US immigration officials planning 30-day 'surge' of arrests to deport families

Reuters Thursday 12 May 2016 21.24 BST

May arrests to focus on Central American mothers and children who’ve already been told to leave, according to ICE internal document instructing field offices


US immigration officials are planning a month-long series of raids in May and June to deport hundreds of Central American mothers and children found to have entered the country illegally, according to sources and an internal document seen by Reuters.

The operation would likely be the largest deportation sweep targeting immigrant families by the administration of Barack Obama this year after a similar drive over two days in January that focused on Georgia, Texas and North Carolina.

Those raids, which resulted in the detention of 121 people, mostly women and children, sparked an outcry from immigration advocates and criticism from some Democrats, including the party’s presidential election frontrunner Hillary Clinton.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has now told field offices nationwide to launch a 30-day “surge” of arrests focused on mothers and children who have already been told to leave the United States, the document seen by Reuters said. The operation would also cover minors who have entered the country without a guardian and since turned 18 years of age, the document said. Two sources confirmed the details of the plan.

The exact dates of the latest series of raids were not known and the details of the operation could change.

The operation in January marked a departure for ICE, part of the Department of Homeland Security, from one-off deportations to high-profile raids meant to deter migrants from coming to the United States.

An ICE spokeswoman said the agency does not “confirm or deny the existence of specific ongoing or future law enforcement actions”. The spokeswoman said immigrants who arrived illegally after 1 January 2014 are priorities for removal.

Federal resources were strained in 2014 under a wave of illegal migrants crossing the US-Mexico border, especially women and children fleeing violence in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala.

The planned new raids are in response to a renewed surge of illegal entries by Central American women traveling with their children.

From October 2015 through March 2016, the US Border Patrol apprehended more than 32,000 family “units”, defined as mothers and children traveling together, for crossing illegally into the United States. Over the same period in 2014-2015, there were about 14,000 such apprehensions; in 2013-2014, about 19,800.

Many of those apprehended for unlawful entry are put into deportation proceedings in court but do not show up for their scheduled appearance before a judge or ignore court orders to leave the country.

The surge in illegal border crossings has put Obama in a tough spot in a presidential election year in which he wants to see a fellow Democrat elected as his successor.

Obama has said criminal immigrants and those who have recently entered the country are priorities for deportation. He is regularly hammered by Republicans over the presence of more than 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country.

But Hispanic-Americans tend to vote for Democrats, who are more sympathetic to the plight of the undocumented.

Clinton raised concerns about the January raids at the time, saying they had “sown fear and division in immigrant communities”.

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has pledged to build a wall along the Mexican border to prevent illegal immigration.

Homeland Security secretary Jeh Johnson told a US Senate panel in March that the January raids had helped to deter Central Americans from migrating illegally. Border Patrol reported fewer illegal entries between

January and March 2016 compared to October and December 2015, but there were more apprehended than over the same time period in early 2015.

A separate document seen by Reuters said Johnson was concerned about the most recent uptick in border crossings.

Immigration advocates say they have asked Johnson to abandon plans for future raids.

“Raids are not the answer,” said Marielena Hincapie, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center, a legal aide and advocacy group for migrants.

“This is a humanitarian challenge,” she said.

US immigration officials planning 30-day 'surge' of arrests to deport ...

Report: 2.5 million illegal immigrants under Obama, 400,000 yearly enter

and up to 400,000 births by illegals yearly, 1 in 10 births is by an illegal, all paid for by citizens of USA

By Paul Bedard 7/20/15 5:02 AM

Some 2.5 million illegal immigrants have flowed into the United States under President Obama, with 790,000 rushing in since 2013, according to a new analysis.

Calculations from the Center for Migration Studies and the Pew Research Center indicate 1.5 to 1.7 million aliens joined the illegal population from 2009 to 2013 — either overstaying a temporary visa or sneaking into the country, according to a Center for Immigration Studies report out Monday morning.

The immigration watchdog's analysis of Census Bureau data also showed that an additional 790,000 illegals entered from the middle of 2013 to May of 2015, for a total of 2.5 million new illegal immigrants since Obama took office in January of 2009. That is a rate of 300,000 to 400,000 a year.
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/wp-co...mmigration.jpgIllegal immigrants caught at the U.S.-Mexico border. AP Photo

The issue has become explosive under Obama, especially in the last year when tens of thousands of children and young adults joined the regular flow of illegals from Latin America.


It has also embroiled the GOP presidential contest, with Donald Trump blasting Mexico and party leaders worrying about image of Republicans.


But the CIS report written by Steven A. Camarota, director of research, found that illegal immigration was higher under former President George W. Bush, potentially undermining the GOP's bid to sound tough on the issue. Under Bush, 500,000-600,000 illegals surged in a year.

Also, the report found that the overall population of illegals has remained "roughly constant," indicating that the surge in of immigrants is balanced by those going home or getting legal status.
http://www.as-coa.org/sites/default/...rally_AP_0.jpgImmigration has become a presidential campaign issue. AP Photo

Other points in the CIS report released Monday:
— Had the United States not allowed so many new illegal immigrants to settle in the country since 2009, the total number of illegal immigrants would have fallen by 2.5 million. But the arrival of so many new illegal immigrants offset this attrition in the illegal population.
— While the level of new illegal immigration is lower than a decade ago, the enormous ongoing scale of illegal immigration is a clear indication that the United States has not come close to controlling it.


— Prior research indicates that roughly half a million illegal immigrants return home on their own each year, are deported, die, or get permanent residence. Those who get legal status each year are not beneficiaries of the president's administrative amnesty known as DACA — which does not give permanent residence, but does provide Social Security numbers, work authorization, and identity documents. Rather it has been long-standing policy to allow those who violate immigration laws to still get green cards (permanent residency) if they qualify in one of the legal immigration categories such as marrying a U.S. citizen.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/re...rticle/2568566

sanctuary cities harm our youth's employment chances
Federal Reserve blames immigrant kids for robbing jobs from 'native' U.S. teens

By Paul Bedard(@SecretsBedard) 7/16/15
American teen employment has dropped 20 percent from the late 1980s, in part because more and more immigrants have flooded into the market to displace native-born kids from jobs in percentages far higher than on adults, according to the Federal Reserve.

"The displacement effect of immigration on the employment of younger persons is much larger than on the employment of prime-age adults," said the September 2014 report, "Labor Force Participation: Recent Developments and Future Prospects."

The Fed report is the second to blame immigrants for taking jobs "native" teens would normally fill and come as new media reports show teen employment down this year.

However, most of those media reports don't cite immigration as a cause or even cite last year's surge of over 70,000 illegal youths crossing over the U.S.-Mexico border.

A July 3 New York Times report on the issue, for example, didn't mention immigration even though the Federal Reserve last fall and in 2012 put a blame on immigration.

That omission prompted an immigration watchdog group to mock the Times for being political correct.

"It's frustratingly common: The mainstream media discusses a social problem obviously impacted by immigration — overcrowding, low wages, increasing poverty, etc. — but assiduously avoids any mention of immigration. To much of the media, using the word immigration in the context of any social problem has become a taboo, roughly equivalent to saying 'Voldemort' in a Hogwarts classroom," said the Center for Immigration Studies.

A 2012 Fed report said that just a 1 percent increase in low-skill immigration reduces native teenage work hours by 0.3 percent.

The abstract of that report written by a Fed economist read:
The employment to population rate of high school–aged youth has fallen by about 20 percentage points since the late 1980s. One potential explanation is increased competition from substitutable labor, such as immigrants. I demonstrate that the increase in the population of less educated immigrants has had a considerably more negative effect on employment outcomes for native youth than for native adults. At least two factors are at work: there is greater overlap between the jobs that youth and less educated adult immigrants traditionally do, and youth labor supply appears more responsive to immigration-induced wage changes.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/article/2568426