The United States is becoming a “country of deportations” that unleashes the “hound dogs” on undocumented immigrants, according to lawmaker Adriano Espaillat, who in January became the first formerly undocumented immigrant to be elected to the U.S. Congress.
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“Are we a country of deportation or are we a country of aspirations?” Espaillat asked during an interview with CNN Tuesday night.
“I think that’s what’s on the table right now. Have we changed the course of America? Are we now a heavy-handed, bullying country, or are we a country that anybody could do anything, including an undocumented young boy that’s now a member of Congress?”
His comments came after U.S. Department of Homeland Security unveiled plans Tuesday that have been accused of considering almost all undocumented migrants subject to deportation, and will seek to send many of them to Mexico if they entered the United States from there, regardless of their nationality.
Espaillat moved from the Dominican Republic to New York at age nine with his parents to live with his grandparents. Before going back to his home country and applying for a green card, for years he lived as an undocumented immigrant and spoke of how his grandparents would urge him not to talk to strangers and be cautious of where he went.
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“What I find now is that many people are afraid. I hear in my district office, people calling in concerned. They don’t know how these new guidelines will apply to them,” Espaillat noted.
“It unleashes the hound dogs, if you may. It sets fear as a mass deportation guideline that he sets out. You know, it expedites removal. It fractures families.”
U.S. President Donald Trump made cracking down on immigration to “keep America safe” one of his biggest campaign promises.
Just a week into his presidency he signed executive orders to deport millions of undocumented immigrants from the U.S., and for the now-suspended travel ban to the U.S. on all refugees, as well as visitors, from seven Muslim-majority countries.