USA: Immigration Raids Started in Different Cities

On Friday President Trump confirmed reports that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement plans to conduct nationwide sweeps from Sunday to arrest thousands of undocumented immigrant families that the government says have missed a court appearance or have been issued court-ordered removals from the country. The operations, which would be along the same lines as the one cancelled, last month, are expected to take place in at least 10 cities across the U.S. and last for days. According to reports, ICE is prepared to target more than 2,000 recently arrived migrant families most of whom do not have criminal histories.
The raids will be conducted over multiple days. Denver Mayor Michael Hancock reported they will go on through July 18, and they will include “collateral deportations,” meaning undocumented migrants who happen to be on the scene but are not the intended target could also be subject to detention. San Francisco Mayor London Breed said Friday that the city’s police would not cooperate with any ICE operations and that the city was gearing up to protect its immigrants. “If you want to come after them, you’re going to have to come through us,” she said. In Denver and other cities, government human-service workers were on standby to find foster homes for any children left behind if their parents were detained and marked for deportation. In many cases, immigrants who lack legal permission to remain in the United States have minor children who are U.S. citizens.  Immigration reform advocates expected that communities around Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York and San Francisco would be targeted in the raids expected to last through at least Thursday. Trump said convicted criminals in the country illegally are being targeted first.
The ACLU filed a lawsuit to stop the raids and subsequent deportations, arguing that many of the targeted people were unaware they were subject to what’s known as a “final order of removal” because federal officials did a poor job of proving accurate court dates and appointment updates. On Saturday night, it was reported that raids had been attempted in New York. Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a tweet that Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or Ice, had not succeeded in rounding up anyone in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park and Harlem.
> Alma Siddiqua