Thread: I.C.E. targets 100 in Southern California "all-out assault"

ICE arrests more than 100 in immigration sweeps across Southern California; LA leader calls it ‘all-out assault’


U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents conduct an operation is Los Angeles on Sunday, Feb. 11, 2018. (Photo by Photo by Peter Nissen, courtesy ICE)

By ELIZABETH CHOU | echou@scng.com and ALEJANDRA MOLINA | amolina@scng.com | Daily News
PUBLISHED: February 14, 2018 at 10:36 am | UPDATED: February 14, 2018 at 6:42 pm


Federal immigration officials said Wednesday they have arrested more than 100 people who are in violation of immigration laws as part of an ongoing operation in the Los Angeles area that began Sunday.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Sarah Rodriguez said their Los Angeles-area team is targeting about 400 people across the seven counties they cover.

ICE officials said in a statement that they are focusing on “individuals who pose a threat to national security, public safety and border security.”

“This means that, ideally, we are working with local police and county jails to identify public safety threats in their custody, who are also in the country illegally, for deportation,” the agency said in a statement.

They added that in “uncooperative jurisdictions” like Los Angeles, they are being forced to “focus additional resources to conduct at-large arrests in the community, putting officers, the general public and the aliens at risk and increasing the incidents of collateral arrests.”

“Sanctuary cities are not immune from federal law,” officials said in the statement.

RELATED STORY: How California’s ‘sanctuary state’ bill would further limit ICE’s ability to arrest immigrants

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents take a man into custody during an operation is Los Angeles on Sunday, Feb. 11, 2018. (Photo by Photo by Keith Gardner, courtesy ICE)

ICE officials also said that they are no longer following a priority criteria for arrests, so “all of those in violation of the immigration laws may be subject to immigration arrest, detention and, if found removable by final order, removal from the United States.”

ICE officials told the Wall Street Journal earlier this week that most of those they are targeting have serious crimes on their record, some are suspected of crimes and others were previously ordered to leave the country.

RELATED STORY: Amid tense immigration climate, LAPD revises rules for working with ICE, place-of-birth questions

ICE’s Los Angeles-area fugitive operations teams conduct enforcement operations across Southern California, including Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura, Santa Barbara, and San Luis Obispo counties.

In the Inland area, at least one deportation is being attributed to the ICE arrests.

Jennaya Dunlap, an emergency response coordinator with the Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice, said a Riverside father of three U.S. citizens was deported.

Dunlap said a number of people called the organization’s new hotline number and reported ICE arrests across the Inland area between Sunday and Tuesday.

“Some of these cases were people who had old convictions,” she said.

The operation comes as city leaders and the Los Angeles Police Department are working to revise rules for working with ICE and other federal immigration enforcement agencies.

LAPD chief Charlie Beck issued an internal, 11-page memo that includes some updates to department procedures for working with ICE as part of joint task forces, and the collection of certain types of information that may be considered sensitive for immigrants. This memo adds to existing policies, such as Special Order 40, a 1979 document that tells LAPD officers not to actively enforce and investigate civil immigration violations.

“It’s part of their retaliatory strategy against sanctuary cities who don’t fall in line with their draconian immigration policies. Nothing will keep us from being a sanctuary city, county or state.”

— L.A. City Councilman Gil Cedillo

Despite calls by immigrant advocates to have the city completely stop working with ICE, city leaders and law enforcement officials say they cannot control what federal counterparts do, and it is often necessary to partner with ICE during task force operations.

Los Angeles does not officially consider itself a sanctuary city, but that may soon change. The City Council is discussing a resolution that would label L.A. a “city of sanctuary,” though the proposal currently does not contain any substantive changes to city policies.

Xochilt Sanchez, an organizer with immigrant advocacy group CARECEN, said the latest raids are “retaliation, point blank” by ICE for certain policies the city has adopted aimed at protecting immigrants. But she said this week’s ICE operation is an example for why the city needs to do more beyond making “empty statements” about being a potential “sanctuary.”

She said “political representatives need to stand up for their constituents more and use their political power to ensure these ICE raids are no longer happening.”

Another organizer, David Abud, who works with a group called ICE Out of L.A., said that they are “seeing more of these operations now and they are becoming more routine.”

“The way we understand it … these are political tactics being used by ICE to further terrorize communities and to weaponize what is supposed to be a law enforcement mechanism for political means,” he said.

The Los Angeles City Council has been discussing the city’s policies around immigration enforcement in a committee chaired by Councilman Gil Cedillo.

Cedillo said the city is “opposed to blanket ICE raids that endanger individuals who are not targeted for deportation, and without the appropriate warrant. ICE has gone back on its promise to respect sensitive spaces, turning it into an all-out assault on immigrant communities.”

He added that the city’s “‘uncooperative’ policies are not what’s causing ICE to conduct their fear-mongering raids in our communities.”

“It’s part of their retaliatory strategy against sanctuary cities who don’t fall in line with their draconian immigration policies. Nothing will keep us from being a sanctuary city, county or state.”

The L.A. Raids Rapid Response Network, which is coordinated by immigrant advocacy group CHIRLA, issued a statement as well, offering access to a hotline to “families and loved ones of those detained by ICE at home or work to reach out for support, including potential consultation with an immigration attorney” at (888) 624-4752. They also referred to a “know your rights” pamphlet by the ACLU that can be found online.

Meanwhile, local law enforcement in the city of Los Angeles said they had no part in the latest operation, saying in a statement that “no LAPD resources were involved in recent ICE enforcement actions in the city of Los Angeles.”

The LAPD’s position has been that its officers do not take part in “civil immigration enforcement.”

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Since President Donald Trump took office, the number of people apprehended at the border dropped, but arrests of immigrants inside the country surged, according to end-of-year immigration enforcement numbers released in December by the Department of Homeland Security.

The data show “results of a year-long return to enforcing the law,” the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement.

In fiscal 2017, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, made 143,470 arrests, a 25 percent increase over the 114,434 who were arrested a year earlier.

“The president made it clear in his executive orders: There’s no population off the table,” said Thomas Homan, ICE’s acting director, in December. “If you’re in this country illegally, we’re looking for you and we’re going to look to apprehend you.”

https://www.dailynews.com/2018/02/14...-began-sunday/

Process them on the bus on the way to the border!

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Good start. Let's keep the momentum going. After all, we have 20 million to get rid of.

MAKE IT FOUR MILLION

DEPLOY NATIONAL GUARD TO HELP TRANSPORT THEM TO FEDERAL TENT CITY ON FEDERAL LAND WITH MILITARY TRANSPORT TO GET THEM OUT OF HERE!

"OPERATION AIR DROP TO SENDER"