Deportation raids conducted against migrant families in the US South

SAN ANTONIO (AP) – Immigration agents over the weekend conducted the first raids targeting the deportation of families who flocked across the United States’ southern border over the past two years, a senior government official said Monday.

This past weekend, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) engaged in concerted, nationwide enforcement operations to take into custody and return at a greater rate adults who entered this country illegally with children, the US Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson said.

In his statement, Johnson said ICE’s weekend operations “should come as no surprise”. The reports are coming from various new sources and social media posts by immigrant advocacy groups.

The White House did not comment on specifics of the apprehensions, which have divided US political leaders and stoked controversy with the American public.

In Dallas, immigration activist Greisa Martinez said she spent the break counseling her mother on what to do if immigration agents came looking for her. The moment was especially hard, Martinez said, because they had spent the previous Christmas break celebrating President Obama’s new program to protect up to 4.5 million undocumented immigrants from deportation. “That is the nature of the operations carried out in the last several days”. So far, authorities have netted 121 people who are in the process of being deported back to their home countries, Johnson said. “I have said publicly for months that individuals who constitute enforcement priorities, including families and unaccompanied children, will be removed”, Johnson said in a statement.

Johnson said similar sweeps will continue at his discretion. But the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, reemphasized their priorities in a statement this morning that referred back to policy priorities made in November 2014 in this memo.

What is needed is blanket recognition of official persecution in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, a culture of violence that this country actually nurtured with gang activity that flowed south. We have no problem meddling in Central America’s internal affairs historically.

“This is the problem when we let the furthest people to the right define the debate”, said Tania Unzueta, #Not1More’s spokeswoman.

The Department of Homeland Security has said the immigrants targeted in the raids had exhausted their legal remedies before being apprehended. But most of those deported were single adults, not children who started flocking across the southern border by themselves in 2014.

Despite the surge in unaccompanied children and families crossing the border since previous year, Espinosa, the advocate in Houston, pointed out that the number of unauthorised immigrants in the USA has decreased during Obama’s tenure.

“I’m here to express our extreme disappointment at the recent announcement regarding raids of families who have entered the United States in the recent year”, said NIJC’s Claudia Valenzuela. Illegal immigration has been a major issue in the 2016 presidential campaign, with GOP contenders calling for stricter border patrols. Most states say they arent set up to handle that kind of housing or they lack the facilities.

“The very tactic – with teams of ICE officers showing up at someone’s home, unannounced, using deception to gain entry, waking up sleeping children and carting away both parents and kids – is repugnant”, said Frank Sharry, executive director of America’s Voice. By screening submissions, we provide a space where readers can share intelligent and informed commentary that enhances the quality of our news and information. In addition to suffering trauma from the arrest, they often enter court with a language barrier and a lack knowledge regarding the United States asylum system.