Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are now aggressively rounding up legally resettled refugees in Minnesota and preparing to widen the search across the country, a national immigration advocate warned.
“ICE officers have actually shown up at their doors and, if allowed in, detained in some cases entire families, including children. In other cases, they grabbed someone when they tried to go out to go to work, and that leaves behind a spouse and kids,” said Matthew Soerens, vice president of advocacy and policy with World Relief and national coordinator of the Evangelical Immigration Table.
Matt Soerens
The detentions are part of Operation PARRIS, the Department of Homeland Security’s “Post-Admission Refugee Reverification and Integrity Strengthening” program.
The campaign follows the Trump administration’s December announcement that it plans to reevaluate the eligibility of tens of thousands of refugees lawfully admitted to the U.S. during Joe Biden’s presidency. Somali and other refugees in Minnesota have been among the first targeted as part of Trump’s ICE buildup in Democratic states.
The actions come months after Trump lowered the nation’s refugee cap to an all-time low of 7,500 and his claim that refugee admissions pose a national security risk.
Soerens said World Relief and its partners are concerned for about 4,400 refugees the groups helped resettle before Trump’s return to office and who have yet to receive permanent residency status.
“Refugees are lawfully present from the moment they arrived,” he said. “They have been invited by the United States to rebuild their lives in this country because of the persecution they’ve already experienced in their country of origin. But you’re not, as a refugee, allowed to receive your Green Card until one year after arrival. The families that have been detained in Minnesota have already filed for their Green Cards the way they were supposed to but have not received them.”
“Refugees are lawfully present from the moment they arrived.”
It is likely those cards haven’t arrived for some individuals and families because applications filed before Trump’s inauguration were frozen last fall, he said.
DHS said it is focusing initially on 5,600 refugees without Green Cards residing legally in Minnesota even as it charges ahead with detentions of documented and undocumented immigrants in the state.
“Minnesota is ground zero for the war on fraud,” the department said. “This operation in Minnesota demonstrates that the Trump administration will not stand idly by as the U.S. immigration system is weaponized by those seeking to defraud the American people. American citizens and the rule of law come first, always.”
Neither DHS’s accusation of fraud across the state nor of the “widespread immigration fraud in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area” have been proved in court and are considered instead to be expressions of Trump’s widely documented vendettas against political opponents.
World Relief condemned the detentions of refugees and demanded the release of those who have committed no crimes.
Myal Greene
“This is a five-alarm fire. These are not the ‘worst of the worst;’ these are innocent children and families who fled the worst wars and persecution imaginable, who were invited by the American people to become Americans under the terms of American law,” said Myal Greene, president of the Christian humanitarian organization.
The refugees being targeted are not the dangers to society the administration claims to be after, said Walter Kim, president of the National Association of Evangelicals.
“We lament the suffering and recurring trauma of our immigrant neighbors, including many refugees who have fled violence or persecution and have followed every rule,” Kim said. “These are families with children whom our country initially welcomed. As evangelicals, we believe every person bears God’s image and deserves safety, dignity and fair treatment.”
World Relief called for the end of Operation PARRIS and urged people of faith to sign a letter asking Congress to pressure the administration to cease the persecution of refugees who sought safety in the U.S.
Related article: