The following from the NYT demonstrates the inhumane cruelty inspired by Stephen Miller’s quotas and demonstrates the xenophobic ideology of this administration: Green Card Interviews End in Handcuffs for Spouses of U.S. Citizens.
The married couples filed into a federal building in San Diego last week for green card interviews that they believed would secure their future together in the United States. Half of each pair was American. Stephen Paul came with his British wife and their 4-month-old baby. Audrey Hestmark arrived with her German husband, days before their first wedding anniversary. Jason Cordero accompanied his Mexican wife.
It was supposed to be a celebratory milestone, the final step in the process to obtain U.S. permanent residency. Instead, as each interview with an immigration officer wrapped up, federal agents swooped in, handcuffed the foreign spouse and took him or her away.
I use the word “evil” sparingly, but I can’t think of a better description of this. Here we have people trying to build lives together, and trying to engage the immigration system in the vaunted “right way” only to have their lives profoundly and frighteningly disrupted.
“It’s insane to have them rip our family apart,” Mr. Paul said. “Whoever is directing this has completely lost touch with their mission to the country.”
In recent weeks, immigration lawyers in several cities have seen a surge in arrests of foreign spouses of Americans during interviews at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services offices.
In San Diego alone, immigration lawyers in the region estimate that several dozen foreign-born spouses have been detained since Nov. 12, when the new tactic first surfaced, according to Andrew Nietor, an immigration lawyer.
[…]
In every case, agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement told the applicants that they had overstayed tourist or business visas. An arrest warrant, reviewed by The New York Times, states that “there is probable cause to believe” that the named spouse is “removable from the United States.“
Apprehensions at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services offices may occur if individuals are identified as having outstanding warrants; being subject to court-issued removal orders; or having committed fraud, crimes or other violations of immigration law while in the United States,” said Matthew J. Tragesser, an agency spokesman, noting that the arrests were typically carried out by ICE.
But the couples and their lawyers said they had followed the required steps: They had submitted extensive paperwork and paid fees. The foreign spouses had been fingerprinted and passed medical exams. None had criminal records. None had entered the country illegally. They had already been granted employment authorization.
It appears that what we have here is a situation in which is it both legal to detain these people for deportation and it is legal for them to be in the country to pursue their green card and since the law does not explicitly fix that contradiction (see the portion of the quote I have emphasized below) bad faith actors from Miller on down can exploit the situation to terrorize spouses of American citizens who have every right to be prusing permanent residency.
“In 25 years of practice, I have never seen anything like this,” Johanna Keamy, the Pauls’ lawyer, said, echoing the view of other lawyers.
“The proper procedure was exactly what they did,” she said. “What’s next? Revoking green cards from millions who followed these same steps?”
Green-card applicants’ temporary visas often lapse while their “adjustment-of-status” proceeds over several months or longer.
An immigration statute passed by Congress in 1986 allows a spouse who entered the country lawfully to be eligible for a green card through marriage even if the person’s visa has expired.
“Congress was unambiguous — these people are eligible for green cards,” said Doug Rand, who was a senior official at Citizenship and Immigration Services during the Biden administration.
While federal law does not prohibit spouses with expired visas from being detained and placed in deportation proceedings, in the past they have rarely been detained while applying for green cards.
No one is made safer by these kinds of actions. It is about terrorizing foreigners and trying to serve a xenophobic ideology.
Audrey Hestmark, 38, and her husband, Thomas Bilger, 40, reported to the government office in San Diego on Nov. 20, hopeful he would have his green card for their first wedding anniversary two days later.
[…]
At the interview, they brought requisite evidence that their marriage was legitimate — photos of a vacation to Hawaii with his parents; leases, bank statements and utility bills in both names; and other records.
The officer asked routine questions. But the last one, according to Ms. Hestmark, was whether her husband had ever overstayed his visa. He responded truthfully and cited their lawyer’s assurance that this was a nonissue.
“Suddenly, we were ambushed by three masked men in bulletproof vests with guns who told Tom they had a warrant for his arrest, that he is here unlawfully,” Ms. Hestmark recalled.
The agents handcuffed her husband, gave her a card with a QR code for the ICE website and took him away. She did not hear from him again until the next morning. He has been bounced between a basement in downtown San Diego and an immigration detention center, where he remains.
“I’m a U.S. citizen,” Ms. Hestmark said. “Tom is the love of my life, who happens to be born in Germany. We feel like we were tricked.”
They were tricked and worse, terrorized and abused by law enforcement, pure and simple.
All of this is just harassment that causes undue stress and financial burdens.
Some U.S. citizens have hired lawyers to seek the release of spouses, through actions such as posting bond. Once released, the foreign spouses must try to pursue green cards through immigration court, where judges are grappling with yearslong backlogs.
Mr. Nietor, the immigration lawyer, said that the government’s strategy appeared to be to induce the couples “to give up and abandon their cases and accept the foreign spouse’s deportation.”
It is hard enough in life to find someone to share it with, and there are already enough stresses and challenges that stand in the way of contentment and happiness. For the US government to step in when a couple thinks they are about to hit a happy milestone, only to have trying to follow the rules result in a spouse being imprisoned, is simply an inhumane act that runs counter to the notion of securing the blessings of liberty and allowing for the pursuit of happiness.
Parents are being separated from their children so that ICE can show how tough they are to foreigners.
Immiserating innocent people to feed anti-foreign hatred so as to keep America as pure as possible is, again, evil. And it is a reason that it is correct, despite his bleating protestations, to call people like Miller and others who propagate these kinds of policies, fascists.
