ICE arrests stir fear in immigrant community
Alarm has gripped America’s immigrant community as reports circulate that federal agents have become newly aggressive under President Donald Trump, who campaigned for office with a vow to create a “deportation force.”
Federal officials insist they have not made fundamental changes in enforcement actions, and they deny stopping people randomly at checkpoints or conducting “sweeps” of locations where immigrants in the country illegally are common.
“ICE conducts targeted immigration enforcement in compliance with federal law and agency policy. ICE does not conduct sweeps or raids that target aliens indiscriminately,” Bryan Cox, ICE’s Southern region communications director, said in a statement Saturday.
But anxiety among immigrants spiked last week after the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency conducted a series of “targeted enforcement operations” in large metropolitan areas. On Saturday the agency announced that more than 200 people had been arrested last week in six states overseen by the Chicago office. That was in addition to more than 160 detained in the Los Angeles area, as well as arrests in New York, Atlanta and other cities.
Amnesty International USA released a statement Saturday saying reports of the enforcement actions “raise grave human rights concerns.” Members of the Congressional Hispanic Congress demanded an immediate meeting with Thomas Homan, the acting head of ICE.
What’s certain is that even if ICE and other officials say this is business as usual, many immigrants find more persuasive the words and actions of Trump, whose political rise was propelled by anti-immigrant rhetoric.
The president roiled Washington two weeks ago with his executive order banning travel to the U.S. from seven Muslim-majority countries and a halt in accepting refugees. That order was blocked by federal judges, and while Trump ponders whether to appeal the case to the Supreme Court, he has said he will craft other executive orders that will make America more secure.
On Jan. 25, five days after taking the oath of office, he issued an executive order titled “Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States.” Media attention focused on Trump’s call for an end to federal funds for “sanctuary cities.”
But the order also expanded the list of deportation priorities to include any noncitizen who is charged with a criminal offense of any kind or who is suspected of committing criminal acts, fraud or willful dishonesty while interacting with immigration officials, is the subject of a pending order of removal or has been previously deported and reentered the country. The order gave much broader leeway to ICE officers in deciding whether someone posed “a risk to public safety.”
“There really is a lot of confusion as to who they’re targeting,” said Faye Kolly, an immigration attorney based in Austin, Texas. “A lot of people are scared.”
Entering the country illegally — what is technically known as entering the U.S. without inspection — is a misdemeanor. Anyone caught in possession of fake identification documents or who is not honest with immigration officials can also be charged with a crime.
Under President Barack Obama, priority deportees included people who had been convicted of murder and other violent crimes as well as certain drug offenses and gang involvement. Obama’s policies called on ICE officials to avoid detaining, whenever possible, nursing mothers and those with serious medical conditions.
Sarah Owings, an immigration attorney in Atlanta, said, the department seems to be sweeping up immigrants who fell outside that Obama target list.
“Now there’s no difference between someone who’s a terrorist and someone who’s picking their kids up from school,” she said. “It’s very chilling for the community. No one knows what’s going on.”
Frank Sharry, executive director of America’s Voice, an immigrant advocacy group based in Washington, D.C., said he doesn’t “buy that this is business as normal from ICE.”
“Following school buses? Raiding construction sites? Asking people for IDs on a bus? ICE has a reputation for being one of the worst law enforcement agencies in the country,” he said. “And now they’ve been given the green light by Trump.”
Fear of being detained or deported could lead many people to avoid going to work or school, said Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles. She noted that one person detained by ICE last week had been at his job in a Target store.
“ICE wants us to believe they have removed a bunch of felons who were just plotting their next crime,” said Salas. “We know that ICE picked up some ... people who happened to be nearby when officers arrived looking for someone else and we think what we’ve just witnessed is how an emboldened ICE will operate.”
Immigration rights activists are hoping to call attention to the actions of ICE while at the same time preventing full-scale panic.
“We’re not trying to sow hysteria here, so we’re not reporting rumors,” said Elizabeth Alex, a regional field director for CASA de Maryland. “We’re sticking to cases where we can verify the situation and that can often take days. But it is fair to say we are seeing new tactics across the county.” The Los Angeles Times contributed.