In ICE 'Targeted' Raids, 70% of Arrests Were Collateral Victims

By teleSUR

02 August 17

The operation "targeting" Central American minors reveals that out of 650 detained, most were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

ust days after President Donald Trump's speech equating Central American immigrant minors with transnational gang MS-13 – whom he described as “animals” – U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has announced the results of a large-scale roundup of 650 undocumented immigrants carried out during a four-day operation last week.

According to a statement, agents of ICE's Enforcement and Removal Operations division “targeted individuals who entered the country as unaccompanied alien children (UACs)” across the United States, as well as the “family units” who brought them into the country.

It adds that about 70 percent of those swept up in the so-called “targeted” dragnet – titled “Operation Border Guardian/Border Resolve” – were “collateral” victims of the raids.

“Of the 650 arrested nationwide July 23 to 26, 73 were members of family units and 120 entered the country illegally as UACs. An additional 457 others encountered during this operation were also arrested,” the ICE statement noted.

In other words, those "encountered" happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. In most cases, collateral victims were never given deportation orders nor do they have criminal records.

The remainder were individuals over the age of 16 who were either convicted of low-level criminal offenses and misdemeanors, or had “suspected gang ties” – a hazy definition of gang involvement widely panned by legal counsels as misleading and based on unconstitutional criteria.

Immigrant rights advocates strongly condemned the operation.

“The practice of targeting unaccompanied minors who fled violence in Central America is appalling,” migrant justice advocate Frank Sharry of America's Voice Education Fund said. “The fact that ICE is targeting the family members who took them in makes it even worse.”

“In addition, some 70% of those apprehended in these so-called ‘targeted operation’ were not the intended targets, but people who were 'encountered,'” Sharry continued. “In plain English, that means they went into neighborhoods, stopped whoever they wanted and demanded to see papers ... those that didn’t produce them were arrested and detained.”

“This kind of enforcement is designed to strike terror in the heart of immigrant communities,” he declaimed. “ICE is a police force that talks tough about 'bad hombres' but mostly goes after the most innocent and vulnerable in the community.”

ICE officials have also come under fire for how they define “gang associates”.

The definitions apply to people who meet two or more specifications including having gang tattoos, frequenting an area notorious for gangs – often their own neighborhoods – and wearing alleged “gang clothing”.

This means displaying so-called color-codes or logos of professional sports teams associated with gangs.

The ICE criteria for alleged “gang association” is common among state and local law enforcement agencies across the U.S. and has come under fire for using flimsy evidence and reinforcing the unequal treatment of people of color.

“ICE raids targeting gang members are nothing more than a continued hyper-criminalization and militarization of poor working class communities – especially migrant communities,” community organizer Francisco Romero told teleSUR last week. Romero, a member of Union del Barrio Los Angeles, has fought against police crackdowns and injunctions aimed at alleged “gang associates” in Southern California communities like L.A., Oxnard and Santa Barbara.

“The criteria used to identify and list somebody (as a 'gang associate') is very broad, ranging from 'self-admission' to clothing, tattoos, associating or corresponding with other 'known gang members,' and being identified as a gang member by a 'reliable source,'” he added, noting that self-admission can often result from deceptive questioning of youth by law enforcement officers and coerced admissions resulting from plea bargains.

Critics have argued that President Trump's depiction of the group is blown out of proportion and his administration is resorting to failed methods of addressing gangs such as mass deportation and law enforcement measures rather than offering educational services, job skills training, and overall improvements to the socio-economic conditions affecting youth in the United States.

While others claim that the Trump administration is using MS-13 and Central American undocumented youth as a scapegoat to justify the major clampdown on unauthorized immigrants promised during his campaign.