The Trump administration’s war on immigrants is intensifying.
We learned on Friday that federal agents carried out raids this week in as many as 10 states amid fears that the administration may be trying to round up and remove law-abiding people. In Austin, agents appeared to detain people in a shopping center parking lot. And in both Texas and and North Carolina, the government allegedly set up checkpoints on roadways.
Agents carried out the latest raids in the daytime, which an unnamed government aide told The Washington Post was “meant to send a message to the community that the Trump deportation force is in effect.”
That differs from the policy of the Obama administration, which carried out raids at night and prioritized people who committed crimes.
The raids also serve as a reminder that besides the ban on immigration from seven predominantly Muslim countries that the president signed on Jan. 27, he signed two executive orders two days earlier that call for, among other things, an intensification of roundups and removal of millions of undocumented immigrants from the U.S. interior, the hiring of 10,000 additional immigration officers, and construction of a wall along the southern border that we learned this week may cost nearly $22 billion.
“Teachers in my district have contacted me — certain students didn’t come to school today because they’re afraid,” Greg Casar, a city council member in Austin, told the Post. “I talked to a constituent, a single mother, who had her door knocked on this morning by [federal agents].”
Responding to criticism of the raids, the Department of Homeland Security said Friday that three-quarters of the 160 detained in Los Angeles this week have felony convictions.
But officials haven’t said how many people were detained nationwide. So we don’t know. Which means that this weekend, there may be people in detention who have done nothing worse than leave the house without identification.
And that could be you or me.