Those who lived through it describe the ICE raids as a “siege” or an “occupation”.
asserted
who → live → siege
At the height of the raids last year, agents in armored military vehicles rolled through residential neighborhoods.
asserted
agents → roll → neighborhoods
Masked agents patrolled public parks and stationed themselves outside elementary schools; squadrons of ICE agents snatched pedestrians off the streets.
asserted
squadrons → patrol → streets
Then, officers killed two US citizens during an ICE “blitz” on Minneapolis.
asserted
officers → kill → Minneapolis
After a public backlash, the Trump administration said it would try a new approach.
asserted
it → say → approach
“I learned that maybe we could use a little bit of a softer touch,” Donald Trump said in February.
uncertain
Trump → learn → February
He chose a new secretary of homeland security, Markwayne Mullin, who promised to cut the flash and fanfare.
asserted
who → choose → flash
“My goal in six months is that we’re not in the lead story every single day,” he said at his Senate confirmation hearing in March.
asserted
he → ’re → March
Six months on, that’s what his agency has delivered.
asserted
agency → ’ → what
Now ICE is anywhere and everywhere, embedded in all corners of everyday life.
asserted
ICE → embed → life
A Cuban man in Miami who stepped outside his house to take out the trash was detained moments after he had dropped the garbage bag into the bin.
asserted
he → step → bin
An Ecuadorian father was arrested in Danbury, Connecticut, just after seeing his six-year-old son onto the school bus.
asserted
son → arrest → bus
People have been arrested while pumping gas, leaving behind their empty cars.
asserted
People → arrest → cars
They are arrested on their way to work, or on their way home.
asserted
They → arrest → way
Y, a Venezuelan native, was stopped at the Phoenix Sky Harbor airport by immigration officers whom he said wouldn’t tell him why he was being arrested, or accept proof of a judicial order expressly prohibiting deportation to his home country.
asserted
he → stop → country
Four days later, he was on an airplane departing to Venezuela.
asserted
he → depart → Venezuela
Just before takeoff, he was deboarded – ICE officers admitted they may have made a mistake.
uncertain
they → deboarde → mistake
Though agents appear to be moving with more stealth than they were before, ICE arrests are still, often, violent.
asserted
arrests → appear → stealth
Glimpses of that violence are – despite Mullin’s initial intentions – still making national headlines.
asserted
Glimpses → make → headlines
Last week, an ICE agent shot Wilber Rafael Garcés Pérez in Austin, Texas.
asserted
agent → shoot → Austin
The Venezuelan asylum seeker, who had received a deportation order after missing a letter to appear in immigration court, was discharged from a local hospital with a bullet still lodged near his spine and then taken to ICE detention.
asserted
bullet → receive → detention
That same day, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, a Guatemalan man died in a fiery crash while fleeing federal immigration agents.
asserted
man → die → agents
Still, for every arrest that breaks through into public view, countless others happen quickly, before anyone can notice.
asserted
anyone → break → view
“The detentions are happening in a flash – we’re talking, like, 90 seconds from the time ICE shows up to that person being driven away,” Willis said.
asserted
Willis → happen → person
“And often they are moving very quietly, with very soft feet.”
asserted
they → move → feet
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the US government agency that oversees ICE, declined to comment on how its tactics had changed.
asserted
tactics → oversee → ICE
“DHS will not disclose or discuss law enforcement operations, strategy or tactics,” said Chandler Rebel, a spokesperson for the agency.
asserted
Rebel → disclose → agency
But Rebel confirmed the agency’s focus on airports, noting DHS 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”.
asserted
it → confirm → country
Bolstered by $75bn in funding from Congress, the Department of Homeland Security – the US government agency that oversees ICE – has more than doubled its workforce this year to more than 22,000 officers and staff.
asserted
that → bolster → officers
It has also vastly expanded its capacity by working with local police, sheriffs, highway patrol and even fish and wildlife agents.
asserted
It → expand → police
As of 15 September, ICE has signed more than 2,500 287(g) agreements.
asserted
ICE → sign → agreements
ICE is now detaining more immigrants than ever before.
asserted
ICE → detain → immigrants
An expanded dragnet fueled by police partnerships
“The administration is able to essentially hide a multiplied ICE force not only in unmarked cars, and not only behind masks, but also within local law enforcement through the 287(g) program,” said Willis.
asserted
Willis → expand → program
“I call it the invisibilizing of immigration enforcement.”
asserted
I → call → enforcement
Operations that now originate with local police are taking place across the country.
asserted
that → originate → country
At the El Corralón bar in Memphis on 29 August, an operation that began as a police raid targeting illegal gambling and drugs turned into one of the largest sweeps of undocumented immigrants in Tennessee – 120 people were detained.
asserted
people → begin → Tennessee
Immigration agents worked with state law enforcement to execute search warrants at the bar related to drugs and gambling, and targeting the bar’s owner.
asserted
agents → work → owner
But then, at 1am that night, more than a dozen agents walked into the bar, shut off the music, instructed everyone to gather on the dance floor and asked them one by one if they had legal status, according to witnesses.
uncertain
they → walk → witnesses
A spokesperson for the DHS said partnerships with law enforcement were key to the agency’s immigration enforcement.
asserted
partnerships → say → enforcement
“We have had tremendous success when local law enforcement works together with us,” said Rebel.
asserted
Rebel → have → us
…and 41 more, not listed.
The Aporia
