No signs of massive raids in Los Angeles, other major cities
Over the weekend, the Trump administration said that federal immigration officials have begun a nationwide operation targeting undocumented immigrants in 10 cities who have been given a court order to be deported.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials, targeted operations were planned in Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York and San Francisco. ICE agents were expected to detain an estimated 2,000 undocumented immigrants in raids that the Trump administration said started Sunday, July 14 for an undetermined amount of time.
ICE officials emphasized that those targeted already had orders by immigration courts for deportation and undocumented immigrants who have violated immigration law.
“As always ICE prioritizes the arrest and removal of unlawfully present aliens who pose a threat to national security, public safety and border security,” an ICE official told CNN over the weekend.
But despite the White House’s announcement that the raids were underway, immigrant advocates from the cities listed reported no such activity over the weekend.
“The way we see it with all the rumors and hysteria, we’re telling the community that ICE is always conducting operations. This is nothing new. It’s a daily reality for us,” Jennaya Dunlap of the Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice in Ontario, California told CNN.
The deportation operation was previously postponed after congressional Democrats urged the president to delay to delay the raids last month. Trump said he would delay them until two weeks or until Congress agrees on a solution for the crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Since the administration’s threat to undergo these raids, leaders from sanctuary states and sanctuary cities — jurisdictions that prohibit law enforcement and officials from cooperating with and aiding immigration officials in operations — have pledged support for immigrant families.
“Our president has failed to build a wall, so instead he’s going to go back to his old play book of trying to rip families apart. Here in Los Angeles we will not participate in that,” Garcetti said last month.
According to a piece in the LA Times on Monday, July 15, residents in immigrant communities have noticed less people on the streets due to fear of the publicized raids. News of the raids left many undocumented immigrants in fear of leaving their homes, and many have skipped work. (Klarize Medenilla/AJPress)
