Following up on the policies stated in the executive order passed by President Donald Trump, the U.S. immigration authorities have reportedly arrested hundreds of undocumented immigrants this week.
The Trump administration has pledged to arrest nearly 3 million immigrants who are undocumented and have a criminal record.
Immigration officials disclosed that agents had conducted a raid in several workplaces and homes in Chicago, New York, Atlanta, North and South Carolina, as well as Los Angeles. The raid has reportedly resulted in the capture of hundreds of individuals who are undocumented and have a criminal background.
Gillian Christensen, who is the spokeswoman for the Homeland Security Department which supervises the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), has asserted that the immigration implementation was a routine activity.
Was It A Raid?
However, the ICE takes objection to the word "raids" and terms it "targeted enforcement actions."
Christensen disclosed that the enforcement actions were carried out from Monday to Friday and resulted in the arrest of several immigrants with improper documents, especially from the Latin American countries.
"We're talking about people who are threats to public safety or a threat to the integrity of the immigration system," says Christensen.
She divulged that a majority of people detained by the authorities were hardcore criminals. Some of them had even been convicted for domestic violence and murder.
However, activists differ and have said that the raid was beyond the areas mentioned by the immigration officials. They asserted that evidence of the raids lay with them, which documented the intensity in the past few days in Texas, Kansas, Northern Virginia and Florida.
Several individuals from the Los Angeles area were reportedly taken into custody within an hour by ICE agents.
David Marin, the field director of ICE, shared that nearly 75 percent of the 160 individuals who have been detained had a criminal record. The remainder were either living in the United States legally or had some transgressions.
The authorities also shared that nearly 37 of immigrants detained in Los Angeles have been extradited to Mexico.
Reportedly, a video circulating on social media shows how ICE agents detained people in the parking lot of the Austin Shopping mall. Roadway checkpoints in North Carolina and Austin were reportedly targeted by the ICE agents and they conducted random checks for IDs. However, the officials have denied any such checks.
According to The Washington Post, an official from the Department of Homeland Security has affirmed that even though agents are eyeing criminals, they are also zoning in on non-criminals in the area who are undocumented.
Activists, as well as immigration officials, have let on that most of the people taken into custody are adult men. No children have been detained.
