WEEK 19

WEEK 19

"Immigrants"

I just read a thoughtful post by Ben Ansell, dated June 20, and entitled "Who Counts?" Both the UK Census and the Office for National Statistics count "Non-UK Born" and "White British, while according to Oxford Migration Observatory, "immigrants" and "migrants" are not legal terms in the UK while "Migrants," however, is the term most often occurring in the public discourse and it's use is extremely loose, often conflating immigration status, race, ethnicity and asylum.

"Immigrants" are a Russian doll. In its broadest sense, the term includes everyone born outside a country where one resides. In its narrowest sense, it contains only people identified as residing in a country illegally. Some legal residents are citizens by birth, some are naturalized citizens, some are legal permanent residents, and some are temporary legal residents. But the remaining categories of residents may still have some legal status that permits them to reside in the country temporarily or conditionally. So pinning down the "illegals" is non obvious.

PEW Research Center (17 September 2024) provides a breakdown of "immigrants" in the US as of 2022: 49% were naturalized citizens, 24 % lawful permanent residents, 4% legal temporary residents, and 23% were "unauthorized immigrants." The last category is defined residually: it compromises all foreign-born residents who are not in included in the first three. The people included in this category may still have a temporary protective status (TPS), they may have been brought into the country as children and have temporary legal protection from deportation (DACA), they may have a temporary status as asylum seekers, and there are additional minor categories. Hence, the survey does not isolate people who are in the US illegally.

The French law has a seemingly clear definition of people who reside in the country illegally. They are "sans-papiers": they do not have "papers." Right-wing politicians often use the word "clandestine" to refer to them. 90% of them entered France legally, with some kind of visas, and then overstayed their terms. The US legal terminology defies my legal skills. The equivalent term is "undocumented": according to the Cornell Legal Clinic, "Undocumented immigrants are individuals who have either illegally entered the United States without inspection, or legally entered the United States with valid nonimmigrant visas but those visas have expired. ... Undocumented immigrants may change to legal status by claiming asylum or temporary protected status." So in France, a non-citizen is illegal and in principle deportable if she or he does not have a particular piece of paper, the "carte de sejour." In the US, there seem to exist several documents that offer different modes and degrees of protection from deportation. But this is where my knowledge ends: my wife took a three-month long course in immigration law and when I saw her exam I immediately concluded that I would fail it flatly. What I did learn, however, is that people in all kinds of irregular situations have rights to seek recourse in courts; perhaps now increasingly moot.

Given that I cannot figure out who has which legal status in the US, I can only guess that the mass public does not have a faintest idea. The word "immigrants" does hopelessly conflate legal status, race, ethnicity., and countries of origin. And it is used by right-wing politicians to deliberately conflate them. These politicians are good at guessing the popular stereotypes of immigrants and they dog whisper to them. "Immigration" is often just a racist code which does not need to be made explicit. When French right-wing politicians use the word, they do not mean the "sans-papier"; they include third-generation descendents of people who immigrated from the Maghreb. When the MAGAs use this word, they mean Mexicans or Central Americans. ICE detained a court translator and a US Marshall just because of their physiognomy.

According to another PEW survey (17 June 2025), US respondents are evenly split on utilizing state and local law enforcement officials in deportation efforts; with a margin of about 10% they oppose ICE raids on work places and building temporary detention places; and with a margin of about 20% they oppose ending temporary protection status, suspending asylum applications, and sending people to El Salvador. Perhaps more telling are surveys in which a majority approves Trump's anti-immigration stance but this support crumbles the moment particular immigrants and their circumstances are cited. Put differently, I have an impression that being "anti-immigration" is popular but being "anti- immigrants" is not.

ICE

Immigration policies are enforced by several federal agencies but most of detentions and arrests are executed by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement. I was trying to figure out how ICE agents decide whom to detain. They raid a Home Depot, a meat packing plant, or a construction site. Then what?

Legally, citizens do not need to own, carry, or show any identification papers. Undocumented people have no papers and they do not have to show any documents unless ICE has a valid warrant signed by a judge (not just an ICE-issued administrative warrant). Only Green Card holders and people on temporary visas are legally obliged to carry their papers at all times. Wikipedia reports that between 2012 and 2018, ICE wrongly arrested and detained 1,480 US citizens, with some of them languishing in jails for several weeks. In Poland, the Nazis would set Łapanki, roundups, by surrounding an area and checking the documents of everyone within it. Illegal immigrants do not carry a yellow star in the US, so how do the ICE agent decide who is who?

The obvious target of my search were some guidelines the ICE agents receive. I could not find such documents anywhere on the web, perhaps because they are secret, except for one. It is a memorandum issued by Todd M. Lyons, Acting Director of ICE, to all employees, dated May 27, 2025, concerning the actions around courthouses. Here is the relevant section:

“Aliens Subject to Enforcement Actions

Generally, ICE's civil immigration enforcement actions in or near courthouses include actions against targeted aliens, including but not limited to:

• National security or public safety threats;

• Specific aliens with criminal convictions;

• Gang members;

• Aliens who have been ordered removed from the United States but have failed to depart; and/or

• Aliens who have re-entered the country illegally after being removed.

Other aliens encountered during a civil immigration enforcement action in or near a courthouse, such as family members or friends accompanying the target alien to court appearances or serving as a witness in a proceeding, may be subject to civil immigration enforcement action on a case- by-case basis considering the totality of the circumstances.”

Note, however, that even if this instruction extends to family members or friends, it still assumes that ICE agents know ex-ante who are the enumerated targets. But from everything one can read on the media, ICE troops do not enter a Walmart with a warrant for a Mr. X, a specific alien with a criminal conviction. They just round up everyone and then somehow decide whom to detain. As of June 15 this year, 56,397 people were detained and of those 71.7% had no criminal record. So how do they decide?

According to the job description at the ICE site for recruiting Detention and Deportation officers,

“Enforcement and Removal (ERO) detention and deportation officers conduct legal research to support decisions on removal cases and assist attorneys in representing the government in court actions. Detention and deportation officers work with other federal law enforcement officials to identify, locate and arrest undocumented aliens and are responsible for ensuring the physical removal of undocumented aliens from the United States. Detention and deportation officers also prepare, present and defend cases at removal proceedings.”

Again, it appears that actions of ICE should be directed against legally identified targets. The memorandum directed already on January 20, 2025 by the Acting Secretary of DHS to acting heads of ICE and of the US Customs and Border Protection, however, grants the agents discretion not delimited by any rules:

“Our brave men and women in uniform put their lives on the line every day to advance the rule of law and keep our people safe. As part of that work, officers frequently apply enforcement discretion to balance a variety of interests, including the degree to which any law enforcement action occurs in a sensitive location.

Going forward, law enforcement officers should continue to use that discretion along with a healthy dose of common sense. It is not necessary, however, for the head of the agency to create bright line rules regarding where our immigration laws are permitted to be enforced.”

This situation naturally leads to the suspicion that the agents are just using racial profiling. According to Assistant Secretary of DHS Tricia McLaughlin, such suspicions are not only false but intolerable. Here is a statement released by DHS on June 16, 2025, under the title "DHS Debunks Fake News Demonizing ICE Officers, Sets the Record Straight on L.A. Operations":

“THE FACTS: "DHS targets have nothing to do with an individuals' skin color. What makes someone a target is if they are in the United States illegally. These types of disgusting smears are designed to demonize and villainize our brave ICE law enforcement. This kind of garbage has led to a more than 400 percent increase in the assaults on ICE officers. Politicians and activists must turn the temperature down and tone down their rhetoric."

From what I can tell, ICE is a secret police when acting in a public space. ICE agents should wear signs identifying them as such but not individual identification, such as badges worn by police. In general, no law prohibits federal agents from wearing masks or plainclothes when making an arrest. ICE agents can make an arrest in a public space without any kind of warrant. If ICE agents are looking to enter a home, however, they must identify themselves and one has the right to refuse them entry unless they have a judicial warrant.

Here, then, is what I think it all adds up to:

1. ICE agents are supposed to act against previously identified individuals who belong to one of the five categories enumerated by Mr. Lyon, above.

2. They are given no "bright line" rules and they are empowered to exercise discretion, extending to families and friends of potential targets.

3. In public spaces, they can arrest anyone without a warrant.

4. They are not individually identifiable.

5. The result is that they act indiscriminately.

The comparativist in me wants to think about other police forces in history which had such broad and ill-defined powers. But such comparisons are too frightening.

Just one aside

The only US post WWII president who did not bomb some country was Carter. Trump, in turn, is the only one to capitalize "BOMBS" is his message.