Noman Sabit: One morning in March, Virginia immigration courts were rushing through hearings as ICE carried out President Donald Trump’s mass deportation drive. Through video calls, judges were deciding people’s fates in minutes. One father from El Salvador broke down in tears, saying ICE officers had arrested him in front of his 2- and 4-year-old children. After the hearing, he disappeared and no one heard from him again.
Like him, thousands of deportees remain nameless and unseen. Some arrests go viral on social media, but most never reach public attention. Trump’s deportation campaign operates far from view, in remote detention centers where legal help is scarce. Nearly 70 percent of those detained have no criminal record, yet they are torn from their families and deported.
Researchers say courtrooms are filled with people who have lived in the U.S. for decades, worked hard, raised children and are now being expelled. Many face judges without lawyers, making deportation almost certain.
Because ICE moves quickly and records poorly, the true scale of deportations is unclear. A few viral stories stir sympathy, but behind them lie hundreds of thousands of silent deportees people whose names, faces, and voices the world will never know.
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