ICE Reality: We’re Focused on Soccer Stars, Moms and Dads
Yesterday, ICE spokesperson Khaalid Walls told USA Today that “ICE continues to focus on people ‘who pose a threat to national security, public safety and border security’” in its immigration enforcement efforts. This followed a dark and deranged speech from President Trump last week, where he tried to claim the same. However, recent ICE raid statistics and the ongoing onslaught of deportation cases make it clear these claims are out and out lies.
As Elise Foley highlighted in HuffPost, only one-fifth of those swept up in recent ICE raids had any sort of criminal convictions (which can include the most minor of traffic violations); fully 70% of the people detained were not even targeted in the operation.
These raids were not a “targeted enforcement operation” but an old-style community sweep, full stop. Similarly, the ongoing onslaught of deportation cases reported in the media make it clear that while ICE public relations officials say it’s targeting ‘bad hombres,’ ICE agents are targeting everyone they come across.
Here are just a few recent examples:
- Lizandro Claros Saravia, the DC-area soccer star set for deportation instead of a college scholarship
- Lourdes Salazar Bautista, the Michigan mother of three U.S. citizen children who was deported this week
- Beatriz Morelos Casillas, the Ohio mother of four U.S. citizen kids whose was slated for deportation yesterday after a traffic stop
- Romulo Avelica-Gonzalez, the Los Angeles dad detained after dropping off daughter at school, facing imminent deportation
- MIT janitor Francisco Rodriguez, the subject of a heartbreaking Boston Globe column by Kevin Cullen, “What’s worse — tearing a family apart, or not letting a man see his newborn son?”
