ICE agents set ‘trap’ for immigrants seeking legal residency
“…It’s our job to locate and arrest them.”
Two federal immigration agencies worked together in a coordinated effort to set deportation traps for unsuspecting immigrants seeking legal status, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) alleged in a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen this week.
According to the Boston Globe, the two agencies arranged meetings for the undocumented immigrants at government offices, where they were subsequently arrested, and in some cases deported.
According to e-mails obtained by the Globe between Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and employees of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), ICE asked government officials to space out the meetings so that the public wouldn’t catch on and draw “negative media interests.”
“As far as scheduling goes, I would prefer not to do them all at one time as it is [not] only a strain on our ability to transport and process several arrests at once, but it also has the potential to be a trigger for negative media interests, as we have seen in the past,” Andrew Graham, an ICE officer, wrote to a USCIS employee in one email from October.
ACLU lawyers described the meetings as “traps.”
ACLU Massachusetts✔@ACLU_Mass
Documents reveal the stunning extent to which the federal government used its own regulations – which were designed to protect the families of noncitizens from unnecessary separation during the legalization process – to target people for detention and deportation. pic.twitter.com/VZYkBB5jtI
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Information uncovered by documents and depositions shows USCIS actively coordinated with ICE to schedule and facilitate arrests at USCIS offices.
Learn more about the case and read the latest filing: https://www.aclum.org/en/cases/calderon-v-nielsen …#FamiliesBelongTogether pic.twitter.com/aXPMEYWQfu
According to the Globe, the e-mails are part of the lawsuit against DHS Secretary Nielsen challenging the Trump administration’s practice of separating married couples as one spouse seeks legal status.
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