Deep Gulasekaram was quoted in a Buzzfeed article about Trump’s Department of Homeland Security signing agreements with multiple states that appear to be an effort to hamstring the Biden administration’s goals to pause deportations, prioritize immigration arrests to only those with serious criminal backgrounds, and increase avenues to asylum. The agreements require DHS to give states notice of immigration policy changes and give the states six months to review and comment on any changes before DHS moves forward with them.
Pratheepan Gulasekaram, an immigration law professor at the Santa Clara University School of Law, said the agreement appears to be an attempt by the Trump administration to create a mechanism for the states to potentially sue in federal court over any policies that are changed or introduced by the incoming administration.
“This is just another last-ditch effort to try and ingrain a reckless hyper enforcement system, but completely unmoored from legal, constitutional ways of implementing policy,” he said.
