There should be a law that all non-citizens, including undocumented people, some who are found to be undocumented by ICE or any other law enforcement must, before being allowed to be deported, be allowed to obtain legal residence in the United States via temporary legal residence or citizenship within one year of being found. If the undocumented person fails to meet these requirements after one year, then and only then should ICE or any other law enforcement deport them.
Obvious exceptions, and only exceptions, to this rule would include the following:
- Non-citizen refuses or fails to being a path to citizenship or renew temporary residence within a year.
- Conviction for a felony.
- Conviction for a violent misdemeanor.
- Conviction of at least five separate misdemeanors.
- Found to be a member of an official terrorist group or gang through a court of law.
- Charged with a foreign crime or convicted and avoiding punishment for a foreign crime.
- From a country that the United States is in active war against.
If such exceptions are met, then the non-citizen in question should immediately be deported from the country.
Before deportation, however, every non-citizen is entitled to due process under the law, with the only exception being the United States being in an active war against the country the non-citizen is from. Citizens of the same country cannot be punished in anyway because they are citizens of the United States.
NOTE
This note acknowledges that the vast majority of undocumented people are peaceful and hardworking.