On Monday President Donald Trump elicited massive outrage when he tweeted this threat: “Next week ICE will begin the process of removing the millions of illegal aliens who have illicitly found their way into the United States. They will be removed as fast as they come in.”
Reports quickly came in revealing that ICE, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, was not only unaware of the plan, but did not have the manpower in place to execute it.
In short, it was seen as an idle threat.
Now The Washington Post and others are reporting the raids will start Sunday. Children literally could come home from school, summer camp, or being out with friends to find their parents are gone, and on their way to being deported. It is unclear if there is a plan for these children, many of whom are legal U.S. citizens.
“President Trump has directed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to conduct a mass roundup of migrant families that have received deportation orders, an operation that is likely to begin with predawn raids in major U.S. cities on Sunday, according to three U.S. officials with knowledge of the plans,” the Post has just reported.
The plan is not only inhumane, but ill-conceived.
Acting DHS Secretary Kevin McAleenan “has warned that an indiscriminate operation to arrest migrants in their homes and at work sites risks separating children from their parents in cases where the children are at day care, summer camp or friend’s houses and not present for the raids.”
In a grotesque bit of reporting, the Post adds:
“White House and ICE officials believe agents will be able to make many ‘collateral arrests’ by vacuuming up foreigners living in the country illegally at or near the target locations.”
And in a clear cut example that this is also retaliatory and designed to send a message, Acting ICE director Mark Morgan says: “The message has gotten out that if you bring a kid, nothing will ever happen to you…We need to make sure we’re sending the message that will not be tolerated any more.”
Image via U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement/Wikimedia