ICE Reportedly Using Deception And Surveillance To Create ‘Fear,’ ‘Confusion’ As Immigrants Learn Their Rights
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) appears to be having more trouble than it was prepared for as immigrants learn their rights and, as The Inquisitr reported, community members take steps to help immigrants avoid ICE raids.
In response, The Intercept reports that ICE is turning to deception and surveillance.
Laura Williamson, an organizer with Sanctuary DMV, a volunteer response network for ICE raids that helps immigrants proceed through court hearings and appointments, claims that ICE’s mission is to remove immigrants that it believes should not be in the United States communities. She claims that when the agency is unable to apprehend immigrants, they are willing to “bend what we would accept as moral standards of transparency and respect to meet those ends.”
“We know that, we have seen ICE lie about who it is when it knocks on the door, and we have seen ICE dress up as law enforcement or dress down as normal people.”
Williamson says that ICE is also ramping up collateral arrests, which involves arresting other people present with targeted individuals.
Per The Intercept, ICE is also getting bolder in their tactics designed to create confusion and fear. Some ICE agents are reportedly impersonating police officers, normal citizens, and potential employers. The agency is also reportedly using surveillance tactics, following immigrants, and arresting them at traffic stops, on the street, and on their way to work.
ICE has intensified its use of tactics designed to create confusion and fear in communities, and the agency’s ruses have grown more various and elaborate. https://t.co/YK9036Nxst
— The Intercept (@theintercept) July 28, 2019
Ruses, which involves using false pretenses to make arrests, are legal. Not only that, they have been encouraged by ICE for at least 14 years, and leaked internal memos from ICE during the George W. Bush administration confirm this.
“Ruses can run the gamut from announcing that you are with the DRO [Detention and Removal Operations] and looking for a person other than the target to adopting the guise of another agency,” a 2005 memo reads before adding that private entities are often sensitive to their name being used in law enforcement operations.
As The Inquisitr previously reported, ICE is planning to expand its use of the “expedited removal” deportation program. While this program used to allow ICE to fast-track deportation for immigrants that entered the United States within 14 days, the expansion will allow removal for immigrants that have been in the country for less than two years.
Business Insider reports that the American Immigration Council (AIC) claims that the changes allow ICE officers “to serve both as prosecutor (charged with enforcing the law) and judge (rendering a final decision on the case).”