Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have a new strategy to round people up for mass deportation: head to the airport.
According to The New York Times, “Immigration agents in plain clothes have whisked away targets at check-in counters and arrival gates, with enforcement actions in at least 15 airports in recent weeks. Some of the arrests have occurred quietly, while others have happened as angry fellow passengers filmed the encounters” — and it all seems to be the result of a partnership between ICE and the Transportation Security Administration.
This comes after a December report from The Times “that ICE officers were arresting people with deportation orders at airports with the help of information provided by airlines to the T.S.A.”
A huge source of illegal immigration into the United States comes from people who enter on lawful visas but overstay. Not all of them have even broken any law on purpose, The Times noted: “Many with expired visas occupy a legal gray area, as they are awaiting visa extensions or green cards and have been issued work permits. Such individuals were not prioritized for deportation in the past unless they had committed crimes, and they were rarely detained while waiting for visa extensions or green cards.”
Under the Trump administration, however, these people are fair game to deport.
A viral video this week showed one such arrest, of 27-year-old Ecuadorian national Chantal Morales Rojas, who was held back by plainclothes officers in the jetway after scanning her Southwest Airlines boarding pass from Denver to Oakland, California. The video showed her being seized and led through a side door, while she shouted in panic.
ICE has not just been relying on data from airports; another recent report indicated ICE can gain information on where people live whenever they take out a new credit card.
As the administration has ramped up mass deportation efforts and imposed ever more stringent arrest quotas on ICE agents, reporting from the Washington Examiner suggests that even within ICE itself, morale over their job has plunged to new lows.
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