Migrants braced for ICE raids in 10 cities

Despite signs that the sweeps have started, Sunday was mostly quiet

Fear gripped migrant communities in the US, and immigrant advocate groups were on heightened alert as federal agents prepared to carry out raids in major cities on Sunday to deport thousands of undocumented people.

President Donald Trump insisted that the raids will focus primarily on deporting criminals, though he acknowledged that the agents will be targeting anyone who crossed the southern border illegally.

"It starts on Sunday, and they're going to take people out and they're going to bring them back to their countries," the president said. "Or they're going to take criminals out, put them in prison, or put them in prison in the countries they came from."

The raids by ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents were expected to take place in Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York and San Francisco.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said he received reports that the crackdown was already underway in the city.

The mayor said ICE agents did not succeed in rounding up any residents of Brooklyn's Sunset Park neighborhood and Harlem.

A group of Chicago aldermen and activists were patrolling the city on bicycle to look for immigration authorities detaining people.

In New Jersey, more than 70 people protested at an ICE Detention Center and nearby Amazon Fulfillment Facility in Elizabeth on Sunday, nj.com reported.

ICE said it had arrested 20 people in the San Diego area on Friday.

ICE said of those arrested, "85 percent had prior criminal convictions and/or prior criminal charges". The convictions were for drugs and weapons offenses, hit-and-run, driving under the influence, theft, domestic violence, evading law enforcement and fraud.

In Tacoma, Washington, a 69-year-old man armed with a rifle threw incendiary devices at an immigration detention center around 4 am Saturday, then was found dead after four police officers arrived and opened fire, authorities said.

The Tacoma Police Department said the officers responded about 4 am to the privately run Tacoma Northwest Detention Center, a US Department of Homeland Security facility that holds migrants pending deportation.

The Pierce County Medical Examiner's Office identified the man as Willem Van Spronsen of Vashon Island, the Tacoma News-Tribune and the Seattle Times reported.

Police said Van Spronsen caused a vehicle to catch fire and that he attempted to ignite a large propane tank and set buildings on fire. Police said that besides the rifle, he had a satchel and flares.

After shots were fired, officers located Van Spronsen and determined he had been hit and was dead at the scene. The four Tacoma police officers who fired their weapons have been placed on paid administrative leave.

Deb Bartley, who told The Seattle Times she has been a friend of Van Spronsen for about 20 years, described him as an anarchist and anti-fascist.

"He was ready to end it," Bartley said. "I think this was a suicide."

Most of the United States' 10.7 million unauthorized immigrants live in just 20 major metropolitan areas, with the largest populations in New York, Los Angeles, Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth, according to Pew Research Center estimates based on government data released last month.

Local ICE branches could start the raids sooner or later than Sunday, officials said, and last at least through Thursday.

Amy Lin, immigrant rights program manager at Chinese for Affirmative Action, a San Francisco-based civil rights organization, told China Daily on Friday that "we have seen ICE operations in the Bay Area since last week''.

"Though the undocumented immigrants will be directly impacted, all people of color are targeted, '' she said. "The raids are politically motivated and meant to terrorize the immigrants and try to deter those migrants from coming into the US.''

Hundreds of thousands of migrants have crossed the southern border this year, many fleeing violence and poverty to seek asylum in the US.

Arrests at the border dropped by 28 percent in June, according to the Department of Homeland Security, the first time this year that the number of border crossings declined.

The department said earlier this month that 104,344 arrests occurred in June, down from 144,278 in May — the highest monthly total in 13 years. It credited the drop to security forces Mexico deployed to prevent migrants from reaching the US border and the expansion of a program that forces migrants to wait in Mexico as their immigration cases are processed.

The nationwide immigration enforcement operation had been announced and subsequently postponed by Trump last month over protests from Democratic lawmakers and others.

Federal immigration authorities said they hoped the new effort would sweep up at least 2,000 undocumented migrants.

The raids will pursue people with final deportation orders, including families whose immigration cases were fast-tracked by judges in the major cities.

The administration's removal efforts will include "collateral" deportations, or "immigrants who happened to be on the scene, even though they were not targets of the raids", according to The New York Times.

The looming raids could have long-lasting impacts on immigrant communities, said UC Davis School of Law dean Kevin Johnson:

"There's real damage to communities. I'm not saying everybody's staying home, but people are fearful of leaving their homes, fearful of going to work, fearful of going to school, fearful of going to the doctor, fearful of going to the DMV."

"It's almost like getting ready for a hurricane – it's that state of alarm that people are feeling," Melissa Taveras of the Miami-based Florida Immigrant Coalition told USA Today. "People are asking, 'Is it OK for us to go work? Is it OK to take our kids to school?'"

In Los Angeles, Cristel Martinez spoke at a vigil organized by advocates in front of Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles on Friday night. She said she was born in Honduras, moved to the US when she was 9 and now is an immigration attorney.

"People are terrified knowing that they are going to have raids this weekend,'' she told China Daily. "I am just reminding them that they have rights, that they don't have to open the doors, and they have the right to not say anything, and they have the right to an attorney as well."

In San Francisco — a so-called sanctuary city where local government officials refuse to help the federal government enforce immigration policy — activists have set up a network of hotlines to confirm reports about raids and readied volunteer lawyers to assist detainees in court.

"It is unconscionable that the Federal administration is continuing to target innocent immigrant families with raids that are designed to inflict as much fear and pain as possible," Mayor London Breed said in a statement on Friday.

In California, government officials and police departments have stressed that local law enforcement does not enforce immigration law and is prohibited from doing so under California's "sanctuary state" policies.

"Know that you are in a community where you are supported, respected, and appreciated," Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf said in a statement on July 11, urging city residents to reach out to the Alameda County hotline.

"It's hard to understand why leaders like Mayor Schaaf think, in their hubris, that they get to decide how these laws should be enforced," said Hugh Bussell, chair of the Alameda County Republican Party. "These are people who had been remanded to leave but remained in the country anyway. It's a function of the federal government to enforce the law."

Robin Hvidston, executive director for "We the People Rising'', a Claremont, California-based group that supports immigration enforcement, said she was "100 percent in support'' of the raids.

"I completely support the removal of people that have deportation orders,'' she told China Daily. "It's about just upholding and enforcing the existing immigration laws."

Lia Zhu in San Francisco, Yinmeng Liu in Los Angeles and The Associated Press contributed to this story.