Nearly 2,800 people have been detained in the Los Angeles area since immigration raids intensified in early June, federal officials said.
Federal immigration officers have detained 2,792 undocumented immigrants in the Los Angeles area since June, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Officials didn’t specify in which counties or cities the arrests occurred.
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As of June 26, more than 70% of those who have been detained in recent months across the country have never been convicted of a crime, despite President Trump’s claims that immigration raids would target “the worst of the worst,” according to the Deportation Data Project. From Inauguration Day until June 26, more than 111,000 people have been arrested across the country, the group said.
DHS did not immediately respond to questions about the Deportation Data Project’s findings.
Of the detainees convicted of crimes, most committed minor infractions like traffic violations, said Graeme Blair, deputy director of the the Deportation Data Project and a UCLA professor.
The project began in the fall, when Blair and other academics made a series of Freedom of Information Act requests to various federal immigration enforcement agencies, so they could gather data on each arrest and track detainee transfers. When federal agencies haven’t responded to the FOIA requests, the Deportation Data Project has sued and received the data following court proceedings, Blair said. The data is then published on the project’s website for anyone to access.
This information, Blair said, can help people track who is being targeted in immigration raids, the conditions in which they’re being held and how many people are being removed from the country, among other information. He believes it’s important for every voter, regardless of their views on Trump’s immigration policy, to know how federal authorities are administering these polices and how their tax dollars are being spent.
“When Americans understand that people are being arrested regardless of their circumstances, even if they’ve been in the U.S. for decades, even if they have been paying into Social Security for decades,” Blair said, “I think it raises a really different way of thinking about what’s going on here than the public narrative that the Trump administration is promoting.”
Going through the data, Blair said it appears that Trump officials have targeted and arrested people based on their race. Detention transfers, he said, often move detainees far from their families and lawyers, making it difficult to seek support and fight their case.
Cities across the area, including Los Angeles, Pasadena, Santa Monica, Culver City, Montebello, Monterey Park, Pico Rivera and West Hollywood joined a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union in Southern California and other civil rights groups, accusing federal immigration authorities of making unlawful stops and targeting people based on their race. The lawsuit also claims that detainees have been denied their right to see counsel.
After the lawsuit was filed, a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order that prohibits federal immigration officers from stopping people without reasonable suspicion and requires detainees have access to their attorneys every day of the week.
Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for public affairs with DHS, denied the accusations and said detainees receive dietician-approved meals, medical treatment and opportunities to communicate with their family and attorneys.
“Any claims that individuals have been ‘targeted’ by law enforcement because of their skin color are disgusting and categorically FALSE,” McLaughlin previously said in a statement. “These type of smears are designed to demonize and villainize our brave ICE law enforcement.”