Bay Area immigration lawyers assail Trump administration moves against migrants

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Bay Area advocates for foreign citizens living in the U.S. without authorization or with temporary legal status are decrying the Trump administration’s increasingly aggressive tactics against migrants.

“It has a huge impact in our region,” said San Francisco-based immigration lawyer Erin Quinn of the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, adding that at least one in four families here are made up of people with various immigration statuses, and many migrants work in jobs that support the local economy and businesses.

“We’re a community built on the backbone of immigrants,” Quinn said. “Creating an environment with so many unknowns and fears makes it hard for families to effectively make decisions and know what will happen tomorrow or the next day, which has a major impact on all of us, and the work in our communities.”

The administration, working to fulfill Trump’s campaign promise to deliver “the largest deportation operation in the history of our country,” has taken forceful action on several fronts. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has acknowledged its goal of pushing migrants to remove themselves from the country.

“Compelling mass self-deportation is a safer path for aliens and law enforcement, and saves U.S. taxpayer dollars, in addition to conserving valuable Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement resources needed to keep Americans safe,” the department said in February.

Homeland Security has ordered people in the U.S. without legal status to register with the federal government under long-existing but sporadically enforced federal law. And, according to a New York Times report Thursday, the Social Security Administration has put 6,300 people, who were granted temporary legal status under former President Joe Biden, onto the Social Security Administration list of dead people. That listing effectively cancels their Social Security Numbers, and shuts access to new bank accounts, credit cards, student loans, and other services requiring the number to verify identity.

Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security and the IRS this week signed a memorandum of understanding that will allow the tax agency to share current addresses of migrants who have within the previous 90 days been ordered deported. And authorities have canceled hundreds of foreign students’ visas, including many in the Bay Area, with federal officials citing “antisemitism” and critics claiming it is punishment for protesting Israel’s war in Gaza.

The Department of Government Efficiency led by Trump adviser and Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk claimed in a social media post Thursday that U.S. Customs and Border Protection had identified 6,300 people given temporary U.S. residency under Biden who have criminal records or were on the FBI’s terrorist-watch list. That temporary legal status has been “terminated with immediate effect,” said DOGE. Those were the same 6,300 people put on the Social Security death list, the Associated Press reported Friday.

Quinn said the notion that authorities found so many people on temporary status who were criminals or suspected terrorists “preposterous.” The Trump administration, she said, is skirting legal standards and deploying “a toolbox of hate” designed to foment fear and panic with the goal of coercing migrants into leaving the country.

“It echoes policies we’ve seen in authoritarian regimes,” Quinn said. “Our legal system, designed to support and foster democracy, requires them to bring those individuals into immigration court.”

People put on the Social Security death list entered the U.S. legally, “so they don’t deserve this type of conduct,” said Jenny Horne, a lawyer for the Legal Aid Society of San Mateo County.

Horne said she expected U.S. citizens and many permanent residents would be wrongly listed.

“The Social Security Administration is not set up to understand people’s immigration status,” Horne said, adding that getting off the list would likely be difficult.

“It’s going to lead to a lot of damage, economic damage, emotional damage, to people by mistake,” Horne said.

The registration mandate has been on the books since 1940, but has seldom been enforced.

“For decades, this law has been ignored — not anymore,” Homeland Security said in a Feb. 25 news release.

Those in the country without permission who have not already registered by applying for a visa must register and be fingerprinted, with parents required to register children under 14, and children re-registering and getting fingerprinted upon their 14th birthdays, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said.

Failure to register, Homeland Security said, “could result in a fine, imprisonment, or both.”

But who must register is unclear, even to immigration lawyers, because many migrants have already done so via other government processes, immigration experts said.

“They promulgated the whole thing really fast,” Horne said. “Even within their goals, they could have made it a lot more comprehensive about who it applies to.”

And registration requires filling out a form that can only be completed in English, and includes a question about every activity a registrant has undertaken in the U.S., and all planned activities, Quinn said.

“I myself have no idea what the parameters of what a broad-based question on activities is meant to include,” Quinn said, adding that the form also appears to violate the Constitution’s protection against self-incrimination by requiring people to list any crimes they have committed without being arrested.

Quinn said people who believe they may be required to register should seek advice from a lawyer or legal advocate.

The registration order lacks protections for people who have experienced domestic violence or sexual assault and wish to keep their addresses confidential for safety reasons, Horne said.

Horne highlighted the perils of both registering and not registering, and noted that doing so requires providing an address.

“There’s a risk of Immigration enforcement against them, and on the other hand Immigration is threatening to arrest people for failing to register, so it’s a Catch-22,” Horne said.