Immigration attorneys say they are getting inundated with phone calls after weekend ICE actions
Attorney Michael Urbina said Monday that federal agents are not just targeting people with criminal records.
For some families, they are so worried that they actually contemplating keeping their kids home from school.
In the meantime, Urbina told Channel 2's Michael Seiden that it's important that people understand their rights.
'We knew something like this would happen,' Urbina said after learning about the target operations.
Multiple federal agencies assisted US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers over the weekend as they made hundreds of arrests across the country, including right here in metro Atlanta.
'It's definitely created a sense of fear and uncertainty,' Urbina said.
While the Trump administration has touted the crackdown as targeting criminals, Urbina said he has heard other stories about authorities arresting people without criminal records.
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'I heard of a lady out in Athens who has been here for over 10 years, has five children here. She just had a removal order from a long time ago, so they targeted her,' Urbina said.
On Sunday, pastor Luis Ortiz told Channel 2 Action News that he was in the middle of giving his sermon at his church in Tucker when ICE knocked on the door and arrested one of his members.
'They don't want to go home because they're scared the officers are outside,' Ortiz said.
Right now, it's unclear how many arrests have been made here in metro Atlanta, but Urbina said it's important that you know your rights, especially if you get a knock on the door from ICE.
'Don't incriminate yourself, stay quiet, maintain proof that they've been here for the last two years, because that's been one of the main focuses. There is a law for expedited removal that if a person hasn't been here for two years,' Urbina said.
Seiden reached out to ICE on Monday hoping to get some local arrest numbers, but so far his calls haven't been returned.
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Los Angeles Times
an hour ago
- Los Angeles Times
How ICE is using the LAPD to track down immigrants for deportation
When Los Angeles police arrested Jose Juarez-Basilio in March on suspicion of threatening his ex-wife's new romantic partner, he was released after spending less than 24 hours in jail. The short stay behind bars was all it took to trigger his deportation roughly three months later. Even though no charges were filed against Juarez-Basilio, the seemingly routine run-in with police put the 35-year-old undocumented Mexican man on the radar of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which tracked him down and removed him from the country. For months, L.A. Police Department leaders have gone out of their way to reassure the public that the department has strict limits on cooperating with immigration officials. But the case of Juarez-Basilio and several dozen others identified in federal court records show how L.A. police are nevertheless enabling ICE to find new targets by routinely sharing fingerprints with federal law enforcement. The basic question for the LAPD of what it means to cooperate with immigration authorities has taken on fresh urgency amid the Trump White House's continued crackdown across the region. Hundreds of people have been detained in raids by masked ICE and Border Patrol agents, triggering protests and an ongoing court battle over the use of so-called 'roving patrols' to indiscriminately round up suspects. LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell has frequently pointed to a longstanding policy known as Special Order 40, which bars officers from stopping a person for the sole purpose of determining their immigration status. The policy, implemented in 1979, seeks to assure the city's growing immigrant community that they can come forward as witnesses or victims of crimes without fear of deportation. But given how complicated the country's immigration landscape has grown in the half century since, it's time that the LAPD took steps beyond the policy, Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez said. 'I thought Special Order 40 was the right thing to do at that time,' he said in a recent interview. 'Do I think it meets the moment right now? Of course not.' Of particular concern, he said, is the LAPD's handling of data collected from automated license plate readers, devices deployed around the city that track the movements of vehicles. Police officials have insisted that the information is not shared with ICE. But other local law enforcement agencies have flouted their own similar rules in the past, raising concerns that the LAPD may not keep its word. 'If there is even the slightest possibility that the LAPD is sharing any data with ICE,' then the city needs to take a look at such loopholes, Soto-Martinez said. This month, Mayor Karen Bass ordered the creation of a working group to examine — and possibly update — the LAPD's immigration policy. At a news conference, McDonnell said he believed that Special Order 40 still achieved its original mission of building public trust. 'We can't be effective if people are not willing to come forward and report crimes that they're a victim of or a witness to,' he said. But the chief reiterated that his officers would not interfere with federal law enforcement operations — even if they violate a recent court injunction that temporarily blocked federal agents from racial profiling. If Angelenos had concerns, he said, they could file complaints with the feds or pursue other legal remedies. In a city whose population is more than half Latino, that stance is wearing thin with critics who claim that the department is tacitly supporting ICE by providing crowd control when raids draw angry protesters. 'You can't go through something like this for a month and expect the public to trust any law enforcement that participates in this,' said longtime civil rights attorney Connie Rice. 'The immigrant community is asking: 'Aren't you supposed to be protecting us?'' Juarez-Basilio's case shows how the LAPD indirectly enables ICE to conduct deportations even while abiding by Special Order 40 and officially staying out of immigration enforcement. Records show he was taken into custody March 23 on suspicion of making criminal threats. Court filings describe an incident in which he was accused of holding an unknown object under his T-shirt while menacing his ex's new partner. When Juarez-Basilio was booked into a San Fernando Valley jail and fingerprinted, it pinged the Pacific Enforcement Response Center, an ICE facility in Orange County. Court records show an ICE agent investigated Juarez-Basilio and learned that he had been deported three times previously and illegally reentered the country, which is a federal crime — not just a violation of civil immigration laws. Juarez-Basilio posted bond and was released before ICE agents could arrest him. The Los Angeles County district attorney's office declined to file charges, citing a lack of evidence. ICE agents were waiting to take him into custody after a hearing in federal court last month. He was one of at least 30 people arrested by the LAPD in recent months who were subsequently detained by immigration agents for illegal re-entry after deportation, according to a review of criminal court filings. In Juarez-Basilio's case and several others, charging documents make no mention of past criminal behavior apart from their border crossings. In a handful of cases, the people arrested had prior convictions for violent felonies. In several others, the LAPD alerted federal authorities to felony arrests, as in the case of two United Kingdom citizens who were arrested for possessing guns after being pulled over in Hollywood in late June for failing to halt at a stop sign in a black Rolls-Royce. Both men had overstayed their visas, court records show. Police in some states, mostly in the South, have for years assisted ICE by handing over jail inmates accused of immigration violations. Trump has threatened to cut off federal funding to cities such as L.A. that refuse total cooperation on immigration enforcement. Christy Lopez, a Georgetown Law professor who once worked for the Civil Rights Division at the U.S. Department of Justice, said cities that defy Trump face a choice. Refusing to back down risks losing federal funds. It also imperils cooperation with agencies such as Homeland Security Investigations, which sometimes partners with local law enforcement to take down drug cartels, prevent terrorism and investigate other major crimes. Such ties are only expected to grow tighter with L.A. set to host the 2028 Olympic Games. But working closely with the feds in this moment risks damaging hard-earned trust in vulnerable immigrant communities where people already are wary of cooperating with police, Lopez said. 'You cannot keep a city safe if a large swath of its population doesn't trust the police,' she said. Earlier this year, the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, a prominent watchdog group, sent a letter to the city's Police Commission warning that information collected by LAPD officers during routine pedestrian and traffic stops is flowing into massive databases — where they can be mined by immigration authorities to aid in tracking down a wanted person. 'Immigration enforcement can't happen without a vast network of local police and prosecutors who serve as the federal government's eyes and ears on the ground, ensuring that any person booked into custody for any arrest — no matter how trivial and no matter if ultimately false or thrown out in court — is immediately put on ICE's radar,' the letter said. Since it was enacted nearly 50 years ago, Special Order 40 has faced repeated attacks both from factions within the LAPD as well as anti-immigration activists who have challenged it on constitutional and practical grounds, saying it gives a free pass to criminals in the country illegally. Stephen Downing, a former LAPD deputy chief who helped draft Special Order 40, said that it was intended as more of a 'law enforcement tool' to address the city's encroaching gang violence than a means 'really to protect immigrants from immigration.' 'It recognized that these people were in the community, they were part of the community, and we needed them for crime control. We needed them to report crime,' said Downing. 'It wasn't so altruistic as it may have seemed at the time.'
Newsweek
2 hours ago
- Newsweek
Republicans Passed the One Big Beautiful Bill to Secure Our Borders—Here's What We Must Do Next
Advocates for ideas and draws conclusions based on the interpretation of facts and data. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act was the product of many months of hard work by Congress and the unwavering leadership of President Donald Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson. The legislation stands as a landmark achievement, and it represents a sea change for border security and immigration enforcement. That change is long overdue, particularly as we work to undo the devastation of the Biden-Harris border crisis. President Donald Trump and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson speak to members of the media at the U.S. Capitol on May 20, 2025, in Washington, D.C. President Donald Trump and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson speak to members of the media at the U.S. Capitol on May 20, 2025, in Washington, the turnaround are historic investments in Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Among other achievements, Republicans approved more than $46 billion to finish construction of the strategic border barrier system, $45 billion to expand ICE's ability to detain illegal aliens, and approximately $35 billion to recruit, hire, and retain thousands more CBP and ICE officers, agents, and support personnel. But the work to ensure long-lasting border security and interior enforcement is far from over. While Republicans maintain majorities in Washington, we must advance the ball even further. There are three key areas in which we still have a long way to go—but the path is clear. First, we must act quickly to codify President Trump's executive orders. As we learned when President Joe Biden took office and ended essentially every effective border security and enforcement policy of the first Trump administration, executive actions can be undone—sometimes with devastating consequences. If we want the policy wins of the second Trump administration to be guaranteed for future generations, we must turn those executive orders into law. The reconciliation process allowed us to secure many key victories, but the rules of that process also prevented us from enacting policy changes without a clear fiscal impact. That means there are numerous reforms still on the table demanding our attention and action. For starters, to prevent future abuse of our immigration laws and protect our families and communities from the scourge of the fentanyl crisis, we must advance and expand upon the policies put forward in H.R.2, the Secure the Border Act, a historic border security and immigration reform bill that passed the House last Congress but was ignored by the Democrat-led Senate. Some of those reforms include explicitly prohibiting mass parole and nationality-based parole programs, closing asylum and catch-and-release loopholes, expanding expedited removal, cracking down on visa overstays, and expanding grounds for inadmissibility. The American people support such strong measures. They resoundingly endorsed these policies in the 2024 election after President Trump ran on a platform of mass deportations. Poll after poll shows continued support for that platform, despite increasingly outrageous Democrat rhetoric. Second, Republicans need to ramp up our investigative and accountability efforts, starting with looking deeply into the Biden-era officials who crafted, implemented, and defended the unlawful open-borders policies that caused untold harm to our nation. The burgeoning "auto-pen" scandal of the Biden administration—which casts into doubt whether President Biden was of sound mind and personally responsible for many of the policy decisions of his administration, even from its earliest days—sparks some troubling questions. Chief among these is how many of the radical policy decisions on border security and immigration enforcement were driven not by the president, but by others in the White House who saw the opportunity to systemically undermine longstanding U.S. immigration law in pursuit of open-borders, anti-enforcement policies? We have already identified a number of individuals involved in the Biden transition team and the administration that played a role in this crisis, and we must aggressively expand our investigation into them and pursue accountability where we can. Third and finally, we need to hold accountable the nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that helped facilitate the Biden-Harris administration's border crisis. The House Committee on Homeland Security has devoted substantial time and effort into uncovering how these NGOs served as a conduit for illegal immigration under the previous administration, often to their own substantial financial benefit. A few weeks ago, we sent a letter to more than 200 NGOs suspected of providing services and benefits to illegal aliens, seeking information about how these groups have used federal taxpayer dollars. We need to expand these probes, and as chairman of the Committee's Border Security and Enforcement Subcommittee, I fully intend to do so. No organization should be allowed to subvert or undermine U.S. laws, and they most certainly should not be doing so with taxpayer money. Unfortunately, that is exactly what happened under Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, and we need to not only prevent further abuse via legislative solutions but also demonstrate that those who do will answer for their actions. This is a bold agenda for the House Republican conference and the House Committee on Homeland Security. But the American people have spoken unequivocally. Just like President Trump, they want the border secured, illegal aliens removed, and their communities made safe. They also want accountability for the harm caused to our country and a firm commitment to advancing President Trump's proven border security agenda. We must show that we are up to the task. Congressman Michael Guest is the chairman of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Border Security and Enforcement and is currently serving his fourth term as the U.S. representative for Mississippi's 3rd Congressional District. The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
Newsweek
2 hours ago
- Newsweek
ICE Denies Giving Taco Bell Number to Immigration Lawyer
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has accused an immigration attorney of "lying for likes" after she posted a viral TikTok video alleging that an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official gave her the phone number of a Taco Bell when she called seeking help for a detained client. Trisha Chatterjee, an Ohio-based immigration lawyer, shared the video last week, describing her frustration after days of trying to reach ICE. When she finally got through, she said, she was stunned to be referred to the popular fast-food restaurant. DHS later issued a public statement on X denying the incident and calling her account a fabrication. "It's just kind of crazy to me that that was their first thought, that I lied for likes. And more than that, how can they deny that this happened or that it was a lie when I've done everything I can to protect the identity of the officer. I've never said his name," Chatterjee told Newsweek in an interview on Tuesday. Why It Matters ICE has been at the forefront of the national conversation surrounding immigration policy. The agency is responsible for enforcing immigration laws, including detaining and deporting migrants without legal status. ICE's enforcement activities are being heavily scrutinized after President Donald Trump directed the agency to ramp up immigration arrests as he looks to fulfill his pledge of mass deportations. What To Know In her TikTok video, Chatterjee detailed how she had been trying to get in touch with ICE "for days" regarding clients who she said were "inmates at the Butler County Jail," and how relieved she was to "finally" get through to someone who gave her a number to call. At the end of the video though, which now has more than 52,000 views on TikTok, the attorney reveals the number was for a Taco Bell. "For the very first time, finally somebody answered me and I was genuinely so excited to have somebody who was going to help us and give us some information," she told The Cincinnati Enquirer. "So, to get a Taco Bell phone number instead was definitely disheartening." "I called and they answered and they said, 'Hello, Taco Bell?' And I said, 'Taco Bell?' And the guy who was working said, 'Yeah, Taco Bell. Ma'am, you called me." The attorney said that she called the Taco Bell in Cincinnati at 10:58 on July 23. Newsweek requested access to call logs, but the law firm declined to provide them. The video quickly spread across social media platforms, drawing both disbelief and sympathy. However, DHS quickly responded on social media, denying the claim. Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said the allegations were a "lie and smear." "After she posted the video, ICE even attempted to reach out to her to get her information on her clients. She was provided several avenues to directly contact ICE and help resolve any issues, but she has made no attempt to contact the agency," McLaughlin told Newsweek. File photo shows Taco Bell sign. Trisha Chatterjee is seen sitting. File photo shows Taco Bell sign. Trisha Chatterjee is seen sitting. AP, Trisha Chatterjee Chatterjee, however, disputes that claim. "They say at the end of the tweet that they've reached out to me. I'm looking at my inbox right now. I still have five unanswered emails to the ICE officers. We haven't gotten any calls, no voicemails. They haven't contacted us," she told Newsweek. Despite the pushback, Chatterjee said the experience has been unexpectedly overwhelming. "I didn't expect nearly what happened here, right? I mean, I was expecting maybe my TikTok went a little viral. I never expected this kind of a big response. So it's definitely been overwhelming." Chatterjee said a woman who saw her TikTok reached out in the comments, offering help. The woman explained that she lived in the area and that her boyfriend, an assistant director at ICE, had seen the video and wanted to assist. According to Chatterjee, he provided his contact details and was instrumental in answering her questions and helping her navigate the situation. Newsweek requested information on the ICE officials with whom Chatterjee was interacting during the initial call and the subsequent aftermath. However, she declined to share the information. "I don't want [the official who shared the Taco Bell number] to get in trouble. I mean, his comment when I called back was, he was like 'I was just trying to make you laugh and lighten the mood.'" "There are plenty of ICE officers who I have that relationship with, who, if they did that, I would laugh. I have a sense of humor," she said. "You make your own conclusions about why they picked a Mexican restaurant and not like a Chili's, but I think that maybe he was just ordering lunch and he thought this would be funny," she added. While DHS continues to stand by its statement, Chatterjee said she remains focused on helping her clients. "I feel like the tweet is misleading, and makes it seem like I'm just even doing my job for likes. And that's just not true. I do it for the love of the work. And I do it for the love of my clients.
