Deportations ensnare migrant families, U.S. citizens

What happened

The Trump administration ramped up its deportation campaign this week, defending recent expulsions of American children along with their immigrant parents and arresting a Milwaukee judge accused of obstructing a migrant's arrest. In two separate incidents in Louisiana, women checking in for routine immigration appointments with ICE were arrested and deported to Honduras along with their American-citizen children. One of the three children deported, a 4-year-old boy, had been undergoing cancer treatment. Lawyers for both families said the mothers weren't given the option to leave their children with relatives in the U.S. There is "a strong suspicion that the government just deported a U.S. citizen with no meaningful process," said Louisiana Federal District Court Judge Terry A. Doughty, a Trump appointee handling one of the cases. Other deportations separated children from their parents. Tampa resident Heidy Sanchez said she was forced to leave her unweaned baby behind when she was deported to Cuba, while a 2-year-old girl in Texas was sent to foster care after her mother was deported to Venezuela and her father to El Salvador's CECOT prison.

In Wisconsin, a Milwaukee County judge, Hannah Dugan, was cuffed and charged with obstructing federal officers after allegedly directing an immigrant, a defendant in a domestic violence case, to an exit so he could avoid ICE agents. In Maryland, Federal Judge Paula Xinis demanded the Trump administration provide an update in the case of Kilmar Ábrego García, a Salvadoran who was mistakenly sent to CECOT. The administration has argued it can't get him back, but President Trump told ABC News this week that in fact he could do so but will not, saying falsely that Ábrego García had MS-13, a gang name, tattooed across his knuckles.

What the editorials said

Democrats are seeking to portray the arrest of the Milwaukee judge "as part of a Trump administration campaign against the judiciary," said The Wall Street Journal. But ICE agents had a lawful order to detain her defendant, who is here illegally. Rather than comply with ICE, Dugan actually canceled the man's hearing—denying his alleged victims "their day in court." Dugan is free to disagree with the administration's immigration policies, but she "can't obstruct federal officers seeking to enforce the law."

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The administration is deporting with such zeal, "it's becoming apparent" that citizens are being imperiled, said the New Orleans Times-Picayune. Secretary of State Marco Rubio clarified that the American-citizen children from Louisiana who were deported may return to the care of a relative who is a citizen. But "why the haste" to deport in the first place? These local moms may have been present illegally, but they weren't criminals. It appears disturbingly as if Louisiana residents "face increased risk of being ensnared in ICE actions" merely because the federal detention centers are located here.

What the columnists said

Just why are so many migrants sent to Louisiana, anyway? asked Laila Hlass and Mary Yanik in The New York Times. The reason ICE has nine centers there, including a giant 7,000-bed staging area, is because the state is notorious for "conservative courts, scarce access to legal support, and horrific detention conditions." It's effectively a "black hole" where migrants can be mistreated and denied their rights. This situation "threatens to erode America's rule of law well beyond the immigration legal system."

But a backlash is brewing, said Patricia Lopez in Bloomberg. Americans expected deportation of the people "they'd been told were stealing jobs and committing crimes—not nursing mothers." Instead, the administration is targeting noncriminals, and even legal immigrants with green cards who protested against Israel. "Skipping an immigration check-in means ICE can hunt you down and arrest you; cooperating now yields the same result." It doesn't seem fair. No wonder a majority of voters now disapprove of Trump's handling of deportations.

Still, Dugan's arrest suggests the White House won't temper the crackdown, said Adam Serwer in The Atlantic. "One need not approve of Dugan's alleged conduct here to understand" that the White House is trying to intimidate judges, who so far have not been easily cowed, into doing its bidding. Even activists are being arrested, said Marcela García in The Boston Globe. In Virginia last week, two volunteer immigrant advocates merely asked ICE to show a warrant. They are now being threatened with obstruction charges. It's chillingly clear: "Judges, lawyers, and ordinary citizens are now potential targets if they dare to interfere" with ICE.