Latest news with #ImmDef
The Guardian
21 hours ago
- Politics
- 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.
Vogue
6 days ago
- Vogue
5 Ways to Help Migrants in Los Angeles—and All Over the Country
With ICE raids causing panic in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, and other cities across the country—none of which could operate without the labor and cultural contributions of their migrant communities—there is more than one way to support those having their civil liberties threatened. Here, find a roundup of resources helping migrants in California, Texas, New York, and beyond to protect their families, protect themselves, and rebuild their lives in the wake of the damage and fear caused by ICE this year. Immigrant Defenders Law Center Instagram content This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from. Immigrant Defenders Law Center, or ImmDef, as it's known, is Southern California's largest non-profit deportation defense organization, and its work has ramped up as ICE has increased the scale of its operations among migrant communities throughout California. Their services, which range from representing unaccompanied minors in court to helping deported veterans to supporting client wellness amid deportation processes, are always free to those in need.
Yahoo
12-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Families arrested in LA Ice raids held in basements with little food or water, lawyers say
As federal agents rushed to arrest immigrants across Los Angeles, they confined detainees – including families with small children – in a stuffy office basement for days without sufficient food and water, according to immigration lawyers. One family with three children were held inside a Los Angeles-area administrative building for 48 hours after being arrested on Thursday immediately after an immigration court hearing, according to lawyers from the Immigrant Defenders Law Center (ImmDef), which is providing non-profit legal services in the region. The children, the youngest of whom is three years old, were provided a bag of chips, a box of animal crackers and a mini carton of milk as their sole rations for a day. Agents told the family they did not have any water to provide during the family's first day in detention; on the second day, all five were given a single bottle to share. The one fan in the room was pointed directly towards a guard, rather than towards the families in confinement, they told lawyers. 'Because it was primarily men held in these facilities, they didn't have separate quarters for families or for women,' said Yliana Johansen-Méndez, chief program officer at ImmDef. Clients explained that 'eventually they set up a makeshift tent in an outside area to house the women and children. But clearly, there were no beds, no showers.' They have since been transferred to a 'family detention' center in Dilley, Texas, a large-scale holding facility retrofitted to hold children with their parents that was reopened under the Trump administration. Lawyers, who had been largely blocked from communicating with immigrants arrested amid the ramped-up raids in LA, said family members were able to recount the ordeal only after they were moved out of state. The harrowing details are the first to emerge about the conditions that people are being held in following the immigration raids targeting LA-area businesses and neighborhoods. To quell the widespread protests that followed, Donald Trump sent in military troops despite opposition from California leaders. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has said that it arrested 118 immigrants on Friday and over the weekend. Others were arrested at immigration offices and courthouses in the days prior. ImmDef and other local advocacy groups had compiled a separate list of more than 80 people who were apprehended – though many of them still do not appear in the agency's online databases of detainees. Many of the people arrested were jailed ad hoc, in LA-area courthouses and administrative offices. Over the past several days, attorneys have taken shifts waiting outside federal immigration offices, attempting to speak to the immigrants, but federal agents and national guard troops have largely blocked lawyers and family members from visiting with those who were arrested, citing safety concerns amid widespread protests in the city. On Tuesday, the immigration court in downtown Los Angles had been shut down – and blocked off. DHS did not immediately respond to multiple Guardian queries about where it was holding people arrested in LA, and whether local offices had been given instruction to prepare supplies and facilities to hold immigrants prior to the large-scale raids in the region. Legal aid groups were also largely denied access to immigrants who were transferred to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) processing center and detention center in Adelanto, in the high desert east of LA. 'Ice's excuse was, they're still processing all the new people,' said Johansen-Méndez. Over the weekend and on Monday, her colleagues were only permitted to visit with a handful of clients at the Adelanto detention center, even though they had called ahead to confirm that at least 40 people referred to the organization had been sent there. Several people have already been deported. Luis Angel Reyes Savalza, a deportation defense attorney supporting the affected families in LA, said at least one person who was bused to Mexico almost immediately after his arrest was not provided any paperwork or opportunity to contest his deportation. At least two others who were arrested at LA-area carwashes were deported to Tijuana, according to Flor Melendrez, executive director of the Clean Carwash Worker Center. Another person was told by agents to sign a paper if he wanted to visit an attorney, Johansen-Méndez said – but believes he was tricked into signing some sort of voluntary departure paperwork. 'Within hours, he was across the border to Mexico,' she said. Meanwhile, the family members of workers arrested at a clothing factory in downtown LA, in the parking lot at a Home Depot in the suburb of Paramount, and at a carwash in Culver City were desperately seeking answers about their loved ones' whereabouts. Landi, whose husband was arrested on Friday while he worked a shift at the Ambiance Apparel warehouse, said he had reported to work that day as normal. 'We never imagined he will be kidnapped by immigration,' she said at a news conference on Monday, outside the business's gates. The Guardian is not using her surname to protect her family's privacy and safety. 'The day he was kidnapped, my family went to request information about his abduction, but Ice told us he wasn't at the center,' she said. 'However, after much effort and struggle from our lawyer, Ice simply confirmed that he was there.' Families were not allowed to bring their loved ones jackets or medications, lawyers said. Those who were able to confer with attorneys reported that as holding facilities in the city became crowded with immigrants, families were rushed out to detention centers in California's high desert or in Texas. Agents confiscated belongings and provided little food or water, explaining to immigrants that the facilities had not prepared for the influx of detainees. Conditions in Adelanto were deteriorating as well, lawyers said. One of ImmDef's clients reported that meals were provided late, blankets and clothing were scarce, and some people were sleeping on the floor of a day-use recreational room as beds filled up. One client said he witnessed an older man's health dramatically decline after being denied medication for three days. On Sunday, Democratic US representatives Gilbert R Cisneros Jr, Judy Chu and Derek Tran said they were blocked from entering Adelanto. DHS did not respond to a query asking why lawyers and lawmakers have been denied access. With limited access to immigrants in detention, attorneys are also scrambling to understand the scope of the raids, and the extent to which the Department of Homeland Security has violated immigrants' rights. Related: US immigration officials raid California farms as Trump ramps up conflict One of the more unusual aspects of the large-scale militarized raids that began last week was that agents from Ice were joined by Customs and Border Protection officers, who are empowered to conduct warrantless stops – but only within 100 miles (160km) of the US border. Johansen-Méndez believes that the government has justified their presence in Los Angeles – which is more than 100 miles from the US-Mexico border – because the city touches the Pacific Ocean, which the administration could be considering as a 'border'. 'They're counting the entire coastline as a port of entry,' said Johansen-Méndez. 'It felt almost like an urban legend that it could be done. But at this point, it's just they're everywhere, literally.' Lawyers from ImmDef and other legal aid and advocacy groups have also been trying to piece together testimonies to better understand how and why immigration agents chose to sweep certain businesses and neighborhoods, and what justifications officers provided when stopping and apprehending people. 'How do they decide who they're going to ask for their papers and arrest, other than racially profiling?' Johansen-Méndez said. 'Did they just ask everyone in the room for their papers or just some people? Did they skip certain people that didn't fit the profile? We can't get that information because we can't talk to everyone.'
The Guardian
11-06-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Families arrested in LA Ice raids held in basements with little food or water, lawyers say
As federal agents rushed to arrest immigrants across Los Angeles, they confined detainees – including families with small children – in a stuffy office basement for days without sufficient food and water, according to immigration lawyers. One family with three children were held inside a Los Angeles-area administrative building for 48 hours after being arrested on Thursday immediately after an immigration court hearing, according to lawyers from the Immigrant Defenders Law Center (ImmDef), which is providing non-profit legal services in the region. The children, the youngest of whom is three years old, were provided a bag of chips, a box of animal crackers and a mini carton of milk as their sole rations for a day. Agents told the family they did not have any water to provide during the family's first day in detention; on the second day, all five were given a single bottle to share. The one fan in the room was pointed directly towards a guard, rather than towards the families in confinement, they told lawyers. 'Because it was primarily men held in these facilities, they didn't have separate quarters for families or for women,' said Yliana Johansen-Méndez, chief program officer at ImmDef. Clients explained that 'eventually they set up a makeshift tent in an outside area to house the women and children. But clearly, there were no beds, no showers.' They have since been transferred to a 'family detention' center in Dilley, Texas, a large-scale holding facility retrofitted to hold children with their parents that was reopened under the Trump administration. Lawyers, who had been largely blocked from communicating with immigrants arrested amid the ramped-up raids in LA, said family members were able to recount the ordeal only after they were moved out of state. The harrowing details are the first to emerge about the conditions that people are being held in following the immigration raids targeting LA-area businesses and neighborhoods. To quell the widespread protests that followed, Donald Trump sent in military troops despite opposition from California leaders. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has said that it arrested 118 immigrants on Friday and over the weekend. Others were arrested at immigration offices and courthouses in the days prior. ImmDef and other local advocacy groups had compiled a separate list of more than 80 people who were apprehended – though many of them still do not appear in the agency's online databases of detainees. Many of the people arrested were jailed ad hoc, in LA-area courthouses and administrative offices. Over the past several days, attorneys have taken shifts waiting outside federal immigration offices, attempting to speak to the immigrants, but federal agents and national guard troops have largely blocked lawyers and family members from visiting with those who were arrested, citing safety concerns amid widespread protests in the city. On Tuesday, the immigration court in downtown Los Angles had been shut down – and blocked off. DHS did not immediately respond to multiple Guardian queries about where it was holding people arrested in LA, and whether local offices had been given instruction to prepare supplies and facilities to hold immigrants prior to the large-scale raids in the region. Legal aid groups were also largely denied access to immigrants who were transferred to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) processing center and detention center in Adelanto, in the high desert east of LA. 'Ice's excuse was, they're still processing all the new people,' said Johansen-Méndez. Over the weekend and on Monday, her colleagues were only permitted to visit with a handful of clients at the Adelanto detention center, even though they had called ahead to confirm that at least 40 people referred to the organization had been sent there. Several people have already been deported. Luis Angel Reyes Savalza, a deportation defense attorney supporting the affected families in LA, said at least one person who was bused to Mexico almost immediately after his arrest was not provided any paperwork or opportunity to contest his deportation. At least two others who were arrested at LA-area carwashes were deported to Tijuana, according to Flor Melendrez, executive director of the Clean Carwash Worker Center. Another person was told by agents to sign a paper if he wanted to visit an attorney, Johansen-Méndez said – but believes he was tricked into signing some sort of voluntary departure paperwork. 'Within hours, he was across the border to Mexico,' she said. Meanwhile, the family members of workers arrested at a clothing factory in downtown LA, in the parking lot at a Home Depot in the suburb of Paramount, and at a carwash in Culver City were desperately seeking answers about their loved ones' whereabouts. Landi, whose husband was arrested on Friday while he worked a shift at the Ambiance Apparel warehouse, said he had reported to work that day as normal. 'We never imagined he will be kidnapped by immigration,' she said at a news conference on Monday, outside the business's gates. The Guardian is not using her surname to protect her family's privacy and safety. 'The day he was kidnapped, my family went to request information about his abduction, but Ice told us he wasn't at the center,' she said. 'However, after much effort and struggle from our lawyer, Ice simply confirmed that he was there.' Families were not allowed to bring their loved ones jackets or medications, lawyers said. Those who were able to confer with attorneys reported that as holding facilities in the city became crowded with immigrants, families were rushed out to detention centers in California's high desert or in Texas. Agents confiscated belongings and provided little food or water, explaining to immigrants that the facilities had not prepared for the influx of detainees. Conditions in Adelanto were deteriorating as well, lawyers said. One of ImmDef's clients reported that meals were provided late, blankets and clothing were scarce, and some people were sleeping on the floor of a day-use recreational room as beds filled up. One client said he witnessed an older man's health dramatically decline after being denied medication for three days. On Sunday, Democratic US representatives Gilbert R Cisneros Jr, Judy Chu and Derek Tran said they were blocked from entering Adelanto. DHS did not respond to a query asking why lawyers and lawmakers have been denied access. With limited access to immigrants in detention, attorneys are also scrambling to understand the scope of the raids, and the extent to which the Department of Homeland Security has violated immigrants' rights. One of the more unusual aspects of the large-scale militarized raids that began last week was that agents from Ice were joined by Customs and Border Protection officers, who are empowered to conduct warrantless stops – but only within 100 miles (160km) of the US border. Johansen-Méndez believes that the government has justified their presence in Los Angeles – which is more than 100 miles from the US-Mexico border – because the city touches the Pacific Ocean, which the administration could be considering as a 'border'. 'They're counting the entire coastline as a port of entry,' said Johansen-Méndez. 'It felt almost like an urban legend that it could be done. But at this point, it's just they're everywhere, literally.' Lawyers from ImmDef and other legal aid and advocacy groups have also been trying to piece together testimonies to better understand how and why immigration agents chose to sweep certain businesses and neighborhoods, and what justifications officers provided when stopping and apprehending people. 'How do they decide who they're going to ask for their papers and arrest, other than racially profiling?' Johansen-Méndez said. 'Did they just ask everyone in the room for their papers or just some people? Did they skip certain people that didn't fit the profile? We can't get that information because we can't talk to everyone.'
The Guardian
22-05-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Ice arrests at immigration courts across the US stirring panic: ‘It's terrifying'
Federal authorities have arrested people at US immigration courts from New York to Arizona to Washington state in what appears to be a coordinated operation, as the Trump administration ramps up the president's mass deportation campaign. On Tuesday, agents who identified themselves only as federal officers arrested multiple people at an immigration court in Phoenix, taking people into custody outside the facility, according to immigrant advocates. In Miami on Wednesday, Juan Serrano, a 28-year-old who immigrated from Colombia, went to court for a quick check-in where a judge soon told him he was free to go. When he left the courtroom, federal agents waiting outside cuffed him and placed him in a van with several other immigrants detained that day. Journalists, advocates and attorneys reported seeing Ice agents poised to make arrests this week at immigration courthouses in Los Angeles, Phoenix, New York, Seattle, Chicago and Texas. Arrests near or in the immigration courts, which are part of the US Department of Justice, are typically rare – in part due to concerns that the fear of being detained by Ice officers could discourage people from appearing. 'It's bad policy,' said Lindsay Toczylowski, president of the Immigrant Defenders Law Center (ImmDef). 'By putting immigration officers in the courtrooms, they're discouraging people from following the processes, punishing people for following the rules.' Toczylowski noted several Ice officers both inside and outside an immigration courtroom in Los Angles this week, but said she did not see any arrests made there. She said that immigrants without lawyers are especially vulnerable, as they may not understand the exact information and context they need to provide in order to advance their case for asylum or other pathways to permanent residency in the US. ImmDef and other legal groups are sending attorneys to courtrooms they believe may be targeted by Ice officials, to try to provide basic legal education and aid to people appearing at required appointments. The presence of agents is stirring panic, she said. 'People are being detained and handcuffed in the hallway,' she said. 'Can you imagine what you would be thinking, if you're waiting there with your family and children, about to see a judge? It's terrifying.' The agents' targeting of immigrants at court comes as the Trump administration faces multiple lawsuits and the president attempts to enact the large-scale deportations he promised during his campaign. 'All this is to accelerate detentions and expedite removals,' said Wilfredo Allen, an immigration attorney with decades of experience representing immigrants at the Miami immigration court. The Trump administration has revived a 2019 policy that allows for 'expedited removals' – fast-tracked deportation proceedings for people who have been in the US for less than two years. Immigrants who cannot prove that they have been in the US for longer than two years are subject to having their cases dismissed and being immediately expelled from the country. Under the Biden administration, expedited removals were limited to people apprehended within 100 miles (160km) of the US border, and who had been in the US for less than two weeks. In Phoenix, immigrant advocates gathered outside immigration court to protest the presence of Ice agents. 'We witnessed parents and children being detained and abducted into unmarked vans immediately after attending their scheduled immigration proceedings,' said Monica Sandschafer, the Arizona state director for the advocacy group Mi Familia Vota. 'We demand an immediate stop to these hateful tactics.' Three US immigration officials told the Associated Press on the condition of anonymity that government attorneys were given the order to start dismissing cases when they showed up for work Monday, and were aware that federal agents would then be able to arrest those individuals when they left the courtroom. In the case of Serrano in Miami, the request for dismissal was delivered by a government attorney who spoke without identifying herself on the record, the Associated Press reported. She refused to provide her name to the AP and quickly exited the courtroom. US Immigration and Customs Enforcement said in a statement this week that it was detaining people who are subject to fast-track deportation authority. Advocates and lawyers are advising immigrants with upcoming hearings or court appearances to bring a trusted family member or friend who is a US citizen and ideally, a lawyer, to their appointments. The Associated Press contributed
