Monthly ICE arrests triple in South Carolina

GREENVILLE, S.C. (FOX Carolina) - New data shows immigration agents are making more arrests in South Carolina following President Donald Trump’s push for mass deportations.

FOX Carolina Investigates analyzed the data and found most of these arrests are on people already facing charges or currently serving a sentence behind bars.

The data comes from the Deportation Data Project, a group that files public information requests with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, better known as ICE.

The records they receive and publish contain details about each arrest made by the agency: when it happened, where and the type of arrest.

Last year, ICE arrests hovered around 100 each month. This year that number was doubled and then tripled.

So far, March saw the most arrests topping out at 345.

“I think this is just the beginning,” said Alexander Gorski, an immigration and criminal law attorney in Greenville County. “I think [President Trump will] probably find the resources, or the funding, necessary to probably keep it at these rates or probably increase it.”

Gorski said most ICE arrests are on people already facing charges or those already serving time in prison.

According to the data, 47% of the ICE arrests in South Carolina this year were on people with pending charges. Another 41% were on people already convicted.

The remaining 12% were described by ICE records as people who had committed other immigration violations.

However, there has been at least one major raid in South Carolina.

On June 1 in Charleston County, 80 people were arrested at a nightclub.

“So what’s happening is a lot of my clients are looking at just trying to limit their activity and limit their exposure. So that way, what they are hoping to do is kind of to lay low until this wave kind of goes past them,” Gorski said. “It’s very stressful for my clients and of course, like anything, there’s a collateral side.”

While there hasn’t yet been a major documented ICE raid in the Upstate, the Homeland Security Investigations Office of Greenville arrested eight people on immigration charges at a Mexican restaurant in West Union during a human trafficking investigation.

John Agular, a Marine and former law enforcement officer who now owns a dog training business in West Union, said his community has felt different ever since that day.

“I’ve grown up with these people. I’ve gone to church with these people. I’ve, you know, worshiped. I’ve protected these people, gone to calls, you know, seen them on their worst days and all that,” Agular said. “And somebody told me this one day and they called me an anchor baby.”

Agular is the son of two formerly undocumented immigrants. Both of them are now immigrants.

He said the eight arrests have emboldened people in his community.

“Just to see how at the time when they needed me, I was great.” Agular said. “I was one of the good ones. I’ve been called one of the good ones more than once. But now when my community is hurting [and] my community needs somebody, now that I choose to stand up now I’m a bad guy.”