Donald Trump has double-timed his immigration policy, much to the concern of his Secretary of Defense James Mattis. Apparently, the president plans on bulldozing his way through any semblance of humanity or compassion. The commander-in-chief has taken a page from the Gestapo’s cruel knock on people’s doors.
When Mattis found that Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was deporting veterans, he ordered the agency to stand down. Regardless, ICE continued to follow 45’s directives, The Washington Post reported. The plan was devious.
Xilong Zhu came from China and enrolled at the University of Northern New Jersey, so that he could enlist in the U.S. Army. That enrollment meant that Zhu could begin basic training, because any student visa provided people legal status. There was just one problem.
While immigrants believed that they were obtaining legal status from a real college, they were sadly mistaken. The Department of Homeland Security set up a fake college and issued fake student visas in order to capture immigrants.
ICE caught Zhu’s name in this sting and requested that the Army release him on the charge of visa fraud. The Army gave him an honorable discharge near the end of 2016.
Mattis has said he would work to shield immigrant recruits who enroll through a program made to trade expedited citizenship for medical and language skills, the Washington Post reported:
‘Anyone with an honorable discharge … will not be subject to any kind of deportation.’
After three weeks, ICE released Zhu. He is currently waiting for a Seattle judge to rule on his deportation. The Chinese immigrant’s attorney claimed that Zhu has been a victim of federal entrapment.
The attorney said that there was no way for his client to know that the University of Northern New Jersey was not a real school when he enrolled.
In a news conference, Mattis said:
‘The other day (Defense) Secretary Jim Mattis gave a news conference and said we take care of our own.’
Mattis agreed to include some exceptions for military veterans, especially for those with criminal records. Unfortunately, Zhu’s attorney said these exception did not apply to this veteran.
Immigration attorney, Margaret Stock told NBC:
‘Only recently, the attorney general ordered (government) trial attorneys not to agree to terminate anyone’s deportation order. They are maxing out deportation orders and trying to enforce every deportation order.’
Stock continued:
‘To deport a Special Forces guy’s wife back to Honduras doesn’t make sense because she’s going to be targeted by cartels because she’s the wife of a Special Forces guy.’
ICE assistant chief counsel Jordan Jones went to court. He insisted that Mattis meant for the veterans’ ruling to apply strictly to people who came to the U.S. illegally as children and enlisted via the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.
Now that Trump has killed the DACA program, no veterans can enter it. The courts ruled that those who were already enrolled in DACA would not face deportation. However, those who had not already enrolled were out of luck.
Featured Image via Getty Image/John Moore.
