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ICYMI: “Check-ins with ICE Can Now Lead to Deportation for Immigrants”

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Trump is fulfilling his mass deportation campaign promise, unshackling ICE and CBP agents to detain and deport any and all immigrants who cross their paths. As reported by Jeremy Redmon for Atlanta Journal-Constitution, a core part of this agenda includes targeting formerly “low-priority” immigrants at voluntary check-ins with ICE:

“In January, President Donald Trump issued an executive order broadly expanding the pool of people prioritized for deportation. The Republican’s get-tough approach drew widespread scrutiny a month later when deportation officers spread out across the nation and rounded up hundreds of unauthorized immigrants. But ICE has been employing another tactic that has drawn far less attention: Waiting for their targets to come to them.”

Jose Hernandez, an Atlanta-resident, has attended his routine check-ins with ICE since a 2013 driving without a license conviction. On March 9, he went in for his check-in and was given a deportation order — he now joins the long-list of immigrants, including Lupita Garcia and Francisca Lino, who have been deported after following the rules outlined by ICE.

According to Redmon: “Hernandez’ attorney says such deportations could drive more unauthorized immigrants deeper into the shadows. “He was compliant all along with whatever conditions ICE put on him,” said Hiba Ghalib, his immigration attorney. “When his friend hears about his detention, why would he comply with ICE’s request to go and check in?””

Read Redmon’s entire piece online here or see below for key excerpts:  

For years, Jose Hernandez showed up for routine meetings with federal immigration authorities in downtown Atlanta, something he was ordered to do after his 2013 conviction for driving without a license.

They were keeping tabs on Hernandez, who entered the country without authorization more than two decades ago. After a brief discussion about his case, Hernandez would be on his way, allowing him to maintain his home in Marietta, run his painting business and raise two children, including a U.S.-born son.

Then it happened. He was locked up when he showed up for a March 9 appointment with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement at a nondescript government building. Hernandez — who wasn’t a priority for removal during the Obama administration — is now facing deportation.

In January, President Donald Trump issued an executive order broadly expanding the pool of people prioritized for deportation. The Republican’s get-tough approach drew widespread scrutiny a month later when deportation officers spread out across the nation and rounded up hundreds of unauthorized immigrants. But ICE has been employing another tactic that has drawn far less attention: Waiting for their targets to come to them.

Hernandez’ attorney says such deportations could drive more unauthorized immigrants deeper into the shadows.

“He was compliant all along with whatever conditions ICE put on him,” said Hiba Ghalib, his immigration attorney. “When his friend hears about his detention, why would he comply with ICE’s request to go and check in?”

[…]

ICE could not immediately quantify how often it has taken this approach since Trump issued his executive order in January. But several similar cases across the country have drawn headlines in recent weeks. For example, The New York Times reported a Mexican national — who entered the U.S. without authorization 21 years ago, married and gave birth to two children who are now in their teens — was deported to Mexico this year after showing up for her check-in with ICE in Phoenix. And last month, The Washington Post reported that another woman, a mother of six children who is married to a U.S. citizen, was told she must return to Mexico this summer after showing up for her appointment with ICE in Chicago. She entered the country without legal permission 18 years ago.

[…]

Asked why Hernandez was being deported, ICE pointed to a misdemeanor battery conviction in DeKalb County. That conviction stemmed from a fight in the early 1990s with a former coworker who owed him money, said Hernandez’ stepdaughter, who spoke on condition of anonymity based on fears that ICE would retaliate against her.

“ICE will no longer exempt classes or categories of removable aliens from potential enforcement,” ICE spokesman Bryan Cox said in a prepared statement. “All of those in violation of the immigration laws may be subject to immigration arrest, detention and, if found removable by final order, removed from the United States.”

[…]

“My whole family will suffer significantly and tremendous hardship if I were to get deported,” Hernandez wrote ICE. “The fear and worriedness I see in them is very stressful and heartbreaking.”

Hernandez, who turned 51 on Wednesday, is being held at the Stewart Detention Center, located more than 140 miles south of Atlanta. His stepdaughter – who has received a special reprieve from deportation through the Obama administration’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program – recalled the day she dropped him off for his meeting with ICE in downtown Atlanta last month. Nervous yet hopeful, he walked into ICE’s office building. He didn’t return.

“I couldn’t believe what was happening — that I was leaving there without him,” she said, her voice cracking with emotion, “and I would have to come home and tell my brother that his dad was no longer going to come home.”