U.S. Begins To Deport Central Americans

US officials say immigration authorities have taken 121 people into custody since Friday, in the first raids targeting the deportation of families who have entered the United States illegally since May 2014.

Immigrants’ advocates say the first raids took place on Saturday, resulting in the detention of at least 11 Central American immigrant families in Texas and Georgia.

“I also recognize the reality of the pain that deportations do in fact cause”, Johnson said.

“As I have said repeatedly, our borders are not open to illegal migration; if you come here illegally, we will send you back consistent with our laws and values”, he said.

Johnson said the focus of this weekend’s operations were on adults and their children who were apprehended after May 1, 2014 when they were crossing the southern border illegally.

The Board of Immigration Appeals’ decision made late Tuesday is a small yet potentially significant breakthrough for lawyers fighting the raids as it raises questions about Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson’s assurances to the public this week that those being deported had exhausted all their legal options.

Asked about the removal operations, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said that the administration has “prioritized the cases of recent arrivals, individuals who recently crossed the border without proper documentation”. “Those were the nature of the operations carried out over the last several days”.

The families targeted in the raids had been issued final removal orders by immigration courts. Unfortunately, the Obama administration is looking through the wrong end of the telescope, viewing this as an immigration enforcement challenge instead.

“At my direction, additional enforcement operations such as these will continue to occur as appropriate”, Johnson said.

Dozens of immigrants in New England and thousands nationwide potentially fall into those categories, according to figures from TRAC, a Syracuse University data research group, and the immigration courts, which are under the Department of Justice.

The Washington Post reported that immigration officials would begin taking into custody women and children from Central America.

“Attempting to unlawfully enter the United States as a family unit does not protect individuals from being subject to the immigration laws of this country”, said an official with the Department of Homeland Security who was not permitted to speak on the record.

Immigration activists held a rally on Wednesday in New Haven against plans by federal officials to round up Central Americans who have recently crossed the border illegally.

The arrests have become a political issue as immigration has taken center stage in presidential campaigns and Democrats have sought to separate themselves from Republicans on immigration.

Advocates expressed concern before Christmas about the raids, citing what they called flaws and abuses in the government’s treatment and legal processing of the families, many of whom are fleeing danger or persecution in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.

In Texas, six Central American families detained in the raids are expected to be brought by Monday to the South Texas Family Residential Center about 70 miles south of San Antonio, according to Mohammad Abdollahi, a spokesman for RAICES, a San Antonio-based legal advocacy group for immigrants.

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One person was killed and an officer was shot in the ankle after police were fired on as they tried to serve an arrest warrant late Sunday at a North Carolina home, authorities said. “If there was no case, nothing here, we wouldn’t have gotten the stay”.