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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsIs ICE Out of Control?
Two troubling cases suggest immigration officials may have intentionally broken the law while policing.
By Mark Joseph Stern
Since Donald Trump entered office, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have cracked down on undocumented immigrants, conducting coordinated raids that appear to target not only convicted criminals but also individuals whose sole crime is living in the United States without documentation. This enforcement surge marks a departure from Obama-era restrictions, which limited the agencys enforcement priorities to convicts, terrorist threats, and people who recently crossed the bordera policy ICE openly despised.
ICE is legally empowered to conduct sweeps, and Trump is within his rights to lift Obamas restrictions. But two recent high-profile arrests suggest that ICE may be altering evidence and manipulating facts in order to move in this aggressive new direction.
Consider first the case of Daniel Ramirez Medina, whom ICE agents arrested last Friday. Ramirez is a beneficiary of Obamas Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which allowed him to remain in the U.S. and work lawfully despite being undocumented. When he explained to ICE agents that he was legally here and showed them his DACA work permit, they detained him anyway. At a processing center, Ramirez reiterated that he had a lawful work permit.
It doesnt matter, an agent responded, according a lawsuit filed on Ramirezs behalf, because you werent born in this country. After detaining him, ICE found a justification for his deportation, alleging that he was a self-admitted gang member. Its evidence for this allegation centered around an appeal that Ramirez wrote after arriving at the detention center requesting to be removed from its gang unit. The government said it included the line, I have gang affiliation with gangs so I wear an orange uniform. But on Thursday, the Stranger published a photograph of the appealand it clearly shows that Ramirez had written in pencil: I came in and the officers said I have gang affiliation with gangs so I wear an orange uniform. I do not have a criminal history and Im not affiliated with any gangs.
more
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2017/02/ice_s_crackdown_is_beyond_aggressive_it_s_illegal.html
Is the Pope Catholic? Do Bears crap in the woods?
HoneyBadger
(2,297 posts)As is putting people on no fly lists.
There should be no lists, there should be no labels. If he is actually a gang member, prove it first.
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What we know about the arrest of Daniel Ramirez
Daniel Ramirez came to the US from Mexico when he was 7. Hes now 23, with a 3-year-old son who is a US citizen. Under DACA, he applied for protection from deportation and a work permit in 2014, and received both. He got his DACA renewed on May 5, 2016 meaning that, in theory, he should be protected from deportation and able to work legally through May 2018.
According to the complaint filed by Ramirezs lawyers, ICE agents came to the home of Ramirezs father on the morning of February 10 with a warrant for Ramirezs father. ICE says that Ramirezs father is a felon and had been deported in the past, which (if true) would make his arrest consistent with the targets of widespread raids last week. Daniel Ramirez and his brother (who also has DACA) were both in the house.
According to the complaint filed by Daniel Ramirez lawyers, when the ICE agents entered after arresting Ramirezs father, they reportedly asked Daniel Ramirez if he was in the US legally. Ramirez said he had a work permit but did not answer further questions. According to a brief the federal government filed in response, however, Daniel Ramirez had answered yes to the question of whether he was here illegally and had also answered yes when asked if hed ever been arrested.
The ICE agents took Daniel Ramirez into custody. Hes currently in immigration detention in Tacoma.
Ramirezs brother does not appear to have been arrested.
According to the federal government, ICE agents questioned Ramirez about gang affiliations, including a gang tattoo on his arm. Ramirez answered that he wasnt involved in gang activity no more, and had fled California to escape from the gangs, but that he still hangs out with the Paizas in Washington State.
On Tuesday, lawyers filed a complaint in federal court over Ramirezs detention, asking a judge to order the Department of Homeland Security to release Ramirez because he hasnt been charged with anything and shouldnt, as a DACA recipient, have been detained in the first place.
The federal magistrate judge in the case (as reported by Adolfo Flores and Chris Geidner of BuzzFeed) ordered the government to clarify why Ramirez was detained despite having DACA, and whether DHS had placed him in deportation proceedings.
On Thursday, the federal government filed a brief with the judge indicating that they had, in fact, placed Ramirez in deportation proceedings on Tuesday the 14th. When that happened, Ramirez was stripped of his DACA protections.
ICE says Daniel Ramirez is a gang member which could make for a tricky case
On Tuesday, ICE released a statement calling Daniel Ramirez a self-admitted gang member whod been taken into custody based on his admitted gang affiliation and risk to public safety.
Ramirezs lawyers deny that he has any gang involvement instead, lawyer Ethan Dettmer told Reuters that ICE agents repeatedly pressured Ramirez to falsely admit gang affiliation. Dettmer, its worth noting, is a partner at the major law firm Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, whose partners include former US Solicitor General Ted Olson and a lawyer who was rumored to be on the shortlist to head the Securities and Exchange Commission under Trump which should give you a sense of how seriously advocates are taking this case.
Heres why the gang involvement question is so critical: In theory, the government can take away an individuals protection from deportation under DACA at any time, because DACA is officially a grant of prosecutorial discretion in an individual case rather than a formal grant of immigration status. Meanwhile, one of the reasons someone applying for DACA (for the first time, or for a two-year renewal) can be denied protection is if hes deemed a threat to public safety a category that includes gang affiliation.
Homeland Security Department Unveils New Anti-Gang Initiative
ICE has made an effort to deport known gang members, as this slide from a 2006 presentation shows. Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
So while DHS could, in theory, do the same thing they did to Daniel Ramirez detain him, put him in deportation proceedings, and strip him of his protection to any DACA recipient, they might be taking a more conservative approach: arguing that hes rendered himself ineligible for protection by being a member of a gang.
Unhelpfully, determining that someone is or is not a gang member is very tricky. Doing it based on tattoos, as ICE appears to have done in Ramirez case, isnt uncommon. ICE, as well as many states, maintains databases of known gang members but those databases are often overbroad and inaccurate. If this question is what Ramirezs case comes down to, DHS could make an argument that its actively rescinding Ramirezs DACA protections for a particular reason (gang affiliation) rather than just on a whim.
Ramirezs arrest could be an isolated incident or an attempt to push the envelope
Its entirely possible that Ramirezs arrest was just a one-off case, and doesnt reflect broader government policy.
Jorge Barón, the executive director of the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, told the Stranger that he thinks Ramirez was simply scooped up during the raid that arrested his father as a collateral arrest. As Barón points out, collateral arrests spread fear throughout immigrant communities since they mean people are being scooped up simply for being unauthorized and in the wrong place at the wrong time but they dont necessarily mean that the government is changing its stance toward DACA recipients.
The future of the DACA program, as a whole, is in doubt. Trump administration officials have drafted an executive order that would phase out the program over two years, making DACA recipients deportable (and no longer able to work legally) once their current grants expire. But negotiations over whether Trump should actually sign it appear to be ongoing.
In the context of that uncertainty, the fact that at least one immigrant has been stripped of DACA protections under Trump is, to immigrants and advocates, an extremely ominous sign.
Officially, the program is still in effect: immigration lawyers report that their clients are still getting DACA grants and renewals from US Citizenship and Immigration Services.
Ramirezs arrest raises questions, however, about whether ICE is getting more aggressive toward DACA recipients despite their having DACA and whether ICE is going to try to strip them of protections and deport them. The circumstances of Ramirezs case might be unique (a collateral arrest in a raid that targeted his father, a purported gang affiliation), but once ICE has crossed the line of treating DACA recipients as deportable, every DACA recipient is likely to worry that theyll be next.
grantcart
(53,061 posts)HoneyBadger
(2,297 posts)grantcart
(53,061 posts)HoneyBadger
(2,297 posts)Am out enjoying the sun....
http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/2/15/14622346/daniel-ramirez-medina-daca-arrest-ice
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)that's why local police now 'papers please' EVERYONE in a car they stop for any reason, and everyone in a home they invade. Even people with work permits are turned over to ICE for them to sort-out.
Police also stop anyone near borders, turn them over to ice as undocumented. even if they're trying to flee the country to Mexico or Canada. Ice will count them as capture of undocumented.
It's projected in that new Republican crafted EO again, the need for new 'FOR PROFIT" border prisons to house 2-3 million people/prisoners who simply got picked up on their way to work or school.
KittyWampus
(55,894 posts)Yes, if ICE is going to pick up a criminal, local police have no choice but to cooperate.
But the EO gives local police the choice to participate in anything more draconian.
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)TrekLuver
(2,573 posts)bad about this ......right? Ripping moms away from kids amid emotional scenes when the month just prior they were allowed to be let go.
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)A lot of them enjoy their 'work', many people including undocumented have to carry cash and its easy to steal from them. Some of them hate non-whites, hate immigrants, (like hitlers guards hated Jews) they also enjoy, enjoyed their 'jobs'.
sinkingfeeling
(51,445 posts)dalton99a
(81,451 posts)tblue37
(65,328 posts)Immigration Enforcers, Unleashed By Trump, Can Finally Do Our Jobs Again. Agents said they felt constrained under Obama. Now, under Trump, they think they hold the power.
SNIP
ICE and Border Patrol agents anticipated theyd get more support under the new president, said Marielena Hincapié, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center.
Agents told immigrant rights advocates about feeling really emboldened, Hincapié said. Like, Wow, things could change, were going to do whatever we want, we agents will finally get to decide who gets deported and who doesnt.
Today, there is a clear everything goes and everyone is a target culture in ICE, said Greisa Martinez, advocacy director at the undocumented activist group United We Dream. Its the realization of the dreams of a lot of ICE agents that endorsed Trump.
SNIP
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-immigration-border-deportations_us_58a49e7be4b0ab2d2b1b6ed3?section=us_politics
ogsball
(356 posts)I'm not defending President Trump at all. I'm just not sure he is capable of running anything. Back in 2008 when President Obama was elected there were similar incidents that I thought were ICE overreach where I lived. I believe that President Obama's people reigned them in over time.
I suspect whenever there is a change in leadership, some people, who want tighter enforcement see it as a time to see how much power they can take before they get stopped. Now there is the problem, is there anyone in the Trump administration who will reign in these folks?
SammyWinstonJack
(44,130 posts)HoneyBadger
(2,297 posts)Less than 1% of deported were gang affiliated.
The focus on gang activity is new and probably unnecessary.
https://www.ice.gov/removal-statistics/2016
ICE conducted 240,255 removals.
58 percent of all ICE removals, or 138,669, were previously convicted of a crime.
2,057 aliens removed by ICE were classified as suspected or confirmed gang members
workinclasszero
(28,270 posts)Expect much worse soon.
mercuryblues
(14,530 posts)meanwhile Democrats have been cut off from meeting with ICE
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10028673424