Daily ICE raids continue as the Trump administration steps up pressure to deliver the “mass deportation promise” a goal set by Trump to “rid the country of all 11 million or more people believed to be in the U.S. without legal status.”
And Stephen Miller, the White House Deputy Chief of Staff has reportedly tore into senior leaders at Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, demanding a massive surge in arrests of undocumented immigrants—Miller makes no apology in his plan to fulfill Trump’s promise stating that ICE should arrest at least 3,000 people per day.
ICE agents have been met with resistance and protests in Arizona and across the nation after agents began conducting arrests at courthouses, including several in Phoenix and Tucson where immigrants were following the law by showing up at scheduled court appearances on behalf of their immigration appeals and legal work status.
Many churches no longer hold sanctuary for immigrants
Reportedly, On June 11, ICE agents arrested two migrants outside churches in Downey California, located in Los Angeles County.
“When ICE was first active in 2003, it was supposed to protect Americans and people living within the United States,” said immigration attorney Michael Cataliotti, as reported in The Independent. “Not any more. These days, ICE is a tool being used to scare, arrest, detain, and fill up the prison systems under the guise of ‘Protecting America.’”
Cataliotti said that under previous administrations, ICE had “humanity” compared to now.
“This is astonishingly different,” the New York-based attorney said. “It’s a tremendous violation of norms, like going into churches, which were always considered off-limits, or, simply, assault and battery and reckless endangerment, when they’re driving cars into folks.”
In Phoenix, Terri Karchner, an immigration rights legal advocate, told Northeast Valley News, “We are losing good, good people—neighbors, hard-working, law-abiding people to these deplorable Trump ordered ICE raids. These people are not criminals and these arrests are inhumane.”
ICE is expanding its list of targets in order to meet its quotas.
All this has meant ICE has had to expand its list of targets to meet its quotas, including rounding up day laborers in Home Depot parking lots as well as field workers on farms.
There have been several unconfirmed reports from callers and social media posts from the Phoenix area—people reported online seeing ICE agents in the parking lot of a Valley Home Depot last week.
The result—a constant and continual climate of fear, and not only for undocumented immigrants.
A Texas farmer recently told NBC affiliate KVEO of Brownsville, Texas, that within the last three weeks, there have been “zero people wanting to come out and be exposed to be able to be picked up whether they are legal or illegal.”
Reportedly, some families are choosing to self-deport.
Many of those who have lived, worked, paid taxes, owned businesses and had children born in the U.S. are choosing self-deportation due to the fear of being wrongly apprehended, detained and possibly deported to a country that isn’t even a country of origin.
A family in San Antonio Texas made the decision to self-deport even though the father is a Veteran and U.S. citizen, his wife has legal status, but the family recently made the decision to pack up their three American born children and move to Mexico.