The Salvadoran Embassy in Washington D.C. set up a hotline for those affected by the raids.
In a Monday, Jan. 4 statement the Department of Homeland Security said 121 undocumented immigrants were detained and are now in the process of being deported to their home countries.
"I have said publicly for months that individuals who constitute enforcement priorities, including families and unaccompanied children, will be removed", Johnson said. A statement Tuesday by the chair of the congressional organization, which focuses on issues affecting Latino communities, adds to the numerous civil rights and immigrant groups that have expressed concern over the raids, which targeted adults and children who have been apprehended at the US southern border since May 2014. Homeland Security says additional raids "will continue to occur as appropriate".
The woman, married with three children, said she has two brothers living in the US, and that one of them has been in the process of deportation in the past. Those from Central America will be flown on chartered flights back to their home countries. Since then, immigration officials have been increasing their deportations, the DHS claimed, averaging about 14 per week.
The raids by the Obama Administration on families from Central America must stop. He said: "We have made life intolerable for people who want to live peaceful family lives and we don't take any responsibility for that".
The raids followed a spike this fall in the number of immigrant families and unaccompanied minors coming into the United States.
Muñoz said it's been hard for many recent Central American migrants to navigate the immigration system.
Further details to come.
Anxious advocates called for a halt to the roundups and said they are mobilizing to protect immigrants.
The raids, in which agents typically arrived at the homes of people with deportation orders in pre-dawn hours, began over the weekend in states such as Texas, Georgia and North Carolina.
In addition to the removal efforts, Johnson noted that the agency is also increasing border security efforts by deploying more permanent agents and surveillance to the border, "cracking down" on human smuggling operations, working with Mexico, and funneling $750 million in aid to Central America to help stem the migration northward.
However, while more than 6,000 children and their parents had applied to the program, only about 90 applicants had been interviewed by last September.
The Michiana Immigration Coalition, a collective of numerous immigrant advocacy groups in Elkhart, Goshen and South Bend, has issued a sheet offering advice to immigrants anxious about detention. "They should not open the door unless ICE shares a warrant with a specific name for the person they are looking for", said Cristina Jimenez, managing director of the New York-based group United We Dream, which created a hotline related to the raids. "It is not a crime to arrive at our borders and request protection, and the overwhelming evidence indicates that these families have legitimate claims under USA law".
DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson said in a statement released Monday that the operation to find and deport Central Americans launched over the weekend "should come as no surprise".
Salvador Ongaro, a Phoenix immigration lawyer, said he believes most of the Central Americans targeted over the weekend had been ordered deported "in absentia".
Information gathered by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a nonpartisan research project supported by Syracuse University, bears this out.
After they're picked up in the current raids, immigrant families are taken to a detention center in Dilley, Texas, to await deportation.
"I also recognize the reality of the pain that deportations do in fact cause", Johnson said.
"At all times, we endeavor to do this consistent with American values, and basic principles of decency, fairness, and humanity".
