Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials arrested 97 immigrants at a meat-processing plant in rural Tennessee on Thursday in what civil rights organizations said was the largest single workplace raid in a decade and a sign that the Trump administration is carrying out its plan to aggressively ramp up enforcement this year.
Ten people were arrested on federal immigration charges, one person was arrested on state charges and 86 immigrants were detained for being in the country illegally, Tammy Spicer, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said in a statement Friday. All of those arrested are suspected of being in the country illegally. Immigration advocates said most were from Mexico.
The raid on Southeastern Provision in Bean Station, Tenn., follows arrests at 7-Eleven stores and other workplaces nationwide. The National Immigration Law Center and other immigrant advocates said the Tennessee raid was the largest since the George W.
Trump Rails Against Illegal Immigration, Says “Women Are Raped at Levels Nobody Has Ever Seen Before” On Journey to U.S.
President Trump railed against illegal immigration Thursday, claiming that “women are raped at levels nobody has ever seen before,” in reference to the journey north to the United States.
“Remember my opening remarks at Trump Tower when I opened, everybody said ‘oh, he was so tough.’ I used the word ‘rape,’” Trump said, referring to his controversial comment at the start of the presidential campaign when he said “rapists” were coming across the U.S.-Mexico border illegally.
Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen said this week that the administration would not allow illegal immigration levels to “become the norm.” “More than 1,000 people a day, 300,000 a year violating our sovereignty as a nation will never be acceptable to this president,” Nielsen said.
Going Off Script, Trump Bashes Immigration at Tax Cut Event
President Donald Trump on Thursday unleashed a fierce denunciation of the nation’s immigration policies, calling for tougher border security while repeating his unsubstantiated claim that “millions” of people voted illegally in California.
Trump was in West Virginia to showcase the benefits of Republican tax cuts, but he took a big and meandering detour to talk about his tough immigration and trade plans. He linked immigration with the rise of violent gangs like MS-13 and suggested anew that there had been widespread fraud in the 2016 election.
“MS-13 is emblematic of evil, and we’re getting them out by the hundreds,” said Trump. “This is the kind of stuff and crap we are allowing in our country, and we can’t do it anymore.”
An Effort to Help Immigrants in Colorado Avoid Deportation Drew Early Republican Support
A bill that would help legal U.S. immigrants in Colorado avoid deportation after committing certain low-level crimes still awaits a floor vote several weeks later. This is due to lack of Republican support for the measure, in part because of perceptions that it’s a so-called sanctuary policy.
The measure would take one day off jail sentences for most Class 2 misdemeanors, misdemeanors without a mandated penalty and municipal violations that otherwise max out at a full year. That change, while seemingly small, would allow immigrants in the U.S. with legal status to stay off the radar for removal of ICE agents if they are convicted of one of those crimes.
“It triggers a ground of deportability,” said Aaron Hall, an Aurora immigration attorney, “which means that ICE can put them into deportation proceedings. It stops people many times from even being able to apply to stay here once they are in removal proceedings.”
Feds Announce “Zero Tolerance” Policy for Illegal Immigration
Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Friday ordered federal prosecutors to take a “zero tolerance policy” toward illegal immigrants nabbed at the U.S.-Mexico border, saying they should be prosecuted to the fullest extent possible.
U.S. attorneys in Arizona, New Mexico, southern California and southern and west Texas were told to prosecute every person Homeland Security officers and agents catch attempting to enter the U.S. illegally, “to the extent practicable.”
“You are on the front lines of this battle,” Mr. Sessions said in a memo to the prosecutors.
ACLU Asks Judge to Stop Indefinite Detention of Immigrants
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and an organization whose lawyers represent immigrants are asking a New York judge to stop the indefinite detention of some immigrants awaiting deportation.
The ACLU and the Brooklyn organization that provides free legal services to some immigrant detainees said in court papers that immigrants are being denied bond hearings because of a February change in federal policy following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in a California case.
“Without the opportunity to request release, our clients, including asylum seekers and long-time green card holders, are indefinitely detained and separated from their families, their jobs, and their communities in horrific detention centers,” said Lisa Schreibersdorf, executive director of Brooklyn Defender Services.
Sessions Tries to Fix Slow-Moving Immigration Courts, But Judges Resist
The nation’s 58 immigration courts long have been an overlooked bane of the judicial system. But a plan by Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions aimed at breaking the logjam and increasing deportations of immigrants in the country illegally has drawn surprising resistance from immigration judges across the country.
Many say Sessions’ attempts to limit the discretion of the nation’s 334 immigration judges, and set annual case quotas to speed up their rulings, will backfire and make delays even worse.
“It’s going to be a disaster and it’s going to slow down the adjudications,” warned Lawrence O. Burman, secretary of the National Assn. of Immigration Judges, a voluntary group that represents judges in collective bargaining.
