The Trump administration is defending Wednesday’s U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids in Mississippi, even as “images of weeping children arriving home to find their parents missing” lead to public outrage and concerns by state officials and advocates.
The Washington Post reports that “the arrests again exposed what state and local officials say is a major shortcoming in ICE procedures for dealing with children, as parents who were caught up in immigration-related enforcement activities while at work were unable to pick their children up from school, day-care centers and elsewhere, leaving some of them deserted and scared.”
ICE’s acting director Matthew Albence called the secretive raid a “textbook operation.”
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Welcome to Friday’s edition of Noorani’s Notes.
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300 RELEASED – Federal officials announced the release of nearly 300 of the 680 people detained following Wednesday’s immigration raid in Mississippi, Sarah Fowler reports for the Mississippi Clarion Ledger. “Wednesday afternoon, ICE spokesperson Bryan Cox said everyone taken into custody and detained was asked if they had children. Cox said at the time that everyone would be processed but ‘not everyone is going to be (permanently) detained.’”
FEAR – A deep fear has settled over the immigrant community in Mississippi. Jeff Amy and Rogelio V. Solis report for The Associated Press. “Scott County Superintendent Tony McGee said more than 150 students were absent Thursday from the 4,000-student district, including a number of students in Morton, where the enrollment is about 30% Latino.” Rev. Mike O’Brien, pastor of Sacred Heart of Jesus Catholic Church in Canton, said that “[t]he people are all afraid. … Their doors are locked, and they won’t answer their doors.”
PRIVATE SHELTERS – As the Trump administration continues to force asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their cases wind through backlogged immigration courts, the situation is growing more dire. The San Diego Union-Tribune’s Gustavo Solis traveled to Mexicali, Mexico, to look at privately operated immigrant shelters such as Alfa Y Omega, currently housing more than 350 people. “They pack as many as 50 men into a stifling, windowless room with no air conditioning and routinely withhold donations from migrants.”
CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION – “We Build the Wall,” an online crowdfunding organization that has raised millions in donations to supposedly support the construction of a wall on the southern border, is under criminal investigation, reports Salvador Hernandez at BuzzFeed News. “There have been concerns raised regarding the use of the nonprofit for other fundraising efforts on behalf of its board members, which include former Trump adviser Stephen Bannon and former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach.”
ICE HITS HOMELESS SHELTER – ICE agents attempted to enter a Brooklyn homeless shelter without any warrants on Tuesday night, but were stopped by the shelter’s security guards. Christine Quinn, director of the shelter network, tells Michael Gartland in the New York Daily News: “They showed nothing except for a picture of an individual … The guards kept saying, ‘Show us a warrant signed by a judge.’ They wouldn’t show a warrant.”
CROSSINGS DOWN – Homeland Security officials said Thursday that crossings by undocumented individuals at the southern border were down for the second consecutive month. The Washington Post’s Abigail Hauslohner reports that “U.S. Customs and Border Protection saw its number of apprehensions drop 21 percent in July, to 82,000, the first time in five months that apprehensions have dipped below 100,000. Acting U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Mark Morgan said the drop from May to July was 43 percent, down from a recent high of more than 144,000 in May.”
Thanks for reading,
Ali
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