Families of immigrants arrested in a federal surge in Maine last month are scrambling to find out even basic information about their loved ones, as the government swiftly transfers them to detention facilities hundreds of miles away.

Erik Orellana-Mejia’s family spends their days next to the phone, wondering when he will call — and from where. Since Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested him at his worksite on Jan. 20 in Maine, the agency has taken him to Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Louisiana, and, most recently, to Missouri.

{snip}

Since last year, ICE has been building out a detention and deportation machinery in New England and across the country as it intensifies enforcement operations. The agency relied on this infrastructure to quickly send Maine residents it arrested last month to detention facilities across the country.

ICE said it arrested more than 200 people in Maine from Jan. 20-24, in what the agency dubbed “Operation Catch of the Day.” {snip}

{snip}

ICE regularly moves detainees through detention facilities depending on available bed space across the country, the agency has said, and in response to shifting contracts and new facilities. But immigration advocates say these transfers often happen without notice, leaving families and lawyers in the dark.

{snip}

A search of the Maine criminal history record information request service returned no results for Orellana-Mejia. Max Brooks, an attorney with the ACLU in Maine, said that the ICE arrests in Maine had been “indiscriminate.”

“They’re catching so many people with just pending asylum applications and no criminal history, who just have jobs,” Brooks said.

{snip}

The post Maine Residents Arrested in ICE Operation Transferred as Far as Louisiana, Missouri appeared first on American Renaissance.