Federal agents are also ensnaring individuals with no criminal records and some who show up at ICE offices as required. Both of those were true for the Trejo Lopez brothers. The check-in can be an easy way for the agency to juice deportation numbers, says Camille Mackler, the CEO of Immigrant ARC, a collaborative of legal-service providers in New York. She also notes that lawyers are seeing more immigrants without criminal histories being detained. “When they can deport, they’re deporting,” she says.

In another merciless aspect of the new deportation regime, immigrants can be at risk even while they seek other forms of relief. The brothers were pursuing green cards under what’s known as Special Immigrant Juvenile Status, granted to those under 21 who have suffered abuse, abandonment, or neglect by a parent. Their father had seen them exactly once since they were toddlers in a brief encounter at a barbecue. In March, after they were detained, New York Family Court found that they had been abandoned and neglected by their father and that it was not in their “best interests” to be returned to El Salvador, according to court filings. Yet they remained in custody. (nymag.com)