Immigrant communities fearful after arrest surge
Hundreds are rounded up in ‘targeted raids’
Hundreds of undocumented immigrants were rounded up this week in a half-dozen states in what advocacy groups and a U.S. congressman from Texas call targeted raids.
Immigration officials, however, cast the arrests as a routine enforcement “surge” while acknowledging the bar for deportation has been lowered.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) confirmed operations in more than a half-dozen cities and states, including Chicago, Georgia, Los Angeles, New York, South Carolina, North Carolina and Texas.
ICE officials reported 161 arrests in Southern California over the past five days and 192 arrests in Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina alone.
Advocacy groups began receiving calls Thursday from immigrants and their lawyers reporting raids at homes and businesses in the greater Los Angeles area.
In Austin, the Mexican Consulate told the American-Statesman that 30 Mexican immigrants were detained by ICE on Friday and 14 were detained Thursday.
By comparison, the Austin consulate had seen an average of four to five Mexican immigrants detained daily in recent years.
ICE officials insisted the arrests were routine operations carried out several times each year and targeted individual criminals, not communities.
Gillian Christensen, acting press secretary for the department of Homeland Security, said ICE “does not conduct sweeps or raids that target aliens indiscriminately,” KTLA reported.
Advocacy groups and some Democratic politicians, however, viewed the arrests as a new move against undocumented immigrants in the wake of a sweeping executive order signed Jan. 25 by President Donald Trump.
That order made clear that just about any immigrant living in the country illegally could be a priority for deportation, particularly those with outstanding deportation orders.
It also said enforcement priorities would include convicted criminals, immigrants who had been arrested for any criminal offense, those who committed fraud, and anyone who may have committed a crime.
Under President Barack Obama, more than 2 million people were deported, including a record of more than 409,000 in 2012, but the government focused on immigrants in the country illegally who posed a threat to national security or public safety and those who recently crossed the border.
“These reports show the serious consequences of (Trump’s) executive order, which allows all undocumented immigrants to be categorized as criminals and requires increased enforcement in communities, rather than prioritizing dangerous criminals,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said in a statement.
The arrests are playing out against a backdrop of fear within immigrant communities, underscored by the deportation Thursday of an Arizona woman, and mother of two American-born children, who came to the U.S. 22 years ago as a 14-yearold.
The deportation of Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos, 36, of Mesa, Ariz., who was taken into custody Wednesday during a routine check-in at the Phoenix offices of ICE, prompted the Mexican government to warn of a “new reality” for its citizens living in the United States and advised them to “take precautions.”
U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) said Friday that he was informed by ICE officials in San Antonio of the launch of “a targeted operation in South and Central Texas as part of Operation ‘Cross Check.’ ”
“I am asking ICE to clarify whether these individuals are in fact dangerous, violent threats to our communities, and not people who are here peacefully raising families and contributing to our state.
“I will continue to monitor this situation,” he said.