“If you’re in this country illegally and you committed a crime by being in this country, you should be uncomfortable, you should look over your shoulder. You need to be worried. No population is off the table.”
Those were the words of Thomas Homan, Acting Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), during a congressional hearing on June 13, 2017, in which the agency requested a $1.2 billion dollar increase to its budget. In his testimony, Homan made clear that ICE is waging a broad campaign of fear designed to alienate, criminalize, and make immigrants feel as though they are not wanted in their own communities. This rhetoric reflects Donald Trump’s stated hostility toward immigrants, particularly undocumented immigrants and those with criminal convictions. It is also a manifestation of an increasingly aggressive immigration policing agency intent on carrying out this vision.
In this context, understanding basic constitutional rights has become important for many immigrants. Over the past few years, Immigrant Defense Project (IDP) has collected hundreds of reports of how ICE agents have used surveillance, force, intimidation and lies to locate and detain unsuspecting immigrants at homes, workplaces and in communities across the country. These tactics—outlined in “Defend Against ICE Raids and Community Arrests,” a toolkit by IDP and the Center for Constitutional Rights—are the foundation for how ICE conducts raids and tears at the fabric of communities.
To help immigrants, their loved ones and community allies, we have now collaborated on a series of videos produced by Newsweek on how to prepare for an ICE raid...