The Department of Homeland Security on Monday rebuffed allegations that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents handcuffed children as they targeted illegal immigrants for deportation.
Last week, migrant advocates in San Antonio, Texas reported that during an operation focused on detaining illegal immigrants, ICE used zip ties to handcuff at least one minor. The Immigrant Legal Resource Center shared a video of ICE agents taking a family into custody at the San Antonio Immigration Court. In the video, a young male appeared to be detained through the use of zip ties. DHS said the subject in the video was 18 years old.
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DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin criticized characterizations that ICE is handcuffing children as “categorically false” in a statement that suggested the male in question was not a minor.
“During a recent encounter and arrest of an 18-year-old illegal alien, he was photographed alongside minor children in immigration court in San Antonio, Texas,” McLaughlin told the Washington Examiner. “ICE officers do not restrain minors.”
“The Department of Homeland Security maintains a clear stance that individuals without lawful immigration status may face arrest and removal, and that self-deportation is a safer and more efficient alternative,” her statement continued.
Some protestors outside the courthouse claimed they saw multiple children in zip ties.
“We witnessed a family get taken away,” Jessica Solis, a migrant advocate, told Fox San Antonio. “A family of six. A mother, a father, and all of their children being detained by ICE. They had the children zip-tied in cuffs, and they took them to the processing center.”
The Immigrant Legal Resource Center said the family was detained as they attended a scheduled immigration hearing. Many people who entered the U.S. illegally under the Biden administration were released into the country after being provided a date to appear in court and make their case for legal status.
“Families are being targeted at their most vulnerable time – attending their scheduled immigration hearings for what they believe to be progress in their cases,” the organization said in a statement.
“As I took the video documenting this unconscionable act, I questioned ICE agents on their authority to apprehend people, including children, who were attending their court hearing,” ILRC attorney Priscilla Olivarez said in a press release. “Due process is the cornerstone of our system of democracy and civil society. ICE’s tactics are undermining the right for everyone to have access to our courts, regardless of status.”
Deporting millions of illegal immigrants who crossed into the country under the Biden administration was one of the key tenets of President Donald Trump’s victorious campaign for reelection last year.
The Trump administration’s goal is to deport at least 1 million illegal immigrants by the end of 2025. Trump’s deputy chief of staff for policy, Stephen Miller, confirmed last week that in order to meet the ambitious deportation goal, ICE is seeking to make a minimum of 3,000 arrests per day.
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The White House’s initial targets for deportation were illegal immigrants accused of violent crimes.
In recent weeks, the focus has expanded to detaining construction workers without legal status and families such as those in Texas who were allowed to enter the country under Biden-era immigration “catch and release” policies, but are now being targeted for swift removal by the Trump administration.