Mullin says orders unchanged as Trump names Stephen Miller chief of staff
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents kept making arrests in the days after the midterm elections, with advocates reporting detentions from California to Michigan to Massachusetts. In Los Angeles, masked immigration officers in body armor blocked a hospital emergency room driveway early Saturday. In central Alabama, twin 19-year-old brothers from Venezuela were arrested while driving back to college a day after the election.
The arrests continued as President Donald Trump, whose party had lost control of Congress in the midterms, said his administration’s deportation policy may have been “too tough” and suggested it was time to sit down with the rival party. “I’d love to do something on immigration,” Trump said in an interview with CBS “60 Minutes” recorded Friday.
Hours later, Trump named Stephen Miller, the architect of his immigration agenda, as his new chief of staff. The appointment came as Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said his orders had not changed. Mullin wrote in an online post the day after the election that “Deportations will continue,” warning that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement takes no days off and that “this includes on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Election Day.”
In South Florida, María Bilbao, a campaign coordinator for the American Friends Service Committee in Miami, said she has received at least one call a day from someone detained since the election. “Everything remains exactly the same. The arrests have not ceased at all,” Bilbao said. Florida Highway Patrol officers and ICE agents have detained people in their cars, as well as places including supermarkets, pharmacies and gas stations, and immigrants under supervision have been arrested when they showed up at ICE’s Miami office for their appointments.
In Los Angeles, officers assembled outside Adventist Health White Memorial Medical Center early Saturday, blocking an emergency room driveway in a heavily Latino neighborhood. Erick Gasca, 31, who lives near the hospital, said he had gotten home Friday night after an evening playing board games with friends to find an “unprecedented” number of vehicles with tinted windows and no license plates parked near the emergency room entrance. “I thought they were going to raid the hospital or something,” Gasca recalled.
The Department of Homeland Security declined to explain the officers’ presence, though Bill Essayli, the top Justice Department prosecutor in Los Angeles, said they were bringing a detainee for medical treatment. Essayli said two people were arrested for assaulting federal agents. “ICE does not target hospitals, schools, or churches,” DHS said in a statement.
The officers’ presence attracted some 30 residents and passersby. Footage shot by Gasca’s cousin, Michelle Rivera, shows protesters shouting and officers pinning someone down. The hospital said it was not involved. “White Memorial does not participate in immigration enforcement,” hospital president Daniel Fontoura said in a statement, adding that the hospital would not let such activities “compromise our commitment to patient care and safety.”
In Phoenix, a married couple from Orlando, Florida, was arrested Saturday at the airport while traveling to a funeral. Gustavo Romanello and Agustin Baccega, both from Argentina, have work permits while they seek asylum after entering the United States about six years ago, according to Jonathan Batchelor, a family friend who was on the phone with them at the time. A mutual friend had died Friday. As the couple left the airport, two casually dressed officers asked if one was Agustin Baccega, and Batchelor heard an officer say, “Asylum seekers are not in the United States legally.”
Batchelor said he could hear Romanello walking alongside his husband during the arrest and asking the officers how to collect his things. Batchelor said the officers then asked what Romanello’s name was, “and then the guard said, ‘Oh, do you have another set of handcuffs? This is another one.’” The voices grew distant, and the call then ended. Both men remain in detention centers. They worked as acrobats in Florida and had no criminal record, Batchelor said. “This is just taking good people who have been following the rules out of their lives and out of the lives of those who rely upon them and care about them,” Batchelor said. DHS did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the arrests.
In central Alabama, Luis and Carlos Orta-Santoro, 19-year-olds born in Venezuela who have lived in the United States for four years, were stopped in a small city while heading back to Wallace State Community College in Hanceville, Alabama, after visiting their parents. Both play soccer for the college. Relatives say the twins have pending asylum applications, valid work permits and no criminal records, and both are now in an immigration detention facility. “Our family is devastated,” their aunt, Carolina Orta, said.
DHS said that while the twins had entered the country legally, they had “overstayed in defiance of our laws,” and that their case would be heard by an immigration judge. The department said pending asylum applications do not confer legal status in the United States. Wallace State said in a statement: “Both young men are valued members of the Wallace State community, and our thoughts are with them during this difficult time. We sincerely hope for a positive resolution to their situation.”
In San Diego, an 8-year-old Haitian boy had been living with his uncle since his father was deported last year. His uncle, who is not a legal guardian, took him to an ICE office when the boy was summoned on Nov. 4, and the boy was taken into custody. In a letter to top administration officials, San Diego Unified School District Superintendent Fabi Bagula and school board members said the boy’s custody left him “without the support of their family, community and their school.” “Children should not lose access to education simply because of circumstances unfolding around them,” they wrote.
ICE has defended its actions. Johny Oxeda, pastor of the Fairmount Haitian Community Church, which helped get legal representation for the boy, said he will ultimately benefit by going through legal channels. Activists denounced the custody. “This is not child protection,” said Guerline Jozef of Haitian Bridge Alliance, adding, “this is state-inflicted trauma.”
Trump’s post-election remarks and the arrests documented over the same days pointed in two directions. He said his administration’s deportation policy may have been “too tough” and said he would like to do something on immigration with the party that won control of Congress. Hours after the interview, he named Miller, the architect of Trump’s immigration agenda, as chief of staff. Mullin wrote the day after the election that “Deportations will continue,” with no days off for Thanksgiving, Christmas or Election Day.