Trump Follows Through With ICE Raids On Illegal Immigrants

President Trump ran for president on a platform of combating illegal immigration and he is keeping true to his word. He launched a series of roundups of illegal immigrants yesterday and late Saturday night, something that was in the works a few weeks ago but had been postponed due to all the publicity. He says millions will be deported, but so far it looks like 2,100 will be targeted in at least 10 major cities over the next few days. Of the approximately 10.5 million illegal immigrants living in the country, approximately 1 million have final deportation orders. 

Many of the illegal immigrants won’t be at the addresses on file with ICE because they’ve heard about the raid and are hiding. However, other illegal immigrants who are discovered while doing the targeted arrests may be arrested, known as “collateral” deportations. 

The targeted illegal immigrants have been given due process in the immigration court system. They were ordered to appear in court for a hearing about removal. Some of them never bothered to show up for their court date. ICE followed up with letters to them in February, giving them the opportunity to be orderly removed, but only 3 percent responded. Mark Morgan, acting commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, said they “received due process more than any other nation in the world would provide someone that came here illegally.”CARTOONS | Tom Stiglich
View CartoonThe ACLU filed a preemptive lawsuit in federal court to stop the deportations, claiming bureaucratic errors could lead to some illegal immigrants not being provided due process. "Even when the government sent notices to the right address for a real hearing, it repeatedly sent them too late, for locations unreasonably far from immigrants' homes," the ACLU said. "Notices thus arrived either after the date set for a hearing or just a few days before, requiring indigent families to immediately travel across the country to hearings in distant states." 

The raids are being done to deter others from illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. They were done under previous administrations. But the media and activists are hypocritically drawing more attention to the raids under Trump.