We know that despite Donald Trump’s claims about targeting only “bad hombres,” his immoral mass deportation force has been sweeping up hardworking undocumented parents with no criminal record by the thousands, without any regard for the lives they’ve already built here. Just this week, Oakland nurse Maria Mendoza-Sanchez and her husband, Eusebio Sanchez, were deported to Mexico, despite having clean records, U.S. citizen kids, and years of paying taxes. Now acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) director Thomas Homan is promising even more Marias and Eusebios:
In the seven months since Thomas Homan was appointed to carry out President Trump's promises to crack down on undocumented immigrants living in the U.S., he has been accused of abusing that power by targeting undocumented immigrants without criminal records.
So far, the data seems to back up those accusations, with the percentage of undocumented immigrants without a criminal record arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents increasing each month, from 18% in January to 30% in June.
But Homan, a 33-year law enforcement veteran who has worked along the southern border and is now the acting director of ICE, doesn't shy away from those numbers. In fact, he said they're only the start.
"You're going to continue to see an increase in that," Homan told USA TODAY during a visit to Miami on Wednesday.
It makes perfect sense that Trump selected him to serve as acting director—Homan got his start in federal immigration enforcement as a border agent, today recognized by the Department of Homeland Security as some of the most corrupt federal law enforcement agents in the nation. But back then, Homan was just one man. Today, he has thousands of immigration agents at his disposal.
While the ICE deportation machine isn’t new, former President Barack Obama did establish guidelines instructing DHS on how to prioritize resources, directing ICE to focus first on people who actually did post a threat to public safety. But under Trump, those rules are gone and have been replaced with chaos making just about any undocumented immigrant here without permission vulnerable to deportation.
Immigrant rights group America’s Voice lists some of the other immigration cases Homan, Trump, and Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III are prioritizing for deportation in their effort to make America white, including one undocumented man who “was detained by ICE after he bravely testified in two Brooklyn homicide cases”:
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Agustin Guzaro was detained one day as he stood curbside waiting to secure work as a day laborer in West Palm Beach. He was detained absent any criminal charges and is being held at a detention center in Miami according to his immigration attorney. [myPalmBeachPost, 08/16/17]
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Humberto Cantero, father of four and has been living in the United States for over 15 years, was stopped for driving without a license in February and has since been detained. He is awaiting a final immigration hearing to determine if he will be deported back to Mexico. [ABC7NY, 08/08/17]
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William Siguencia has lived in the United States since 2002 and is married to a U.S. citizen, was detained by ICE after he bravely testified in two Brooklyn homicide cases. ICE objected to releasing Siguencia Hurtado on $20,000 bond, that was ultimately granted. [Daily News NY, 08/15/17]
Feeling safer yet, America?
“Homan may think he’s having a moment,” said the group’s executive director, Frank Sharry. “In fact, it's more than a moment. He’ll never be forgotten. And history will not be kind to him and his full embrace of the Trump-Sessions deportation push.”