The Donald Trump administration announced on Tuesday that it would allow federal immigration agencies to make arrests at schools, churches and hospitals, ending a decades-old policy in the United States.
Acting Homeland Security Secretary, Benjamine Huffman, announced the end of two directives in a statement, giving agents more authority over whether they can carry out enforcement and eliminating a legal pathway for migrants seeking to come to the United States.
“Criminals will no longer be able to hide in America’s schools and churches to avoid arrest. The Trump Administration will not tie the hands of our brave law enforcement, and instead trusts them to use common sense,” the statement read.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement set a policy in 2011 preventing agents from making arrests in sensitive locations.
The Joe Biden administration put out similar guidance.
Immigrant advocates have shared concerns over stripping that policy, arguing that doing so would stoke fear in immigrant communities and keep children from going to school or people from seeking care at hospitals.
The second directive included the phaseout of parole programs that allowed certain migrants to temporarily live and work in the United States.
Republicans have repeatedly said the Biden administration abused the parole program by extending it to multiple nationalities.
The statement didn’t clarify which programs will be phased out, but said the program will be returned to a “case-by-case basis.”
“The Biden-Harris Administration abused the humanitarian parole program to indiscriminately allow 1.5 million migrants to enter our country. This was all stopped on day one of the Trump Administration. This action will return the humanitarian parole program to its original purpose of looking at migrants on a case-by-case basis,” the statement says.
“Oh, dear God! I can’t imagine why they would do that,” said Carmen, an immigrant from Mexico, after hearing that the Trump administration had rescinded the policy against arrests in “sensitive locations.”
She plans to take her two grandchildren, ages 6 and 4, to their school Wednesday in the San Francisco Bay Area unless she hears from school officials it is not safe.