ICE Raids: California On Edge And On The Frontline

LOS ANGELES, CA — Fear and confusion reigned in immigrant communities across California and the nation Sunday as people waited for signs of President Trump's threatened Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids.

In the past such operations were conducted with little forewarning and early in the morning to catch people at home and unawares. However, by 10:31 p.m. Sunday, there was no sign of the mass raids in California — Los Angeles and San Francisco are among the 10 cities nationwide identified as targets in the raids. ICE officials confirmed reports of arrests in the New York City area that began Saturday night and continued into the early morning Sunday. Civil rights groups claimed Sunday that legal maneuvers may have helped to subdue the planned raids.

It's possible the raids have simply been delayed and not abandoned.

National news coverage reported Sunday that individual ICE field offices were given the discretion to decide when a sweep would happen.

In that vein, immigration officials declined to reveal their strategies, indicating it could threaten the safety of their agents and jeopardize their operations.

ICE officials took advantage of the publicity garnered by the threatened raids, tweeting out a report identifying immigrants who allegedly committed serious crimes after they had already been arrested by police agencies that refuse to hold inmates for ICE. All 16 cases are from California, where state law prohibits law enforcement agencies from holding undocumented immigrants for federal immigration detainers. The cases span the Bay Area, Los Angeles, the Inland empire, Ventura and San Luis Obispo counties. Most of the re-arrests involved alleged crimes such as DUI, burglary, drug possession and domestic violence. The most serious cases involve a murder, an attempted murder and a rape. All 16 cases were from 2018.

In the meantime, the waiting game continues.

The threat of mass ICE raids appeared to drive many indoors. Normally bustling Los Angeles neighborhood and businesses were largely empty Sunday.

“I’ve been staring at the front door all day, just hoping a customer shows up," Total Wireless store, salesman Biviano Oxlaj, told the Los Angeles Times. The shop is in the MacArthur Park area, which has a large immigrant community. “Business is down by 75%, and it’s been that way since Saturday,” he said. “But since this is all because of an order from the White House, there’s not much anyone can do but wait for it to pass like a storm cloud.”

Social media began lighting up with unconfirmed reports of ICE presence in the San Francisco and Los Angeles areas.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were expected to carry out raids across the country, targeting an estimated 2,000 people who have previously been ordered deported.

After the American Civil Liberties Union took the U.S. Immigrationand Customs Enforcement to federal court in Northern California, the impact of the planned raids was subdued on Sunday, an immigrants' rights attorney said.

On Saturday, an emergency temporary restraining order was filed by the ACLU on behalf of Pangea Legal Services, a Bay Area nonprofit that provides legal services to immigrants, particularly related to deportation defense.

The decision issued by a federal judge stated that "a noncitizen will not be removed unless and until a reasonable opportunity to talk with an attorney has been provided." The court also put ICE on notice.

"As of 1:30 p.m., no verified ICE activity has been reported through our hotlines, attorney pro-bono list, ICE field offices or anywhere else in the community that we have been monitoring very closely," wrote Pangea Legal Services in a Twitter announcement on Sunday afternoon.

Pangea attorney Edwin Carmona-Cruz said Sunday he believes that the preparedness of the communities, along with the federal court notice, worked to deter ICE from carrying out operations in the Bay Area.

"Anywhere ICE is present, we will be ready to respond," Carmona-Cruz said.

Though the raids have yet to materialize in California, there's been no shortage of protests.

Hundreds of people rallied against the raids in downtown Los Angeles, and in San Francisco, Mayor London Breed vowed to make sure the police department would not cooperate with the raids.

"Our city is committed to not dedicating any financial resources to be cooperating with ICE. We will support and stand by our immigrant community and continue to invest and provide resources to help," she said. "It's really sad that we are in this state of affairs. We have people with families, and children in particular, who are living in fear of going to work, going to school, going about their daily lives and as we continue to try and address this particular issue, we want to make sure that people understand not only what we're doing as a city, but just information and place they can and numbers they can call for help and support," she said.

Breed also reminded immigrants, "If you are arrested, you have the right to remain silent. You have the right to an attorney. Remember, immigration agents generally need a judicial warrant to enter your home."

Los Angeles County Supervisor Hilda L. Solis said immigrants have the right to refuse to open the door if ICE agents show up at their homes.

"If they don't have a warrant with your name on it, you don't have to answer," she said.

Solis issued a statement saying the county "will do everything in its power to ensure that no child regardless of citizenship status will be left alone or abandoned."

"Everyone deserves to be treated with dignity and respect," she said. "Forcibly separating children from their parents is traumatizing and inhumane. Children and their families enduring this type of trauma suffer from lifelong emotional wounds. To rip a child from the warm and loving embrace of their family is an unspeakable crime against humanity. The United States has been and will always be a nation of immigrants. I call on all Americans to reject the politics of division, hate, and fear."

The raids were originally announced in a mid-June Twitter post by President Donald Trump, but were postponed for two weeks for what he said was a chance for Congress to come up with comprehensive immigration reform legislation. It is unclear where those efforts stand, but ICE officials announced late last week that the raids would start Sunday and continue for several days.

"They're going to take criminals out and put them in prison or put them in prison in the countries they came from," President Donald Trump told reporters Friday morning. "We're focused on criminals as much as we can."

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Bakersfield, echoed that sentiment, saying ICE actions are aimed at people who have been ordered out of the country.

"If you have come to this position, you've been here years, you've gone through the court system, you've been found that you have to be deported," he said. "You have to follow the rule of law."

News of the planned raids has sparked outrage among immigrant-advocacy groups, saying the move was an effort to spark unrest among immigrant families. They also contend that while raids may target criminals, other immigrants are often arrested during such actions.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and Los Angeles Police Department Chief Michel Moore have both insisted that city officers will not assist ICE agents in raids. Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva said he was strongly opposed to the raids.

"The presence of undocumented residents in our communities calls for compassion, not threats of deportation and family separation," Villanueva said. "As your Los Angeles County sheriff, I stand for everyone's public safety and understand a basic principle of law enforcement, which is that we cannot ensure public safety if residents are afraid to contact law enforcement to report a crime."

A lawsuit filed Thursday in New York by the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Southern California and other groups alleges that constitutional due process requires the government to bring arrested families and children before an immigration judge so they can have a day in court before facing deportation.

ACLU officials said the suit aims to protect refugee families and children who fled widespread violence in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and other countries at the hands of their governments and murderous gangs. For many of these migrants, obtaining asylum in the U.S. "could be a matter of life and death," according to the ACLU.

ICE spokesman Matt Bourke said the agency "prioritizes the arrest and removal of unlawfully present aliens who pose a threat to national security, public safety and border security."

He added that 90% of those arrested by ICE's Enforcement and Removal Operations division last year had either a criminal conviction, pending criminal charges or had illegally re-entered the country after previously being removed.

"However, all of those in violation of the immigration laws may be subject to immigration arrest, detention and -- if found removable by final order -- removal from the United States," he said.

California is home to an estimated 2.5 million undocumented immigrants, the most of any state and a bout a quarter of the nation's undocumented population.

City News Service and Bay City News contributed to this report.