Pastor Fred Morris looked out over his congregation Sunday as news ricocheted around the world that American authorities were rounding up immigrants in an enforcement surge that President Donald Trump promised on the campaign trail.
Parishioners did not smile as on any other Sunday morning. They stared down at their feet. Others didn’t attend at all.
“There is a dreadful sense of fear. It’s more than palpable. It’s radiating. People are terrified,” said Morris, whose United Methodist mission is in a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood of Los Angeles. “They were just sitting there in stunned silence.”
For days, fear and confusion have gripped immigrant communities after word spread that federal agents were rounding up hundreds of immigrants in cities across the country. The scope of the operation remained unclear on Sunday.
Advocates and immigration lawyers scrambled to contain the panic and to organize seminars and social media campaigns to teach people their rights.
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency said the efforts were “routine” and no different than the arrests carried out under former President Barack Obama that targeted those with criminal histories or multiple immigration violations.
But Trump took to Twitter to claim credit.
“The crackdown on illegal criminals is merely the keeping of my campaign promise,” the president wrote. “Gang members, drug dealers & others are being removed!”
The raids included nearly 200 people in the Carolinas and Georgia, more than 150 in and around Los Angeles, and around 40 in New York, ICE confirmed. Among those arrested were a Salvadoran gang member and a Brazilian drug trafficker, officials said.
A decade ago, immigration officers searching for specific individuals would often arrest others encountered along the way, a practice that drew criticism from advocates. Under the Obama administration, agents focused more narrowly on specific individuals who posed a security or public safety threat.
Trump signed an executive order days after taking office that made clear that almost any immigrant living illegally in America could be targeted.
Immigrant-rights groups cite the case of Manuel Mosqueda, a 50-year-old house painter, as an example of how they believe ICE agents in the new administration are again going too far.
During last week’s enforcement operation, ICE agents showed up at Mosqueda’s home in the LA suburbs looking for someone else. While there, they inquired about Mosqueda, learned he was here illegally and put him on a bus to Mexico.
Karla Navarrete, a lawyer for the advocacy group CHIRLA, said she sought to stop Mosqueda from being placed on the bus and was told by ICE that things had changed. She said another lawyer filed federal court papers and got a judge to stop the deportation. The bus turned around, and Mosqueda is now jailed in Southern California, waiting to learn his fate.
“Here’s what happens on the ground: Somebody knocks on the door, they ask for a name, the people are very scared,” said Tessie Borden, an advocate in Los Angeles. “Then they round everybody up and say ‘We’ll sort it out later.’ But sorting it out later may mean separating families and breaking down support systems for these folks.”
