Every day, undocumented immigrants are reporting to federal immigration offices as part of a regular check-in. Sometimes these visits are uneventful, meaning that immigrants are told to return for their next check-in with officials in three months, six months, or even a year. But in other instances, they’re not so uneventful.
Under Donald Trump, so-called “low priority” immigrants who have just been trying to follow the rules by checking in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have become an easy target for arrest, with one concerned advocate even noting that “ICE ‘check-ins’ are becoming ‘turn yourself in for deportation’ events.” America’s Voice noted these sort of arrests occurring in a number of states in the weeks following Trump’s inauguration.
It’s not clear how many immigrants are being arrested in this manner, but The Washington Post reports that “the number of immigrants required to report regularly to ICE has jumped by 26 percent to 2.9 million,” and probably thousands check in daily. Many of these immigrants have no criminal record, were being allowed by the federal government to work legally, and have deep ties to the U.S., including U.S. citizen children.
Arizona mom Guadalupe García de Rayos was arrested in this manner in the early weeks of the Trump administration, after checking in regularly with officials for years. Hundreds of “protesters, including de Rayos’s two children, shouted, ‘No papers, no fear’ and ‘Let her go, set her free,’ as others banged on drums and raised posters and flags.” At one point, a supporter even chained himself to the wheels of the ICE van carrying her. But de Rayos was eventually deported, with no care from the government about what would happen to her two teenaged kids.
This is a trend that even immigration officials themselves acknowledge. In one recent instance noted by The Washington Post, a 63-year-old Ghanaian man with no criminal record suddenly faced deportation after more than two decades here. “I understand there are people who’ve been here for a long time,” the ICE official told his attorney, “but things are different now.” He now faces deportation in six months.