Trump administration boasts of having detained 5,000 people in L.A. for deportation
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem says the arrests have been made in three months
Surprise operations, raids on car washes, displays of force in public parks, and racial profiling in Home Depot parking lots throughout the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The terror that the Donald Trump administration has spread among the city’s migrant communities has begun to bear the fruits promised in the campaign. This week, the government boasted of having reached 5,000 arrests for deportation purposes in Los Angeles, one of the main sanctuary cities in the United States.
The milestone, achieved in just three months, has been celebrated with characteristic toughness by Kristi Noem, the Secretary of Homeland Security and public face of the deportation campaign. “Make no mistake: if you are here illegally, we will find you, arrest you, and send you back. This is just the beginning,” the official threatened.
Noem thanked the Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for their work. These are the primary forces that have carried out the arrests and, in turn, have had the support of other federal agencies.
The 5,000th detainee is Gustavo García-Miranda, an undocumented immigrant originally from Mexico. García-Miranda has a criminal record for drug trafficking and other offenses. According to government records, he crossed illegally for the first time in 2008.
The administration has framed the deportations as a massive operation in which the United States is ridding itself of “the worst of the worst.” “That’s 5,000 criminal illegal aliens, gang members, child predators, and murderers taken off our streets,” Noem claimed Tuesday. But independent figures tell a different story.
The Mexican Consulate in Los Angeles revealed that diplomatic personnel interviewed 641 people in immigration detention centers in the region between June 6 and August 20. This is the same period in which Noem claims the 5,000 arrests were made.
Twenty-four percent of the 641 people detained in immigration operations have already been deported to Mexico, the consulate reports. Mexicans make up the largest group of undocumented immigrants in Los Angeles, with half a million people, or 53% of the city’s undocumented population. They are followed by Salvadorans and Guatemalans, with 220,000 people. Only 20 detainees have been released after receiving a favorable ruling from an immigration judge.
The diplomatic personnel who have interviewed these detainees, primarily from the states of Guerrero, Oaxaca, Puebla, and Michoacán, paint a clear picture of the individuals being captured by the Trumpist immigration machine.
The vast majority, 85% (549), are men. Half of the group has been in the United States for more than a decade. Another third had been living in the United States between 16 and 25 years. Seven people had lived in the United States for more than 40 years. Nearly 40% have American-born children.
The group included people working in the construction industry, others in gardening or agricultural tasks, and some were employed in factories or as laborers. Thirteen percent were apprehended at car washes, a popular target for federal authorities. So much so that a new operation was carried out this Thursday in the city of Rosemead, east of Los Angeles, with an undetermined number of arrests.
Detainees in Georgia
Washington has been flexing its muscles for weeks. The government announced last week that it has arrested 4,500 undocumented immigrants in Georgia bewteen January 21st and July 31st. The figure represents a 367% increase compared to the 963 arrested during the first half of Joe Biden’s presidency.
The number of arrests in the southern state served as an opportunity for Trump-supporting officials to criticize the Democratic president’s immigration policies. “His open borders allowed Laken Riley’s killer to be in the country and gave him the opportunity to brutally murder the young nursing student,” charged DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin.
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