Activists prepare for ICE raids
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency could target thousands of immigrant families across the United States on Sunday for deportation, after scrapping a similar plan he announced last month on Twitter.
ICE is expected to pursue at least 2,000 immigrants who have missed a court appearance or been ordered removed from the country, according to reporting Thursday by The New York Times. The raids are expected to take place in 10 cities across the U.S. — Columbus is not one of them — leading to outcry from immigration advocates and the president’s political opponents that the ultimate intent of the raids may be to instill fear in immigrant communities in order to deter further migration.
Trump often employs the tactic of threatening but ultimately not taking action in order to extract concessions. The sweep remains in flux and could begin this weekend or later, according to two administration officials who spoke on condition of anonymity. Still, the American Civil Liberties Union preemptively filed a lawsuit Thursday in an attempt to protect asylum seekers.
Ken Cuccinelli, the new head of Citizenship and Immigration Services, told CNN on Wednesday that the raids were “absolutely going to happen.”
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., took to the Senate floor Thursday to condemn the possible raids.
“This is not an effort to root out dangerous criminals,” Schumer said. “This is an act of brutish force designed to spread fear in the immigrant community. … ‘Make them afraid, and maybe they won’t come.’”
ICE spokesman Matthew Bourke would not confirm the pending raids or offer further details, citing “law enforcement sensitivities and the safety and security of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel.”
“As always, ICE prioritizes the arrest and removal of unlawfully present aliens who pose a threat to national security, public safety and border security,” he said in a Thursday statement. “However, all of those in violation of the immigration laws may be subject to immigration arrest, detention and — if found removable by final order — removal from the United States.”
Activists ramped up efforts to prepare for the raids by bolstering know-your-rights pocket guides, circulating information about hotlines and planning public demonstrations. Vigils outside of detention centers and hundreds of other locations nationwide were set for Friday evening, to be followed by protests Saturday in Miami and Chicago.
“Our communities have been in constant fear,” Estela Vara, a Chicago-area organizer said Thursday at a rally outside the city’s ICE offices where some activists chanted “Immigration Not Deportation!”
Law enforcement sources said the ICE agents would be asking other members of the household for their immigration documents as they make arrests.
The on-again, off-again raids favored by the White House and some of the president’s most hard-line aides are also deepening fissures within his already embattled Department of Homeland Security, the agency charged with domestic safety and tackling an ongoing humanitarian crisis at the border.
In June, Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin Mcaleenan ordered thenacting ICE Director Mark Morgan to call off a previous “family op,” but Morgan appealed directly to the White House. Trump then announced the raids on Twitter on June 17.
Officials, lawyers and advocates scrambled to prepare in cities including Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Denver, Houston, Miami and New Orleans, where the operation would reportedly take place.
Days later, Trump pulled back.
“At the request of Democrats, I have delayed the Illegal Immigration Removal Process (Deportation) for two weeks to see if the Democrats and Republicans can get together and work out a solution to the Asylum and Loophole problems at the Southern Border,” he tweeted June 22. “If not, Deportations start!”
Morgan, now the acting commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, the Border Patrol’s parent agency, did not respond to requests for comment on the ICE raids, but tensions have persisted between the CBP commissioner and Mcaleenan, his boss, following the canceled operation.
The operation is similar to ones conducted regularly since 2003 that often produce hundreds of arrests. It is slightly unusual to target families, as opposed to immigrants with criminal histories, but it’s not unprecedented. The Obama and Trump administrations have targeted families in previous operations.