2 days Ago By Liz Nagy
CHICAGO (WLS) -- On President Donald Trump's 100th day in office, the administration says it's on track towards keeping a central campaign promise he made to "carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in American history." For one Chicago-area family, the administration's mass deportation efforts are upending their lives as they fight to keep their patriarch in the country while his wife battles breast cancer without her spouse by her side. It was a jarring scene at the Orozco family home in Lyons on Jan.
26, five days into Trump's second term. Video recorded on a cell phone and shared with the ABC 7 I-Team shows armed federal agents detaining Abel Orozco , 47, an undocumented Mexican immigrant who's lived in the U.S.
for nearly 30 years, according to the family's attorney. His family says Orozco has no criminal record, only a removal order from 2004 after Abel visited his father in Mexico and returned to the country without applying for asylum or citizenship. "He was essentially a collateral arrest," explained Abel's attorney Diana Rashid with the National Immigrant Justice Center.
"They were not looking for him.. but they encountered him during the enforcement operation.
" SEE ALSO | 2-year-old US citizen deported 'with no meaningful process,' judge suspects Abel's son Eduardo Orozco witnessed agents detaining his father that day and says life has not been the same since. "He was the main provider," said Abel's son Eduardo Orozco. "So having him gone, it's hard.
" Abel Orozco was arrested under the Trump Administration's expanded use of what's called "expedited removal," a swift administrative process with the goal to deport people without a court hearing. It's not the only method the Trump administration has put into practice meant to speed-up deportations. The administration has also invoked the 1798 wartime authority known as the "Alien Enemies Act" as grounds for deportation; a method meant to bypass court proceedings for those arrested.
Removals under both methods have been challenged in court. The White House has said these immigration enforcement methods are just the beginning. READ MORE | Judge bars Trump from denying federal funds to 'sanctuary' cities that limit immigration cooperation "We are in the beginning stages of carrying out the largest deportation campaign in American history," White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Monday.
Retired Chicago immigration Judge James Fujimoto says he has fears for how the immigration court system is quickly evolving, specifically over a "disregard for the rule of law." "Some of these policy choices seem to be directed towards, 'Well, we have too many [ immigration court ] cases," Fujimoto told the I-Team. "The problem with that is the notion that, 'Well, we have too many cases, so not everyone gets a hearing,' runs counter to the rule of law," Fujimoto said.
"If you're entitled to a hearing, you're entitled to a hearing. And there should be no exceptions." Fujimoto was appointed to the bench in 1990 under former President George H.
W. Bush's administration, and he retired in 2019. Use of the Alien Enemies Act stirs painful personal memories for the retired judge, who says his family was detained under the act during World War II, when the U.
S. was at war with Japan. " [ The Alien Enemies Act ] requires that we either be at war with a particular country or that we are threatened with invasion.
.. It goes back to 1798, and it's only been used three times in American history, including with my family, personally," Fujimoto said.
"It was a pretext for detaining and incarcerating Japanese Americans." SEE ALSO | Groups asking judge to force ICE to regularly release details on immigration arrests in Chicago On President Trump's 100th day of his second term, the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) released statistics showing the agency has arrested more than 66,000 people and removed nearly all of them: more than 65,000 people. The non-partisan think tank Migration Policy Institute says the administration "appears on track to deport roughly half a million people this year" suggesting it "will fall well short of its stated goal of 1 million deportations annually.
" Tom Homan, who's been referred to as the Trump Administration's "Border Czar," said the administration is meeting its goals for immigration. "Today, as I stand here, we have the most secure border in the history of this nation and the numbers prove it," Homan said on Monday. Now, as Abel Orozco's wife Yolanda battles breast cancer, she's hoping her family can succeed in court and that one day, she will reunite with her husband, who's currently in an Indiana detention facility.
"I try to take care of myself and be strong for my children," Yolanda told the I-Team via her attorney translating. The Orozco family has signed onto a lawsuit alleging ICE agents didn't have an arrest warrant when agents took the family's patriarch into custody, which, if true, would violate a years-old court order, according to their attorney. Abel's first court hearing -- where he plans to challenge his detainment under the administration's use of expedited removal -- is scheduled for next month.
READ MORE | Cracks in a Sanctuary City: How immigration agents are making arrests based on local police data.
