ICE reports that at least 118 immigrants were detained during the weekend’s raids in Los Angeles, Paramount, and elsewhere. An unknown number of those have already been taken to a privately run detention center outside LA in the high-desert town of Adelanto.
Yliana Johansen-Méndez, chief program officer at Immigrant Defenders Law Center (ImmDef), says that when her organization heard about the raids, they sent attorneys out to check warrants, uncover who was detained so they could meet with them and give information about their rights, and ensure people were not being unlawfully and quickly deported.
On Friday, a guard at the LA Federal Building told Yliana Johansen-Méndez that almost 200 people were in custody there, then at the end of the night, “they shut us down,” she describes. “They said the protests were getting out of hand, and therefore all the attorneys had to get out, and no more family visitation was allowed. But they said they still had 70 to 80 people pending processing. So this was a huge amount of people to be swept up in a very short amount of time, even just on Friday and then continuing over the weekend.”…