SEATTLE — In recent weeks, the Drug Enforcement Administration in Seattle has collaborated with the Department of Homeland Security on immigration enforcement.
According to the DEA, their group is specifically arresting illegal immigrants who are directly involved in the drug trade or have a criminal record.
“Everyone the DEA has been participating with like the Department of Homeland Security to this point has had a criminal record. Everyone,” Special Agent in Charge David Reames said.
Special Agent in Charge Reames says the Trump administration has given the agency the ability to enforce Title 8, an immigration law that has been in place for decades that prosecutes those who unlawfully cross the border and are subject to potential deportation or face a 5-year bar on re-entry. Reames argues the drug trade and illegal immigration have some connections.
“Illegal immigration and drug trafficking are worlds that sort of intersect. There is a lot of people illegally in the United States that are involved in the drug trade. Whether they are carriers or street dealers or mid-level traffickers or even the senior level people, a lot of people who are here illegally are participating in drug trafficking,” Reames said.
“The DEA remains focused on fentanyl trafficking in the Pacific Northwest and throughout the world,” Reames continued.
The DEA says they are not picking up migrants at random, but groups who help migrants with asylum like Thrive International say tensions are high.
“Right now we have a bunch of families with little kids who are law-abiding residents in our community who are terrified because they are afraid they are going to be picked up by federal agents,” Mark Finney, Executive Director of Thrive International, said.
Finney says he understands agencies cracking down on drug trafficking to make communities safer, but he says given the current tone of the Trump administration, many migrants fear for their safety.
“There’s certain rhetoric that says we are trying to make our communities safer, but then there is also stories about people who are not dangerous who are being harassed or being detained and other things and so that lack of clarity and inconsistency makes a lot of folks nervous,” Finney said.
KIRO 7 has contacted ICE for more details about immigration arrests and raids in the state. A spokesperson is working on sharing those details.
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