Speaker Ryan Silent as Trump Administration Tells Immigrants Everywhere: Get Out

Yesterday, with their immigration memos, the Trump Administration sent a terrifying message to hard-working, law-abiding immigrants in the United States: you are not welcome here.

This callous and cruel message has been met with rightful outrage from concerned Americans, editorial boards and immigrant rights organizations all across the country:

• New York Times Editorial:

[The memos] are remarkable for how completely they turn sensible immigration policies upside down and backward. For how they seek to make the deportation machinery more extreme and frightening (and expensive), to the detriment of deeply held American values.

• Washington Post Editorial:

…a streak of cruelty runs through the new policy…the administration's policies will break up families and harm people leading peaceable lives.

• The Denver Post Editorial:

A mass deportation effort, especially raids led by a military force, would be dangerous…History would not judge us well should we go down this road.  The approach announces itself as an inhumane crackdown.

• Palm Beach Post Editorial:

Yet panic and fear are exactly what are gripping immigrant communities…

• La Opinion Editorial:  

…these guidelines go beyond a minority of individuals.  Their inadequate content and worse implementation constitute a threat to millions of honest workers and their families…

• Op-ed by Jennifer Rubin in Washington Post:

…the new order in fact will sweep in a great many people who are not criminals or undocumented immigrants, or immigrants at all.  A Hispanic-looking person without "papers" will now need to worry about being swept up in an immigration raid.  Welcome to Trump's America, where relations between the police and Hispanic and other minority communities are about to get really, really tense.

• American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU):

These memos confirm that the Trump administration is willing to trample on due process, human decency, the well-being of our communities, and even protections for vulnerable children, in pursuit of a hyper-aggressive mass deportation policy…

• America's Voice:

When the Deportation Force comes knocking, families are separated, and American children and businesses are hurting, the American people will know exactly who to blame.

• Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA):

This is a dastardly approach to a very human issue.

• Fair Immigration Reform Movement (FIRM):

…Trump is creating more fear and panic among millions of immigrants while continuing to wage his unprecedented war on immigrants, sweeping up people in raids who have no criminal records.

• National Immigration Law Center (NILC):

[The] memos are breathtaking in scope, undoing decades of guidance and best practice intended to help protect vulnerable populations.  If unhindered, they will wreak havoc on our economy, our communities, and our families.

• Latino Victory Project:

We can now confirm that when Trump spoke of 'making America great again' he was talking about rounding up immigrants and separating families.

• National Council of La Raza (NCLR):

Despite repeated reassurances that the Trump administration would prioritize going after gang members and other violent criminals, this DHS action does no such thing.  Instead, it opens the floodgates to terrorizing millions of people in this country—citizens and noncitizens alike…

• United We Dream:

…DHS guidance clearly show is that under Trump's executive orders – everyone is a target for deportation.

It wasn't too long ago when Republican Speaker Paul Ryan uttered the following words to a vulnerable, undocumented family who'd be impacted by the Trump deportation engine:

"…if you're worried some deportation force is coming and knocking on your door this year, don't worry about that."

He's been awfully silent lately.