The Cruelty of Trump’s War on Immigrants

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On March 28, the building was the scene of an unusual protest as Arely Tomas, an undocumented immigrant from Guatemala, arrived for a mandatory check-in, fearing she might end up in the nearby Buffalo Federal Detention Facility.

After all, another undocumented immigrant from Guatemala was recently asked to come to the ICE office in downtown Syracuse, where he was detained and transported about 115 miles to Batavia for deportation, says an activist who was there. The immigrant has not yet been deported. [Update: The immigrant, Rene Mendez Perez, was deported on April 4.]

So when Tomas, who had been doing her ICE check-ins at Syracuse, where she lives, was instructed to go to this Batavia ICE office, she feared the worst.

“It’s very possible I’ll be detained,” wrote Tomas in a letter read to about seventy immigrant-rights activists from across the state gathered in Batavia that morning. The initial purpose of the rally was to protest the placement of undocumented women detainees at this facility, a sign that the population of detainees continues to grow under President Donald Trump.

But when they learned that Tomas’s check-in had been moved to Batavia, the protesters also took up her cause.

After a brief period, Tomas emerged from the building with a tearful smile of relief. She is free for the time being, but faces another check-in at the end of May. Her supporters, organized by the Workers Center of Central New York, began an impromptu chant, promising when “Arely is under attack,” they will “Stand up, fight back.”

Living on the edge—never knowing if agents will come knocking on your door or if a visit to an ICE office will result in a one-way deportation ticket—has become the norm for many of the nation’s 11 million undocumented immigrants.

After a brief period, Tomas emerged from the building with a tearful smile—she is free for the time being, but faces another check-in at the end of May.

Check-ins, which can take various forms, are supposed to allow ICE to keep tabs on immigrants known to the agency but not in detention. These may involve periodically calling an ICE officer or scheduling a visit to an ICE office. Sometimes staff will set expectations for the people checking in.

One of the expectations for Tomas, thirty-three, is to get passports for her three children—Angel Jesus, eight, Karen, nine, and Lisania, eleven, all born in the United States. Their father and her husband, Hector Navarro, thirty-eight, is like her undocumented and from Guatemala.

Tomas has worked as a part-time cook. Navarro does construction work.

The couple are determined to keep their family together, even if it means taking their children with them to Guatemala. But they worry for their safety should that occur. As American citizens, Tomas says, the children could be targeted.

The family’s predicament is not uncommon, as U.S. immigration officials make use of various Trump orders and tools.

“I personally have seen more terminations of orders of supervision and placements into custody and detention, and attempts to remove people who have not been involved in any significant criminal activities,” says Bob Graziano, a Buffalo-based immigration lawyer.

Since Trump came to office, ICE has stepped up the frequency of Tomas’s check-ins and put Navarro in removal proceedings, with a July court date that could result in a deportation order.

“They are coming for us,” Tomas said in her letter to the activists.

This past December—four days before Christmas—Navarro was surrounded by ICE agents as he pulled into the parking lot of the family’s apartment in Syracuse. After confirming his identity, Navarro was handcuffed and taken to the Batavia facility. Two months later, he was released on $5,000 bond.

“They are coming for us.”

Navarro worries about the effect all of this is having on their children.

“They say that they don’t want their mother in jail,” Navarro says in a recent interview at a church in Syracuse. “They don’t want for her what happened to me.”

The situation faced by Tomas and Navarro is a product of Trump Administration priorities that seem intent on ensuring that no undocumented immigrant should have peace of mind.

“Everybody is being targeted,” says Desiree Lurf, an immigration lawyer representing the family.

That wasn’t always the case. Less than three weeks before Trump took office, the case against Navarro—for being in the United States without authorization—was administratively closed by an immigration judge, with the government’s consent.

He became one of about 350,000 cases no longer on the active calendars of immigration judges.

Guidelines issued by Homeland Security in November 2014 set priorities and encouraged use of prosecutorial discretion. But orders by Trump and then-Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly have cause the gears to shift again.

As a practical matter, prosecutorial discretion is necessary because Immigration judges are already overwhelmed by the growing backlog of active cases—reaching 667,839 by the end of December, according to Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.

But the Trump Administration has reopened many cases and Attorney General Jeff Sessions is reviewing whether immigration judges should even be able to close them.

Between March 1 and May 31 of 2017, the administration moved to reopen 1,329 cases compared with the 430 motions made during a similar period in 2016, according to a review by Reuters.

In looking at Tomas and Navarro, it is difficult to see a good reason for the government to pursue their cases.

Tomas crossed the Mexican border in 2005 and lived with Navarro in Arizona. Border Patrol put Tomas on their radar screen when they spotted her with her baby daughter at a bus stop in Phoenix. Tomas says she ended up spending three days in jail.

Looking at Tomas and Navarro, it is difficult to see a good reason for the government to pursue their cases.

A deportation order against Tomas was issued by a Phoenix immigration judge in 2011 after she missed a court date. By then, she and Navarro had moved to Syracuse and, according to Tomas, she didn’t know about the deportation order until ICE learned of her whereabouts from a 2013 traffic stop of a vehicle where she was a passenger.

Navarro crossed the Mexican border in 2004, has worked hard at various jobs, and has stayed out of trouble. He came to Border Patrol’s attention in 2011, when working at a janitorial job near Syracuse. It made sense for the judge to close the case against him.

“We are not doing anything wrong to anyone,” he says.

Navarro can depend on the continued support of immigration activists as the couple looks for some compassion from the government. But it’s not clear whether that will make a difference.

James Goodman is a freelance writer based in Rochester, New York.