ICE raids: thousands of people protest across the country before the raids

Protesters across the country rallied against the planned ICE raids this weekend, while mayors renewed their commitment to block ICE access to local resources responsible for law enforcement. The agency plans to sweep Sunday 10 cities in order to detain 2,000 immigrants who have been expelled.

The raids were initially scheduled for June at the request of President Donald Trump; however, the president postponed them shortly before starting to give Congress time to develop an immigration reform bill. Trump threatened to go ahead with the raids if the legislature did not succeed progress in two weeks.

This deadline has now passed, and ICE officials announced last week that the agency would raid cities like Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, The New -Orléans, New York and San Francisco from Sunday. Due to tropical storm Barry, the raids on New Orleans and Houston would be postponed.

The Trump administration claimed that raids were necessary to enforce immigration law; after first announcing the operation, Trump tweeted the raids would target people who "fled the law and the courts".

On Saturday, however, protesters in US cities said the raids were a tool the Trump administration hoped to use to intimidate immigrant communities and target families with children who are themselves US citizens.

"It's purely psychological," Robert Suro, professor of public policy at USC, told Los Angeles Times. "This is yet another example of how the Trump administration is trying to use fear as an instrument of immigration control. This generates a lot of fear and anxiety, but not much control. This has nothing to do with the actual application ".

Suro said that there were currently 1 million undocumented migrants waiting for an eviction order, which means that the 2,000 people targeted by ICE represent just 0.2% of expelled.

Trump originally hoped to target more undocumented immigrants; in his initial statement, he pledged "ICE will begin the process of eliminating the millions of illegal aliens who have illegally entered the United States".

The logistical and operational constraints as well as the recommendations of senior officials such as DHS Acting Secretary Kevin McAleenan (who reportedly told the President that a more limited operation targeting 150 families would be wiser) led to a range of scaled down. The refusal of many local governments to cooperate with ICE agents also complicated matters. Before the Sunday raids, many mayors again asked their police services not to help CIE agents operating in their cities.

The mayor of San Francisco, London Breed, said: "If you want to follow them, you will have to go through us."

In Denver, Mayor Michael Hancock said that not only had he ordered his officers to refrain from helping ICE, but that he had instructed social service employees to look after any child left behind. without parents because of the raid.

"We will not put children in cages or leave them in inhumane conditions," Hancock said. "Our job is to help these families as best we can."

Mayor Keisha Bottoms of Atlanta said, "Our officers are not enforcing immigration boundaries. We closed our city's detention centers at ICE because we do not want to be complicit in the separation of families, "and other mayors, including Lori, from Chicago, and Bill de Blasio, from New York, made similar statements.

Citizens of the cities hit by the raids also publicly protested the raids. In Denver, around 2,000 protesters gathered in front of a nearby ICE facility on Friday.

"We believe that every person has the right to dignity," said protester Jason Hayman at the Denver Post. "We also believe that immigrants do not enjoy the dignity they deserve, just like everyone else."

Illinois Governors Juliana Stratton and Jesús "Chuy" Garcia, representing the United States, joined the protesters in Chicago.

Similar protests have also been observed in other affected cities, such as Los Angeles and New York; Citizens in cities not directly targeted by ICE also protested. In Phoenix, protesters blocked the streets and chanted "Release these children!" While protesters were in Philadelphia shouted "Stop ICE!" as they took to the streets on Friday.

ICE's facilities in places such as Greenfield, Mass., Have also seen protesters gather outside.

Despite these protests and the refusal of local governments to coordinate with ICE, the raids should proceed as planned. Although Trump canceled the initial operation a few hours before the scheduled time, Ken Cuccinelli, acting head of the Citizenship and Immigration Services, hinted on Wednesday that he would unlikely to happen again.