Recommended
The administration of President Donald Trump is intensifying its anti-immigrant operations at the country's airports, where plainclothes agents are arresting people with expired visas both at check-in counters and boarding gates, the New York Times reported on Tuesday.
According to the newspaper, agents have been present at 15 airports in recent weeks, where they have arrested people from more than 12 countries, including spouses of US citizens and tech sector workers, as a result of a cooperation agreement between the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
- TAMBIÉN LEE: ¿Tu visa está vigente y aún así te pueden negar la entrada a Estados Unidos? Esto debes saber
"This administration is working diligently to ensure that undocumented foreigners can no longer fly, unless it is to self-deport," the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)—under whose oversight ICE operates, executing the arrest campaign launched by Trump—told the newspaper.
READ ALSO: US offers 3,000 dollars and a free flight to migrants who leave before December. Requirements
The agency did not confirm to the newspaper whether it had expanded the arrest program or how many people have been detained at airports for having an expired visa.
However, the increase in airport arrests comes at a time when detentions are being intensified with the goal of reaching 2,000 arrests per day, approximately double the number recorded earlier this year.
Recent airport arrests include that of 27-year-old Ecuadorian Chantal Morales Rojas, who was detained on July 20 while attempting to fly from Denver to Oakland, California.
An alarm went off when her boarding pass was scanned, so she had to wait and was soon after intercepted by two plainclothes agents.
The arrest of Morales Rojas, who entered the US legally in 2023 on an exchange program, was recorded on video and went viral on social media.
Before her exchange program ended on January 4, the Ecuadorian had filed an application to remain in the country. A judge imposed a 3,000-dollar bond on her, and she is expected to be released tomorrow after opening a GoFundMe account to cover her legal expenses.
Arrestos sin discriminar nacionalidad
ICE airport arrests have not discriminated by nationality, as shown by the case at San Francisco International Airport, where a Ukrainian citizen was arrested last Wednesday.
Iryna Gorb, who has been living in California for more than ten years, was detained after returning from a trip to Portland, reported state senator Scott Wiener, who has helped facilitate legal assistance for her.
The detention was captured on video by Richmond (California) city councilmember Doria Robinson, which showed agents detaining Gorb inside the airport as she screamed for help and stated that she was Ukrainian.
The DHS said in a statement that Gorb overstayed her visa and remained in the United States "illegally" for 15 years, so she will remain in ICE custody pending deportation proceedings.
Among those detained at airports is also a woman from Uganda, in a wheelchair with a pending asylum application, who suffers from sickle cell anemia, her lawyer told the Times.
"In 38 years of practicing immigration law, I have never seen anything like this and I know it is happening to many people," Charles Kuck, the lawyer for an Indian engineer who was arrested while waiting for a work permit extension, told the newspaper. EFE
[Publicidad]