USA begins arrest and deportation of illegal migrants

This past weekend, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials apprehended 121 undocumented adults and their children living in Georgia, Texas and North Carolina as part of “nationwide enforcement operations to take into custody and return at a greater rate adults who entered this country illegally with children”, U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said in a statement Monday.

The Department of Homeland Security targeted migrant families, many of them women and children who had arrived at the U.S.-Mexico border in 2014 when the U.S. saw a spike in migrants from Central America and Mexico.

According to Mohammad Abdollahi, a spokesman for Raices, an immigrant advocacy group based in Texas, numerous families detained is expected to be taken to the Dilley family detention center close to San Antonio, the Guardian wrote.

The raids come after a huge surge previous year of Central American immigrants who were fleeing extreme poverty and escalating gang violence. “ICE will continue to pursue the removal of persons who fall within DHS immigration enforcement priorities, including families who are recent unlawful border crossers and who are subject to final orders of removal”. “We are going to support them and be sure that these people do not have any alternative”, Padilla said. The congressman said the raids have caused a panic within the immigrant community.

“People are frantic right now”, he said Tuesday.

In his statement, Johnson said ICE’s weekend operations “should come as no surprise”. “It only sends vulnerable families back to danger, many of whom did not receive adequate due process protections from our legal system”. A judge told them they must leave the U.S.

President Obama sought to prevent the deportation of 5 million illegal immigrants via executive action in November 2014, but was blocked by the US Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. The family escaped Guatemala, he said, after a kidnapping attempt.

On a basic level, the Obama administration and its usual allies in the immigration-reform community simply view the influx of Central American migrants in two different ways: The advocates see it as a humanitarian crisis while the government is responding to it as a threat to border security and immigration enforcement.

TRAC codirector Susan Long said immigration judges in Boston have ordered 263 parents and children deported in the past two fiscal years.

Immigrant advocates have questioned prioritizing nonviolent migrants for deportation and whether the facilities that hold them are suitable for minors.

Deportation raids that began over the weekend are triggering outrage from Obama administration allies, who are blasting the president for taking a page out of GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump’s immigration policy playbook.

The congregation, Heintzelman said, believes it has a moral obligation to protect Central Americans fleeing violence. “ICE deployed from around the country a number of female agents and medical personnel to take part in the operations, and, in the course of the operations, ICE exercised prosecutorial discretion in a number of cases for health or other personal reasons”, the secretary said.

Lawyers advised the migrants to simply not open the door if approached by immigration agents.

“She’s in deportation proceedings”, Paz said of her cousin. “But, we must enforce the law consistent with our priorities”, Johnson said. “Americans want order and legality in immigration, not deportations and families forcibly split apart or exiled”.

“I can assure you that politics did not factor in these kind of enforcement decisions”, the spokesperson said.

The board’s temporary stay, however, might mean some of these families still do have legitimate claims to asylum, which by law means they can not be prosecuted for entering the country illegally while they apply for that status.