Beyond the Border: Airport immigration enforcement, buoy barrier floods and racist slurs from Border Patrol agents
Here's what happened this week in immigration news.
Written by Jenna Ramiscal, Edited by Kate Morrissey
Welcome to another edition of Beyond the Border, which summarizes immigration news from across the country in a weekly roundup. Did we miss something? Message us via kate@daylightsandiego.org or on Instagram.
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Airport immigration enforcement
The New York Times reported that Immigration and Customs Enforcement is arresting people with expired visas at airports. Officers have used the tactic in 15 airports nationwide in recent weeks.
Voices of Monterey Bay reported that Del Rey Oaks police said they knew ICE would conduct arrests at Monterey Airport, but the county sheriff’s office and Monterey Airport management were not aware of the agency’s plans.
ICE operations
404 Media reported that ICE has extensive surveillance technology that harvests data from smartphones, reveals individual’s identities through facial recognition apps, tracks vehicle location data and monitors social media presence.
CalMatters reported that Border Patrol agents used racial slurs during immigration enforcement in Los Angeles last year. Plaintiffs in the federal case are using the text messages and body camera evidence to argue the officials made discriminatory stops.
The Office of Refugee Resettlement, an agency that is responsible for housing unaccompanied migrant children, gave ICE over 400,000 leads prompting over a thousand arrests of children and their sponsors, Reuters reported.
The federal government’s recent purchase of two California detention centers seeks to bypass local state and county laws, CalMatters reported. The purchase comes as leaders on the West Coast have pushed for legislation that places restrictions on private prisons including taxes and health inspections.
The Arizona Republic reported that court documents revealed ICE’s strategy of staking out Home Depot parking lots to detain people.
The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that ICE recently gave guidance to its officers to consider detaining people who have protection from deportation to their home countries through withholding of removal or protection under the Convention Against Torture. The agency intends to try to deport them to third countries.
Immigration court
Mission Local reported that judges at the immigration court in Concord, California, are issuing deportation orders to 42% of immigrants scheduled for mega master hearings.
The 19th News reported that the administration has used Judge Dredd, a comic book character known for emotionless and brutal decisions, as part of its immigration judges recruitment campaign.
Caló News reported that the administration is implementing a new rule that will allow the Department of Homeland Security to deny permanent residence to immigrants who use public programs such as Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
Federal court updates
The Guardian reported that Venezuelan men are suing U.S. aviation companies that, despite a judge's orders for the flights to return, flew them to a notorious prison in El Salvador where they were tortured.
POLITICO reported that the Department of Justice is moving to drop its charge against California labor leader David Huerta who was arrested last summer while protesting ICE in Los Angeles.
The father of a San Diego Marine who was detained by ICE at Camp Pendleton is suing the agency and the Department of Homeland Security for violating his rights, NBC7 reported. ICE deported the Marine’s father despite him being in the United States for over 30 years and having a pending green card application.
Talking Points Memo reported that ICE deported another Salvadoran man despite orders blocking his removal from both a federal and an immigration judge.
The Guardian reported that California’s largest detention center failed to comply with a court's orders to provide adequate healthcare including emergency care, timely medication distribution and accommodations for people with disabilities.
Rio Grande buoy barrier
The Department of Homeland Security’s Rio Grande buoys, weighing around a ton each, caused an emergency in Texas after breaking loose, The Border Chronicle reported. The Trump administration’s border barrier tactic is threatening structural damage to an international bridge and downstream communities.
The Border Chronicle later reported that city officials in Eagle Pass and Laredo are still trying to get information about the Department of Homeland Security’s plans to retrieve the buoy barriers.
Officials speaking out
WIRED reported that the outgoing executive director of the Office of Homeland Security Statistics spoke publicly about his dislike of the administration's immigration enforcement.
CBS News reported that Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine is calling Trump’s plan to increase deportations of Haitians a mistake. He says it would endanger individuals who are sent back to Haiti, and it would damage the state’s economy.
Protests and community mobilization
Mother Jones reported that communities in areas including Minneapolis and Chicago are mobilizing in the millions to patrol for ICE, tracking license plates, logging badge numbers and providing resources for impacted families.
FOX 2 San Francisco uploaded a video on Instagram of hundreds of people participating in a protest against ICE and its officers killings of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo and Johan Sebastián Guerrero.
Entertainment Weekly uploaded a video on Instagram that shows protests against ICE outside of the San Diego Convention Center during Comic-Con.
NBC7 reported that community patrollers, activists and residents gathered and blew whistles in the City Heights neighborhood of San Diego to warn others about ICE presence.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that heightened ICE arrests in Georgia have prompted the community to document officials' behavior and record operations.
Other stories to watch
Bloomberg Law reported that Department of Homeland Security’s top lawyer, James Percival, publicly criticized four federal judges who ruled in favor of deportation protections and oversaw litigation challenging the federal government’s responses to protests and deportations.
Reuters reported that a Guatemalan man and his wife, who were deported from the U.S., were found dead in a sugarcane field and their 1-year-old daughter was found alive next to them.
Borderless Magazine reported that the administration’s withholding of federal funding for adult education programs is raising concerns for immigrants and their families.
The LA Times reported that a study from the University of California, Los Angeles found that immigration enforcement activity has resulted in millions of lost business revenue in neighboring areas.
Thanks for reading! Take care and stay well.
— Jenna
