August 2, 2017

ICE’s Latest Raids Swept Up More Than 500 Whose Only Crime Was Being in the United States

So much for prioritizing criminals for deportation.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers make an arrest as a part of a targeted raid in Los Angeles, February, 2017.Charles Reed/AP

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Immigration and Custom Enforcement announced on Tuesday that it had arrested 650 people, including 38 minors, in its latest round of raids, which took place July 23 through July 26. That’s roughly as many people as were arrested during similar large-scale sweeps earlier this year, after President Donald Trump first announced his administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration. But while only 170 of the people arrested in January and February had no criminal record, this time ICE officers detained a whopping 520 people whose only offense was being in the United States without papers. In other words, just a fifth of those arrested last week had committed any other crime.

ICE claims the targets of its recent sweeps—families and young adults who came here as unaccompanied minors—are the subjects of removal orders by federal judges. But it is unclear how many of the 650 arrestees were on the target list or how these lists are created to begin with. It’s possible that many of the 520 noncriminal detainees were simply swept up as ICE officers searched for the people actually on their list.

Last week’s raids are the continuation of Obama-era deportation programs, but the so-called collateral detentions have increased significantly since Trump took office. Under Obama, ICE generally let noncriminal undocumented immigrants go about their business in the absence of a deportation order.

A New York Times reporter who recently accompanied ICE on one of its sweeps for The Daily podcast witnessed the arrest of a father with no criminal record after officers failed to find his son, who was on their target list for violent offenses. “What President Trump did is expand the term ‘criminal.’ Anybody who has crossed the border illegally is considered a criminal, and that has enabled officers to arrest many, many more people,” notes the Times‘ Jennifer Medina. “It’s absolutely a roll of the dice and a very subjective decision over who to take in.”

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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