US authorities may have explained away the recent raids rounding up hundreds of illegal immigrants from latin American countries as a “routine” operation, but President Donald Trump has not shied away from claiming credit for it, asserting that the raids are in fulfilment of one of his major campaign promises.
“The crackdown on illegal criminals is merely the keeping of my campaign promise. Gang members, drug dealers & others are being removed!” Trump said on Sunday in a Twitter post, virtually disregarding the Department of Homeland Security’s earlier description that it was a routine operation.
The operation has heightened the sense of anxiety gripping a wide cross-section of undocumented immigrants across the US. Their number is estimated at more than 11 million, while Trump has indicated that his initial push will be to see that immigrants with criminal records are removed from the country.
According to latest reports, more than 600 people from across 11 US States were rounded up during the week-long operation. About 160 of them were arrested from los Angeles and 40 from New York. Another 200 were picked up from Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina, and about 200 more from Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri and Wisconsin.
“The focus of these targeted enforcement operations is consistent with the routine, targeted arrests carried out by ICE’s Fugitive Operations Teams on a daily basis,” said a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson, who denied rumours floating on Sunday about new raids in New York and Missouri, terming it “irresponsible, baseless fear-mongering”.
Although the previous administration of President Barack Obama is said to have deported more than 4,00,000 illegal immigrants during his eight years at the helm, this past week’s operation has given rise to fears that Trump will ramp up the scale and severity of enforcement in the coming weeks and months.
An unnamed DHS official was quoted as telling The New York Times on Sunday: “The President has been clear in saying that DHS should be focused on removing individuals who pose a threat to public safety, who have been charged with criminal offenses, who have committed multiple immigration violations or who have been deported and re-entered the country illegally.”
The Trump administration, meanwhile, is considering “all options” including the President coming up with a “brand new” executive order to temporarily ban the entry of citizens from the seven Muslim-majority nations of Iran, Iraq, libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen – an operation that has been stayed by a Seattle court and confirmed by a San Francisco-based federal appeals court.
“We have multiple options and we’re considering all of them,” White House Policy Advisor Stephen Miller said in interviews to TV networks on Sunday. The options listed by him include seeking an emergency hearing before all the judges on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, seeking an emergency stay at the Supreme Court, taking the case to trial at the district level, and Trump issuing a new executive order.
Trump himself had indicated on Friday that his administration would come up with its course of action by Monday or Tuesday and that the options could very well include issuing a “brand new” executive order.
Miller, slamming the “judicial usurpation” by the district and appeals courts, asserted: “The President’s powers here are beyond question. The President has the authority to suspend the entry of aliens into this country.