If there’s one thing that is unique about the new administration, then it would be its penchant for flip-flopping on statements. We say the “administration” and not just “the president” since even his staff seem to have gotten the about-face bug.

This has harmed the people and put them in a state of perplexity. For instance, no one would know if a statement is official unless the press secretary or even President Trump himself declares so. A statement could be a joke or a mere trivial remark unless one of the guys from the White House says it isn’t. And the task becomes tougher when the president spends more time talking about the movies or people he hates on a microblogging platform than clarifying things on the proper venue.  

Trump, however, could be thinking that he’s doing nothing wrong because he’s just staying true to all he said on the campaign trail. And he is. Especially with his views on race and religion. In his first days in office, he signed an executive order that bans people from select Islamic countries and suspends all refugee programs including that designed specifically for Syrians. As expected, the rookie government stepped back immediately after criticisms from various sectors. It said that it was not about race or religion, and it only targets “illegal” immigrants or those who are undocumented.

"For those here illegally today who are seeking legal status, they will have one route and one route only: to return home and apply for re-entry," Trump once said at a campaign rally in September.

After this was a series of flip-flops from the government, especially when the Appeals Court refused to reinstate Trump’s travel ban. But this was just the calm after the storm. Just several days after, the entire law enforcement force of the country began their search for undocumented immigrants.

Just several days ago, President Trump—through the Home Office—announced its plan to arrest over 11 million undocumented immigrants across the country. He tasked the entire government, particularly the ICE agents and the local police, to “find, arrest, and deport those in the country illegally, regardless of whether they have committed serious crimes.”

And the president isn’t joking.

Accounts of immigration-related arrest across the country have been reported, especially in territories near the Mexican borders.
 
 “In Virginia, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents waited outside a church shelter where undocumented immigrants had gone to stay warm. In Texas and in Colorado, agents went into courthouses, looking for foreigners who had arrived for hearings on other matters. At Kennedy International Airport in New York, passengers arriving after a five-hour flight from San Francisco were asked to show their documents before they were allowed to get off the plane,” reported The New York Times.

In fairness to the law enforcers, most of them are just getting orders from the head of state. “Before, we used to be told, ‘You can’t [just] arrest those people,’ and we’d be disciplined for being insubordinate if we did. Now those people are priorities again. And there are a lot of them here,” said a veteran of the agency who took part in the operation.  

It’s too early to say if Americans have already developed a fear that this may go overboard as most aggressive crackdowns in other countries are.  Hopefully, it won’t. But we all know it could. What are your thoughts on this?

​Talk to one of our US immigration lawyers for more questions on the impact of the US government’s deportation orders.