ICE arrests DACA recipient - then her family
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Daily Dispatch
May 23, 2019
On May 8, Paula Hincapie-Rendon was arrested by ICE agents while driving her daughter to school. In 2004, Hincapie-Rendon’s family fled from violence in Colombia. Their asylum claim was denied in 2009, and a deportation order was issued. In 2015, Hincapie-Rendon was granted protection from deportation under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA), a status that was renewed in 2017. DACA protects some people from removal proceedings if they arrived in the U.S. as children. Hincapie-Rendon should not have been arrested. But what happened next suggests that her arrest was a pretext to get to her parents. From the Chicago Sun-Times
Hincapie-Rendon asked if she could take her daughter back to the house and leave her with her parents. The agents obliged, with one caveat — they would be driving her car while she sat in their van, handcuffed.
“My daughter was crying so loud in the back seat, scared and confused,” she said.
Once at the house, agents found Hincapie-Rendon’s dad, Carlos Hincapie, leaving for work. They arrested him on the spot. Agents then went into the house and arrested Hincapie-Rendon’s mom, Betty Rendon, a Lutheran minister who was set to start her doctorate at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago in June. Agents also arrested Hincapie’s cousin, who was staying with the family.
The agents drove the family to ICE’s field office in the Loop. The agency released Hincapie-Rendon that same afternoon under an order of supervision… Hincapie-Rendon’s parents and her dad’s cousin were taken to an ICE facility in Kenosha County, Wisconsin. They are now being held at the Pulaski County Jail in Ullin, Illinois, and face deportation to Colombia.
You can read the full story here.
Detention reaches an all time high
When the Trump administration talks about the “crisis” at the border and the need for more detention beds, stories like the one above are not mentioned. And yet, nearly 37% of ICE arrests and detentions in December were people with no criminal background. (And please note those with “criminal backgrounds” are not hardened criminals - low level arrests can place someone in removal proceedings and lead to detention, even permanent residence.)
Nevertheless, the Trump administration is now detaining a daily average of more than 50,000 people a day.
From Buzzfeed:
Immigration and Customs Enforcement is detaining more than 52,000 immigrants in jails around the country, officials said Monday, an apparent all-time record as the Trump administration contends with a surge of migrants at the southern border.
As of Monday, ICE was holding 52,398 migrants, of which 998 are family units, an agency official told BuzzFeed News. The number represents a significant population spike from just two weeks ago when ICE was holding more than 49,000 migrants.
Perhaps, coincidentally, GEO Group's stock price got a bump on the Monday news of record detentions. GEO Group is the largest private prison operator contracting with ICE on detentions.
Disaster aid bill held up over Trump immigration plans
And of course, the “crisis” means Trump wants more money to detain people, which means other things cannot get done unless he gets it.
From The Hill:
Immigration's emergence as a sticking point comes after lawmakers managed to work out several other issues. They say they've reached a deal on aid to Puerto Rico despite Trump's previous criticism of the island territory, and Republicans have jettisoned harbor maintenance funding and a short-term extension of the Violence Against Women Act.
The White House's $4.5 billion border money request included $3.3 billion for humanitarian assistance. About $1.1 billion would go toward operations such as expanding the number of detention beds and providing more investigation resources.
Shelby told reporters Wednesday morning the debate was stuck on funding for ICE and detention beds for migrants detained along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Democrats have agreed to include humanitarian aid as part of an agreement on the disaster package, but a previous offer didn't include the administration's request for more money for ICE detention beds, considered a non-starter for most of the caucus.