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| Photo: popularresistance.org |
According to ICE officials, immigration advocates have circulated “false, dangerous and irresponsible” reports about last week’s nationally coordinated raids, which the officials now say netted some 680 arrests. “These reports create mass panic and put communities and law enforcement personnel in unnecessary danger,’ ICE charges, claiming the massive operation was simply business as usual, no different from raids carried out under the Obama administration. The Trump-linked rightwing newsite Breitbart.comechoed this line and dismissed reports to the contrary as “fake news.”
It’s true that the new “surge” carries on procedures the early Obama administration followed, but there are significant differences—basically, that the Trump administration has broadened the categories of people who could be targeted and, more importantly, that an escalation of these actions is in fact precisely what the president promised as a candidate and continues to promise now. Below we link to two articles analyzing these differences.
Some people on the left have also stressed Obama’s record as “deporter in chief.” Why didn’t Obama’s raids attract the same level reporting from the media and of protests from progressives? The criticism is justified—there certainly should have been more coverage of Obama-era raids and more resistance to them—but that’s hardly a reason not to report on and protest Trump’s actions now. –TPOI editor.
Trump just getting started with immigration raids
The president granted himself sweeping authority to step up deportations, and he's poised to use it.
By Seung Min Kim and Ted Hesson, Politico
February 14, 2017
The arrests of hundreds of immigrants last week marked the first large-scale raid under the Trump administration — and the crackdown was, by all indications, just the start of much more to come.
The expansive executive order signed last month by President Donald Trump allows a significantly broader population of immigrants to be picked up for deportation. And Trump has signaled he has every intention of using that authority to carry out his campaign pledge to deport millions of foreigners from the United States.
Immigration advocates say the stepped-up enforcement amounts to a new deportation dragnet that’s ensnaring otherwise law-abiding immigrants.[...]
Read the full article:
The first immigration raids of the Trump era, explained
Both fairly standard and newly terrifying.
By Dara Lind, Vox
February 14, 2017
In North Carolina, a husband left his house to start a car, only to be handcuffed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent. In Los Angeles, a man was arrested at the Walmart where he worked. In Garden City, Kansas, whole apartments of people were fingerprinted and taken into custody.
They’re three of the more than 680 people that ICE agents around the country — from the Midwest to the Southeast, California to New York — have arrested in the past week. Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, in a statement Monday, calls it “a series of targeted enforcement operations,” and maintains it’s no different from what ICE has done “for many years.” Critics call it a series of nationwide raids — and claim it’s the first step toward President Donald Trump fulfilling his promise to deport millions of unauthorized immigrants.
The reality is somewhere in the middle. Nothing that ICE did last week was unprecedented. But it feels different with President Trump in the White House — and that’s something that ICE agents and immigrants alike know all too well.[...]
Read the full article:
