The Newark Liberty International Airport in Newark. | Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto via Getty Images
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These are uncertain times for many immigrants in the US.
There have been reports of individual visa and green card holders and tourists who have been detained and deported. However, the Trump administration does not seem to be indiscriminately targeting legal immigrants who have authorization to be in the US on a large scale.
Some have reportedly been targeted based on their political activism. A Brown University professor and doctor with a green card was deported after officials found photos of former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Iran’s supreme leader on her phone. Immigration authorities also invoked a Trump executive order prohibiting antisemitism to detain a former Columbia student and green card holder who helped lead campus protests over the war in Gaza.
In other cases, the Trump administration hasn’t clarified its rationale for detaining someone. A German citizen with a green card was interrogated by border officials in Boston and detained without access to his anxiety medication. It’s not clear if the government has charged him with a crime. Similarly, the administration had not offered an official explanation for detaining a Turkish doctoral student as of Tuesday.
And it’s not just immigrants who have been affected. A US citizen said he was walking down the streets of Chicago when he was arrested by immigration agents, who confiscated his ID and held him for 10 hours before releasing him.
Even though limited in number, these cases have been going viral — and are understandably causing fear in immigrant communities.
According to immigration attorneys, it’s hard to tell how worried immigrants who are legally living and working in the US need to be.
“After practicing for 40 years, it’s really difficult to divine what a measured response is right now,” said Kathleen Campbell Walker, former president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.
So far, cases of individuals with visas and green cards being detained or deported appear rare. That said, the lawyers I spoke with advised these immigrants, as well as US citizens, to consider certain precautions in an environment of such uncertainty.
Consider carrying identification documents
Legal non-citizen immigrants have long been legally required to carry their immigration papers at all times. However, the penalties for failing to do so are becoming higher under Trump.
In April, the Trump administration is expected to increase the associated fines from $100 to $5,000, Campbell Walker said. Failing to possess documentation is a misdemeanor. That could now land an immigrant in detention and deportation proceedings; Trump revoked the Biden administration’s immigration enforcement priorities so that even people charged with nonviolent, minor crimes can now be deported.
Relatedly, next month the Trump administration will also start requiring all noncitizens to register with the federal government and designate those who fail to do so as a priority for immigration enforcement. Many noncitizens who have had previous contact with the federal government — whether because they applied for certain immigration benefits or were issued a notice to appear in immigration court — are already considered registered under the new policy.
Campbell Walker said US citizens should also consider carrying a passport card that fits in their wallet, or birth certificate, as proof of their nationality, given the reports of Americans swept up in Trump’s immigration enforcement activities. In some of these cases, she said, there have been concerns that immigration agents are racially and ethnically profiling their targets.
“Carrying documents on your person, making sure that people who are not citizens or naturalized or acquired citizens have one place in your home where you have all your important documentation together and making sure that you have copies — those are all reasonable and important steps to be taking in a moment like this, when we see the administration attacking free speech rights and attacking the basic norms of due process,” said Heidi Altman, vice president of policy at the National Immigration Law Center.
Reconsider international travel
Immigration attorneys are urging immigrants to exercise caution in traveling abroad right now.
Following the deportation of one of their professors, Brown University advised “out of an abundance of caution” that even green card holders delay any personal travel outside the US. The university said that changes in requirements to reenter the country and a draft proposal for a travel ban targeting 43 countries that could be implemented as early as this week might impact its students and staff.
“I believe that a lot of green card holders are making the decision to consult with an attorney before traveling, and I think that’s a reasonable consideration,” Altman said.
Immigrants should consider whether their country of origin or where they are planning to travel may be on the list of countries that could be subjected to travel bans. They should also weigh their own history of activism and whether that could make them a target upon reentry to the US.
“We know that this administration is engaging in retaliatory actions against people who have engaged in constitutionally protected activism and speech,” Altman said. “And so I think people may want to think about their own history and imagine and explore if it might put them at high interest for retaliatory targeting and talk to an attorney about precautionary steps that can be taken before travel.”
Protect your privacy on social media and on your electronic devices
If you must travel, consider leaving your personal electronic devices at home. Border officials can (and recently have) requested access to immigrants’ devices, including their cellphones.
Refusing to grant them access might give them grounds to deny entry on the basis that they have insufficient information to determine if an immigrant is “admissible” to the US. But Campbell Walker said that she is concerned about officers lacking the training required to appropriately evaluate what’s on a personal device.
She said that, based on reports from member attorneys of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, officials are now looking through social media feeds on people’s phones for reasons to deny them admission to the US.
“I’m not asking anyone to lie. I’m not trying to obstruct justice,” she said. “But if somebody who may not have sufficient training is going to rip through a cellphone and jump to conclusions and potentially remove me or prevent me from entering the US, I don’t think it’s advisable to have a bunch of social media or photographs on the phone you travel with. I don’t think it’s very wise to be traveling with your [personal] laptop.”
