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RAID: Trump Orders
Immigration Search
Donald Trump has launched a raid on America.
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Over the weekend, Trump ordered Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials to raid various homes and job sites across the country, including Atlanta, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, and more. The search was part of Trump’s plan to crack down on the estimated 11 million immigrants living in the US illegally and netted the arrest of hundreds of undocumented immigrants. Although the raid was staged to target known criminals, it also went after immigrants without criminal records.
For the 3rd weekend since he took office, protesters have taken to the streets to demonstrate against Donald Trump and his policies. The day after his inauguration, citizens around the world staged a Women’s March in protest of Trump’s treatment of females. Next, there were protests against his Muslim ban that prevented US entry to citizens from 7 select Muslim countries. Then this past weekend, Mexican-Americans and others marched against Trump’s extensive immigration raid. This most recent protest was aimed at Trump’s policy change within the Department of Homeland Security, which now permits the targeting of immigrants with minor offenses or no convictions at all.
Donald Trump has pledged to deport as many as 3 million undocumented immigrants with criminal records. As of the ICE raid this weekend, he is well on his way.
According to Homeland Security spokeswoman, Gillian Christensen, the week-long raid found undocumented immigrants from a dozen Latin American countries.
“We’re talking about people who are threats to public safety or a threat to the integrity of the immigration system,” she said, noting that the majority of those detained were serious criminals who had been convicted of murder and domestic violence.
However, it was the arrests of those undocumented immigrants with no criminal records that sent a shock wave through immigrant communities and raised concerns that the US government could begin targeting law-abiding people.
“This is clearly the first wave of attacks under the Trump administration, and we know this isn’t going to be the only one,” Cristina Jimenez, executive director of United We Dream, an immigrant youth organization, said Friday to immigration advocates.
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According to David Marin, ICE’s field director in the Los Angeles area, at least 75% of those detained had felony convictions, while the rest had misdemeanors or were simply in the US illegally. He added that several dozen detainees in Los Angeles were deported to Mexico.
Democratic Rep. Joaquin Castro of Texas said he confirmed with ICE’s San Antonio office that the agency “launched a targeted operation in South and Central Texas as part of Operation Cross Check.”
“I am asking ICE 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 in a statement.
“I’m getting lots of reports from my constituents about seeing ICE on the streets. Teachers in my district have contacted me — certain students didn’t come to school today because they’re afraid,” added Greg Casar, an Austin City Council member. “I talked to a constituent, a single mother, who had her door knocked on this morning by ICE.”
Hiba Ghalib, an immigration lawyer in Atlanta, said the ICE detentions were causing “mass confusion” in the immigrant community. Reports of ICE agents going door-to-door and asking people to present their papers in one largely Hispanic neighborhood added to the hysteria.
“People are panicking,” Ghalib said. “People are really, really scared.”
As word of the raid reached Mexico, at least 20,000 took to the streets in Mexico City on Sunday near the US embassy. Protesters carried a sea of Mexican flags and anti-Trump signs, while one man set fire to a Trump doll, earning him cheers from the crowd.
“We are sending a message to Donald Trump: No wall. No immigrant raids. No aggression to Mexico,” one woman said of the Trump raid.
US Immigration officials acknowledged that as a result of Donald Trump’s executive order, authorities have cast a wider net than usual, prompting a myriad of questions and concerns.
Is the Trump raid truly necessary for a safer and more secure America, or is it overkill in its targeting of non-threatening undocumented immigrants — some of whom may have lived in the US for most of their lives?
TAKE OUR POLL:
DJ. Is the Trump raid truly necessary for a safer and more secure America? or is it overkill in its targeting of non-threatening undocumented immigrants — some of whom may have lived in the US for most of their lives? [….] Um..Yes. ….and Yes. Certainly, I don't have a problem with deporting undocumented immigrants who are criminals. In fact, it's been well reported that immigration groups "often" referred to Pres. Obama as the "Deporter-in-Chief" for having deported "more people than any other President." Dept. of Homeland Security (DHS): "Obama Has Deported More People Than Any Other President" Excerpt: Between 2009 and 2015 his administration has removed more than 2.5 million people through immigration orders, which doesn’t include the number of people who "self-deported" or were turned away and/or returned to their home country at the border by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). According to governmental data, the Obama administration… Read more »