Wednesday, October 11, 2017

More Trump News: The Raids, the Hotline, the Parole Denial Policy

Border art: image from JR, the artist
For the moment media coverage of immigration policy is mostly focused on the whether Trump and the Democrats can make a deal on a new DREAM Act, but some outlets have been reporting on the little-noticed results of Trump policies from earlier in the year.

Below are links to The Intercept covering internal ICE emails about the nationwide raids last February, the American-Statesman reporting on the murder of a Mexican immigrant detained in March, Splinter News giving examples of the calls received by Trump’s Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement (VOICE) hotline, and a report from Human Rights First showing how the administration has increased the detention of asylum seekers—and that as of April an average of 40,000 immigrants (both asylum seekers and others) were being held in detention each night.—TPOI editor

Internal Emails Show ICE Agents Struggling to Substantiate Trump’s Lies About Immigrants

UPDATE, October 17, 2017: The Intercept now reports that then-Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, currently Trump’s chief of staff, personally directed ICE agents to hype up the “criminality” of the people detained in the February raids.

By Alice Speri, The Intercept
October 4, 2017
As hundreds of undocumented immigrants were rounded up across the country last February in the first mass raids of the Trump administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials went out of their way to portray the people they detained as hardened criminals, instructing field offices to highlight the worst cases for the media and attempting to distract attention from the dozens of individuals who were apprehended despite having no criminal background at all.[…]

Read the full article:

Immigrant taken by ICE from Austin courthouse was killed in Mexico

By Ryan Autullo and Taylor Goldenstein, American-Statesman
September 19, 2016
Juan Coronilla-Guerrero’s wife warned a federal judge this spring that her husband would be killed if the U.S. government followed through with his deportation.

Her prediction came true last week. Three months after the former Austin resident was taken back to central Mexico by federal authorities, his body was found on the side of a road in San Luis de la Paz, Guanajuato, near where he had been living with his wife’s family.[…]

Read the full article:

This Is What It Looks Like When the President Asks People to Snitch on Their Neighbors

By Daniel Rivero and Brendan O'Connor, Splinter
October 3, 2017
In April, the Trump Administration launched what it called the Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement (VOICE) hotline, with a stated mission to “provide proactive, timely, adequate, and prfessional services to victims of crimes committed by removable aliens.” But internal logs of calls to VOICE obtained by Splinter show that hundreds of Americans seized on the hotline to lodge secret accusations against acquaintances, neighbors, or even their own family members, often to advance petty personal grievances.[…]

Read the full article:

Judge and Jailer: Asylum Seekers Denied Parole in Wake of Trump Executive Order

By Human Rights First
September 29, 2017
On January 25, 2017, President Donald Trump issued an executive order directing the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to allocate “all legally available resources” to construct and operate immigration detention facilities and hold immigrants there for the duration of their court proceedings. In the eight months since, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has largely refused to release asylum seekers from detention on parole, leaving many locked up in immigration detention facilities and jails.[…]

Download the report: 

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