Groups Demand End of Immigration Raids
Immigration Impact reports on pushbacks to the Obama administration use of immigration raids to return Central Americans to their home countries.
Last month, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced that since the end of January they have been conducting “Operation Border Guardian,” which has been focusing on the removal of individuals who came to the United States as unaccompanied children after January, 1, 2014, but are now 18 or older. As of March 9, DHS had apprehended 336 individuals through these continued raids.
In response, over 150 organizations sent a letter to Secretary Johnson asking that he stop the raids against Central Americans, most of whom have come to the United States fleeing violence. As the letter notes, “The very title of this operation points to a much larger problem: DHS’s treatment of a humanitarian situation primarily as a border security issue. More specifically, the operation will have the effect of returning refugees to face persecution and is already creating a climate of fear across immigrant communities.”
KJ