ICE deportation raids to begin Sunday
Houston on list of cities where agents are set to target migrant families who recently arrived
Federal authorities are expected to try to arrest thousands of immigrant families in at least 10 cities, including Houston, beginning as early as Sunday, rattling communities across the country who faced a similar scare last month.
President Donald Trump postponed such an operation in June, partly because of conflict among his immigration enforcement officials on how to conduct the raids and out of concern for officers’ safety after the president publicized the plans on Twitter. Trump said he was giving Democrats time to come up with a solution to the immigration crisis in Congress.
This weekend’s operation likely would focus on thousands of immigrants who recently crossed the border and have been issued a final order of deportation — even if they were never informed of their court date or were unable to make the hearing. But agents also are authorized to make “collateral” arrests and detain other immigrants they encounter, even if they were not the target.
Several national news outlets reported Thursday that the raids were planned for the coming week. Tim Oberle, a spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, declined to release details about any operation, citing “law-enforcement sensitivities and the safety and security” of agents.
Reports of an impending operation sparked renewed outrage and concern among immigrant communities and advocates. Nationwide protests outside immigrant detention centers are scheduled this weekend.
“People are very worried,” said Cesar Espinosa, executive director of FIEL Houston, an advocacy group that will be on-call for reports of any enforcement activity. “We are getting a lot of calls asking, ‘Is it true that this is actually happening now?’ ”
Mark Morgan, who last month was acting director of ICE before being transferred after the initial operation was postponed, told re
porters in June that raids would focus on about 2,000 immigrants who had been ordered deported “in absentia” — meaning they never showed up to court. He said many had been mailed notices to appear at ICE offices this spring so that they could be deported.
The Trump administration last year began fast-tracking immigration cases for families in 10 major cities, including Houston, Los Angeles and New York. The Executive Office for Immigration Review, which oversees those civil courts, ordered judges to track such family-unit cases and resolve them within a year — an extremely fast pace for a system that can take an average of 24 months to complete the process.
About 12,800 immigrants have been ordered deported on the expedited family docket across the country, including almost 2,760 in Houston, with more than 85 percent receiving that judgment without having appeared in court.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit Thursday in New York to stop the enforcement operation, arguing that affected immigrants were denied due process because they were not able to make their case for protection in court. It said many are asylum seekers who failed to appear because of “massive bureaucratic errors and, in some cases, deliberate misdirection.”
Notices to appear in court were often sent to wrong addresses or after hearings had passed, or they listed dates when the courts were not open.
“The agencies’ flagrant and widespread errors made it impossible for people to know when their hearings were being held,” the ACLU said in a statement.
Targeted enforcement raids focused largely on immigrants with criminal convictions have occurred under Trump’s administration and those of Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush. Each raid typically netted several hundred immigrants at most.
But the expanse of the new enforcement effort, and its targets, could make it different. Trump last month wrote on Twitter that such an operation would begin a sweep of “millions of illegal aliens,” even though ICE at its maximum enforcement capacity removed only about 400,000 immigrants a year.
Raids, or “at-large” arrests, require considerable manpower and are much more challenging and dangerous than routine enforcement. ICE arrested about 13,600 immigrants during such raids for the entirety of 2017, said Sarah Pierce, an analyst with the Migration Policy Institute, a think tank in Washington, D.C.
“Even the 2,000 number that has been floated around is probably ambitious,” she said.
A large-scale enforcement action focused on families, rather than criminals, would be unusual and difficult, said John Sandweg, a former acting director of ICE.
“There are serious operational challenges once you have that population in custody,” he said. “You need very tight plans on where you can hold families, for how long they are there, how you are going to transport them and where you can stage them.”
There are only three family detention centers in the country — two are outside San Antonio — with a combined capacity of at most 3,700 beds. As of Wednesday, the number of immigrants in those facilities had plunged dramatically to about 1,200, making them only one-third full.
The biggest, the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, had only 229 occupied beds out of a capacity of 2,400, an ICE spokeswoman said.
Even given the detention space, Sandweg said, getting immigrant families there from across the country would be complicated.
“You pick them up in Chicago, how long are they going to be held in Chicago, where are they going to be held and how are you going to get them to a licensed family residential center?” he asked. “You need very concrete plans on how to handle such an especially vulnerable population.”
According to the New York Times, which first reported this weekend’s raids, ICE may place some targeted immigrants in hotel rooms until their travel documents can be prepared, which would prevent them from having access to pro bono lawyer groups working in family detention centers. Another challenge would be keeping the American children of immigrants in a safe space until ICE can find relatives to pick them up.
Some politicians, including U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, a Houston Democrat, told impacted immigrants to call their offices for help.
Espinosa, with FIEL Houston, said a woman phoned his organization saying that her husband wouldn’t allow her to leave the house out of fear that she may be picked up and deported.
“If this was happening during the school year, we would see kids not attending school. This is a real thing,” he said. “It causes PTSD among immigrants who are already so paranoid about everything.”
He urged immigrants to remember their rights if ICE agents arrive at their homes. Federal officers do not have to be allowed into a residence unless they present a warrant signed by a judge. Immigrants also do not have to answer questions from federal agents or local law enforcement about where they were born or their immigration status.
Espinosa said he worried the reported enforcement would hamper safety efforts as Tropical Storm Barry hurtles toward the Louisiana coast. The city of New Orleans said on Twitter that it confirmed with ICE that the agency would temporarily suspend enforcement in areas of Louisiana and Mississippi impacted by the tropical storm.
But the damage may already have been done, scaring immigrants into avoiding rescue or shelter.
“That happened during Harvey,” Espinosa said. “It puts people’s lives in peril.”
Andrea Guttin, legal director of the Houston Immigration Legal Services Collaborative, said that area nonprofits have a limited capacity to do deportation defense work without charging a fee, and that the city is unable to represent the vast majority in need. She urged outraged residents ask city and county leaders to contribute to local deportation funds.
Cities such as Los Angeles, New York, San Antonio and Austin designate taxpayer money for deportation defense. Houston is the largest city that does not.
“This is not just a national issue,” Guttin said. “This is a local issue. These are our community members, our friends, our neighbors.”