What US green card and visa holders need to know about recent deportations

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Several high-profile arrests and deportations in recent weeks have sparked fear among visa and green-card holders that they could be targeted by the Trump administration. President Trump has made immigration enforcement a central pillar of his administration.

Earlier this month, he pledged that the arrest of Columbia University student and green card-holder Mahmoud Khalil was the first “of many to come." Here’s what to know. So far, lawyers say, the administration has largely been targeting visa and green-card holders who have legitimate issues with their cases—such as prior drug charges or violating the terms of their visas—but the enforcement against them has been tougher than under previous administrations. For example, they say the current administration has been holding people instead of releasing them while their cases move through immigration court.

“It’s not like the laws are different, the refs are just calling the game differently," said Jonathan Grode, an immigration attorney in Philadelphia. The arrest and detention of Khalil, who has no apparent issues with his green card, has caused concern at colleges that other students will be targeted over their speech. This week Brown University advised its international students and staff members not to travel outside the country after one of its professors was stopped and deported while returning to the U.S.

from Lebanon. “We’re seeing this kind of extreme escalation in immigration enforcement that’s even surpassing the promises of the Trump administration prior to coming into office," said Lynn Damiano Pearson, a National Immigration Law Center attorney. When noncitizens return to the U.S.