Oscar Sanchez-Corona was pouring concrete at a construction site near Iowa Street and West 29th Terrace in Lawrence around 6:30 a.m. on Aug. 18 when ICE agents showed up and took him — and no one else at the worksite. Counting the day of his Aug. 18 arrest, he spent 18 calendar days in detention before his deportation to Juarez, Mexico, separated from the two elementary school-aged children he shares custody of in Johnson County.
According to a U.S. Congress hearing record, ICE’s December 2006 Operation Wagon Train involved more than 1,000 agents and about 1,300 arrests at six worksite locations.
The speed of it all traces back to a legal mechanism most families never have to learn about. Sanchez-Corona had a prior deportation order stemming from a misdemeanor charge for damaging property worth less than $1,000 when he was 18, plus probation violations, according to the Kansas City Star. In general, because someone has reentered the country after an earlier removal order, federal officers may invoke what’s known as reinstatement of removal — a process under 8 U.S.C. § 1231(a)(5) and 8 C.F.R. § 241.8 that lets ICE carry out deportation administratively, with no hearing in front of an immigration judge, according to the American Immigration Council…