Why ICE abandoned this weekend's planned mass raids — and when they might actually be coming

Vehicles are seen in an intake area under the Metropolitan Detention Center in L.A.

(Image credit: David McNew/Getty Images)

published 15 July 2019

Immigrants across the U.S. buckled down in preparation for promised deportation raids over the weekend. They never came.

Several news reports had indicated Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers were headed to at least 10 major cities this weekend for deportation raids, with President Trump later confirming they were supposed to be a deterrent for prospective migrants. Instead, immigrant-heavy neighborhoods turned "eerily quiet" and pro-immigrant protesters took to the streets, but very few ICE agents actually came knocking, NPR reports.

ICE agents were reportedly set to single out about 2,000 migrants with deportation orders on Sunday, and Mexican officials said they were ready for the influx, per The Associated Press. Yet ICE agents were only reported at three residences in New York City, and the people there didn't open their doors, The New York Times reports. Democrats and advocates had warned immigrants not to open their doors to law enforcement without signed judicial warrants ahead of the reported operations — though the Times notes that agents sometimes devise tricky tactics to lure people outside.

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Promised raids in Miami similarly "never got underway" even though some families hid in "secret shelters," the Miami Herald reports. That's because, as the Times reports, "plans for the operation were changed at the last minute" after news reports "tipped off immigrant communities about what to expect." Current and former Homeland Security officials now say that instead of one large-scale sweep, ICE will conduct smaller raids over the span of a week. That week of crackdowns reportedly started Sunday, though "individual ICE field offices were given the discretion to decide when to begin," the Times continues.

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Kathryn is a graduate of Syracuse University, with degrees in magazine journalism and information technology, along with hours to earn another degree after working at SU's independent paper The Daily Orange. She's currently recovering from a horse addiction while living in New York City, and likes to share her extremely dry sense of humor on Twitter.