United States Launching Massive Raids on Undocumented Migrants

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are planning to launch a massive deportation raid by the end of this week, as the Trump administration is acting on the large-scale crackdown over the undocumented immigrants.

A senior immigration official on condition of anonymity has informed that Immigration and Customs Enforcement department has about one million names on its list of targets in the raids, which have been postponed for two weeks, partly due to resistance from inside Immigration and Customs Enforcement department.

The move that is planned for coming Sunday will start with targeting some 2,000 members of undocumented migrant families in at least 10 cities of the country.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement has already obtained the court orders for the action, which will allow them to move quickly and hassle-free expel the migrants, most of this migrants may have been living in the United States for more than a decade, settling in the country, building home and lives with their families.

Ken Cuccinelli, the Director of the US Citizenship and Immigration Services has said that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement has court orders to remove around one million people, but Cuccinelli also acknowledges that the department doesn’t have the manpower and facilities to conduct such large-scale raids and evacuation drive. 

Cuccinelli said, “They are absolutely going to happen. There are approximately a million people in this country with removal orders. Of course that is not what ICE will go after in this. But that is the pool of people who have been all the way through the due process chain”.

In a tweet, Cuccinelli also added, “Border numbers are down in June but we are still in the middle of a major humanitarian crisis. Congress can fix this if they pass common sense asylum reforms that the Trump administration has been asking for”.

The removal orders can be issued by the court only on the completion of the court cases, which also needs the presence of the migrants, whether for the minor civil cases or their own asylum and citizenship cases. Fearing removal, a large number of migrants don’t show up for the cases and judges have to rule against them.

ICE has been quiet about the raids for long, but as US President Donald Trump wants to show toughness on the immigration issue amidst a still-strong flow of the migrants into the country from across the border with Mexico.

The Department of Homeland Security has also informed that in the month of June this year 104,344 migrants were detained after they were held while crossing the border, which is 28 percent down from the May 2013 record.

While migrant usually flows in the hot summer, Department of Homeland Security said that the initiatives with El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, from where most of the migrants come from and a joint crackdown with Mexico, whose territory most of the migrants use for transit, had contributed to the growth of the large downturn.