NATION
Saturday, July 13, 2019
East Oregonian
A9
Trump says nationwide immigration raids set to begin Sunday
By ELLIOT SPAGAT
AND COLLEEN LONG
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The
head of Immigration and Cus-
toms Enforcement on Fri-
day portrayed an upcoming
national operation targeting
immigrant families as a rou-
tine effort that could capture
about 200 people and detain
them in hotels before they are
deported.
Matthew Albence, act-
ing director of U.S. Immigra-
tion and Customs Enforce-
ment, made his comments to
The Associated Press as Pres-
ident Donald Trump said the
nationwide deportation sweep
will begin this weekend.
“It starts on Sunday and
they’re going to take people
out and they’re going to bring
them back to their countries
or they’re going to take crim-
inals out, put them in prison,
or put them in prison in the
countries they came from. We
are focused on criminals as
much as we can before we do
anything else,” Trump said.
The operation will target
people with final deporta-
tion orders in 10 major cities,
including Chicago, Los Ange-
les, New York and Miami, and
predominantly focus on Cen-
tral American families who
AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee
Flyers in English and Spanish are shown stacked at a nearby restaurant before immigration
advocates gather them and hand them out Thursday in the Little Havana neighborhood in
Miami. The Trump administration is moving forward with a nationwide immigration enforce-
ment operation this weekend targeting migrant families.
have arrived at the U.S. bor-
der with Mexico in unprece-
dented numbers.
The operation further
inflamed the political debate
over immigration as Trump
appeals to his base with a
pledge to crack down on
migrants and Democrats cast
the president and his adminis-
tration as inhumane for going
after families.
The reality is that the
operation is similar to one in
2016 under President Barack
Obama and another in 2017
under Trump. The Obama-
era operation resulted in
about 10% of those targeted
being arrested, and the Trump
effort had a lower arrest rate,
Albence said.
That means the operation,
targeting 2,000 people, could
yield about 200 arrests based
on previous crackdowns.
Trump has said on Twitter
that his agents plan to arrest
millions of immigrants in the
country illegally.
“This family operation is
nothing new,” Albence told
the AP. “It’s part of our day-
to-day operations.”
It is highly unusual to
announce an enforcement
sting before it begins. The
president postponed the effort
once before after a phone call
with House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi, but immigration offi-
cials said it was also due in
part to law enforcement con-
cerns over officer safety
because details had leaked.
But they’re pressing ahead
with this one, even though the
president and other admin-
istration officials have dis-
cussed the long-planned fam-
ily operation for weeks.
“Nothing to be secret
about,” Trump said. “If the
word gets out, it gets out
because hundreds of people
know about it.”
The family operation will
focus on 10 court dockets
with large numbers of fami-
lies that have arrived recently
and been ordered to leave the
country, but that doesn’t mean
arrests will be limited to those
areas, Albence said. Authori-
ties will go where their inves-
tigations lead, even if it’s five
states away.
The operation will tar-
get entire families that have
been ordered removed, but
some family may be sepa-
rated if some members are in
the country legally. Albence
gave a hypothetical exam-
ple of a father and child in
the U.S. illegally but a mother
who isn’t.
“If the mother wants to
return voluntarily on her own
with the family, she’ll have an
opportunity to do so,” he said.
Families will be tempo-
rarily housed in hotels until
they can be transferred to a
detention center or deported,
Albence said.
That has prompted back-
lash from hotel chains that
don’t want anything to do
with detained families and
ICE agents in their rooms
and hallways. Marriott said it
would not allow ICE to use its
hotels for holding immigrants.
Albence said if ICE runs
out of space, it may be forced
to separate some family mem-
bers. The government is not
allowed to detain family
members together in tradi-
tional jails.
“If hotels or other places do
not want to allow us to utilize
that, it’s almost forcing us into
a situation where we’re going
to have to take one of the par-
ents and put them in custody
and separate them from the
rest of their families,” he said.
Meanwhile,
activists
ramped up efforts to prepare
by bolstering know-your-
rights pocket guides, cir-
culating information about
hotlines and planning public
demonstrations. Vigils out-
side of detention centers and
hundreds of other locations
nationwide were set for Fri-
day evening, to be followed
by protests Saturday in Miami
and Chicago.
Acosta exits; Trump’s big Cabinet turnover keeps growing
By DARLENE
SUPERVILLE AND JILL
COLVIN
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Add-
ing to the lengthy list of
departures from President
Donald Trump’s Cabinet,
Labor Secretary Alexander
Acosta said Friday he’s step-
ping down amid the tumult
over his handling of a 2008
secret plea deal with wealthy
financier Jeffrey Epstein, who
is accused of sexually abusing
underage girls.
Trump, with Acosta at his
side, said Friday he did not ask
his secretary to leave and “I
hate to see this happen.” The
president, who publicly faults
the news media almost daily,
said Acosta put the blame
there, too.
Acosta “informed me this
morning that he felt the con-
stant drumbeat of press about
a prosecution which took
place under his watch more
than 12 years ago was bad for
the Administration, which he
so strongly believes in, and he
graciously tendered his resig-
nation,” Trump tweeted later
in the day.
Trump said Pat Pizzella,
the department’s deputy sec-
retary since April 2018, would
succeed Acosta on an acting
basis.
Pizzella served in the
administrations of Republican
George W. Bush and Demo-
crat Barack Obama. A coa-
lition of civil rights, human
rights, labor and other groups
opposed his nomination by
Trump to the department’s
No. 2 slot, citing Pizzella’s
record on labor rights.
Acosta was the U.S. attor-
ney in Miami when he over-
saw a 2008 non-prosecu-
tion agreement that allowed
Epstein to avoid federal
trial but plead guilty to state
charges and serve 13 months
AP Photo/Andrew Harnik
President Donald Trump speaks to members of the media
with Secretary of Labor Alex Acosta on the South Lawn of the
White House on Friday before Trump boards Marine One for
a short trip to Andrews Air Force Base, Md. and then on to
Wisconsin.
in jail. Similar charges filed
against Epstein by federal
prosecutors in New York this
week had put Acosta’s han-
dling of the 2008 agreement
with the now-jailed financier
back in the spotlight.
Years ago, Epstein had
counted Trump and former
President Bill Clinton among
his friends, but Trump said
this week he was “not a fan.”
Acosta said he didn’t want
his handling of Epstein’s case
to overshadow the president’s
agenda and said his resig-
nation would be effective in
seven days.
“My point here today is we
have an amazing economy,
and the focus needs to be on
the economy,” he said.
Top Democratic lawmak-
ers and presidential candi-
dates had demanded that
Acosta resign. But Acosta had
defended his actions, insisting
at a news conference Wednes-
day that he got the toughest
deal on Epstein that he could
at the time.
House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi, D-Calif., said he should
never have been appointed
by Trump and confirmed by
the Senate. “Thank God he’s
gone,” she said.
Acosta had also frustrated
some conservatives who
wanted him gone long before
the Epstein uproar. Among
their objections were his deci-
sions to proceed with several
employment discrimination
lawsuits and to allow certain
Obama administration hold-
overs to keep their jobs.
His resignation extends
a record level of turnover at
the highest levels of Trump’s
administration, with act-
ing secretaries at key depart-
ments, including the Penta-
gon and Homeland Security.
Roughly two-thirds of the
Cabinet has turned over by
the two-and-a-half year mark
of Trump’s term.
Only the departments of
Treasury,
Transportation,
Housing and Urban Devel-
opment, Education, Energy,
Commerce and Agriculture
continue with the leaders that
were first confirmed.
Epstein, 66, reached the
deal in Florida in 2008 to
secretly end a federal sex
abuse investigation involving
at least 40 teenage girls that
could have landed him behind
bars for life. He instead
pleaded guilty to Florida state
charges, spent 13 months in
We Hear You!
jail, paid settlements to vic-
tims and registered as a sex
offender.
A federal judge has said
Acosta violated federal law
by keeping Epstein’s victims
in the dark about the plea
arrangement, and the Jus-
tice Department has been
investigating.
The deal came under scru-
tiny earlier this year after
reporting by The Miami
Herald.
Trump had defended
Acosta earlier this week
while saying he’d look “very
closely” at his handling of the
2008 agreement.
Acosta had attempted to
clear his name and held a
news conference — encour-
aged by Trump — to defend
his actions. In a 50-plus-min-
ute lawyerly rebuttal, he
argued his office had secured
the best deal it could and had
worked in the best interests of
Epstein’s victims.
“We did what we did
because we wanted to see
Epstein go to jail,” he said.
Pressed on whether he had
any regrets, Acosta repeat-
edly said circumstances had
changed since then.
“We now have 12 years
of knowledge and hindsight
and we live in a very differ-
ent world,” he said. “Today’s
world treats victims very, very
differently.”
After federal attorneys in
New York announced the new
charges against Epstein this
week, Acosta tweeted that he
was pleased by their decision.
“The crimes committed by
Epstein are horrific,” Acosta
tweeted. “Now that new evi-
dence and additional testi-
mony is available, the NY
prosecution offers an import-
ant opportunity to more fully
bring him to justice.”
Acosta took office as
the nation’s 27th labor sec-
retary in early 2017, lead-
ing a sprawling agency that
enforces more than 180 fed-
eral laws covering about 10
million employers and 125
million workers. The depart-
ment also plays a role in com-
batting human trafficking.
Before he was named a
U.S. attorney, Acosta was
an assistant attorney gen-
eral for the civil rights divi-
sion in President George W.
Bush’s first term. Before
joining the Trump adminis-
tration, he was dean of the
Florida International Uni-
versity law school.
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