According to the Wall Street Journal the immigration enforcement “raids” have begun:
Federal immigration authorities attempted raids in at least two neighborhoods in New York City on Saturday, according to a person familiar with the matter, a day prior to when President Trump had said Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents would begin national roundups of people illegally in the U.S.
In New York City, ICE agents went to residences in the Harlem section of Manhattan and Brooklyn’s Sunset Park neighborhood, the person said. The agents were rejected by people at the residences because they didn’t have warrants, but plan to return at least to Sunset Park tomorrow, according to the person.
A spokeswoman for ICE in New York said that the agency won’t offer specific details related to enforcement operations. “As always, ICE prioritizes the arrest and removal of unlawfully present aliens who pose a threat to national security, public safety and border security,†the spokeswoman said.
The attempted raids in New York come as Democratic city officials and community activists across the U.S. have been mobilizing for the planned roundup.
After word of the raids leaked last week, President Trump on Friday told reporters before embarking on a fundraising trip to Milwaukee that the roundup would begin on Sunday “and they’re going to take people out and they’re going to bring them back to their countries.â€
Mr. Trump said the raids would focus on criminals, saying agents would “take criminals out, put them in prison, or put in them in prison in the countries they came from.â€
As long as those being apprehended are on final deportation orders, I think that Democratic politicians who’ve been quite vocal in their defense of these illegal migrants are overplaying their hands. When asylum requests are rejected those making the requests are by definition no longer “asylum-seekers”. These politicians need to be seen to be showing more sympathy for legal immigrants and American citizens than for those entering the country illegally.
Agree that they should not directly attack this. They should be questioning why this is prioritized when there is a crisis at the border. Hundreds of ICE agents and millions of dollars to remove a couple thousand people when there are more than that coming in at the border.
Steve
Hard not to think the goal is not to help them, but to make them look like Trump’s victims.