US arrests at border fell while ICE arrests rose during Trump’s first eight months

From Trump’s inauguration to the end of September, there was a 40% increase in Ice arrests – and many arrested had deep connections in the US, activists say.

US immigration officials declared on Tuesday December 6 that arrests at the border had fallen in Donald Trump’s first eight months in office while rates of people arrested in the US away from the border soared.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) numbers provide the first detailed picture of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement, which human rights advocates said seemed to be targeting people with deep ties to the US. Advocates are also concerned because the release showed the plight of people fleeing violence in Central America is still severe.

From Trump’s inauguration in January to the end of September, there was a 40% increase in arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice). Because Ice operates in the country’s interior while Customs and Border Protection (CBP) oversees the border, DHS supervises both agencies.

Clara Long, a senior researcher for the US program at Human Rights Watch, said people arrested in the interior were more likely to have deep connections to the US through family, friends and work.

“Many of them are being ripped apart from family, from home, from businesses, from jobs without consideration of family ties that they have to the US,” Long told the Guardian. “That has devastating impacts on families and communities.”

Human Rights Watch on Tuesday afternoon released the results of a six-month examination of the impact these deportations had on people who had been living in the US interior long term. The report detailed people being forced out of the country, away from their loved ones, after decades of building lives, having children, starting businesses and paying taxes in the US. “All undocumented people in the US now have reason to fear deportation, regardless of the strength of their ties to the US,” the report said.