The Trump administration threatened to sweep up “millions,” then thousands of immigrant families in a series of raids targeting major U.S. cities, but federal immigration officials ultimately ended up detaining only 35 people as a result of those sweeps, BuzzFeed News reports.
On the one hand, Trump probably foiled his own plan by publicly harassing immigrant communities, with activists then springing into action with “Know Your Rights” information. “Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers made 18 arrests of family members in the effort,” BuzzFeed News continued, “along with 17 others who were not specific targets of the action, according to the official.” In other words, they were probably arrested for just being in their own homes. ICE’s acting director, Matthew Albence, appeared to criticize Trump’s big mouth, saying, “You didn’t hear ICE talking about it before the operation was taking place.
But on the other hand, fear was also the goal, and that succeeded, because already-cautious families reportedly “prepared for the sweep, hunkering down in their homes, turning off lights, and closing their curtains.” These families didn’t have the luxury of a casual weekend. They were terrified.
One family told The New York Times that they refused to open their door to ICE because they the agents lacked a judicial warrant—the teen daughter knew to do this from “Know Your Rights” information—but when the agents came back, the family “hid with the lights off.” And while the sweeps thankfully didn’t result in the arrests of thousands that the administration would have liked, we don’t know how many of those who were arrested have been denied due process.
“There are serious due process concerns about the group of immigrants targeted by the Trump administration,” immigration attorney David Leopold said earlier this month. “Many, if not most, of these families did not get proper notice of their deportation hearings or their hearings were not held at all.” A popular right-wing talking point has been that all these families “got their day in court,” but that isn’t remotely true.
When it comes to those who were detained, “immigration lawyers said that they could still take steps to halt their immediate deportation, for example by filing an appeal or a motion to reopen their cases.” So ICE didn’t get its thousands, but there’s really no happy ending here. Families will continue living in fear and will remain under threat of separation so long as ICE remains unchecked and under the control of this mass deportation administration.