US authorities arrested hundreds of undocumented migrants this week in the first large-scale raids under President Donald Trump, triggering panic in immigrant communities nationwide.
The federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency rounded up undocumented individuals living in Atlanta, Austin, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and other cities two weeks after Trump signed an executive order that broadened which undocumented immigrants would be targeted for deportation.
According to the ICE, however, the operations were “routine”.
“The focus of these operations is no different than the routine, targeted arrests carried out by the ICE’s Fugitive Operations Teams on a daily basis,” said agency spokeswoman Jennifer Elzea.
Trump said yesterday that the arrests were in keeping with his campaign promise to remove “illegal criminals” from the country.
“The crackdown on illegal criminals is merely the keeping of my campaign promise. Gang members, drug dealers & others are being removed!” he tweeted.
David Marin, head of the ICE’s removal operations in Los Angeles, told reporters that the operations – which saw 160 people swept up in the California metropolis – were planned prior to Trump’s January swearing-in and were comparable to past actions.
But Trump aide Stephen Miller told Fox News Sunday that the raids were more robust due to Trump’s order.
“As a result of the president’s order, greatly expanded and more vigorous immigration enforcement activities are taking place,” he said.
“It is true that Operation Cross Check is something that happens every year. But this year we have taken new and greater steps to remove criminal aliens from our communities,” Miller said.
Marin rebuffed reports about ICE checkpoints and random sweeps, calling them “dangerous and irresponsible”.
“Reports like that create panic, and they put communities and law enforcement personnel in unnecessary danger,” he said.
Marin said some 75% of them had prior felony convictions, while there were some who had been nabbed solely because they were undocumented.
By Friday night, 37 undocumented immigrants had already been expelled to Mexico.
In a January 25 decree, Trump prioritised the deportation of undocumented males who had been convicted of or “charged with any criminal offence”, including misdemeanours.
The order was a move to make good on his campaign pledge to crack down on America’s undocumented population, estimated at 11mn people.
The raids, which hit residential areas and workplaces, sparked protests and provoked the ire of elected Democratic representatives, notably in California and particularly in Los Angeles, where the Pew Research Centre estimates around 1mn undocumented migrants reside.
“President Trump’s policy change betrays our values,” Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein said. “Tearing families apart isn’t what this country stands for.”
In Austin, Texas, where 100,000 unauthorised migrants live, a bystander captured video footage of an arrest, which made local front-page news and ignited demonstrations.
Democratic Congressman Joaquin Castro of Texas confirmed the launch of a “targeted operation” aimed at arresting the undocumented.
He has asked ICE officials to “clarify whether these individuals are in fact dangerous, violent threats to our communities, and not people who are here peacefully raising families and contributing to our state”.
Castro said the roundups were part of “Operation Cross Check” – a series of large-scale raids that began in 2011 under Barack Obama.
The agency conducted the last sweep in March 2015, corralling 2,059 undocumented immigrants deemed threats to “public safety”.
In New York, which hosts the country’s largest population of undocumented immigrants – 1.15mn, according to Pew – a few hundred people demonstrated near the immigration services office.
Obama deported more immigrants than any of his predecessors, prioritising the expulsion of repeat criminal offenders or those convicted of serious crimes, including rape, child pornography and gang membership.
Undocumented migrants with repeated drunk driving convictions were also targeted.
With his decree, Trump – who vowed as a candidate to deport some 3mn undocumented immigrants with criminal records – broadens the scope of the Obama administration’s policy, dropping the distinction between convicted criminals and those who have simply been charged.
Activists have rallied around the case of Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos – a 35-year-old mother arrested during a routine visit to Phoenix, Arizona who has become symbolic of Trump’s hardline measures.
The mother of two US-born children was caught in 2008 using a fake social security number and slapped with a deportation order.
Authorities had not previously expelled her for practical reasons, however, as she posed little threat.
However, by Thursday, Garcia de Rayos was in Nogales, the Mexican border town where she crossed into the US more than two decades ago.
The Mexican foreign ministry said her deportation “illustrates the new reality of Mexican community living in the United States in the face of more severe application of migration controls”.
The ministry urged Mexican citizens to “take precautions” and stay in close contact with consular authorities, echoing instructions from immigrant advocacy groups stateside.
El Salvador, in Central America, also is home to many recent immigrants to the United States.
Their remittances are key to its economy.
“We are working to ensure that Salvadorans who are overseas, especially ... in the United States are protected,” Salvadoran President Salvador Sanchez Ceren told local media.
People are arrested during a protest on Saturday against Trump’s immigration policy and the recent ICE raids in New York City.
