It’s hard not to attribute this week’s raids to the president, considering the executive order he signed in January, which included calls for increased staffing of immigration officers carrying out deportations.
FLORIDO: He says that in comparison, by the end of the Obama administration, only about 8 percent of the 11 million immigrants in the US illegally were considered priorities for deportation.
Immigrant rights advocates reported an uptick in Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests ― including the detention of people who were considered low priority for removal until Trump signed an order last month making almost every undocumented immigrant an important target for deportation.
Roughly 2 million people were deported under President Obama. At one point, he was dubbed the “Deporter in Chief” by his critics. It’s important to note that similar sweeps occurred under President Obama; the Times reports that 112 people were taken into custody a year ago during a four-day operation targeting individuals with criminal histories.
Calling the latest arrests an “enforcement surge“, they said they have been targeting immigrants with criminal histories who are in the country illegally, as they have done for the past few years.
The amnesty groups spread their alarm via Twitter, and called for protests and demonstrations against enforcement of immigration laws.
A video that circulated on social media Friday appeared to show ICE agents detaining people in an Austin shopping center parking lot.
“This person has an old deportation order from 2011, I believe. and they have identified him and picked him up”.
Demonstrators hit the streets of Los Angeles to protest against reported raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials which allegedly led to more than 100 people being detained. Marin acknowledged that five of those arrested would not have met the Obama administration’s enforcement priorities. Immigration lawyers and advocates said some of the enforcement efforts included traffic stops and checkpoints, though Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials disputed those accounts, saying the agency does not use checkpoints while engaging in targeted enforcement operations.
“But I want to say this as well, I don’t think Linda nor I, nor any Democratic member of the House or the Senate or just about anyone in the United States would defend anyone who is being deported because they have violated our – a law in a felony form or pose a threat to our nation”, he added.
The two-day operation was part of a week-long, region-wide effort where agents arrested approximately 200 unlawfully present foreign nationals all in Georgia, North and SC.
The Bay Area’s BART regional rail system has proposed a “sanctuary in transit” policy that would prohibit its own police force to limit cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal agencies. Trump’s proposal to “end the abuse of the parole and asylum provisions now used to prevent the lawful removal of removable aliens”, despite the fact that asylum applications were rarely granted under the Obama administration. “Our community is concerned and they really do feel terrorized”. “I bet if you watch the morale issue, you’ll … be surprised going forward”. “What would happen if we had said to those people they had no due process right?”
Another controversial aspect of Trump’s orders are the resurrection of the DHS-administered Secure Communities program. Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos, a mother of two in Phoenix, was arrested almost a decade ago for using a false ID to get a job as a janitor at an amusement park.