Baltimore Among 10 Cities Targeted In ICE Raids

BALTIMORE, MD — Although immigration raids were expected to start Sunday in 10 major U.S. cities, including Baltimore, there were no reports of such activity in Charm City. Mayor Jack Young said that he opposed the operation, and the Baltimore Police Department codified a policy in the days before the raids stating its officers would not participate, including providing traffic control around areas where immigration enforcement is taking place.

"Immigrants who call Baltimore home should not live in fear of family separation and deportation, and I will continue to do all that is in my power so that all Baltimore residents, including immigrants, feel safe and welcome in our city," Mayor Young said in a statement Friday.

The raids expected to take place Sunday reportedly planned to target about 2,000 people who had been previously ordered out of the country but were still living in Baltimore, Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New Orleans, New York City and San Francisco.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity in Baltimore could occur between Sunday and Thursday, a spokesperson for the Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs told The Baltimore Sun.

Organizers of Baltimore's Latin American Folklore Fest, which took place Sunday in Patterson Park, told WJZ that attendance was lower than projected, which they attributed to fears of ICE activity.

ICE may have begun its sweep in the greater Baltimore area on Saturday. Video that was reportedly filmed in Howard County showed ICE agents attempting to contact residents in a neighborhood there around 9:45 a.m. on Saturday, July 13, according to Somos Baltimore Latino, a Facebook page for Baltimore's Latino community. The write-up accompanying the video identified the location as Ellicott City, while someone who commented on the post said it was Jessup. Howard County also experienced ICE activity on June 26, when several people were detained in Columbia.

Immigration enforcement operations taking place regularly since 2003 have often produced hundreds of arrests, but in the past, ICE has focused efforts on rounding up criminals who pose a threat to public safety. What’s different this time is that agency is targeting families who had expedited court dates, in hopes of deterring those waiting in Mexico to cross the southern border, acting ICE director Mark Morgan told reporters last month.

President Donald Trump first announced the raids with a June 17 Twitter post, saying authorities would start removing "millions of illegal aliens." But he said days later that the operation had been delayed to give Congress a chance to address problems at the southern U.S. border. He confirmed to reporters at the White House Friday that ICE would be conducting a sweep this weekend to pick up people who had outstanding deportation orders.

"Should any of our immigrant residents be impacted by the threatened ICE raids in the coming days, which I genuinely hope is not the case," Mayor Young said Friday, "I would encourage them to access the resources available through Safe City Baltimore, a public immigration defense fund that provides immigrants with a continuum of legal assistance."

Baltimore Police Commissioner Michael Harrison also codified a new policy this week around immigration, which states: "BPD shall not engage in, assist or support immigration enforcement" unless it involves a direct threat to public safety or meets one of several other conditions. (The policy is published at the bottom of this article.)

"Members are not permitted to accept requests by ICE or other agencies to support or assist in civil immigration enforcement operations, including but not limited to requests to establish traffic perimeters related to immigration enforcement," the policy says. "In the event a member receives a request to support or assist in a civil immigration enforcement action, they shall report the request to their supervisor, who shall decline the request."

A rally Friday night in front of City Hall drew immigration activists and lawmakers in a show of support for immigrant communities. "No more deportation," attendees chanted.

"Our police department is not going to do the work of ICE by enforcing administrative warrants," Councilman Eric Costello said at the rally.

"We must stand up and support our neighbors, because here in Baltimore, we're a welcoming city. We are welcoming, open to all," Council President Brandon Scott said. "Because once you come into Baltimore City and you live in Baltimore City and you are a neighbor in Baltimore City, you are nothing more than a Baltimorean, and we welcome everyone into Baltimore."

• Baltimore Remains A Welcoming City: Mayor To Immigrants
• ICE Activity Reported In Columbia
• Bethesda Church Offers Mother Sanctuary From Deportation

Trump says allowing undocumented immigrants to stay in the country isn’t fair to others who have been waiting for years to become U.S. citizens through a legal process.

Delivering on hardline immigration promises he made in the 2016 campaign is top of mind for Trump as he seeks a second term. He wrote on Twitter last month that the raids mark the beginning of a push to deport millions of people in the country illegally.

The raids were originally to have taken place in late June. Trump delayed the operation after talking to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California, and gave congressional Democrats two weeks to pass a $4.6 billion border aid package. Also, details of the operation had been leaked, some by Trump himself via Twitter, and authorities were worried about the safety of ICE officers.

The agency didn’t offer any specifics ahead of this weekend's raids, saying only in a statement: “As always, ICE prioritizes the arrest and removal of unlawfully present aliens who pose a threat to national security, public safety and border security.”

As fear swept immigrant families, many stayed home from work, skipped medical appointments and kept their children inside. But with broader authority in the current operation, ICE agents are able to enter people’s homes.

Former Department of Homeland Security officials who spoke to The New York Times said the raids will produce "collateral arrests" of people who happen to be on the scene who weren’t specifically targeted for deportation, but are deportable.

Former homeland security officials told The Times that family members arrested together will be held in family detention centers in Texas and Philadelphia when possible, but because space is limited, some could also be put up in hotels while their immigration courts process their travel orders.

Trump has been under increasing political pressure for days to reconsider the raids, which critics argue take resources away from Border Patrol detention centers that already are detaining four times the number of people they’re designed to hold. In a report last week, government inspectors described filthy, unhealthy conditions inside some Border Patrol stations, including some in which adults were forced to stand for days on end and centers jammed for more than two weeks with children younger than 7.

Immigration activists held rallies across the country, including in Baltimore, Friday to show their opposition to the detainment of undocumented immigrants.

The American Immigration Lawyers Association provided the following hotlines as resources for those in Baltimore who may have a loved one detained:

• CASA: 1-866-678-2272 (24 hours/day; 24 hors/dia)
• Sanctuary DMV: 202-335-1183 (7 days/week - 7 dias/semana, 9 a.m.-9 p.m.)
• United We Dream: 1-844-363-1423 (Monday-Friday/lunes-viernes, 6 a.m.-9 p.m.)
• CAIR Coalition: 202-331-3329 (Monday-Friday/lunes-viernes, 9 a.m.-5 p.m.)

1021 Immigration Status Policy From BPD

The Associated Press and Patch editor Beth Dalbey contributed to this report.