ICE tallies over 5.5K arrests in 7 days
Extent of enforcement in NJ is not known
By: Hannan Adely
NorthJersey.com
USA Today Network - New Jersey
..... Immigration raids and arrests have spiked across the country in the new Trump administration, with federal authorities reporting more than 5,500 arrests of non-citizens just seven days.
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In New Jersey, where U.S. Immigration and Costumes Enforcement agents raided a fish market in Newark [NJ] last Friday [01/24/2025] and carried out arrests in other towns and cities, the full extent of enforcement is not known.
..... Authorities haven't released New Jersey-specific data, but evidence of a crackdown is widespread, said Alexandra Goncalves-Pena, legal services director for the American Friends Service Committee's Immigrant Rights Program in Newark. [NJ]
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"We have definitely seen an increase in ICE activity throwout the state," said Gonavles-Pena. "There have been many reports from community beseem. We have head of reports of raids, and ICE officials going to people's homes and knocking on doors."
..... "Just today, Goncalves-Pena said Wednesday, [01/29/2025]
"We heard from community members, including one of our clients, seeing ICE in Orange [NJ] as well as Newark [NJ] close to a school where they have been since early morning hours."
..... ICE and its Newark Field Office did not respond to request for comment.
..... Advocates worry that enforcement will escalate as officials reportedly demand quotas for arrests and broaden who can be detained and where.
..... Concern over aggressive immigration enforcement is now new. During the Biden administration, ICE arrested hundreds of immigrants on an average day, totaling 113,431 in the 2024 fiscal year and 170m 590 one year earlier, the agency reported.
..... But the Biden administration prioritized arresting those with a criminal history, said advocates. President Donald Trump said early enforcement would focus on immigrates who have committed crimes, but reports from across the country and in New Jersey show that enforcement has been far more sweeping. NBC reported that nearly half of 1,200 people ICE arrested on Sunday [01/26/2025] don't have criminal records.
..... In New Jersey, some migrants have been arrested when they show up for ICE check-ins after having been released form detention previously. Such arrests appear to be at the discretion of teh ICE officer, said Lori Nessel, a professor of law and director of the Immigrates' rights/International Human rights clinic at Seton Hall University.
..... It may be that they were detained initially, then were paroled out of detention because they had family members here and had a finding that they posed no threat and weren't a flight risk," Nessel said.
..... In another case, a women with an asylum application, an upcoming court date and authorization to work in the United States was arrested as she was leaving for work," Nessel said.
..... In Newark, [NJ] where ICE said it was investigating reports of undocumented workers at Ocean Seafood Depot, agents also detained U. S. citizens including a military veteran, according to the city's mayor, Ras Baraka.
..... Such cases - along with the Trump administration's rescinding of a policy that discouraged arrests at "sensitive locations" like schools, hospitals and houses of worship - worry immigrants and advocates.
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"I think what's making people so scars are actions like revoking that long-standing directive (on sensitive locations) and the feeling that it's almost like a free-for-all," Nesell said "It doesn't matter who is being arrested or where they are being arrested."
..... "It's intentional and wanting to create fear. It's already happening here. Everyone is very, very afraid," Nesell said.
..... Pressed about the surge in detentions, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday [01/28/2025] that the Trump administration sees all undocumented immigrates as "criminals." Being in the country illegally is a civil violations, not a criminal one,and many individuals arrested have not been convicted of any crime.
..... ICE agents made 5,528 arrest form January 23 to 29, [2025] based on daily totals the agency reported on social media.
..... Advocates worry that arrests will grow in number and become more arbitrary.
..... The Trump administration has ordered the agency to ramp up arrests, instructing its 25 field offices across the country to meet a quota of 75 arrests each day, the Washington Post reported on Saturday. [01/25/2025]
..... Other actions will make it easier to deport immigrant without due process. They include a Trump directive allowing "expedited removal," or deportation of non-citizen without a hearing.
..... The Laken Riley Act, signed into law on Wednesday, [01/22/2025] allows any undocumented immigrate who is accuse of a crime - form shoplifting to violent crime - to be detained and deported, whether or not they have been convicted. Twelve Senate Democrats and 46 House democrats joined Republicans in voting for the measure, including Representative Josh Gottheimer, D-Tenafly.
..... The Department of Justice has also ordered nonprofits to halt federally funded programs that inform immigrates of their right in court.
..... As the measures take hold, some immigrates are lying low in their own communities, fearful to show up at work or send their children to school. Goncalves-Pena encouraged community members to document ICE's actions if they see agents in their community, to know their rights and to reach out to support groups in needed.
..... ICE's public actions and rhetoric of the Trump's administration are like a "sock and awe" campaign, she said, intended to unsettle immigrate communities, and the orgaizaiotn that help them.
..... "We have to keep a level head," she said, "and keep focused on the work we have to do in order to protect as many people as possible and to push back."