Washington: About half of the 675 immigrants picked up in roundups across the United States in the days after President Donald Trump took office either had no criminal convictions or had committed traffic offences, mostly drunken driving, as their most serious crimes, according to data obtained by The Washington Post.
Records provided by congressional aides Friday offered the most detailed look yet at the backgrounds of the individuals rounded up and targeted for deportation in early February by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents assigned to regional offices in Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, San Antonio and New York.
Two people had been convicted of homicide, 80 had been convicted of assault, and 57 had convictions for "dangerous drugs." Many of the most serious criminals were given top billing in ICE news statements about the operation.
The largest single group - 163 immigrants convicted of traffic offences - was mentioned only briefly. Over 90 percent of those cases involved drunken driving, ICE said Friday. Of those taken into custody in the raids, 177 had no criminal convictions at all, though 66 had charges pending, largely immigration or traffic offences.
The raids were part of a nationwide immigration roundup dubbed Operation Cross Check, which accounts for a small portion of the 21,362 immigrants the Trump administration took into custody for deportation proceedings from January through mid-March.
The two-month total represents a 32 per cent increase in deportation arrests over the same period last year. Most are criminals, administration officials have said. But 5,441 were not criminals, double the number of undocumented immigrants arrested for deportation a year earlier. The administration has released a detailed breakdown of the criminal records only of the raids in early February.
Trump has said that public safety threats are his top priority. Shortly after he was elected, he vowed to first deport serious criminals from the United States.
But critics say immigration agents instead have also targeted students, parents of US citizens who do not have serious criminal records and minor offenders.
"That makes me so angry," said Kica Matos, a spokeswoman for the Fair Immigration Reform Movement, which is organising demonstrations Monday to protest Trump's immigration policies. She said that many of the DUI convictions are years-old and that the data "confirms our worst fears, which is that this administration is really trying to deport as many as possible regardless of whether they have a criminal record."
President Barack Obama also deported thousands of people who never committed crimes, but toward the end of his administration, he imposed strict new rules that prioritised the arrest of criminals.
The Trump administration has said the current president also wants to prioritise deporting criminals. But officials add that anyone in the United States illegally could be detained and deported.
"As Secretary Kelly has made clear, ICE will no longer exempt classes or categories of removable aliens from potential enforcement," said ICE spokeswoman Jennifer Elzea, referring to Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly. "All of those in violation of the immigration laws may be subject to immigration arrest, detention and, if found removable by final order, removal from the United States."
ICE arrested immigrants across the United States in February as part of Operation Cross Check, an initiative that seeks to detain immigrants that also occurred during the Obama administration.
Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies for the Centre for Immigration Studies, which favours limits on immigration, said ICE is properly enforcing immigration laws by arresting criminals and people in the United States without papers.
"Those are legitimate reasons to remove people," she said. "ICE officers are no longer operating under the restraints imposed by the Obama administration. They're not forced to look the other way when they encounter people who are removable."
Congressional aides said the information from ICE follows months of frustration from lawmakers that the agency is not responding fast enough to requests for information.
After initially being supportive of Kelly, many Democrats have turned on him, believing he is being less than forthcoming about his sprawling department's moves to implement Trump's immigration policy.
Kelly, a retired Marine general, shot back at congressional critics last week in a speech at George Washington University.
"If lawmakers do not like the laws they've passed and we are charged to enforce, then they should have the courage and skill to change the laws,'' Kelly said. "Otherwise they should shut up and support the men and women on the front lines.''
That kind of approach "wasn't a constructive way to deal with Congress," House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer said in an interview Friday. Democrats, he said, are frustrated by Trump's immigration policies but are unable to change laws because they don't currently control Congress.
"That kind of language ought to be jettisoned," Hoyer said.
The Washington Post
