Galina Bobreneva was passing through Hollywood Burbank Airport last month with her husband when she was pulled aside by two federal agents. After 15 minutes of questioning, she was taken away in handcuffs to an unmarked vehicle. Bobreneva was arrested, accused of overstaying her visa and sent to a detention facility in the Mojave Desert for two weeks. She spent her 40th birthday there, in conditions she described as filthy and unsanitary. Her U.S. citizen husband, who voted for Trump three times, managed to secure her release (for now) but was stunned by her arrest.
Bobreneva entered the country legally from Russia. She has a pending green card application and no criminal record. That did not protect her from being caught up in the government’s latest front in its mass deportation drive: domestic U.S. airports.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement has had a presence at many U.S. airports since March, when agents were sent in to help control lines during the government shutdown that halted pay for Transportation Security Administration agents. ICE agents making arrests at airports, however, is relatively new, the result of the TSA sharing travelers’ information with immigration authorities. So far, at least 27 foreign nationals have been arrested by ICE at airports across the country.
They are far from “the worst of the worst.” Those detained include a Fulbright scholar, newlyweds who just married U.S. citizens and an engineer awaiting his visa extension. One airport detainee was a woman with sickle cell anemia who uses a wheelchair; another was the recipient of a “Teacher of the Year” award.
These people are not criminals; they are folks with pending immigration cases. They are playing by the rules and going through the process of renewing visas, applying for asylum or adjusting their immigration status.
Perversely, because the government is prioritizing immigration enforcement, it is falling further behind in processing the paperwork that people need for legal status. The immigration backlog is estimated at 3.1 million cases, according to Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse researchers.
This amounts to a catch-22 situation. The government is making it harder for foreigners to adjust or update their immigration status — and then arresting them at airports when their visas or papers are out of date.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, said: “This administration is working diligently to ensure that aliens in our country illegally can no longer fly unless it is out of our country to self-deport.”
But there is no sound logic behind the new policy of airport arrests. The only reason ICE is now targeting travelers is that the government has set a goal of 2,000 immigration arrests a day. The move toward arresting travelers contradicts Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin’s pledge that, under his leadership, ICE operations would be low-profile and less aggressive.
ICE agents grabbing people at the airport is a disaster waiting to happen. Deadly shootings in Maine, Minnesota and Texas are proof that some immigration agents are prone to escalating volatile situations. Is that a threat that should be added to airports? Should fliers be forced to wonder when immigration agents will next open fire at bystanders? Who wants their children to witness a woman in handcuffs being dragged away by masked men? (This happened at Salt Lake City’s airport.)
There is danger for agents as well. Last month, ICE officers were attempting to arrest a man at the Las Vegas airport when they were surrounded by angry bystanders. As a confrontation ensued, the officers were forced to abandon their efforts, walking away and leaving their suspect behind. It was a chaotic scene that could have put the officers at risk of harm, especially at a time when Quinnipiac polling reports that 60% of American voters disapprove of how ICE is doing its job.
Immigration agents have broad authority to detain people they suspect of being in the country illegally. Yet instead of hunting down people in line for a green card, the government ought to focus on increasing the speed and efficiency of how immigration applications are processed. Too many foreign nationals are stuck in legal limbo as a result of immigration backlogs, leaving them vulnerable to detention or deportation.
The government should not be sending ICE agents into airports for immigration arrests. The potential for public harm far outweighs any benefit that might come from meeting an arbitrary quota.
Raul A. Reyes is an immigration attorney and television commentator in New York City. X: @RaulAReyes; Instagram: @raulareyes1
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