In Miami, Julio David Pérez Rodríguez, a Cuban national who last month went to his immigration hearing to seek his legal right to asylum, was arrested by plainclothes officers at an elevator, as first reported by Noticias Telemundo.
“We’re coming to this country to seek freedom…. What is happening with this country?” he said in that moment.
We’re coming to this country to seek freedom…. What is happening with this country?
Julio David Pérez Rodríguez, a cuban asylum seeker detained by ICE
As Suzanne Gamboa’s NBC News story from last week notes, “Pérez Rodríguez is one of dozens of immigrants caught in similar dragnets drawn in cities around the country since last week, as the reality of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation operation penetrates further into American families’ consciousness.”
In January, Stephanie Ali’s family met with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials in the New Orleans suburb where they lived. They were reportedly told they were not under arrest and not being deported, but would need to accompany agents to an immigration court hearing in Houston.
Once in Houston, though, they weren’t taken to court, but put on a flight for the first leg of their deportation to Honduras. The 24-year-old woman, who’d been living in the U.S. since she was 10, told Verite News by phone that when she saw they were being led to another plane she got very scared. “Even just to think of it right now, I start to cry because it’s so horrible,” she said.
ICE lying and using ruses is neither new nor illegal but we’re becoming increasingly aware of them now because the Trump administration is trying to deport people at an unprecedented scale. A new and aggressive “Operation at Large” plan is promising to detain at least 3,000 migrants daily.
Immigrants are still told to trust the system: Show up for your hearing, obey notices, follow the orders and wait for your chance to do right. But what good is a system that pretends to offer protection but is designed to fail you?
ICE agents have been waiting inside courthouses, ready to detain immigrants the moment their cases are resolved or purposely dismissed so they can be detained. If judges try to resist such tactics, they might be met with grand jury indictments, as in the case of Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan, who now faces charges of obstruction, impeding a federal department and concealing an undocumented individual from arrest.
But not only have ICE agents been hiding out in courthouses, they’ve been hiding behind masks (which the new ICE head defends) and, according to some reports, sometimes wearing tattoos associated with white supremacists (which the Department of Homeland Security vehemently denies), these agents stop people in courthouses, on their way to work, on their way to church, on their way to high school volleyball practice. It no longer matters if you appear in court for your case, if you stay out of trouble, or if you follow the rules as the system asks you to.
Marcelo Gomes da Silva, an 18-year-old high school student, was driving to volleyball practice this weekend in Milford, Massachusetts, when ICE agents pulled him over. They were looking for his father. It didn’t matter. Once agents realized he was undocumented, they took him, too.
“Most Americans are NOT anti-immigrant; they’re just anti-chaos,” Immigration Hub Co-Executive Director Beatriz Lopez said in an email about what we are all seeing in real time.
It no longer matters if you appear in court for your case, if you stay out of trouble, or if you follow the rules. So far, though, Trump is driving the chaos, and it shows no signs of slowing down. “When we go into the community and find others who are unlawfully here, we’re going to arrest them,” Patricia Hyde, Boston’s acting ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations field director, said Monday. “He’s 18 years old and he’s illegally in this country. We had to go to Milford looking for someone else and if we come across someone else who is here illegally, we’re going to arrest them.” If you are undocumented, the Trump administration has determined that you are a criminal, no matter your status or situation. There is no way out. Full stop. As of May 23, a NBC News tracker of ICE data notes that 48,674 migrants are currently detained. Just 30.6% of them have criminal convictions, 26.5% have pending criminal charges, 43.2% are listed with the vague “other immigration violator” label, and 9.9% are fast-tracked for deportation. “The American people are already starting to recoil from Trump’s immigration agenda, including the way he’s weaponizing immigration as the ‘tip of the spear’ for a broader assault on core constitutional pillars such as due process and the separation of powers,” Vanessa Cárdenas, America’s Voice executive director, said in an email. She added, “Trump’s overreach and ugliness are moving us in the wrong direction on immigration, away from the real solutions America needs.” The fight for immigrants continues because giving up would mean accepting that this is all America will ever be. And giving up is something such activists refuse to do. The erosion of due process is a national crisis, but the Trump deportation machine keeps going and shows no sign of stopping. It is all normalized now. Courts, which once stood as symbols of fairness and protection, are now just another stage for people showing up expecting due process to have it denied. “We’re coming to this country to seek freedom…. What is happening with this country?” he said in that moment.
Julio Ricardo Varela is the founder of The Latino Newsletter. 
