Since launching its mass deportation campaign, the Department of Homeland Security has insisted that “those who are not here illegally and are not breaking other laws have nothing to fear.” Yet at the same time, DHS has elevated deportations and arrests of immigrants, regardless of their immigration status, as the main metric of effective immigration policy. At the direction of deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, DHS has targeted a quota of 3,000 arrests per day to meet President Donald Trump’s promise of “millions and millions” of deportations.

Those goals were always unachievable without targeting legal immigrants, so the administration has undermined every option to come or stay legally. The latest evidence against the claim came late last week, when DHS said it would require most immigrants to leave the United States to attempt to obtain their green cards through immigrant visa processing abroad.

After much outcry from businesses, DHS attempted to downplay the memo’s importance, particularly for skilled foreign workers. Yet the department has not withdrawn or amended the memo in any way. All immigrants will still be expected to cite unusual circumstances that rebut the presumption that they must leave the country. This will set up denials, loss of status and arrests at green card appointments and interviews.

In 1952, Congress created a process for people who entered legally with a temporary status to adjust that status to legal permanent residence without leaving the country. Since the 1980s, most legal permanent residents have received their green cards in the U.S. A majority are spouses of U.S. citizens or skilled employees of U.S. businesses. DHS wants to end this adjustment of status process and either arrest anyone denied under the new policy or take credit for the self-deportations that result.

As brazen as this new policy is, it is nothing new. Since Day 1 of this administration, DHS has attempted to cut off legal paths and arrest people when they lose their status.

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The department’s initial focus was to cut off ways for immigrants to avoid the deportation dragnet. Over the last year, DHS has stripped more than 2 million legal immigrants of their parole and temporary protected status. It effectively banned asylum — even for immigrants who entered legally — reducing grant rates to just 1 in 14 applicants.

But DHS soon realized that many immigrants were still evading arrest and deportation through the green card process. In response, DHS has cut approvals of green cards in half over the past year. This caused the expiration of many immigrants’ underlying temporary status — whether a visa, parole, TPS or otherwise — setting them up for arrest.

For humanitarian categories — asylees, refugees, trafficking and crime victims — the agency quit processing almost completely. DHS has also more than quadrupled arrests of Cuban immigrants since Trump took office, even though Cubans have a special law enabling them to receive green cards after one year in the U.S.

In December, after DHS shut down refugee green card processing, it sent agents to Minnesota to arrest refugees who entered legally from abroad and still had refugee status. The justification? Failing to receive a green card within one year of entry as the law requires — even though DHS was not processing refugee green cards.

David J. Bier

David J. Bier is the director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute.