How Legal Immigration Became a Deportation Trap

"One morning last month, a Minneapolis resident, whom I'll call Anna, was pulling into the parking lot at work when she noticed a fleet of dark, unmarked S.U.V.s idling nearby. A group of immigration agents dressed in street clothes emerged from the vehicles before she could get out of her car. One of them called her by her name. "I know who you are," he said. "I know you're a refugee.""

"At the end of 2024, she and her family, including her four children, who are from a country in Central Africa, were granted refugee status in the U.S. The federal government had resettled them in Minnesota, a state which they found cold and strange but mercifully quiet. Her immigration papers, which she always carried with her, were in order. "I thought I was going to talk to the man and show him my documents," Anna said."

Immigration agents in plain clothes have begun using U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services locations and applicant interactions to identify and arrest migrants. A Minneapolis refugee with valid resettlement papers was stopped in her workplace parking lot, handcuffed, denied counsel and family contact, and flown to an immigration detention center under charges processed as "USCIS Cases." USCIS was created in 2002 and historically did not conduct arrests, unlike ICE and Border Patrol. The shift has enabled enforcement actions at sites and moments previously considered safe for legal applicants, affecting refugees and other immigrants carrying proper documentation.

Read at The New Yorker