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The Independent
40 minutes ago
- The Independent
ICE is arresting more non-criminals than ever as Trump pushes for more enforcement
Donald Trump's deportation blitz began as soon as his second presidency did, with billions diverted into mass raids and Trump declaring: 'We're getting the bad, hard criminals out' — but that rhetoric doesn't quite match the data. The number of people without a criminal record being arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and held in detention has jumped 800 percent since January, as officials face pressure to boost numbers, according to reports. This enforcement drive has resulted in 51,302 people being imprisoned in ICE centers as of the start of June; marking the first time that detention centers held over 50,000 immigrants at once. Less than one in three (30 percent) of these detainees are convicted criminals, with the remainder pending criminal charges or arrested for non-criminal immigration offenses, such as overstaying a visa or unauthorized entry to the the country. The latest data is from June 1, published by Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. Since January, when the Trump administration entered office, ICE has not published clear and official figures on arrests or deportations. People held in immigration detention are either arrested by Customs and Border Protection, either at the US border or within 100 miles, or by ICE. But among detained immigrants who have been arrested by ICE and not CBP, the number of non-criminal arrests has shot up. Before the Trump administration entered office in mid-January, the proportion of non-criminal detainees arrested by ICE (meaning people without a criminal conviction or pending charges) was just 6 percent of all ICE arrests, 850 people. This was largely in line with figures over Joe Biden's presidency, where non-criminal ICE arrests rarely made up more than 10 percent of detainees. Yet since President Trump's inauguration on January 20, this figure has soared, with 7,781 detainees arrested by ICE without a criminal history or pending charges. This makes up one in four (23 percent) of all detained immigrants arrested by ICE; an increase of over 800 percent, and the highest levels recorded since at least 2019, as far as records go back. At the same time, just four in ten detainees who had been arrested by ICE were convicted criminals, latest data shows; the lowest level recorded, and a 20 percent drop proportionally from January. This substantial shift in non-criminal immigration arrests comes as enforcement officials increasingly conduct raids at workplaces, a reversal of the Biden-era ban. Meanwhile, ICE is facing ongoing pressure from the government to boost numbers; with Homeland Security secretary Kirsti Noem reportedly ordering targets of 3,000 arrests a day. And just this week, Trump demanded ICE "expand efforts to detain and deport illegal Aliens' in Democratic-run cities, and reversed an order to protect farmworkers from raids just days earlier. 'The American People want our Cities, Schools, and Communities to be SAFE and FREE from Illegal Alien Crime, Conflict, and Chaos,' he wrote in a lengthy tirade on Truth Social. The lack of transparency over ICE arrests and other statistics under the Trump administration has also made it harder to identify trends in immigration enforcement. But internal ICE documents seen by CNN suggest that immigration enforcement has had little focus on violent criminals. Just one in ten ICE detainees from October to May have been convicted of serious crimes — including murder, rape, assault or robbery, according to CNN. Even among all detainees with a criminal conviction, who make up around a third of the 185,000 ICE detainees over this period, the vast majority, around 75 percent, are for non-serious crimes. These non-serious crimes include traffic and other offenses, but are included under an umbrella label when ICE refers to targeting immigrants with a criminal conviction. The Trump administration's anti-immigrant rhetoric has centered around criminal convictions and gang affiliations, not least with the unprecedented deportation of around 245 Venezuelans to El Salvador over alleged links to the Tren de Aragua gang. The increasing number of non-criminals being detained by ICE, in addition to the low prioritization for serious crimes (just 9 percent of all detainees), is a concern amid the wider push to ramp up immigration enforcement at all costs. In fact, though deportation has been front-and-center of the Trump agenda, the numbers are not skyrocketing on the surface; and border patrol deportations are going down, since fewer migrants are attempting to cross into the US. While the latter should be a positive sign for the Trump administration, it may make officials desperate to find higher deportation numbers to report – regardless of immigrants' criminal histories. 'This push on numbers — exclusive of whether or not the job is being done right — is very concerning,' said Sarah Saldaña, former ICE director under Obama, told the New York Times. 'You're going to have people who are being pushed to the limit, who in a rush may not get things right, including information on a person's status.'
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Thousands of Afghans face expulsion from US as Trump removes protections
Thousands of Afghans who fled to the US as the Taliban grabbed power again in Afghanistan are in mortal dread of being deported back to danger in the coming weeks amid the Trump administration's anti-immigration crackdown. Many, including some who assisted US forces in Afghanistan before the botched withdrawal by the military in 2021, are contending with threats to their legal status in the US on several fronts. Donald Trump revoked safeguards from deportation for those in the US covered under temporary protected status (TPS), by taking Afghanistan off the list of eligible countries then, not long after, put Afghanistan on the list of countries affected by the revamped travel ban. Afghans are also affected by Trump's refugee ban and that all comes amid almost daily news of stepped-up arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) affecting undocumented immigrants and also many with a legal status, from Central and South America, parts of Africa and Asia and other regions, caught in the dragnet and sending terror rippling through other communities. Shir Agha Safi, the executive director of Afghan Partners in Des Moines, a non-profit in Iowa where there are 500 families who evacuated from Afghanistan to escape the re-empowered Taliban, said members of his community are 'traumatized because they have seen what happened to Venezuelan immigrants in other states'. The loss of TPS for Afghans, which also provides employment authorization, goes into effect on 14 July. With the government's announcement, Safi said some in his community are too afraid to speak openly but had told him 'they would choose suicide over being tortured and killed by the Taliban'. Asked to elaborate, he said: 'They have said this because the Taliban is still there and if you send an Afghan back to Afghanistan that would mean a death penalty.' The US government initially granted Afghans in the US TPS in 2022, because the Biden administration agreed that it was too risky for them to return to Afghanistan due to the armed conflict and political turmoil that has forced millions to flee the country. Even before Trump returned to the White House their foothold in US society was uncertain. Now the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) argues that Afghanistan is safe to go back to. 'Afghanistan has had an improved security situation, and its stabilizing economy no longer prevent them from returning to their home country,' homeland security secretary Kristi Noem said in a recent statement. The department cited rising tourism as a factor, with the Federal Register's item about revoking TPS for Afghans saying 'tourism to Afghanistan has increased, as the rates of kidnappings have reduced'. It quotes that from a US Institute of Peace report that assessed conditions three years after the Taliban took back control and does include that sentence – but the majority of the report describes negative conditions in poverty-stricken Afghanistan, where 'the rule of law has been replaced by the rule of force, where justice is not administered in courts but meted out through fear and violence'. The US state department website, meanwhile, puts the country in the highest-risk advice category for US citizens, warning: 'Do not travel to Afghanistan due to civil unrest, crime, terrorism, risk of wrongful detention, kidnapping, and limited health facilities.' But immigration advocates and Democratic lawmakers say Taliban-controlled Afghanistan remains a dangerous country for many, especially minorities, women and those who assisted the foreign war effort, including humanitarian work. Some foreigners living in Afghanistan have been arrested by the Taliban this year and detained for weeks. California state senator Aisha Wahab, the first Afghan American woman elected to US public office, challenged the Trump administration's decision. 'Pushing these individuals to Afghanistan again – Afghanistan being a country that lacks basic human rights, basic women's rights, basic humanitarian support, a legal and justice system – is problematic,' said Wahab, who represents some of the largest Afghan immigrant communities in northern California. 'Afghanistan is a country that is landlocked, that struggles with trade, that more than 50% of their population are not allowed to get an education beyond sixth grade. It's a fact that it is led by a deeply religious regime that has a lot of problems,' she added. Hundreds of Afghans have been publicly flogged by the authorities since the Taliban took over in 2021, the Guardian reported last month. In a bipartisan approach, US Senators Lisa Murkowski, a Republican from Alaska, and Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat from New Hampshire, have written jointly to secretary of state Marco Rubio. Sign up to Headlines US Get the most important US headlines and highlights emailed direct to you every morning after newsletter promotion 'We are writing to express profound concern over the recent decision to terminate temporary protected status (TPS) for over 8,000 Afghan nationals currently residing in the United States. This decision endangers thousands of lives, including Afghans who stood by the United States. This decision represents a historic betrayal of promises made and undermines the values we fought for far more than 20 years in Afghanistan,' the letter reads. It added that revoking TPS, especially for women and minority groups, 'exposes these individuals to the very real threat of persecution, violence and even death under Taliban rule'. While the US government hasn't laid out a deportation plan, it has encouraged Afghans who lose their TPS status to leave the country. However, a DHS official said: 'Any Afghan who fears persecution is able to request asylum. All aliens who have had their TPS or parole terminated or are otherwise in the country unlawfully should take advantage of the CBP Home self-deportation process to receive a free one-way plane ticket and $1,000 financial assistance to help them resettle elsewhere.' Bipartisan efforts to give Afghans permanent legal status in the US previously stalled for three years, with the Biden administration creating temporary avenues for those in limbo. Many Afghan families in the US still depend on the future of TPS, said Jill Marie Bussey, the director for legal affairs at Global Refuge, an immigrant rights group that has helped thousands of Afghans settle in the US. 'Protection from deportation is the center, but the work authorization associated with the status is the only thing that is allowing them to send money to their loved ones right now and keeping them safe,' said Bussey. 'I have a client, whom I message with almost on a daily basis, who is absolutely distraught, at a very high level of anxiety, because he fears that his spouse and children, including his four-year-old daughter, whom he's never met in person, will suffer greatly if he loses his work authorization.' According to government data, since July of 2021, US Citizenship and Immigration Services has received nearly 22,000 asylum applications by Afghan nationals. Nearly 20,000 of them were granted. But given the immigration court backlog, which totals 3.5 million active cases and an average wait time between five to 636 days, many Afghans still haven't heard any news on their applications on other status available to them, Bussey added. In a similar scenario are those who worked for the US government in Afghanistan and arrived on American soil. Many are still waiting for an approval from the US Department of State that would validate their eligibility for a special immigration visa (SIV), Bussey added. 'Some were hesitant to apply for asylum because they were eligible for SIV and were waiting for their approval in order to apply for their green card,' she said. But things are badly held up in the backlog. 'They were promised that green card based on their allyship to our country and then applying for asylum felt like a betrayal, an imperfect fit for them,' said Bussey. The Guardian requested information on how many Afghans currently protected by TPS have also been granted other legal status, but DHS did not respond.
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
As Ice infiltrates LA, neighborhoods fall quiet: ‘We can't even go out for a walk'
It has been eerily easy to find street parking in Los Angeles's fashion district this week. In the nearby flower district, longtime vendors have locked up stalls. And in East LA, popular taquerías have temporarily closed. Neighborhoods across LA and southern California have gone quiet since the Trump administration ramped up immigration raids in the region two weeks ago. The aggressive arrests by federal agents have ignited roaring protests which the administration tried to quell by mobilizing thousands of national guard troops. Last weekend, Americans protested the raids and other administration policies in one of the biggest ever single-day demonstrations in US history. But immigration enforcement in LA has only intensified. In downtown Los Angeles, Lindsay Toczylowski, the executive director of the Immigrant Defenders Law Center (ImmDef) was alerted on Wednesday morning that federal agents in masks and bulletproof vests had ambushed a man who was biking down the street, not far from her office, and had arrested him. She and a colleague rushed outside, to see if the agents were targeting anyone else. Later, they puzzled over how and why agents had decided to target this man. Did they have a warrant? Did they even know who he was? Or was it just that he looked like he could be an immigrant. 'It feels so invasive. They're everywhere,' she said. It was the type of arrest that has immigrants across the region weighing if, and when, it will be safe to go outside. In LA's Koreatown, a dense, immigrant neighborhood just west of downtown, children were playing at Seoul international park, but not as many as usual. Outside Jon's grocery, there were only a few street vendors who had set up shop – where normally there would be a dozen or more. Guillermo, 61, had come out, with his wife, to set up their small stall selling medications, vitamins and toiletries. 'To be honest, we're scared,' he said, nervously raking his fingers through his tightly coiled hair. They'd stayed home, stayed away, for days – but this week, they found out that their landlord would be increasing their rent by $400 starting next month. 'We need to make money.' Then again, he wondered if it was worth the risk to come out. There was hardly any foot traffic. No customers. 'They're all Latino,' he said, shaking his head. 'They're all scared to come out.' In normal times, Lorena would be selling tamales nearby – at least until about 5pm. Fifty years old, with with slick black hair, she could pass for quite a bit younger. She'd spend the afternoon chatting with the other vendors – the frutero down the block, and the woman who sells candies and nuts. Sometimes, she'd chat with the young unhoused men who camp out on the street and offer them some tamales. 'They've had some bad luck, some [have] taken some bad steps,' she said. She's known some of them since they were children – she used to sell tamales outside Hobart Elementary a few blocks away. She's been selling tamales in K-town for decades. The neighborhood has changed a lot since she first came here from Oaxaca, aged 20, she said. Still, most faces are familiar; she's been selling tamales to generations of people out here. In the evenings, she'd head home, get changed and head to the park for a walk. On summer days like these when her grandchildren are off school, she'd bring them to the playground, or maybe take them out to the movies, as a treat. 'Not this week,' she said. She has barely stepped outside her home in days. Neither has her husband, who normally works as a day laborer – soliciting short-term construction jobs outside of the nearby Home Depot. On the day agents flooded the megastore's parking lot, indiscriminately cuffing laborers and vendors, a friend of her son had warned them not to come out, she said. This week has felt a bit like the first few weeks of the pandemic, like the lockdown. 'Well, now this is worse than the pandemic,' she shrugged. 'Because we can't even go out for a walk.' She can't even put on a face mask and head to the grocery store – her kids, who have legal immigration status, have been going to the market and running errands for her and her husband. 'We're not really doing anything right now,' she said. It has meant that she hasn't been able to send as much money to her mother in Mexico, and to her brother, whose health has been deteriorating rapidly because of liver cancer. 'I know he's suffering. He's suffering a lot,' she said. She cried as she tried to explain to him and her mother why she cannot send home any money this month. 'It's so hard, it's so hard,' she said. She thinks about returning to work, but it's too risky. 'If they catch me, if they deport me, that's not going to help them, is it?' For now, Lorena and her husband are staying afloat thanks to a grant from Ktown for All, a non-profit that has been raising funds to help street vendors who fear arrest and deportation. 'At least the rent is covered,' she said. 'I am so thankful. There is nothing more to do than be grateful. And hope all this will pass soon.' ' The flower district – the largest wholesale flower market in the US – has emptied out as well. On Wednesday, vendors and customers alike locked up their stalls, and headed home, following rumors that raids were coming. In downtown LA's garment district, where the surge immigration enforcement began almost two weeks ago, tailor shops, which normally would be bustling with clients adjusting the fits on their graduation and quinceañera outfits, were generally quiet. At Fernando Tailorshop, which has been operating in the neighborhood for 54 years, owner Renato Cifuentes said he had never seen anything like the recent raids. 'I see this as a persecution of the Latino more than anything else,' he said. 'If you look like a Latino, the agents go after you – that's not right.' Most of his workers are afraid to come into the shop. His customers – citizens and immigrants alike – have been staying away as well. Business is down by more than 50%, he said. 'Most of my customers are Latin, and they are afraid. Some of my customers are Iranian – and they are worried about war,' he said, 'It hurts me a lot. Everything, everything is affected.' Meanwhile, families of those arrested in the first rush of raids earlier this month, including at clothing warehouses and wholesalers in the district, have been grappling with the aftermath. 'We had to change how we eat, how we sleep, how we live, everything,' said Yurien, whose father Mario Romero was arrested in a raid at Ambiance Apparel. 'We've had to change everything.' Two weeks ago, Romero had texted her, his eldest daughter, that agents had arrived at his workplace, and that he loved her. Yurien had rushed over, and watched as agents shackled her father, and shoved him into a van. Several other family members worked at Ambiance – and were arrested as well. Normally, on weekends,Romero would bring home a huge haul of Mexican candy, brew up a big batch of agua de jamaica, and pick a classic movie for the whole family to watch. But last weekend, Yurien spent hours refreshing her search in the Ice online detainee locator system, hoping it would tell her where her father had been taken. 'We went days without knowing, without any idea what had happened to him,' she said. Later, she learned that agents had kept them in a van for more than eight hours, without food or water, or access to a restroom. Then Ice transferred them to the Adelanto detention center, in California's high desert. Local Zapotec community organizers were able to help her find him – and more than a week after his arrest, Yurien was able to put funds into his commissary, so he could call her from the detention center. 'He sounded so sad, he was crying,' she said. Yurien hasn't really felt hungry since then. She had planned to matriculate at Los Angeles Trade-Technical college, but she deferred her plans so she could take over her father's responsibilities – including the care of her four-year-old brother, who has a disability that requires close monitoring and regular doctors visits. 'It's been so hard. I've always been a daddy's girl,' she said. 'But I can't really show my emotions, because I have to stay strong for my mom, for my siblings.' Lucero Garcia, 35, said she could relate. 'I'm so overwhelmed, I'm so stressed,' she said. 'I still wake up every day and act like nothing ever happened, because I feel like I'm the main person in our family that kind of keeps it together.' Nothing has been the same for her family since her 61-year-old uncle, Candido, was arrested while working at his job at Magnolia Car Wash in Orange county, just south of LA. It was one of more than two dozen car washes in the region that have been visited by immigration agents, according to the Clean Carwash Worker Center. Before her evening shift at work on Tuesday, Garcia put on her professional black trousers and white knit top, and drove more than 90 minutes north to the Adelanto detention center, and met with congress members who were seeking to meet with constituents who had been transferred there, to investigate reports of unsanitary and unsafe conditions inside. After local representatives confirmed that detainees had been denied clean clothes and underwear for days, she stood outside in the searing desert heat and shared some words about her uncle – who had lived with her family for years and has been like another father to her. 'This is just crazy,' she said. 'I've never talked to the press before, to give speeches like this.' She had to rush back home right after to wrap up errands, and head to work. Garcia has her green card, and her sister has citizenship – so the two of them have taken shifts running errands for their entire family – picking up groceries and prescriptions, getting kids to and from playdates and activities – so that those without documentation don't have to risk stepping outside. At home, the conversations have been heavy. Some of her family members are meeting with notaries to arrange paperwork, so that she can take custody of their children, should they get arrested or deported. 'I'm so glad it's summer vacation, that none of our kids are in school right now,' she said. 'At least we don't have to worry something will happen while they're at school.' Out in her neighborhood, restaurants sit half empty, and there's no more lines at the gas station. Inside her house, it's been oddly quiet, too. Most all of Garcia's family lives in Orange county – within 5 or 10 minutes from her – and most days a cousin or an uncle would swing by, unannounced, bringing a dish or even just ingredients to cook up. Garcia is famous for her beef birria and pozole. These days everyone is staying confined to their own homes. Last weekend, they nearly forgot it was father's day. 'The vibe is not there to be celebrating,' she said. 'And even with the smallest gathering, there's a risk to leaving the house.' And there's guilt. 'Like, how can you be having dinner when others are in detention without enough food? The guilt doesn't let you move forward.' The Guardian is not using the full names of some people in this article to protect them and their families.
