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N.C. immigrant community concerned about requirement for undocumented immigrants to register with government

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents take fingerprints while processing apprehended immigration fugitives inside the ICE staging facility in Los Angeles on April 18, 2017. Earlier this year ICE agents searching for an undocumented farmworker stopped his brother and sister-in-law. The couple sped off, crashed their car and died.
Brian van der Brug
/
LA Times via Getty Images
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents take fingerprints.

The Trump administration is reinstating a decades-old requirement for undocumented immigrants to register with the federal government. Advocates say this could impact the state's immigrant community.

Undocumented immigrants 14-years-old or older who have never been recorded by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services will have to register, provide a home address and be fingerprinted.

The Alien Registration Act from 1940 was used at the time to document non-citizens and provided a legal pathway to residency.

Charlotte immigration attorney Jamilah Espinosa says clients are anxious about how the Trump administration…which is pushing to deport millions…might use this information.

“We’re really not sure how that information will be used against them," she said, "It has created a lot of fear, not just among the migrant community, but in the community as a whole.”

Espinosa advises undocumented immigrants to speak with an immigration attorney.

Those who are not registered could face fines and legal action.