What Mass Deportation Looks Like
“Terrible things are happening outside. At any time of night and day, poor helpless people are being dragged out of their homes… Families are torn apart; men, women and children are separated. Children come home from school to find that their parents have disappeared.”
— Anne Frank, from The Diary of a Young Girl
Yesterday I encountered that quote above by Anne Frank as the voiceover for a TikTok video montage of fathers and mothers who have been arrested by ICE. Many of the comments posted in response to it were from MAGA folks saying things like “we want more of this, not less” and “God bless ICE.” I am left speechless. I keep trying to come up with something to say about this, typing and deleting, typing and deleting, but I have nothing except hollow despair. How are there so many people who can’t recognize cruelty, or who do recognize it and celebrate it?
I have a couple of drafts in progress for this newsletter, but I’m having a hard time thinking about them. So I decided in the meantime I would just share some links to stories of people who have been arrested by ICE and detained or deported—mothers, fathers, working people, students, legal residents in many cases.
DHS deported a Honduran mother with her 2-year-old U.S. citizen son on April 25, shortly after officials told her to bring her children with her to a scheduled check-in in New Orleans. The agency took the mother into custody and moved to deport her, giving her just two minutes to talk with the child’s father about his future.
DHS deported another Honduran mother from New Orleans along with her two U.S. citizen children, aged 4 and 7. The agency, which apprehended the mother at a scheduled check-in, was fully aware that the 4-year-old has metastatic cancer and was receiving treatment in the United States. “Not only did they deport this family against the mother’s wishes; they were deported without the child’s medication,” said attorney Mich González.
DHS deported a Cuban mother without her 1-year-old, still-breastfeeding daughter, Reuters, the Huffington Post, the Associated Press, El Toque, and other media reported. Heidy Sánchez, who was taken into custody in Tampa at a routine April 24 ICE check-in, said “they told me to call my husband, that our daughter had to stay and that I would go.” The separation was so traumatic for the baby that she had to be taken to the hospital, Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Florida) wrote in a letter to President Trump.
DHS has kept the 2-year-old daughter of Venezuelan parents in the United States after deporting her father to El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison in March and deporting her mother to Venezuela. DHS has claimed without evidence that Maiker Espinoza-Escalona, the father, and Yorely Escarleth Bernal Inciarte, the mother, are tied to the Tren de Aragua criminal group. Independent research has failed to find any criminal records for either parent in Venezuela or Peru, where they lived for several years, or in the United States, beyond their immigration offenses,” the New York Times reported.
On May 1, a family was pulled over in Texas and cited for expired license tags, and then the parents were turned over to ICE. The father, Omar Vargas, was taken into custody on the spot and deported to Mexico shortly after. His wife Denisse Vargas was dismissed with an ankle monitor and allowed to pick up her children from school. Then on Tuesday, May 6, she arrived at an immigration appointment with her three children, ages 9, 5, and 4, two of whom are U.S. citizens. All four of them were detained there and held for 24 hours and then deported to Reynosa, Mexico.
ICE arrested a father of 8 who has lived in the U.S. for 30 years in Frederick County, MD. He is being held and facing deportation while his family struggles to get any information about his situation.
ICE arrested another father who has lived in the U.S. for 30 years in Michigan after he dropped his sons off at school.
ICE arrested another father who has lived in the U.S. for 30 years in the Chicago area.
ICE arrested a father who has been in the U.S. for 20 years in Kentucky.
ICE arrested a father in Texas who has lived in the U.S. for decades. He has a special-needs daughter and was his family’s sole breadwinner.
ICE arrested yet another father who has lived in the U.S. for 20 years in New Jersey.
A mother who has been working through the immigration process and is married to an active-duty U.S. Army serviceman was arrested by ICE in Texas and has been held in detention for several months. The couple has a one-year-old son.
A father who fled to the U.S. from Guatemala to escape violence was arrested in San Diego. One of his children described how agents pulled their father out of the car with force and handcuffed him, injuring his hands, while the children were crying.
A father of five was arrested in Texas on his way to work. Now his family, without their main source of income, is losing their home.
ICE arrested a father in a school drop-off line in Charlotte, NC, frightening other schoolchildren and alarming the community.
A father who came to the U.S. from war-ravaged Vietnam at age 5 was arrested by ICE in Orange County, CA. He has a legal work permit and had been checking in with immigration annually as the rules required.
ICE arrested a mother and police arrested her daughter on a street in Worcester, MA. Two bystanders who tried to help were also arrested:
A 19-year-old Mexican-born Georgia woman who has lived in the U.S. since she was 4 years old continues to face deportation, despite dismissal of the traffic charges that led ICE to arrest her. Her father is also being held, following a separate traffic stop. Neither has any criminal history or charges, apart from their immigration status.
Javier Salazar, a 19-year-old from Venezuela, was interviewed at the Bluebonnet ICE detention facility in Anson, Texas and told the Guardian’s Tanvi Misra, “I thank God that we weren’t sent to El Salvador, but I am still sad knowing that I am in this detention facility when I do not [even] have any tattoos [and have committed] no crimes.” It appears that ICE claimed to have a photo of Salazar carrying a gun, but it was a blue and white water pistol.
The Trump Administration is also targeting green card holders, despite the fact that a green card equates to lawful permanent residence. Agustin Gentile, 31, a green card holder, was arrested and sent to Stewart Detention Center in South Georgia. Another green card holder was arrested upon her return from visiting her sick father in Ireland. She is being held in detention in Tacoma, WA.
Hundreds of foreign-born U.S. college students have been detained or deported—or have fled to avoid detention—apparently because they participated in pro-Palestine protests or posted content online that was critical of Israel. Others are being targeted for different protests.
DHS has turned its attention to farm and construction workers, who do essential and difficult work and notably also pay taxes. To wit, ICE recently raided a Vermont dairy farm and arrested eight immigrant workers. ICE also arrested 14 farm workers in western New York. ICE agents made 78 arrests in Kern County, CA targeting a Home Depot, a convenience store frequented by farmworkers on their way to work, and drivers on roads running between farms. This has had a profound and chilling effect on workers and families across the Central Valley. In upstate New York, ICE rounded up farm workers who had participated in pro-union activism. ICE arrested a roofing crew in Duluth, MN.
A large scale ICE operation disrupted normal life in Nashville as agents set up traffic checkpoints and raided popular nightlife spots along Broadway, where agents rounded up kitchen staff and other workers. Hundreds of people have been detained indefinitely without charges or any indication of criminal history, pending proof of U.S. citizenship or legal residency. Families are left struggling to get information about loved ones who were arrested.
U.S. citizens also continue to get caught up in the MAGA immigration crackdown.
Again, why are we doing this?