The Trump administration is expanding deportation efforts to Ohio, including Cleveland and into Cuyahoga and Geauga Counties.
The Geauga County Sheriff’s Office, for instance, reported that 50 criminal illegals had already been arrested as of Monday and were being detained at the county’s Safety Center, according to Axios Cleveland.
Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb issued a video statement Tuesday blasting the arrests and insisting that he supports illegal aliens in his city.
“As Mayor, I will use my full authority to recognize the humanity of all people in Cleveland,” Bibb said. “Immigrants are human beings. I fully condemn the concentrated effort to threaten and terrify our most vulnerable populations.”
“Arresting immigrants working in a suburban restaurant does not make us safer,” he added.
On Tuesday, ICE agents appeared at Cilantro Taqueria restaurant in Cleveland Heights looking for a particular criminal illegal but did not find him. However, they soon found that several workers in the restaurant were illegal and obeying the “collateral” rule handed down from the Trump administration, they took those illegals into custody.
The “collateral” policy urges immigration agents to arrest others who just happen to run across their radar as they conduct their raids, even if they weren’t specifically looking for them.
“My administration will not engage in the deportation of individuals who have not committed violent crimes. No law requires that we do so,” he exclaimed.
Cleveland, Ohio, has “sanctuary city” policies that run back all the way to 1987 and has considered itself a sanctuary city ever since.
Ohio Republicans are making moves to outlaw sanctuary cities in the Buckeye State.
“The Supreme Court has been quite clear that immigration is a federal issue, not a local issue,” Attorney General Dave Yost wrote in a Jan. 15 letter. “Local governments are no more free to make up their own immigration policy than they are to print their own money.”
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