The Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency has committed countless wrongdoings against undocumented immigrants and legal residents in the past and the practices, such as worksite raids, using past records and fingerprints, and separating families at the Mexico-U.S. border, are unethical and disreputable. As a result of these practices and others, many people have been unjustly arrested by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency and deported under false pretenses. Further, these deportations and unjustified arrests exasperate problems I feel deserve more attention than the deportation of illegal immigrants, specifically cases of domestic violence and sexual assault, and the consequences of family separations to a child’s development. In this paper I will attempt to show how these practices are problematic, how domestic violence and sexual assault reports are being underreported due to backlash of the practices used, and the effect parent-child separation has on a child.
Further, since Donald Trump was appointed president in 2017, the number of arrests and deportations of “non-criminal” immigrants has drastically increased, almost doubling from the previous year. Part of the reason the number of undocumented immigrants arrested and deported have drastically risen is due to the “Zero Tolerance” policy passed by Trump that calls for the arrest and prosecution of every illegal immigrant that ICE agents encounter trying to illegally cross the Mexico-U.S. border. This strategy is exceedingly different than the one used during Obama’s presidency, which only calls for the arrest and prosecution of illegal immigrants that are found to have serious criminal convictions on their record. This new policy also partially explains the rapid increase of deportation rates between Obama and Trump’s administration.
Moreover, these practices used by ICE agents to apprehend these individuals are not only immoral and impractical, but according to the American Civil Liberties Union when discussing the various enforcement programs utilized by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency:
…pose a variety of threats to civil liberties: They implicate the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, the constitutional guarantee of due process, the constitutional guarantee of equal protection and freedom from discrimination based on race, ethnicity, and national origin.
A common strategy used by ICE is conducting worksite raids, where ICE agents will target a specific business that they believe to be hiring illegal immigrants. Although the idea of a worksite raid doesn’t seem like an overall bad practice, the manner in which the raid is executed is the problem. The immigrants under scrutiny by the agents have been, in the past, coerced into signing voluntary departure agreements, held without probable cause, denied the right to have a translator during the trial, and numerous other violations of human and constitutional rights. Also, not only do these raids violate countless rights, but they are also financially burdening. In reference to the financial problems, Evelyn Griggs and Brian Schaeffer of the University of North Carolina School of Law state, “…financially devastated small communities, increase costs of litigation for the U.S. citizen tax payer, as well as diminish the reputation of Federal Government and its agencies…”
Additionally, another problematic practice is the use of prior arrest records and fingerprints to determine a possible pool that ICE will monitor, from which they will pick people to apprehend and deport. An example of this method in use is the case of Sergio Carrillo, born in Mexico, but awarded U.S. citizenship in 1994 when his mother was granted legal citizenship, was arrested and brought to an ICE facility where he was held for four days until ICE had realized their mistake. However, during those four days, Carrillo’s claims of being a legal citizen were ignored and when his son brought his father’s passport and citizenship certificate, ICE dismissed the documents. Carrillo’s arrest was in reference to a crime that he had committed over five years ago and had already served time for. This case shows the issue pertaining to the use of prior arrest records and fingerprints, showing how its use could lead to unjustified or mistaken arrests and how discriminative this method could be when monitoring individuals who had committed any type of crime.
Next, another ineffectual method is separating families at the Mexico-U.S. border. If a family is found to be crossing the border illegally, then ICE agents will detain the parents while taking the children and placing them into youth centers or detention centers. These centers can be over thousands of miles away from where their parents are being held, often poorly equipped with enough necessities for each child, and are extremely expensive, costing upwards of $750 a day per child. Further, during their time at these centers, children have little access to communicating with their parents, if any at all. These conditions can have a lasting effect on the children, even causing neurological damage. Also, studies have shown that this parent-child separation can lead to increased aggression, depression, cognitive problems, and many other disorders or problems. Moreover, although this method is used to curb more illegal immigration from happening, roughly the same amount of children are illegally crossing the border as the previous year.
Moreover, all of these practices and the outcomes are negatively affecting the percentages of domestic violence and sexual assault reports. On the authority of Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck, “Reports of sexual assault have dropped 25%, and domestic violence 10% among LA’s Latino Population since the beginning of 2017.” The dropping of reports in not only in Los Angeles, but can also be seen in other cities, such as Houston, San Diego, Denver, and others. The underreporting of these crimes is most likely due to the fear that once a claim of sexual assault is filed and an officer begins to investigate, it would become apparent that the victim is an illegal immigrant and they would be deported. Also, this fear has stemmed from the media attention given to cases of woman who have filed claims of domestic abuse or sexual assault and made an appearance in court, only to be detained by ICE agents when showing up. An example of this is in the case of an undocumented transgender woman, whose name is unknown, had reported domestic abuse and attempted to file a protective order against her abuser. However, when she went to report the crime she was apprehended and detained by ICE agents. This case shows why the sudden decline in reports of these crimes are happening. According to Cora Engelbrecht, who wrote Fewer Immigrants Are Reporting Domestic Abuse. Police Blame Fear of Deportation, writes, “A survey of hundreds of police officers, victims’ advocates and prosecutors across all 50 state…found numerous reports that undocumented immigrants are now more reluctant to call the police, press criminal charges and testify against assailants.”
Furthermore, as of today all of these problems concerning the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, its practices, and the consequences of them all remain the same. Although many people have called out ICE agent’s actions and the need to remedy them, no major solutions have been created. However, one potential improvement when monitoring illegal immigrants is that ICE agents should prioritize their efforts on the undocumented immigrants that have actual serious criminal convictions and pose a threat to the public. Time, money, and resources are wasted when ICE monitors immigrants who committed less heinous crimes, like traffic violations. Also, ICE agents should be put through better training and be taught how to humanely treat the immigrants they encounter, as to not violate more human and constitutional rights as they previously have during the practices, such as worksite raids, that they use. Lastly, the methods used by ICE should be better executed and less discriminative, such as the use of past criminal records and fingerprints.