US authorities have arrested hundreds of migrants across five states. Officials have called the operations “routine” but immigration advocates say it signals a more aggressive policy under President Donald Trump. Reports Deutsche Welle.
Hundreds of undocumented migrants were arrested in the US this week as President Donald Trump’s hardline stand on immigration appears to be being put into action.
The US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency conducted a series of immigration sweeps across Atlanta, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and the surrounding areas. While the agency did not release the total number of detainees, a spokesman for the Atlanta office said it had arrested 200 people, while the director of enforcement and removal for the Los Angeles field office, David Marin, said his office counted 161 arrests.
This week’s raids sparked concerns among immigration advocates and families. The sweep comes on the heels of Trump’s executive order barring refugees and migrants from seven majority-Muslim countries from entering the US. The order is currently on hold after a District Court judge in Seattle ordered a temporary halt to the ban.
“The fear coursing through immigrant homes and the native-born Americans who love immigrants as friends and family is palpable,” the executive director of the National Immigration Forum, Ali Noorani, said in a statement. “Reports of raids in immigrant communities are a grave concern.”