‘REMOVAL BUSINESS’

Report: Federal Agencies Are Setting ‘Traps’ for Immigrants Seeking Residency

Said to be called in for interviews on applications for residency only to be scooped up by ICE.

Two federal agencies lured unauthorized immigrants into traps by setting up interviews regarding their legal residency at government offices only to arrest them, The Boston Globe reports. Emails between Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services staffers reportedly show the agencies coordinating to mitigate negative publicity over the arrests by spacing out interviews. In one, an ICE official reportedly wrote that agents were “en route” for an arrest as USCIS was finishing an interview. “At the end of the day we are in the removal business,” the official allegedly wrote. The emails were filed in court Monday as part of an ACLU lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security. Thomas Brophy, the former head of Boston’s ICE field office, told a judge in May that agents would stop arresting immigrants at immigration offices, but he was succeeded by a new director, who reinstated the policy.