Trump's immigrant roundups increasingly net noncriminals
Source: Associated Press
By MATT SEDENSKY
today
NEW YORK (AP) — A daughter who never returned home, a son gunned down point-blank, a mom who was brutally attacked — all deaths at the hands of immigrants in the country illegally, all gripping stories the White House has been eager to share.
But for all the talk of murderers, rapists and other “bad hombres,” those netted in President Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigration are typically accused of lesser offenses, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are increasingly apprehending those with no criminal records at all.
“Unshackling ICE has really allowed it to go after more individuals,” said Sarah Pierce, a policy analyst with the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute who calls the apprehension of noncriminal immigrants, in particular, “a defining characteristic of this administration’s approach to immigration.”
The case of Mollie Tibbetts — a 20-year-old Iowa college student authorities say was killed by a man living in the U.S. illegally — is among the latest used by Trump to advance his argument for stricter immigration controls. Yet the government’s own statistics show such cases are far more likely to be the exception than the rule.
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