MIRAMAR, FLA. (WSVN) - Deportation raids expected to be carried out by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in nine cities on Sunday, including Miami, apparently did not take place, but South Florida immigration advocates took the opportunity to pass out information about undocumented migrants’ rights.
7News cameras captured Thomas Kennedy, political director of the nonprofit Florida Immigrant Coalition, passing out flyers with information about undocumented immigrants’ rights in the area of Flagler Street and 13th Avenue in Miami’s Little Havana neighborhood, Sunday afternoon.
“We’re here spreading the message to the community that they have constitutional rights, that they are protected, that they don’t have to disclose their information or open their door to ICE,” he said.
Kennedy said those working with the nonprofit had no intention of letting their guard down despite no signs of ICE raids anywhere in the country.
Throughout the weekend, demonstrators chanted and held up signs at several protests in large cities in the U.S.
One person summed up the collective concern from undocumented immigrants and their families.
“Everybody is, like, basically hiding,” he said.
Miami was thought to be one of nine cities where mass deportations were imminent, but as of 10 p.m., there were no reports of any ICE activity.
Sunday night, the entrance to the ICE facility in Miramar looked empty.
Reports from immigration coalitions over the past week suggested the Trump administration would target some 2,000 people living in the U.S. illegally.
“They’re going to take people out, and they’re going to bring them back to their countries, or they’re going to take criminals out, put them in prison or put them in prison in the countries they came from,” President Donald Trump said on Friday.
The commander in chief’s message spread fear and panic in some South Florida communities over the weekend, yielding reports of secret safe spaces set up this weekend for illegal immigrants in the Miami area.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said deportation raids are ripping families apart.
“Parents ripped away from their children, and that ought to stop right now. In previous raids, that has happened,” he said.
But Customs Border Patrol Commissioner Mark Morgan said criminals were the target of the deportation raids.
“In this case, their priority has always been, and it will be, to go out after those who are criminal aliens,” he said, “meaning those people who are here illegally and have committed additional crimes against American citizens.”
Special immigration hotlines were set up just for the raids this weekend, but they stayed silent.
Some immigration experts told 7News they were expecting the raids to take place Sunday between 4 and 6 a.m., but none were reported.
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