(Washington) Democratic elected officials on Thursday accused Homeland Security Minister Kristi Noem of indiscriminately arresting immigrants without criminal records, or even legal ones, or even American citizens, to apply Donald Trump’s policy of mass expulsions.
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“You’re targeting the ‘worst of the worst’ and we agree. The problem is that 70% of the people you have arrested do not have a criminal record,” elected Democrat Lou Correa told him during a hearing before the National Security Committee of the House of Representatives.
“You’re going after non-criminal immigrants, U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents,” he added, citing several cases of Americans arrested by immigration authorities, including one “detained for 72 hours without even being able to take a shower.”
“There are a lot of problems with your leadership (of the ministry). But the biggest problem is that you don’t know how to tell the good guys from the bad guys,” added his colleague Seth Magaziner.
Mme Noem justified the “combative” policy of fighting illegal immigration with an “invasion” of millions of foreigners under the previous Democratic administration of Joe Biden.
“We have never detained or expelled an American citizen,” she assured, simply acknowledging that when Americans were caught in these dragnets, they were “released once their identity was verified.”
The Democrats also accused him of “flouting court decisions”, in particular that of a judge in March prohibiting him from deporting immigrants to El Salvador under an exceptional law of 1798.
This judge, James Boasberg, concluded in April that there was a strong presumption of “contempt of court” on the part of the Trump administration. He summoned several officials next week to explain this.
President Donald Trump has made the fight against illegal immigration a top priority, speaking of an “invasion” of the United States by “criminals from abroad” and communicating extensively on expulsions of immigrants.
His government systematically equates crime and illegal immigration and claims to target “the worst of the worst” immigrants who have committed crimes.
But according to unpublished statistics obtained by experts at the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute, only 5 percent of people have been detained by immigration enforcement (ICE) since the start of the fiscal year on 1er October were convicted of acts of violence and almost 70% have no convictions.
The Department of Homeland Security disputes these figures, arguing that “70 percent of ICE’s arrests are of criminal illegal aliens charged or convicted of offenses in the United States.”
