Immigrant rights teams and immigration legislation specialists are elevating considerations after the Division of Homeland Safety introduced that it’s creating a web based database designed to maintain observe of migrants over the age of 14 who’re residing within the nation illegally.
Migrants who’re in the USA with out authorization should register their info in a database that tracks them in an effort to “compel” self-deportation, the DHS mentioned in a press launch on Tuesday.
Division of Homeland Safety Secretary Kristi Noem talks briefly with reporters after attending a Senate Homeland Safety and Governmental Affairs within the Dirksen Senate Workplace Constructing on Capitol Hill on Feb. 25, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Photographs
Nonetheless, the registry had not been arrange as of Wednesday. A U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Providers webpage instructed migrants who’re required to register to create a web based account with the company.
Vowing to “use each obtainable software to compel unlawful aliens to self-deport,” a DHS assertion mentioned individuals who fail to register and submit fingerprints may face fines and imprisonment.
“President [Donald] Trump and Secretary [of Homeland Security Kristi] Noem have a transparent message for these in our nation illegally: depart now. Should you depart now, you could have the chance to return and revel in our freedom and stay the American dream,” a DHS spokesperson mentioned in an announcement on Tuesday. “The Trump administration will implement all our immigration legal guidelines—we won’t choose and select which legal guidelines we are going to implement. We should know who’s in our nation for the protection and safety of our homeland and all Individuals.”
The DHS mentioned it is invoking a decades-old part of the Immigration and Nationality Act that requires registration from migrants over the age of 14 who’re in the USA, who haven’t been fingerprinted or registered, and who’ve been within the nation for greater than 30 days.
“Traditionally, we all know that we have now to take a seat up and listen anytime a authorities says it should arrange a registry on the premise of nationwide origin or race or faith or every other immutable attribute, as a result of dramatic losses of civil liberties and civil rights are positive to observe and doubtlessly worse,” mentioned Heidi Altman, vice chairman of coverage on the Nationwide Immigration Regulation Middle.
Following the 9/11 assault, President George W. Bush’s administration arrange a system often called the Nationwide Safety Entry-Exit Registration System, which required registration from sure noncitizens — principally from Muslim-majority nations and North Korea.
“Just like the registry system that Trump is envisioning right here, it was arrange below a guise of nationwide safety or public security considerations that, in the long run, solely served to eviscerate civil rights for the communities that had been focused and to separate communities,” Altman mentioned. “There have been about 83,000 individuals who had been compelled to register via NSEERS and plenty of 1000’s of them had been put in deportation proceedings.”
Dad and mom and authorized guardians of undocumented immigrants who’re below 14 years of age and haven’t beforehand registered would even have to enroll to the database.
Below the Trump administration’s registry, immigrants over the age of 18 could be issued proof that they’ve registered that they “should carry and hold of their possession always,” the USCIS web site mentioned.
That requirement is stoking fears that this could be a brand new “present me your papers” sort of legislation, mentioned Michelle Lapointe, authorized director for the American Immigration Council.
“There are some actual civil liberties points right here,” Lapointe informed ABC Information. “It can find yourself ensnaring folks primarily based on legislation enforcement’s perceptions of their race and assumptions that legislation enforcement makes about folks’s immigration standing primarily based on that.”
“So, there’s actual alternative for abuse, as a result of that is basically establishing a system the place folks have to provide their papers — present their papers to legislation enforcement to show their standing,” she continued.
Lapointe mentioned that the DHS can also be threatening jail time for failing to register, despite the fact that being within the nation with out authorization is not at all times punishable by imprisonment.
“An alien’s failure to register is against the law that might end in a high quality, imprisonment, or each,” Tuesday’s press launch mentioned.
In lots of instances, being within the nation with out authorization is a civil offense and would sometimes be punishable by removing as a substitute of incarceration.
Because the Trump administration continues to ramp up its deportation efforts, Greg Chen, senior director of Authorities Relations for American Immigration Legal professionals Affiliation, mentioned that few folks could select to register.
“I do not suppose many individuals are going to come back ahead and register, as a result of they’ll be too afraid that in the event that they register, they’re merely going to be deported quickly, given the aggressive mass deportation plan that administration is establishing,” Chen mentioned.
