The Trump administration has put together a plan to send immigration agents to the U.S.-Mexico border to catch migrants who are in the U.S. illegally and are trying to return home voluntarily around the holidays, according to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement memo obtained by HuffPost.
Under the plan, ICE agents would work with U.S. Customs and Border Patrol officers in “targeted operations” at land ports along the southern border. They would arrest people “attempting to self-remove” after being in the U.S. without legal authorization.
Agents would target commercial buses passing through ports of entry into Mexico, according to the plan document, which was labeled “sensitive.”
Travelers who have no immigration or criminal records and who don’t pose a public-safety risk would be considered “voluntary returns” to their home countries. Others would be processed according to their current immigration cases, the document states, suggesting they would be detained and face formal deportation proceedings.