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LOS ANGELES, CA - FEBRUARY 18: Protesters participate in the Immigrants Make America Great March to protest actions being taken by the Trump administration on February 18, 2017 in Los Angeles, California. Protesters are calling for an end to stepped up ICE raids and deportations, and that health care be provided for documented and undocumented people. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images) ORG XMIT: 700004520 ORIG FILE ID: 642760812(Photo: David McNew, Getty Images)

Immigration and border agents will be directed to more aggressively go after immigrants in the country illegally and their families, according to a leaked pair of memos from the Department of Homeland Security.

The memos, first reported by The Washington Post and other media, offer a list of sweeping new guidelines to law enforcement agencies that would implement many of the executive orders on immigration enforcement recently signed by President Trump.

The guidelines, signed by DHS Secretary John Kelly, include hiring thousands of additional enforcement agents and increasing the number of immigration judges, expanding the pool of immigrants prioritized for removal, enlisting local law enforcement to help with arrests and speeding up deportation hearings. They also propose prosecuting parents and family members in the U.S. who pay smugglers to bring over unaccompanied minors.

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The memos were a draft order and still being reviewed by the White House, according to the Associated Press.

The guidelines would put into play legal tools available to presidents for years but largely overlooked by past administrations, said Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, a non-profit research institute that promotes stricter control on immigration.

Expediting the removal of immigrants who have been in the country illegally for less than two years, for example, has been a legal remedy since 1996, but underused by past administrations, she said. She called the guidelines, if implemented, a step in the right direction.

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What this administration is doing is using the tools available in the law to a greater extent to address problems that have been neglected the past eight years by the Obama administration, Vaughan said. Theyre changing the message to people who are thinking about coming here illegally.

Notably missing from the guidelines is any change to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program, which allows young people brought to the USA illegally as children to stay and obtain work permits. Trump harshly criticized the program on the campaign trail last year but said at a recent press conference that he would show great heart toward the program. The program, initiated by the Obama administration in 2012, has protected about 750,000 immigrants.

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Mark Silverman,senior staff attorney with the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, a pro-immigrant rights group based in San Francisco, said the guidelines outlined in the memo were very disturbing and draconian, particularly the section about prosecuting parents trying to bring their children to the USA.Recruiting local law enforcementto help persecute illegal immigrants would also result in widespread violations of civil liberties, he said.

Essentially, this memo is implementing the inhumane and nonsensical scapegoating of immigrants, especially Latinos, for problems in this country which they did not create, Silverman said.

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The guidelines also call for the border wall to begin construction, instructing U.S. Customs and Border Protection to immediately begin planning, design, construction and maintenance of a wall, including the attendant lighting, technology (including sensors), as well as patrol and access roads, although funding for the walls construction and maintenance still needs approval by Congress.

In a statement, Joanne Lin, American Civil Liberties Union senior legislative council, called the enforcement plans a breach of due process, human decency and common sense and vowed to fight them.

The Trump administration is intent on inflicting cruelty on millions of immigrant families across the country, she said.

Follow Rick Jervis on Twitter: @MrRJervis

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New DHS guidelines outline tougher stance on illegal immigrants - USA TODAY