The number of undocumented immigrants arrested or deported in Ohio and Michigan by federal agents has soared during the last year, as immigration enforcement has become stricter under the Trump administration, statistics examined by the Free Press have revealed.
The new data appears to confirm claims from local advocates and immigrants that more undocumented immigrants are being taken into detention and then deported from the US by US Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), two Department of Homeland Security agencies. The federal agencies Detroit office has defended the enforcement increase, as advocates and immigrants claim that local communities have been unnerved by the crackdown.
In Ohio and Michigan, there was a 117 percent increase in the number of undocumented immigrants with no criminal convictions deported from the fiscal year of 2016 to 2017, with 1570 deportations in total, rising from 725 the previous year. Deportations of convicted immigrant criminals also increased by 23 percent, with a 56 percent increase in the number of immigrants deported, 3203 in the fiscal 2017 year, which ran from 1 October 2016 to 30 September 2017.
Michigan Immigrant Rights Center supervising attorney, Ruby Robinson, said there has been a definite rise in non-criminal undocumented immigrants being taken into detention while at home, on the street, and driving their motor vehicles, and that the resultant fear is creating havoc. Michigan United immigrant rights organizer, David Sanchez, said ICE claims that they are only targeting criminal immigrants is false.