Attorney Adam Crayk expects immigration enforcement in Utah to get much more aggressive. The recent public arrest at the airport that went viral is just one early indicator.
“We don’t want Salt Lake City to turn into a Chicago,” he said in reference to Border Patrol’s tactics in that city.
Agents in the Chicago area have kicked in doors, targeted protestors with tear gas and shot a woman accused of sideswiping their vehicle, according to WBEZ.
“We don't deserve Salt Lake City to be turned into a Chicago,” he said.
His worries stem from a purported change in leadership.
In late October, the Trump administration began to replace Immigration and Customs Enforcement leadership with Border Patrol agents in offices across the country, according to The New York Times. While the government has not released a full list of affected sites, Crayk said it includes Salt Lake City.
“We know that Jason Knight is being removed,” Crayk said of the acting field office director of the ICE Salt Lake City Field Office. ”And we know that a Border Patrol agent is coming in now to take over the local FOD [Field Office Director] job.”
The office oversees operations in Utah, Idaho, Montana and Nevada.
ICE did not answer KUER’s question of who currently leads the Salt Lake City Field Office. A spokesperson redirected questions to the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE and Border Patrol, among other agencies. KUER’s inquiry has been left unanswered after more than 24 hours.
A spokesperson for Customs and Border Protection, which falls under Homeland Security and includes Border Patrol, pointed to an Oct. 27 social media post from Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for Homeland Security’s public affairs.
In it, she said the department had no personnel changes to announce.
Meanwhile, Crayk is waiting for what’s next.
“I've been told that I need to buckle in, and that scares me,” he said. “I don't need to buckle in. I've been buckled in now for nine months. I guess I'm now going to have to double strap, which I don't like.”
Crayk said immigration enforcement officers in Utah have mostly done a good job, though he’s taken issue with some arrests.
Now, though, he worries arrests like the one of his client at Salt Lake City International Airport could become more common because, as he put it, Border Patrol arrests tend to be “more out in your face.”
Border Patrol and ICE have taken different approaches to carrying out President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign, said Michael Kagan, director of the immigration law clinic at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
ICE has focused on specific targets, he said, while Border Patrol is more broadly associated with racial profiling and random arrests.
“In the weird scale of aggressive immigration tactics of the Trump administration, Border Patrol are the ones who've been associated with the most extreme and most shocking arrests around the country, particularly in Los Angeles and Chicago,” he said.
A federal judge ordered federal agents in Chicago on Nov. 6 to limit their use of force against protesters and journalists, according to the Associated Press. Border Patrol leader Gregory Bovino had testified that federal agents’ use of force against protestors was “more than exemplary,” as reported by the Chicago Sun-Times.
Nevadans have changed their behavior after immigration actions in other states, Kagan said, though he hasn’t witnessed broad sweeps locally. In June, federal agents raided a swap meet outside Los Angeles. Video of the incident spread, including one shared by Border Patrol, and that led a North Las Vegas swap meet to close temporarily.
“There was panic, but we actually haven't seen that activity here,” Kagan said. “The change in leadership in ICE offices like this raises concern that it may yet still be coming.”
People who appear Latino, including citizens, could be profiled by immigration agents, Kagan said, like in a video of Border Patrol agents surrounding a woman in a Walmart parking lot, asking, “Were you born here?”
“Those sorts of things would be devastating and terrifying to the central, foundational fabric of our community, at a personal level, and at a commercial and economic level in Nevada,” he said.
A September decision by the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for immigration agents to use factors like language, apparent race or ethnicity and type of work in apprehending people on suspicion that they may be in the country illegally.
Bovino told a Chicago reporter in late September that officers take an individual’s appearance into account when making arrests.
U.S. citizens have also been swept up. Over 170 citizens have been held by immigration agents since the start of the second Trump administration, according to ProPublica.
Kagan believes everyone, even those who aren’t or don’t look Latino, should be concerned.
“It would be terrifying to people in Southern Nevada if ICE were to suddenly just start swooping in on landscapers or raiding and demanding papers and harassing people at construction sites,” he said.
Macy Lipkin is a Report for America corps member who reports for KUER in northern Utah.
