While the Obama administration essentially exempted hundreds of thousands of long-term undocumented immigrants from deportation, under President Trump’s zero-tolerance approach to immigration enforcement, the Department of Homeland Security has made finding and removing them a priority.Īnd so far, DHS has been very successful: Since January, detentions by Immigration and Customs Enforcement have gone up 38% compared to the same period in 2016, according to testimony delivered by Acting ICE Director Thomas Homan in June. It’s not even 7 a.m., but the day’s deportations have already begun at Nogales, one of several border checkpoints where the US churns out thousands of deportees daily, an increasing number of whom haven’t been to Mexico in years. A few minutes later they emerge, carrying what few possessions they have, escorted by Mexican officials who will release them into Nogales. Two men step out of it and head into a spartan, concrete building straddling the border. The van pulls into the checkpoint separating Nogales, Arizona, from its Mexican namesake and comes to a stop. Aside from the government plates, there’s no way to tell it apart from any of the dozens of other vans that move day laborers back and forth between the small border outpost and the big city of Tucson an hour and a half north. An unmarked white van pulls up to the border post. NOGALES, Mexico - It’s already hot in Nogales, Arizona, and the sun burns off what’s left of the morning cloud cover and bakes the asphalt of the tiny downtown area.
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