ICE set to begin immigration raids in 10 cities on Sunday
(CNN)Immigration
and Customs Enforcement is pressing forward to arrest and deport
families with court-ordered removals in 10 cities beginning Sunday,
according to a senior immigration official, after President Donald
Trump's tweet revealing an operation was imminent.
But acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan has been hesitant about elements of the operation, according to two sources familiar with his thinking.
ICE
has said it was considering options to arrest and deport families who
have gone through their legal proceedings but has refrained from
publicly providing the scope and timeframe of the operation, which
officials say could lead to a situation where a family is separated and
could cause a backlash against the department.
To
that end, Trump's tweet Monday night that ICE, the enforcement arm of
DHS, was preparing to deport "millions" of undocumented immigrants next
week was striking, given the figure and the decision to disclose an
operation prior to its execution.
"If
you're here illegally, then you should be removed," acting head of ICE
Mark Morgan told reporters Wednesday during a call prompted by the
President's tweet. "And in this case, that includes families."
A
senior administration official told CNN the operation had been planned
for some time, but said the tweet had put the operation at the
forefront.
"Certainly, the
President's tweet helped prioritize things for people," the official
said, adding that there had been internal debate about timing amid
negotiations with Congress on additional funding and the upcoming 2020
budget.
The official added that
"there has been an effort to communicate what is likely to happen,
without saying specifically when and where," contrary to the "zero
tolerance" policy which was done without much advance notice to the
media or Capitol Hill.
Field
agents at local field offices are receiving briefings and trainings,
according to a senior immigration official. There are also preparations
being put in place for mixed-immigration status families: for example,
if a parent is undocumented, but has a US citizen child.
"Due
to law-enforcement sensitivities and the safety and security of U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel, the agency will not offer
specific details related to ongoing enforcement operations before the
conclusion of those actions," ICE said in a statement Friday.
Officials
have previously raised concerns about the operation being perceived as
separating families again, though Morgan said Wednesday, "Our goal is
not to separate families."
The
intent, Morgan said, is to deter migrants from coming to the US-Mexico
border, and the operation is expected to include families who are on an
expedited court docket.
2,000 people targeted
Last
year, the Executive Office for Immigration Review, which oversees the
nation's immigration courts, announced that it had begun tracking family
cases filed by the Department of Homeland Security in 10 immigration
court locations: Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Denver, Houston, Los
Angeles, Miami, New Orleans, New York and San Francisco.
On Friday, mayors from those cities spoke out against the expected raids.
Chicago's mayor, Lori Lightfoot, announced that the city's police
force would not cooperate with the ICE raids, and Francis Suarez, the
mayor of Miami, said, "As Mayor, I trust that only those individuals who
represent a clear and present danger to our communities will be
affected by this DHS policy."
The cases are being expedited to try to process the families in under a year.
Morgan
said ICE had worked closely with the Justice Department on the family
expedited docket and that the "results were very disappointing,"
claiming that some families haven't attended their immigration hearings.
In
February, ICE sent around 2,000 letters to families who already had
received final orders of removal by judges in absentia, asking them to
self-report to local ICE offices by March to comply with the orders,
Morgan said. The upcoming operation is expected to target approximately
2,000 people, according to the senior immigration official.
Once
arrests take place, families will likely be moved to ICE family
residential detention centers as the agency works with consulates to
obtain travel documents, according to the official. Some people will
likely appeal their cases, but eventually some will be removed.
The
official added that when there are US citizen children in the family,
the parents will be fitted with an ankle bracelet and allowed to stay
with that child to allow time to get affairs in order while other
undocumented family members remain in custody, the official added,
nothing that no one wants a situation where a child is left alone.
Advocacy groups say they're mobilizing beginning Sunday in anticipation of an upcoming operation.
Morgan,
who took over the director role in an acting capacity weeks ago,
stressed that there hasn't been a shift in direction for the agency but
rather a continuation of its policy not to exclude any demographic for
arrest and deportation. The operation is expected to encompass worksite
enforcement, as well as families with court-ordered removals and
individuals with final orders for removal.
CNN
first reported last month that the administration had been considering
deporting migrant families with court-ordered removals in an attempt to
"send a message" to smugglers, according to a senior administration
official.
As part of the
consideration, the administration had been looking at an operation
rolled out in the late years of Barack Obama's presidency -- and revived
in Trump's first year in office -- that also targeted family units.
Obama initially focused on felons.
A plan months in the making
Last
year, at the request of DHS, the Justice Department put together the
accelerated family court docket or the so-called "rocket docket,"
according to a former administration official.
"The
goal was to get to consequence quicker," so that "people would get
their hearings, they would get ordered removed, and then a significant
number" of people would be put back into ICE custody and removed from
the US, said the official.
Sometime
around March, ICE officials took additional planning steps. The former
acting ICE Director Ron Vitiello had several conversations about a
potential operation with then-Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen
Nielsen, who at the time requested additional information, according to
the official. But before DHS was fully prepared to carry out the
operation, both Nielsen and Vitiello left the administration amid a
purge of top DHS officials in April.
There
was an understanding that an operation targeting families would be
"tough and difficult" for everyone involved, said the official.
"You
go to a home that's a family and maybe the father is present, but the
mother is not or vice versa. People are in medical care. Other members
of the family may be in legal status," said the former official.
"There's a lot of stuff to consider in a situation like this."
Additionally,
there were also discussions about family separation and whether this
operation would comply with current court orders, as well as the
President's executive order to end family separation.
Trump doubles down on illegal immigration
Trump's
tweet about a massive operation came on the eve of his re-election
rally. The President had made illegal immigration a cornerstone of his
2016 campaign and appeared to be reverting back to that message hours
before taking the stage in Orlando.
But the mass deportations he previously warned of haven't materialized and deportation numbers have lagged behind those seen during Obama's presidency.
According
to ICE data, deportations increased about 13% between fiscal year 2017
and fiscal year 2018, when 256,085 people were deported. That's still
significantly less than the number of people deported during fiscal year
2012, when Obama's administration deported more than 400,000 people.
Staffing
limitations and budget constraints generally limit how many people the
US can detain and deport -- and how quickly that process happens.
Deporting millions of people would cost far more than Immigration and
Customs Enforcement's current budget allows -- and require a vast amount
of resources.
The administration
contends that interior enforcement will deter migrants from journeying
to the southern border. The swell of migrants illegally crossing the
border in recent months has overwhelmed DHS. In May alone, nearly
133,000 migrants were arrested for illegally crossing the border,
according to Customs and Border Protection data, including more than
11,000 unaccompanied children. Many of them turn themselves in to Border
Patrol.
In
an emergency budget request made last month, the White House is seeking
$4.5 billion more from Congress "to address the immediate humanitarian
and security crisis at the southern border of the United States,"
including $33.7 million more to fund ICE transportation and removal, and
more than $340 million to fund thousands more beds in immigrant
detention facilities.
But that
request is still making its way through Congress -- and it's likely to
face pushback, particularly from House Democrats who've repeatedly noted
their concerns about the Trump administration's approach to immigration
enforcement.
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