Deportations stopped for 12 immigrants targeted in raids

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said in a statement Monday that those detained in the raids - mostly from Georgia, Texas and North Carolina - were primarily members of Central American families that crossed the USA border with Mexico since May 2014.

The families include a 33-year-old Salvadoran mother and her two boys picked up in the Dallas area on Saturday, and taken to the Dilley family detention center, outside of San Antonio.

Ryan Campbell, communications director for the DRM Action Coalition, which advocates for Dreamers, or illegal immigrants brought to the U.S.as children, said Mrs. Clinton's tepid response to the raids follows her initial reaction to the Central American surge in 2014, when she said they should be deported as quickly as possible - a sentiment that didn't go over well with immigration-minded voters.

"Secretary Johnson has himself admitted the raids are created to deport as many as possible, as quickly as possible", said Wang, calling the system "rigged against" immigrant families.

The raids had been rumored for days after a report in The Washington Post revealed that immigration authorities were planning a nationwide sweep this month.

"Fellow compatriots, [U.S.] Immigration agents have to show a court order signed by a judge to enter your house".

"It appears to me that the timing is political and tied to coming into an election year and trying to counter the political rhetoric on immigration", said attorney Karen Grisez, a member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association who has worked on immigrant detention issues.

The federal agents burst into homes in the wee hours of the morning, rounding up illegal immigrants for deportation. Dozens of those families were the ones targeted by ICE officials over the weekend, and a total of 121 migrants were detained, the government reported.

Central American immigrants await transportation to a U.S. Border Patrol processing center after crossing the Rio Grande from Mexico into the U.S. previous year.

Groups that have called for stricter immigration limits have said the raids are long overdue, although they remain skeptical about whether the scale would be large enough to deter future illegal immigration from Central America.

Earnest said the efforts are "consistent with the priorities the president himself talked about, deporting felons, not families, with a focus on individuals who only recently crossed the border".

Unzueta said that the raids were "nothing new", but noted that in recent years ICE had targeted only those with criminal records. The flow is increasing again, as is the violence, particularly in gang-infested El Salvador.

The points listed are deportation, border security, unaccompanied children, smuggling, cooperation with the Mexican government, public awareness, citizenship and the Flores case, which addresses child migrants. Quan observes that "if the parent has had the hearing and [the court has] found that there's no fear of persecution in their home country, and the judge has ordered them removed, then the order would apply to the children as well as to the adult that brought them".

The feds plan to continue to expand a messaging campaign to convince families to stay in their home countries, illustrating the "dangerous realities of the journey" while "highlighting the recent enforcement operations", Johnson said. "But, we must enforce the law consistent with our priorities", Johnson said.

Some 121 undocumented immigrants and their children are being deported after being caught in a series of raids in multiple states over the weekend, USA officials said Monday.

"Migration is a natural human phenomenon that when people are hungry they move where the food is, when they are thirsty, they move where the water is and where there is violence, they move away from the violence", said Rev Ken Heintzelman, the head pastor of Shadow Rock.

"I can assure you that politics did not factor in these kind of enforcement decisions", the spokesperson said.

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