ICE raids to start Sunday

Heads up, everybody! It's confirmed that ICE intends to conduct raids in select cities early Sunday morning (July 14) to round up unauthorized immigrant targets and take them into custody. These raids are being done on Donald Trump's orders and are expected to take place in the predawn hours of major U.S. cities, according to a Washington Post report.

“They’re absolutely going to happen,” said US Citizenship and Immigration Services director Ken Cuccinelli, according to CNN on Thursday (July 11).

The “family op,” as the roundup of unauthorized immigrants is referred to at ICE and the Department of Homeland Security, is slated to target up to 2,000 families in as many as 10 U.S. cities, and other major immigration destinations, said immigration officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the law enforcement operation.

Immigration attorney Ronald Cabanayan said there are fears there will be collateral arrests.“That there’s going to be this very broad dragnet that’s going to capture them. Even though they don’t have any, um, removal orders,” he said.

Added Sameena Usman, a spokeswoman for CAIR SF Bay Area, “It’s creating panic in the community and fear of the separation of families of people who want to ah, pursue a better life in this country. And now that’s gonna be stripped away from them.”

The ten cities targeted are San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Houston, Denver, Miami, New Orleans, Baltimore, Chicago and Atlanta. The mayors of San Francisco, L.A. New York and Houston has said that local law enforcement will be aiding ICE agents during the raids.

Especially vulnerable and easy pickings for ICE agents are the Cambodians, Vietnamese and Lao refugees, who sought refuge in the US because they fought for the US in the Vietnam War, and are already in ICE custody awaiting their deportation.

In an ongoing campaign, hundreds of Southeast Asians have already been deported.

Since 1998, over 16,000 community members have received final orders of deportation, and more than 13,000 of these were based on old criminal records (80% of total SEAA deportation orders, compared to 29% of all immigrants with deportation orders).iii Of these individuals, over 14,000 continue to live day-to-day in the country, not knowing if or when they will be deported, according to Southeast Asian Resource Action Center.

Trying to avoid the appearance of a Gestapo-like police action, Acting DHS secretary Kevin McAleenan has been urging ICE, an agency within his department, to conduct a narrower, more targeted operation that would seek to detain a group of about 150 families that were provided with attorneys but dropped out of the legal process and absconded.

McAleenan has warned that an indiscriminate operation to arrest migrants in their homes and at work sites risks separating children from their parents in cases where the children are at day care, summer camp or friend’s houses. He also has maintained that ICE should not devote major resources to carrying out a mass interior sweep while telling lawmakers it needs emergency funding to address the crisis at the U.S. border.Any families rounded up will reportedly be detained together at detention centers in Texas and Pennsylvania. Others will be held temporarily in hotels until travel documents can be prepared, according to The Times.

The Trump administration credits its escalating series of threats and new policies for the slowdown, although border crossing traditionally declines in the heat of summer.

"This is not a 'rule of law' operation," Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, tweeted Thursday. "The goal is to terrorize immigrant communities so immigrants do not seek protection in the US."

National and local immigration advocates have been preparing for what they expected to occur, considering Trump's anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies. Rallies are being planned beginning today (July 12), Check with local activist organizations to learn details.

ASAM NEWS contributed to this report.
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