Afrasianet - Raed Salha - U.S. President Donald Trump's administration may have deliberately tone down the pace of large-scale and armed immigration raids that have sparked angry reactions, media investigations have revealed, but U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) continues to arrest record numbers of people, according to an investigation published by the British newspaper "The Guardian."
The newspaper tracked what it described as a network of stalking and deportation of migrants that has become "more subtle," extending to workplaces, airports, traffic checkpoints, convenience stores and communities far from the U.S.-Mexico border, and concluded that "immigration police are everywhere."
Gracie Willis, a rapid response lawyer with the National Migration Project, told the newspaper: "In the past, immigration police would break into places and make a lot of noise. Now they move more quietly."
But moving "more quietly" doesn't mean fewer arrests. The Guardian reports that immigration police arrested about 50,000 people in July, a record. The agency has more than doubled its workforce this year, to more than 22,000 officers and staff, after Congress appropriated an additional $75 billion to the Department of Homeland Security.
As of September 15, immigration police had signed more than 2,500 agreements allowing state and local law enforcement agencies to participate in the enforcement of federal immigration laws.
"Arrests happen in a flash, we're only talking about about 90 seconds from the moment immigration police arrive until the person is taken away in a car," Willis said, adding that agency agents "often move very quietly, with as little noise as possible."
The shift in enforcement methods came after the administration's wide-coverage operations drew strong opposition, particularly in the wake of a series of fatal shootings in which the victims were U.S. citizens, according to a reading of the report provided by Common Dreams.
Trump said earlier in the year that "maybe we can use a little bit more of a softer touch," while Homeland Security Secretary Marqueen Mullen told senators that "my goal in six months is not to be in the top of the news every day."
However, immigration lawyer Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch told the Guardian that lawyers "see a lot of racial profiling" in immigration enforcement, adding that federal agents "may have a big job site in mind... and then they slowly patrol it and arrest people day in and day out, until no one is ready to work there again."
The Guardian's investigation comes amid continued criticism of immigration police tactics.
Last week, Amnesty International published a report based on interviews with 154 people affected by immigration law enforcement operations in Chicago, Minneapolis-St Paul, New Orleans and Washington, D.C., documenting accusations including racial discrimination, arbitrary detention, excessive use of force, unlawful surveillance, incommunicado detention and inhumane conditions of detention.
"Masked and heavily armed federal agents attacking people on the streets with impunity does not make our communities safer, it puts everyone at risk," said Nadia Darr, executive director of Amnesty International in the US, adding that "immigration police are fundamentally broken and irreparable."
In contrast, a growing number of Republicans, especially those running for re-election, have begun to criticize the administration's tough immigration enforcement tactics.
An election ad by Congresswoman Monica De La Cruz, Republican of Texas, features a woman who helped the lawmaker free her husband from immigration detention.
De La Cruz said last week during an interview on "The Go Bugs Show," "I was very clear with the White House and with the leadership that law enforcement policy should focus on criminals and gangs that terrorize our communities."
"It should not target hard-working migrants who follow the immigration process."
In July, Democratic lawmakers sent a letter to Department of Homeland Security officials noting that immigration agents had shot at least 22 people since the start of Trump's second term, and that federal authorities had in several cases charged people who had been shot before later contradicting the evidence.
More than 50 people have died in immigration custody since Trump returned to the White House last year.
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