Inside an ICE immigration enforcement operation

With President-elect Trump promising a crack down on undocumented migrants, NBC News’ Gabe Gutierrez went on an Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid in Boston, where ICE against said they are lacking resources.  For more on immigration enforcement operations, click here. 

The fears of enforcement operations are illustrated in this story from a Haitian migrant interviewed by NBC News:

“In an interview at a church that caters to immigrants, she said her agonizing journey to the United States took two years. 

`I left Haiti because of the security issue — my life was in danger,’ she said. `I felt like I couldn’t stay there anymore.’

The trek took her from Haiti to Brazil and nearly a dozen other countries before she arrived in the United States.  

She said she crossed the notorious Darien Gap — a lawless jungle in Panama that often proves deadly for migrants. She’d sleep in buses and in the woods before finally she arrived in Texas in 2021. She now lives in Boston, one of 170 so-called sanctuary cities in the country. She was able to send for her 8-year-old daughter and two years ago gave birth to another girl, who is a U.S. citizen.

The woman is one of 1.2 million immigrants in the United States under Temporary Protected Status — or TPS . . .. Haiti is one of those countries. 

In 2020, Trump ended TPS for over 300,000 immigrants . . . . Trump made mass deportations and ending TPS centerpieces of his re-election campaign, and the woman is worried about her future.

`The only thing that is that troubles me is hearing people saying that once Donald Trump takes office in January, he will deport everyone. And I can’t stop thinking about that,’ she said. 

Since one of her children is a U.S. citizen, she fears the possibility that she would be separated from the 2-year-old — a concept she finds unfathomable.

`I don’t know what I would do,’ she said. `I would probably die.’”  (bold added).

KJ