美国国家公共电台 NPR Riding With ICE: 'We're Trying To Do The Right Thing'

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

The Trump 1 administration has been clear - immigrants in the country illegally, quote, "should be afraid." Those were the words of Thomas Homan, the head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. And that stance has put his agency on the hot seat. Immigrant advocates say ICE agents are fearmongering, that they're arresting people who only broke the law to come to the U.S. for a better life. The agents say they are misunderstood and that they simply want to enforce the law.

NPR's John Burnett recently embedded 2 with ICE in Texas. Here's his report.

JOHN BURNETT, BYLINE 3: Men with guns in dark ballistic vests swarm 4 over the parking lot of a seedy apartment complex in Haltom City. Fort Worth police have arrested a man who threatened to burn down his girlfriend's apartment. Along with him, they detained two Mexican nationals suspected of being here illegally, so police call ICE fugitive 5 operations. Agent Delfino Saldana handcuffs one of the men.

DELFINO SALDANA: ...Medical problems? OK. (Speaking Spanish). We're going to go ahead and take him in - take him into custody 6. Put him on our vehicle.

BURNETT: He's a forlorn 21-year-old house painter with gang tattoos 7. Officer King Cross runs his fingerprints 8.

KING CROSS: He's got no criminal history in the U.S.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: OK, no criminal history in the U.S.

CROSS: ...And no prior immigration contact.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: OK.

CROSS: But he is a confirmed gang member, said it when he was younger.

BURNETT: So his is a - it's a non-criminal arrest.

CROSS: That's correct. Basically, he's from Guanajuato. He paid a coyote to cross him across the border. He's been here a couple years.

(SOUNDBITE OF RADIO BEEPING)

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: Hey, Chuck, what address are you out in front of?

BURNETT: Chuck Winner, a supervisory detention 9 and deportation 10 officer, is driving a white government-issue Expedition back to Dallas after the bust 11. Under President Obama, he would go after serious felons 12 and recent arrivals, not these two men in the parking lot - one with no criminal record and the other charged with re-entry after deportation.

CHUCK WINNER: We would have had to have let them go because they did not meet our enforcement priorities at the time.

BURNETT: And would that have been frustrating 13?

WINNER: Very.

BURNETT: Under Trump, ICE agents are told to arrest anyone in the country illegally. ICE's Dallas area of operations is the busiest in the nation. It covers nearly half of Texas and all of Oklahoma. In the first four months of 2017, arrests of all unauthorized immigrants has nearly doubled to almost 5,000, compared to the same period last year. Most had criminal records. But ICE arrests of non-criminals have increased more sharply across the country. In Dallas, they've tripled to more than 800 in the first four months.

WINNER: In the days past, if we encountered someone in the house that was not a priority, we would just let that person, you know, walk. Now, we would - if we encounter someone in the house that is illegal in the country, in violation 14 of the law, we will go ahead and arrest that person.

BURNETT: Riding in the back seat is Simona Flores, the director of the Dallas ICE field office.

SIMONA FLORES: I would say that the morale 15 has gone up. There's a sense of, OK, I don't need my boss's permission for every decision I make.

BURNETT: ICE operations have stoked outrage 16, like the arrests in March when agents apprehended 17 26 unauthorized immigrants reporting for court-ordered community service in Fort Worth. Some observers thought the roundup was mean-spirited. But Flores says they had drunk-driving and drug convictions.

FLORES: We're not apologizing for what we're doing. We're trying to do the right thing.

BURNETT: Immigrant advocates say the dragnet is cast too wide. They say immigrants who pose no threat to the community are being swept up along with dangerous criminals. Michelle Garza Pareja is a pro-bono attorney in Dallas with an immigrant rights group called RAICES

MICHELLE GARZA PAREJA: What I do think they're doing is really instilling 18 this sense of fear within our community. And I think that has disastrous 19 effects.

BURNETT: Back in her office, Simona Flores says, over her 30-year career, she's always used discretion 20. They might not detain a single mother, for example, if she's the sole provider for her children. Flores says her decisions are informed by her own difficult upbringing in San Antonio.

FLORES: I know what poverty's like. I know what hunger's like. I know what physical abuse is like in the household. But I also know what love is like. And I know that personally, professionally, I want this world to be a better place.

BURNETT: She takes a moment to compose herself, then continues.

FLORES: We listen to every case by case, when it's brought to our attention, that might need special attention.

BURNETT: NPR rode along with fugitive operations for two days. In that time, agents spent most of their time sitting in unmarked SUVs parked in working-class, Hispanic neighborhoods, drinking coffee and watching houses.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #3: Do we have eyes on the individual coming out?

(SOUNDBITE OF RADIO BEEPING)

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #4: She looks like a female.

(SOUNDBITE OF RADIO BEEPING)

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #5: You see that?

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #4: She just walked back in.

BURNETT: Years past, ICE agents used to knock on doors and ask their targets to come out. But Chuck Winner says that tactic 21 is not effective anymore.

WINNER: Lately, they don't even open the door for us.

BURNETT: Today, immigrant communities are savvier. They spread the word on social media - if ICE knocks, even if they have a warrant, don't open the door.

WINNER: Now, we end up having to sit on - and do surveillance a lot more. So making - it definitely makes it a little bit tougher.

BURNETT: The officers of fugitive ops say this is how they make most arrests. They don't do random 22, indiscriminate sweeps. Deportation Officer Gerry Hutt says they go after specific targets.

GERRY HUTT: We have a lead on someone that's in the country illegally or is a criminal alien that's been convicted of a crime and is in this country. We target that person for arrest. We don't go set up checkpoints on the highway. We don't do mass raids at employers. We don't do that.

BURNETT: On the two-day ride-along, the team selected eight targets. They included a Mexican found guilty of driving while intoxicated 23, a Salvadoran who'd been deported 24 three times, a Bangladeshi mortgage broker 25 convicted of a sex crime and Antonio Jimenez.

ANTONIO JIMENEZ: I mean, I know I had felonies. And I know that that could happen.

BURNETT: Jimenez has convictions for burglary and heroin 26 possession and was wanted for parole violation, which means he also would have been a target under Obama's ICE. His parents brought him here illegally when he was 2. The heavyset, whiskered 21-year-old sits on a metal bench inside the ICE processing center, considering his change of fortunes.

JIMENEZ: I'm not even worried. I mean, I know where I'm going, so - I mean, as long as my wife's OK, my son's OK, I'm good, you know?

BURNETT: A couple of hours earlier, ICE cuffed 27 him and led him out of his house, as he told his wife and his infant son goodbye. But he doesn't blame agents.

JIMENEZ: Oh, no. They did their job, you know? I mean, they weren't mean. They weren't, like, you know, rude or nothing. So I can't - why would I get mad at them?

BURNETT: When his deportation case is complete, agents will escort Antonio Jimenez to the middle of the international bridge in Laredo. And he will walk to Nuevo Laredo to start his new life. On that same morning back in Dallas, ICE fugitive operations will select four new targets. John Burnett, NPR News, Dallas.

(SOUNDBITE OF WAX TAILOR (FEAT. IDIL) SONG, "FOR THE WORST")