Donald Trump sent a tweet last week telling Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients that they “have nothing to worry about,” but the numerous undocumented immigrant youth who were detained for hours at a Texas border checkpoint this week despite having valid DACA status may disagree with that:
As many as 10 DACA recipients were detained at the checkpoint Monday morning, according to immigration attorney Elba Rocha. The checkpoint is located about 70 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border.
[Immigration attorney Elba] Rocha said neither she nor fellow lawyers had never heard of Customs and Border agents taking such action before. The detentions were first reported by The Monitor, the area’s newspaper. Later in the day, the paper reported that all of the individuals had been released as of 7:30 p.m.
One DACA recipient was allegedly asked to get out of the car he was in when officers found out about his status. He was then detained along with other so-called Dreamers, despite the protections they have under DACA, Rocha told HuffPost.
The youth were detained for upward of eight hours, but Customs and Border Protection alleges that this was to check their DACA documentation. Texas Rep. Vicente Gonzalez said it’s possible that “technical issues” were to blame, with the border checkpoint’s rural location making it “difficult to verify individuals’ immigration status in a timely manner.” Generous, but doubtful.
Despite Trump claiming that he has great love for Dreamers, the administration has essentially told immigrant youth to prepare for self-deportation following their decision to end the program.
Immigration agents have a history of targeting and harassing DACA recipients, resulting in the deportation of at least one immigrant youth. That young man, Juan Manuel Montes, is being allowed to reenter the U.S. for his lawsuit against the Trump administration. One young woman who had a DACA renewal pending, Daniela Vargas, was targeted and arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after speaking out against deportations at a press conference.
Many other immigrant youth have reason to be anxious—nearly 30,000 DACA recipients call the Rio Grande Valley area home. And CBP is known as one of the most corrupt federal law enforcement agencies in the nation. Esther Lee of ThinkProgress:
A lack of oversight can also contribute to the prolonged detention of DACA recipients beyond internal immigration checkpoints and into the reaches of ports of entry. As ThinkProgress reported last year, Lesley Sophia Cortez-Martinez, a DACA recipient, was briefly deported to Mexico as she made her way back through the Chicago O’Hare International Airport. She had advance parole, which should have allowed her to travel out of and reenter the United States. She was later allowed to come back into the United States after much community and media pressure. An immigration lawyer also told ThinkProgress that she’s had clients who face harassment when they come back to ports of entry. But even advance parole “does not guarantee admission into the United States,” as the CBP website explained, pointing out that immigrants are “still subject to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection inspection process at the port of entry.”
Still, the hours-long detention of DACA recipients — who are considered “lawfully present” in the country — now creates an additional layer of concern for the roughly 28,000 DACA recipients living in the Rio Grande Valley, an area that encompasses the Falfurrias checkpoint. Detaining multiple DACA recipients sends a message to these individuals that they should be afraid.
“We’re trying to figure out the same thing everyone else is: Is this new; is this going to be for everyone; is it just the [Rio Grande Valley] sector; what are we doing here? We don’t know,” Rocha said. “What’s the purpose of all of this? Because it never happened before that we know of.”
What makes this time even more uncertain for immigrant youth is that all immigration agents regardless of federal agency have been unshackled, with the Department of Homeland Security throwing out any enforcement priorities established by the Obama administration. Sure, Trump can keep saying he loves the Dreamers and that he’s targeting only “bad hombres” for arrest, but the ten or so DACA recipients who were detained in Texas might disagree.
What’s needed is permanent legislative relief for immigrant youth and their families, and now.