It Begins: Illegal Immigrants are Being Rounded Up and Deported by Trump Administration, as Promised

Independent Journal Review ^ | 2/11/17 | Mike Miller 

Throughout the presidential campaign, Donald Trump pledged to take action on a host of issues, as all candidates tend to do when running for election. Now that he's president, Trump is actually following through.
One of those pledges was a promise to enforce existing U.S. immigration laws, including the deportation of those who entered the country illegally.
As reported by the Wall Street Journal, Trump “pressed ahead with his immigration crackdown” this week, “launching deportation raids across the U.S.”
The Independent was even more dramatic:

“Panic” and “terror” is said to be running through immigrant communities in the U.S. following raids carried out across at least six states as part of Donald Trump’s pledge to crack down on illegal immigrants.

The Daily Beast reported that Trump's “deportation force” conducted an “enforcement surge” in multiple cities around the country:

 

Over the last five days, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents conducted what they call an “enforcement surge” in the Los Angeles area, arresting more than 160 undocumented immigrants.
Immigrants’ rights groups and lawyers told The Daily Beast that ICE also increased its enforcement activities—including, in some cases, in apartment buildings—in a number of cities around the country, including Atlanta, Phoenix, Charlotte, and Austin.

The Independent quoted Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Gillian Christensen, who said the “raids” conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), were part of “routine” immigration enforcement actions:

“We’re talking about people who are threats to public safety or a threat to the integrity of the immigration system.”

But Cristina Jimenez, executive director of United We Dream, has a different take:

“This is clearly the first wave of attacks under the Trump administration, and we know this isn’t going to be the only one."

Sarah Owings, an immigration attorney in Atlanta, sounded a similar alarm:

“The muscle to do this kind of stuff is here — it’s just that the leash has been taken off. They’re out and they’re hunting. They’re picking up and rounding up anyone they can get."

Listening to the critics one would think that America is a police state, with a Gestapo-like force rounding up panicked and terrorized innocents in the middle of the night, rather than a country attempting to enforce its immigration laws — not only for the protection of its indigenous citizens, but for its legal immigrants as well.