The Truth About Deportations

Last weekend, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, in what it described as a “routine” action, arrested and detained several hundred illegal aliens across the country. Forty-one such people were arrested in New York City. Advocates for the “undocumented” met the news with despair and anger. “Now it seems like anyone could be arrested,” said Shiu-Ming Cheer, attorney at the National Immigration Law Center. She added that ICE will “facilitate racial profiling by local law enforcement.” Deborah Axt of Make the Road New York spoke of the “agency's effort to cast immigrants as criminals.” “Shame on ICE for putting New York's immigrant communities—four million strong—in a state of panic,” said Steven Choi of the New York Immigration Coalition.
Left-wing politicians also voiced outrage. Democratic New York State senator Jesse Hamilton called for the New York Police Department to stop arresting people for low-level offenses—a practice, he says, that “puts immigrants in danger under the Trump administration. Every arrest produces fingerprints that are sent to federal law enforcement officials.” Among the “activities . . . often used to police black & brown bodies” that Hamilton wants decriminalized are disorderly conduct, trespassing, marijuana possession, and disturbing the peace.