A Mexican man protected from deportation has been detained in his Seattle home. Daniel Ramirez arrived in the US illegally as a child but had obtained a work permit under Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/B. Costa-Lima
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Daniel Ramirez Medina, a Mexican immigrant living and working legally in the US, was taken into custody last week after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents swept his father's Seattle home.
Ramirez arrived in the US illegally as a seven-year-old in 2001 but was granted a work permit and protected from deportation under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. The program was introduced by the Obama administration in 2012 and protects some 750,000 people who were brought to the US illegally as children, sometimes referred to as "DREAMers" as many of the individuals were also eligible for conditional residency under the DREAM Act legislation.
Ramirez is being held in Tacoma, Washington. He filed a legal challenge in Seattle federal court on Monday, accusing the government of violating his constitutional rights.
According to Matt Adams, legal director for Northwest Immigrants Rights Project, Ramirez was likely apprehended by mistake. Adams added that the 23-year-old Mexican was the first person with DACA status he knows of being detained, remarks were echoed by one of Ramirez's lawyers, Ethan Dettmer.
Ramirez was taken into custody after ICE officials arrived at the family's Seattle home to arrest his father. According to the lawsuit, agents arrived at the premises and asked Ramirez if he was in the country legally. After answering that that he had a DACA work permit, Ramirez was then allegedly brought to a processing center in Seattle before being booked and taken to a detention center in Tacoma.
His father was also arrested, although the lawsuit does not make clear why.
According to the complaint, one of the agents told Ramirez upon arresting him: "It doesn't matter, because you weren't born in this country."
A spokesman for the US attorney's office in Seattle said it was still reviewing the case.
Fast work: Donald Trump's executive actions so far
Donald Trump has sent shockwaves in his first few days as US president with a number of far-reaching executive orders and memoranda. DW examines what they mean.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/Sachs
A quick way to fulfill campaign promises
Less than a month into his presidency, Donald Trump has issued 17 executive actions. While this number in itself is not remarkable - by the same time, Barack Obama had signed roughly the same number of executive orders - the content of Trump's decrees is. It seems the new president wants to implement many of his campaign promises - including the controversial ones - as quickly as possible.
Image: Reuters/K. Lamarque
Executive orders and presidential memoranda
Executive actions (EA) allow the US president to give government agencies orders that do not need Congressional approval, circumventing the law-making process and speeding up the implementation process. Executive orders are a more wide-reaching form of EA that often deal with larger organizational directives, while presidential memoranda order specific agencies to do something.
Image: picture-alliance/CNP/A. Harrer
Weakening Obamacare
Executive Order: The first executive order that Trump signed was a missive on deferring, waving or delaying parts of the Affordable Care Act to "minimize regulatory burdens." While Trump alone can not repeal the healthcare law instated under President Obama, he can undermine the implementation of "Obamacare" while the Republican majority in Congress prepares to repeal the law.
Image: Reuters/J. Rinaldi
Pulling federal funding for abortion advice
Presidential Memorandum: Trump re-instated a policy that bars US federal funding for non-governmental organizations that provide abortion counseling and advocate for abortion rights. This directive was initially instated by Republican president Ronald Reagan, rescinded by Democrat Bill Clinton, re-instated by Republican George W. Bush and again rescinded by Democrat Barack Obama.
Image: REUTERS/A. P. Bernstein
Deportation of undocumented immigrants
Executive Order: Trump ordered immigration agents to vastly expand the scope of deportations. He wants federal grants to be pulled from sanctuary cities (where undocumented migrants are not prosecuted) and immigrants suspected of a crime to be detained, even if they were not charged. He plans to hire 10,000 new immigration agents and publish a report on crimes committed by undocumented immigrants.
Image: picture alliance/AP Images/G. Bull
Building the Wall
Executive Order: In an executive order signed on January 25, President Trump called for "the immediate construction of a physical wall" in order to secure the US-Mexico border. He also referred to undocumented immigrants as "removable aliens," saying that the executive branch should "end the abuse of parole and asylum provisions currently used to prevent the lawful removal of removable aliens."
Image: Getty Images/AFP/S. Huffaker
Travel ban and halting refugee intake
Executive Order: Trump signed this controversial order on January 27. It banned people from seven majority-Muslim countries from entering the US for three months, stopped the Syrian refugee program indefinitely and suspended refugee admissions for 120 days. Protests against the order erupted across the country and even Republican senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham criticized the policy.
Image: DW/M. Shwayder
The United States pulls out of TPP
Memorandum: It was no surprise that Donald Trump abandoned the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). During his campaign, he frequently criticized the TPP and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), saying that other countries benefited from these trade agreements at the expense of the US. Press secretary Sean Spicer said Trump prefered deals with individual countries.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/
Oil pipelines, if they're made from US steel
Three different memoranda: One on constructing the Dakota Access Pipeline, another on continuing construction of the Keystone pipeline, and a third order on using American materials to build all pipelines - were issued on Trump's fourth day in office. Barack Obama had denied permits to both pipelines after massive protests from environmentalists, who feared the potential impact of spills.
Image: REUTERS/S. Keith
Expand the military, freeze other government hiring
Memoranda: Trump quickly lived up to his campaign promise to invest in a bigger military, signing a memorandum for more troops, warships and a modernized nuclear arsenal a week into his presidency. Four days earlier, he ordered a freeze on the hiring of new civilian employees in federal agencies for up to 90 days, so that his administration could develop a long-term plan to shrink the workforce.
Image: Reuters/K. Pempel
Lobbying, National Security Council and IS
Executive order: Every new government appointee will sign an ethics pledge that bans them from working as a lobbyist for five years after leaving their post and from ever lobbying the US government for other countries. On the same day, he issued two further memoranda ordering the Department of Defense to formulate a plan to defeat IS within 30 days and to reorganize the National Security Council.
Image: Reuters/l. Jackson
Steve Bannon in the National Security Council
Memorandum: Trump ordered an overhaul of the National Security Council (NSC) to elevate the role of Stephen Bannon. He removed several senior members from the foreign policy decision-making panel while Trump's chief strategist, known for his far-right views, will serve on the committee usually staffed with generals. This breaks with the long-held norm of not appointing political actors to the NSC.
Image: pciture-alliance/AP Photo/E. Vucci
Deregulate, deregulate, deregulate
Executive Orders and Memorandum: Trump wants federal agencies to eliminate at least two prior regulations for every new regulation. He ordered a freeze on new and pending federal regulations, until a Trump-appointed department head could revise them. He also asked for the approval of "high priority infrastructure projects" to be sped up.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/M. Ralston
Presidential precedent
President Barack Obama issued a total of 277 executive orders - an average of roughly three per month, slightly fewer than his predecessor George W. Bush at 291.
However, Obama issued 644 presidential memoranda during his time in office to get around blocks in Congress - a precedent Trump appears to be following.
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Trump's crackdown on illegal immigration
During last year's presidential election, then Republican candidate Donald Trump campaigned on the promise of coming down hard on illegal immigrants entering the US, namely from Mexico, and rolling back the Obama administration's executive actions on immigration.
While he hasn't explicitly outlined a policy concerning people covered by DACA, Trump told ABC News last month that his administration was devising a policy.
Officials have called the arrests "routine" and consistent with previous operations. However, immigration advocates and families fear that the recent sweeps amount to unprecedented and unclear immigration policies from the young administration.
A move against DACA recipients would mark another major broadening of the President's immigration enforcement.
