Immigrants on probation, the new objective for deportations in the US.

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April 4, 2025April 4, 2025By Mario Vásquez
Immigrants on probation, the new objective for deportations in the US.

Last Thursday, April 3, dozens of immigration lawyers in the state of Utah denounced that, the Mass Deportations Plan of the US President Donald Trump, A new modality has been added that was implemented with the help of the prison system, focused on locating Immigrants In probation.

The members accused the Immigration and Customs Control Service (ICEfor its acronym in English) for the increase in this practice since last Saturday, February 1, when state officers for supervision of probation They began to arrest immigrants directly to their scheduled appointments.

“The practice is very dishonest and are stopping immigrants who are on probation, even for minor crimes. We already saw that the officers ask them to be reported and then ICE will be captured, ”said the American lawyer Adam Crayk to the newspaper Tribunelocated in the city of Salt Lake City.

Given this situation, the jurists no longer know whether to advise their clients to attend their Supervision appointments of probation, so, according to Crayk, this decision has been left to immigrants themselves: “We all know that they must comply with the law, but it is a quite complicated panorama,” Adam added.

ICE defends the arrests

In response to the complaints filed by the lawyers, the spokesman of the Correctional Department In Utah, Glen Mills, He indicated that the penitentiary system “has shared for more than 10 years” the names of the people under the supervision of ICE, so there will be no new changes in that immigration policy.

For its part, the Immigration and Customs Control Service also defended these arrests through a statement, in which they cataloged immigrants on probation as “convicted criminals”, Since, despite having fulfilled their sentences at the state level, they are still considered deportable by federal law.

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In the United States, interstate cooperation in the supervision of people on probation is regulated by the interstatal agreement for supervision of convict adults (Icaos), in force in the 50 states and in Puerto Rico. However, lawyers indicated that practices “vary significantly in each state ”.

“In some cases, the laws were modified from the arrival of Donald Trump to the presidency. For example, in Idahoonly the Forgive commission I could decide if a migrant was transferred with ICE. However, at present, that faculty has passed to probation supervisors, ”argued the lawyer Orlando Luna.

“In turn, in the state of Oklahomain March an intervention known as the Guardian operation, with which it was sought to transfer to migratory prisons to more than 525 inmates without immigration status, where most were under probation, “added the American jurist of migration, Chris Keen.

In contrast to this situation, the states of Colorado and California They maintain laws that limit direct collaboration between prison and ICE authorities, because only the probation board can authorize transfers, as long as there is a formal request of the immigration control service.

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