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Immigration Arrests Rise Almost 40 Percent in Trump’s First 100 Days
REUTERS
U.S. arrests of suspected illegal immigrants rose by nearly 40 percent in the first 100 days of Donald Trump's presidency, following executive orders that broadened the scope of who could be targeted for immigration violations, according to government data released on Wednesday.
The acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Thomas Homan said that arrests by his agency jumped to 41,318 between January 22 of this year and the end of April, up from 30,028 arrests in roughly the same period last year.
Of those arrested almost two-thirds had criminal convictions. But there was also a significant jump - of more than 150 percent - in the number of immigrants not convicted of further crimes arrested by ICE: 10,800 since the beginning of the year compared to 4,200 non-criminal arrests in the same period in 2016.
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| ICE agents at a home in Atlanta during a targeted enforcement operation in February. (Bryan Cox / ICE via AP) |
TRUTHDIG
The new data reflect Trump’s campaign promise to crack down on undocumented immigration in the U.S. and come after months of anecdotes about immigration raids and arrests in various communities. And while numbers have shown that deportations were lower under Trump than in the same period a year ago, the new information is the first concrete evidence of the new administration’s strict immigration policy in action.
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“Those that enter the country illegally, they do violate the law, that is a criminal act,” Homan said on the call, while emphasizing that immigrants who pose a threat to national security or have criminal records are still a priority for the agency.
He said ICE will continue to target people who have been issued a final order of removal by an immigration judge even if they have not committed another crime.
“When a federal judge makes a decision and issues an order that order needs to mean something,” Homan said. “If we don’t take action on those orders, then we are just spinning our wheels.”