Federal agents have arrested hundreds of immigrants off New York and New Jersey streets in recent months in a stealth enforcement campaign that disproportionately targeted people from Latin American countries, according to an investigation by the City Reporter based on a review of more than 1,200 lawsuits.
More than 93% of the people grabbed off area streets who filed suit were from Latin American countries, although Latinos make up only 66% of immigrants without legal status in the region.
The arrests have rattled Latino neighborhoods, as people disappear in moments as mundane as buying milk, walking their dog, taking out the trash or picking up their children from soccer practice.
Street arrests are different from other types of immigration enforcement in that they unfold in minutes, often on quiet residential streets and out of public view. Many immigrants who had no expectation of being detained were targeted at the sole discretion of agents in the field. In some accounts of the arrests, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents said they stopped people because they looked similar to someone they had a warrant for, then realized they had a different subject, but apprehended the person anyway.
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