Legal immigrants in Trump raids involved

Pablo Morales has nothing against Donald Trump, and when the US President promised mass deportations, he was not worried because he thought as a legal migrant from Cuba that they would only affect criminals.

But then immigration officers arrested his son Luis – a driver who has never broken the law and was also legally in the USA.

“He has all his papers, he has his social security number, his work permit,” Morales told AFP and showed the documents.

The two men visited friends in Denver when they were awakened by a raid to the immigration and customs authority (ICE).

When agents knocked on the door, they presented their papers calmly that they had nothing to fear – until Luis was tied up with handcuffs and sent to an administrative liability center.

It still has to be released.

Luis filled up paper stuff to apply for the stay in 2023, but the agents told his father that he had no answer to his application.

Immigration lawyers say that the fault is in the US immigration system, where cases often attract for years due to a lack of judges.

Luis has been living in New York for almost four years and is married to an American citizen.

“He is not a criminal,” emphasizes his father.

“He is a hardworking boy like me; we came to this country … to work,” explains this former employee of a Las Vegas Casino.

ICE did not answer several inquiries about comments if they were contacted by AFP.

The agency said on social media that it carried out several raids in Aurora on February 5 in Aurora, a suburb of Denver.

“Over 100 members of the violent Venezuelan gang tren de Aragua were today aligned in Aurora, Colorado, by ICE for the arrest and imprisonment in Aurora, Colorado,” published it.

According to a report by Fox News, around thirty people were arrested, of whom only one was a gang member.

“I don't understand,” said Morales. “They searched for Venezuelans who are part of a criminal gang.

“When he is a Cuban and he shows his papers, I don't know why they come to take him away.”

Local media reported that an asylum seeker was also merged into this special raid.

– 'Photo ops' –

Trump rode back to the White House with a wave of anti-immigrant mood that was sweging America.

He promised to “carry out the biggest deportation process in history”.

According to a report by NBC, the data in February – Trump's first full month in office – in February fewer people – deported Trump's first full month in office – deported to the same month of the previous year.

However, his actions were very visible, and military jets that were used to relocating handcuffs in Latin American countries or in Guantanamo Bay.

Colorado knows that it is in the crosshairs.

Its capital Denver is a sanctuary in which the democratic authorities restrict the cooperation between the local law enforcement authorities with the federal immigration police.

And Aurora was occupied by Trump and conservative media as a symbol of an “occupied America” ​​because a viral video shows how armed men break into an apartment there.

The city police point out that the crime has fallen in Aurora in the past two years.

The raids of the last month were hardly more than “photo ops,” says Laura Lunn, an immigration lawyer.

“I think the focus on Aurora was initially an invented story. They try to solve a problem that never existed,” says Lunn, member of the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network.

“The rhetoric that the government uses – associated immigration and criminals – is really harmful because these two things are not the same.”

ICE says that their agents aim at criminals, but they are satisfied with “collateral arrests”.

During the first month of the Trump Presidency, the proportion of people detained by ice rose from six to 16 percent, according to the New York Times.

Lunn says nobody is more to be in safety, even immigrants who are only waiting for their day in court, but are in order.

She advises her concerned customers to always have photocopies of their files.

“People are arrested today that I would never have suspected a month ago that they would be arrested,” she says.

“It is really difficult for us to predict who may be at risk.”

RFO/HG/of the/SN