AP
By Alicia Caldwell
October 1, 2015
Donald Trump says he will send Syrian refugees home if he's elected president, but U.S. laws would interfere with his plans.
"I'm
putting the people on notice that are coming here from Syria as part of
this mass migration. If I win, they're going back," the billionaire
businessman promised during
a campaign stop in Keene, New Hampshire, this week. "They're going
back. I'm telling you. They're going back."
There's at least one thing that would stand in his way: immigration laws.
Refugees
are awarded legal immigration status as soon as they arrive and granted
work permits shortly thereafter. Within one year, they are eligible and
must apply to
become a legal permanent resident.
To
send them home, Trump's administration would have to strip the refugees
of the legal status that allowed them to travel to the U.S. That would
require either a change
in the conditions in Syria or evidence that immigrants weren't actually
qualified to be refugees in the first place. Even then, under federal
regulations, any refugee would be allowed to protest such efforts in a
process that could take at least one month.
The
Obama administration said it intends to accept about 10,000 Syrian
refugees and increase the overall number of refugees allowed into the
country from around the world
to 85,000 in the next 12 months. That total would increase to 100,000
by 2017. Currently the U.S. accepts up to 70,000 refugees per year.
An
immigration lawyer, David Leopold of Cleveland, said Trump's effort to
return refugees would be difficult to apply to anyone who became a legal permanent resident.
In
that case, the fastest way to get someone out of the country would be a
traditional deportation case, which generally happens only when a legal permanent resident commits
a serious crime.
"There
are procedures and regulations which govern what happens if the country
conditions change and the person is not a permanent resident," Leopold
said. "You can't
just (send them home). It just doesn't work that way. We have
regulations and we have statutes that govern how we treat refugees in
the United States."
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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