lawmakers, unions and civil liberties advocates. Legal experts have said court challenges to Trump’s decision could face an uphill battle because a president typically has wide authority in implementing immigration policy.

(Reporting by Dan Levine; Editing by Will Dunham)

Trump ends ‘Dreamer’ immigration program, places onus on Congress

Demonstrators protest in front of the White House after the Trump administration today scrapped the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), a program that protects from deportation almost 800,000 young men and women who were brought into the U.S. illegally as children, in Washington, U.S., September 5, 2017. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

By Steve Holland and Yeganeh Torbati

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump on Tuesday scrapped an Obama-era program that protects from deportation immigrants brought illegally into the United States as children, delaying implementation until March and giving a gridlocked Congress six months to decide the fate of almost 800,000 young people.

As the so-called Dreamers who have benefited from the five-year-old program were plunged into uncertainty, business and religious leaders, mayors, governors, Democratic lawmakers, unions, civil liberties advocates and former Democratic President Barack Obama all condemned Trump’s move.

The action was announced not by Trump but by Jeff Sessions, his attorney general, who called the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program an unconstitutional overreach by Obama. There will be an “orderly, lawful wind-down,” Sessions said.

Trump later issued a written statement saying that “I do not favor punishing children, most of whom are now adults, for the actions of their parents. But we must also recognize that we are (a) nation of opportunity because we are a nation of laws.”

He denounced Obama’s program as an “amnesty-first approach” toward illegal immigrants and pressed his nationalist “America First” message, saying that despite concerns voiced by his critics about the fate of the Dreamers, “Above all else, we must remember that young Americans have dreams too.”

On Tuesday evening, the Republican president tweeted that lawmakers now had six months to “legalize DACA” and that if they did not, he would “revisit this issue!”

Obama issued his own statement calling Trump’s action a political decision, defending DACA’s legality and urging Congress to protect Dreamers.

“This is about young people who grew up in America – kids who study in our schools, young adults who are starting careers, patriots who pledge allegiance to our flag. These Dreamers are Americans in their hearts, in their minds, in every single way but one: on paper,” Obama said.

The Trump administration said nobody covered by the program, which provided work permits in addition to deportation protection and primarily benefits Hispanics, would be affected before March 5. Most people covered by DACA are in their 20s.

Trump shifted responsibility to a Congress controlled by his fellow Republicans and said it was now up to lawmakers to pass immigration legislation that could address the fate of those protected by DACA who would be in danger of deportation.

Trump and Sessions offered no details of the type of legislation they would want to see, and Trump’s spokeswoman offered only a broad outline.

“I have a love for these people (DACA recipients), and hopefully now Congress will be able to help them and do it properly,” Trump later told reporters at the White House, adding: “I think it’s going to work out very well.”

Since Trump took office in January, Congress has been unable to pass any major legislation, most notably failing on a healthcare overhaul, and lawmakers have been bitterly divided over immigration in the past.

“President Trump’s decision to end DACA is a deeply shameful act of political cowardice and a despicable assault on innocent young people in communities across America,” said Nancy Pelosi, the top Democrat in the House of Representatives.

The Democratic attorney general of Massachusetts, Maura Healey, said a coalition of states planned to file suit in the coming days to defend DACA, and one advocacy group announced its own legal action.

“This is a sad day for our country,” added Facebook Inc <FB.O> founder Mark Zuckerberg. “The decision to end DACA is not just wrong. It is particularly cruel to offer young people the American Dream, encourage them to come out of the shadows and trust our government, and then punish them for it.”

Brad Smith, president of Microsoft Corp <MSFT.O>, urged Congress to “put the humanitarian needs of these 800,000 people on the legislative calendar” before tax-cut legislation sought by Trump.

Nearly 800,000 people stepped forward, admitted their illegal immigrant status and provided personal information to the government to apply for the DACA program. They now face the prospect of being deported starting in March. Dreamers are a fraction of the roughly 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States.

“The cancellation of the DACA program is reprehensible,” the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said in a statement.

But White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said: “It’s not cold hearted for the president to uphold the law.”

Trump said DACA recipients would not be deportation priorities unless they were criminals or gang members.

Ending DACA was the latest action by Trump sure to alienate Hispanic Americans, a growing segment of the U.S. population and an increasingly important voting bloc. Most of the immigrants protected by DACA came from Mexico and other Latin American countries.

The Mexican government said it “profoundly laments” Trump’s decision to end DACA and pledged to strengthen efforts to guarantee consular protections for affected Mexican citizens.

THREAT OF LAWSUITS

The Homeland Security Department will provide a limited window – until Oct. 5 – for some DACA recipients whose work permits expire before March 5 to apply to renew those permits. In addition, the department will adjudicate any new DACA requests, or renewal requests, accepted as of Tuesday. That would mean that some beneficiaries of DACA could work legally in the country through 2019.

The administration said the president’s decision was prompted in part by a threat from several Republican state attorneys general, led by Texas, to file legal challenges in federal court if Trump did not act to end DACA. Late on Tuesday, Texas state Attorney General Ken Paxton said he withdrew the 10-state suit after Trump’s decision.

House Speaker Paul Ryan called on lawmakers to find a long-term solution for the young people affected by the reversal of the program. Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Congress “will continue working on securing our border and ensuring a lawful system of immigration that works.”

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said there could be a winning formula by coupling legislation to provide legal status for Dreamers with additional border security measures, although he said support was lacking in Congress for Trump’s proposed border wall.

Trump made a crackdown on illegal immigrants a centerpiece of his 2016 election campaign, promising to deport every illegal immigrant.

The decision to end DACA is the latest action by Trump to erase key parts of his Democratic predecessor’s legacy.

That includes pulling the United States out of the Paris climate accord, abandoning a 12-nation Pacific trade deal, seeking to dismantle the Obamacare healthcare law, rolling back environmental protections, reversing parts of Obama’s opening to Cuba and removing protections for transgender people.

(Reporting by Steve Holland and Yeganeh Torbati; Additional reporting by Richard Cowan, Doina Chiacu, Mica Rosenberg, Makini Brice, Tim Ahmann, Lawrence Hurley, Jonathan Allen, Sarah N. Lynch, Dustin Volz and David Alexander; Writing by Will Dunham and Dustin Volz; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Peter Cooney)

Finns want tougher immigration policy after knife attack, poll shows

FILE PHOTO: People attend a moment of silence to commemorate the victims of Friday's stabbings at the Turku Market Square in Turku, Finland August 20, 2017. Lehtikuva/Vesa Moilanen via REUTERS

HELSINKI (Reuters) – An increasing number of Finns want the government to get tougher on immigration after last week’s knife attack by a Moroccan asylum seeker that killed two women and wounded eight other people, an opinion poll showed on Thursday.

Friday’s stabbings in the city of Turku have been treated as the first suspected Islamist militant attack in Finland, which boasts one of the lowest crime rates in the world. However, the main suspected has denied terrorism was a motive.

Some 58 percent of Finns want the government to tighten immigration policy and give police and other officials extra powers to prevent future attacks, according to the poll, which was taken after the attack and published by the Finnish newspaper Iltalehti.

A similar poll in April showed only 40 percent supported stricter policies.

Finnish police have detained four men and arrested two in connection with the Turku killings. An international arrest warrant has been issued for a fifth.

The main suspect, who is in custody, has been named as Abderrahman Mechkah, an 18-year-old Moroccan. He told a court he was responsible for the attack but denied his motive was terrorism.

At the time of the attack, Mechkah was appealing against a decision on his application for asylum, which apparently was denied.

Prime Minister Juha Sipila has urged the parliament to fast-track a bill that would give authorities new powers to monitor citizens online.

Some officials have also promoted establishing better-controlled “return centers” to monitor more closely those who had been denied asylum.

The poll showed 80 percent of Finns supporting both proposals.

(Reporting by Tuomas Forsell, editing by Larry King)

‘America First’ protesters face off with opponents at California beach rally

People protest during an America First rally in Laguna Beach, California, U.S., August 20, 2017. REUTERS/Sand

By Olga Grigoryants

LAGUNA BEACH, Calif. (Reuters) – Anti-immigration demonstrators faced off against a much bigger crowd of counter-protesters in the Southern California town of Laguna Beach on Sunday, as police kept the opposing sides apart.

Around 2,500 people in total showed up for what became a raucous shouting match but did not descend into the kind of violence seen at this month’s clashes at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where one person was killed.

A demonstrator faces off with a counter-protester during an America First rally in Laguna Beach, California, U.S., August 20, 2017.

A demonstrator faces off with a counter-protester during an America First rally in Laguna Beach, California, U.S., August 20, 2017. REUTERS/Sandy Huffaker

Police erected barricades along the oceanfront to deter car attacks like the one in Charlottesville which killed a woman when a suspected white nationalist drove into the crowd.

Dozens of anti-immigration protesters rallying behind President Donald Trump’s campaign slogan “America First” were escorted by police through opposing demonstrators who chanted: “Shame” and “No white supremacy”.

Trump’s opponents blame him for boosting far-right sentiment, forcing the president to deny he tacitly supports racists.

“We are not a white supremacism movement but an ‘America First’ movement,” said Beverly Welch, 56, a health assistant protesting against illegal immigration. “We’re trying to save our country.”

Police later declared the remaining protesters an unlawful assembly and forced them to disperse. They made three arrests.

On Saturday, tens of thousands of people protested in Boston against a “free speech” rally featuring far-right speakers.

 

(Additional reporting by Ian Simpson in Washington; Writing by Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

 

Chicago sues Trump administration over sanctuary city plan

FILE PHOTO - Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel listens to remarks at a news conference in Chicago, Illinois, U.S. on December 7, 2015. REUTERS/Jim Young/File Photo

By Julia Jacobs

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Chicago on Monday sued to prevent the Trump administration from enforcing new policies that would withhold money from so-called sanctuary cities that deny U.S. immigration officials access to local jails.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court, said the federal policies force the nation’s third largest city to choose between its constitutional rights and funding for law enforcement.

“These new conditions also fly in the face of longstanding City policy that promotes cooperation between local law enforcement and immigrant communities,” the lawsuit said.

The policies also include a requirement that local law enforcement agencies give federal authorities 48 hours notice before releasing anyone wanted for immigration violations.

Democratic Mayor Rahm Emanuel said on Sunday that the city would sue, escalating a pushback against an immigration crackdown launched by Republican President Donald Trump’s administration.

“We are bringing this legal challenge because the rhetoric, the threats from this administration embodied in these new conditions imposed on unrelated public safety grants funds are breeding a culture and climate of fear,” Emanuel’s senior legal adviser, Corporation Counsel Ed Siskel, said on Monday.The conditions from the Justice Department apply to the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grants, which provide money to hundreds of cities. Chicago is expected to receive $3.2 million this year for purchasing equipment.

Siskel said the city will follow the initial complaint with a motion for a preliminary injunction to halt the government’s imposition of the new conditions.

The city will request a decision from the judge before the Sept. 5 deadline to apply for the Byrne grant, Siskel said.

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said on Monday that Chicago officials have shown an “open hostility” to enforcing laws designed to reduce crime and protect law enforcement.

He added that more Chicagoans were murdered last year than residents of Los Angeles and New York combined, and that Chicago needed to reverse a “culture of lawlessness.”

“This administration will not simply give away grant dollars to city governments that proudly violate the rule of law and protect criminal aliens at the expense of public safety,” Sessions said in a statement.

The lawsuit is the first to challenge the Justice Department over the Byrne program but is not the first legal attack on the administration’s sanctuary city policies.

Emanuel said on Sunday that the lawsuit would prevent the administration from setting a precedent that could be used to target other funding.

Sanctuary cities in general offer illegal immigrants safe harbor by declining to use municipal resources to enforce federal immigration laws. Dozens of local governments and cities, including New York and San Francisco, are part of the sanctuary movement. “Sanctuary city” is not an official designation.

The lawsuit came nearly two weeks after Sessions said the Justice Department would bar cities from the Byrne program unless they allowed immigration authorities unlimited access to local jails and give the 48 hours pre-release notice.

Chicago and its high murder rate have been frequently criticized by Trump, and cracking down on illegal immigration was a theme of his 2016 presidential campaign.

(Reporting by Mark Weinraub and Julia Jacobs; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Trump and senators seek to slash legal immigration

President Trump speaks during an announcement on immigration reform accompanied by Senator Tom Cotton and Senator David Perdue. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

By Ayesha Rascoe and Mica Rosenberg

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) – After a crackdown on illegal immigration that has sharply reduced the number of unauthorized border crossings from Mexico, U.S. President Donald Trump is now turning his attention to reducing the number of legal immigrants in the country.

The White House is throwing its support behind a bill developed by Republican senators Tom Cotton of Arkansas and David Perdue of Georgia that would cut legal immigration by 50 percent over 10 years by reducing the kinds of relatives immigrants can bring into the country.

But the legislation faces an uphill climb to get through Congress where some senior Republicans back comprehensive immigration reform, not a tough crackdown.

Under the new bill, known as the RAISE Act, the United States would prioritize high-skilled immigrants by setting up a merits-based system similar to those used by Canada and Australia.

Trump and the Republican lawmakers blasted the current immigration system as out of date and argued that it hurts American workers by driving down wages.

“This competitive application process will favor applicants who can speak English, financially support themselves and their families and demonstrate skills that will contribute to our economy,” Trump said.

The Senators said they worked closely with the White House on this latest version of their bill. “This is probably our third or fourth visit to the Oval Office to work with President Trump,” Cotton told reporters.

LONG HISTORY

Slashing legal immigration has long been pushed by low-immigration advocacy groups in Washington like NumbersUSA and the ideas have been backed by now-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who is now facing public criticism from Trump.

NumbersUSA President Roy Beck hailed the bill and said that it “will do more than any other action to fulfill President Trump’s promises as a candidate.” Trump vowed to crack down on illegal immigration during his campaign and signed two executive orders soon after taking office to increase border security and interior enforcement.

Cotton and Perdue said their bill does not affect temporary visas for workers in certain tech sectors and seasonal jobs that are popular with many businesses. They stressed that the legislation was narrowly focused, an approach they hoped would be able to get bipartisan support.

“We’re not trying to boil the ocean here and change everything about our immigration law,” Cotton said.

But other Republican lawmakers said the bill might be going too far. Senator Lindsey Graham, from South Carolina, said his state is dependent on immigrant labor to sustain the two biggest sectors of the economy, agriculture and tourism.

Economists have called into the question the benefits of cutting legal immigration. FWD.us, a group that represents the tech industry said that the bill would “severely harm the economy.”

The bill aims to end the diversity visa lottery, which allows 50,000 people from underrepresented countries to obtain green cards.

It also sets a 50,000 annual cap on refugees, instead of a level mandated by the president.

Refugee organizations said permanently limiting number of refugees allowed in the country goes against an American value of offering safe haven to people fleeing violence and oppression.

Trump suggested at an event in New York’s Long Island on Friday, where he spoke out against violence committed by Central American gang members, that immigrants today are different than in previous generations.

“What happened to the old days when people came into this country and they worked and they worked and they worked and they had families and paid taxes and they did all sorts of things and their families got stronger and they were closely knit?” Trump asked the audience of law enforcement officers. “We don’t see that.”

(Additional reporting by Roberta Rampton in Washington)

In New York, Trump to use gang violence to press for deportations

A makeshift memorial stands outside a park, where bodies of four men were found on April 13, in Central Islip, New York, U.S., April 28, 2017. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton

By Roberta Rampton and Mica Rosenberg

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) – President Donald Trump will travel on Friday to a New York community shocked by a recent spate of graphic gang murders to highlight his efforts to stop illegal immigration and boost deportations.

Trump’s trip to Long Island gives the president an opportunity to showcase some progress on his agenda even as other legislative efforts flounder – and some respite from the chaos of a nasty power struggle among his senior staff that blew up on Thursday.

On Friday, Trump will highlight his administration’s push to deport members of the Mara Salvatrucha gang, better known as MS-13, the existence of which his White House blames on lax enforcement of illegal immigration from Central America.

“It’s going to be a very forceful message about just how menacing this threat is, and just how much pain is inflicted on American communities,” a senior administration official told reporters ahead of the trip.

Trump’s visit comes as his Attorney General Jeff Sessions traveled to El Salvador to highlight progress on the gang crack-down.

The gang took root in Los Angeles in the 1980s in neighborhoods populated with immigrants from El Salvador who had fled civil war. The Justice Department has said MS-13 now has more than 10,000 members across the United States.

On Long Island – not far from the New York City borough of Queens, where Trump grew up – MS-13 was behind the murders of two teenage girls in a suburban neighborhood last September, and four young men in a park in April.

There have been 17 murders on Long Island tied to the gang since January 2016, the Suffolk County Police Department has said.

Under Trump, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has targeted the gang, deporting more than 2,700 criminal gang members in fiscal 2017, up from 2,057 in the whole of the previous fiscal year, the White House has said.

“We are throwing MS-13 the hell out of here so fast,” Trump said earlier this week at a rally in Ohio.

Trump made concerns about illegal immigration a centerpiece of his campaign. One of his first actions in office was to scrap Obama-era guidelines that prioritized convicted criminals for deportations.

His administration is now taking a harder line on Central American youth who have crossed the border illegally without guardians – a group that law enforcement has said has been targeted for recruitment by MS-13.

Immigration agents plan to target teenagers who are suspected gang members, even if they are not charged with any crime, according to a memo seen by Reuters.

But civil rights groups say police and immigration agents have unfairly targeted some teenagers.

“We received complaints in recent weeks from terrified parents on Long Island that teens have already been detained on the thinnest of rationales, such as wearing a basketball jersey,” said Sebastian Krueger from the New York Civil Liberties Union.

There have been at least two lawsuits filed by people claiming they were mistakenly included in gang databases and then targeted for deportation, said Paromita Shah, from the National Immigration Project at the National Lawyers Guild.

(Reporting by Roberta Rampton and Mica Rosenberg; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

Survivors of Texas truck where 10 immigrants died seek to trade testimony for visas

Police officers work on a crime scene after eight people believed to be illegal immigrants being smuggled into the United States were found dead inside a sweltering 18-wheeler trailer parked behind a Walmart store in San Antonio, Texas, U.S. July 23, 2017. REUTERS/Ray Whitehouse

By Jon Herskovitz and Mica Rosenberg

AUSTIN, Texas/NEW YORK (Reuters) – Some of the illegal immigrants who survived a deadly human-smuggling journey into Texas are seeking visas to stay in the United States in exchange for testimony against those responsible for an operation that killed 10 people on a sweltering truck, a lawyer said on Tuesday.

There is precedent for such visas and it could help U.S. authorities bring more people to justice, experts said. So far, only one person has been charged, the driver of the truck who said he was unaware of the human cargo aboard until he took a rest stop in San Antonio. He could face the death penalty if convicted.

The case could also provide a test for the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, which has promised to crack down on illegal immigration and the criminal syndicates responsible for human trafficking.

Silvia Mintz, an attorney representing the Guatemalan Consulate in Houston, said she has contacted the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to see if it would consider granting “U visas,” available to victims of crimes such as human trafficking who have pertinent information to provide law enforcement.

At least 100 illegal immigrants, mainly from Mexico and Guatemala, were crammed into the back of the truck after crossing the U.S. border.

“If we are able to establish the case, we will go ahead and seek the U visa,” Mintz said in a telephone interview.

Shane Folden, special agent in charge for Homeland Security Investigations in San Antonio, said most of the people found alive at the scene are still in local hospitals. He said it was too early to talk about possible visas.

“There are a number of paths toward immigration relief for situations such as this,” he said in a telephone interview, adding, “we are not at that point yet.”

Of the 39 people found at the scene, 10 have died, 22 were in hospitals and seven have been released and were being questioned, he said.

Most of those aboard the truck fled before authorities could capture them.

DEATH IN VICTORIA

U.S. law enforcement has granted temporary visas previously for immigrants who provided testimony in what is considered the worst illegal immigrant-smuggling case in U.S. history, when 19 people died after traveling in an 18-wheeler truck through Victoria, Texas, in 2003.

Temporary visas for about 40 people aboard that truck helped U.S. prosecutors charge more than a dozen people with conspiracy in the case, prosecutors said at the time.

Alonzo Pena, a former deputy director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said witnesses in the San Antonio case can be released into the community under strict conditions that could include wearing electronic monitoring devices.

Authorities would likely repatriate the others, said Pena, who runs a San Antonio consulting business, in a telephone interview.

A U-visa is valid for four years and offers a path to apply for permanent residency status. Congress limited the number to 10,000 a year, and the program is heavily oversubscribed.

Those on the truck may also try for a T-visa for victims of human trafficking.

Agent Folden said U.S. authorities want to topple the criminal groups responsible for human trafficking.

“Our primary goal is to disrupt and dismantle these organizations,” he said.

(Additional reporting by Jim Forysth in San Antonio and Reade Levinson in New York; Editing by Frank McGurty and Lisa Shumaker)