The Trump administration appeared to stake the position in federal court that they can deport any noncitizen who is issued a speeding ticket — even if that ticket is dismissed.
The argument came after last month, the State Department revoked dozens of visas from international students over speeding tickets.
The Guardian profiled one such case at the time: "Lisa," an international student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, had her visa terminated over an incident the previous year when she was ticketed for speeding and failing to stop.
"She hadn’t seen the police car behind her until it was too late," the report said. "To get the charges dismissed, she showed up in court, where she was fingerprinted" — but even though the case was dismissed, it was still counted against her legal status in the country.
In a hearing on Tuesday, flagged by Houston-based immigration attorney Steven Brown, a judge pointed out very clearly another such case in which a person's legal status was in jeopardy because of a reckless driving complaint that ended up being dismissed without charges.
ALSO READ: 'Sad white boys': Fear as Trump terror adviser shrugs off threat from 'inside the house'
"Can you and I both agree that if we deported every single individual in this country who has been tagged for speeding, there would be very few people left and almost all of them would not have driver's licenses?" In response to the semi-facetious question, Homeland Security official Andre Watson replied, "I don't know that we have the capacity at the present time to do that, Your Honor."
"WOW. The Trump administration implied in court that it's their position that if they could deport every noncitizen ticketed for speeding (even if the ticket is later dismissed!) they would do it, and the only thin stopping them right now is 'capacity,'" wrote American Immigration Council attorney Aaron Reichlin-Melnick on X in response to the exchange.
The problem, Reichlin-Melnick wrote separately, is that "it's not even people who have even had to pay speeding tickets, they're literally stripping visas from people who had a speeding ticket DISMISSED. It's madness. No one's going to want to come here with that kind of policy."
