Alan Gomez

USA TODAY

Federal agents launched a series of raids around the country this past weekend that target undocumented immigrants, including children, who recently arrived from Central America, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson disclosed Monday.

The raids focus primarily on immigrants in Georgia, Texas and North Carolina. Authorities have netted 121 people who are in the process of being deported to their home countries, Johnson said. They are part of a wave of Central Americans who rushed to the USA in the past few years to escape a spike in violence sparked by drug cartels.

Johnson said his agency has focused on immigrants with criminal records or gang ties or who post a threat to national security. The weekend raids focused on those who arrived recently, mainly from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. "This should come as no surprise," he said in a statement. "Individuals who constitute enforcement priorities, including families and unaccompanied minors, will be removed."

Immigrant rights activists said the raids crack down on a vulnerable population uncertain of its legal rights.

"The administration is doubling down on a system that is rigged against these families," said Cecillia Wang, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Immigrants' Rights Project. "Many of these mothers and children had no lawyers because they could not afford them. Without counsel, traumatized refugees don't understand what is happening in court and cannot get their legitimate asylum claim heard."

The raids left immigrants around the country terrified.

In Atlanta, the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights said it fielded continual calls from people who reported Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents barging into their homes in the middle of the night. In Chicago, the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights said it spent the holidays speaking with immigrant organizers, religious leaders and immigration lawyers to help hundreds of people who could be targets.

In Dallas, immigration activist Greisa Martinez said she spent the holiday break counseling her mother on what to do if immigration agents came looking for her. The moment was especially difficult, Martinez said, because they had spent the previous Christmas celebrating President Obama's new program to protect up to 4.5 million undocumented immigrants from deportation.

Obama's plan is blocked in federal court, and Martinez's family is again fearful of a late-night knock at the door from ICE agents. "It's emblematic of this administration. Obama is cementing his legacy as the 'deporter in chief,' " said Martinez, a director for United We Dream, an immigration advocacy organization.

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The raids are the latest chapter in what has been a difficult response to the rush of Central Americans fleeing north. Their growing numbers spiked in the summer of 2014, when more than 60,000 minors reached the southwestern U.S. border. The Obama administration called the influx a humanitarian crisis and said the children should have an opportunity to plead their case for refugee status because of the raging violence they escaped.

Many did seek refugee status, but many have been deported. The Department of Health and Human Services scrambled to find shelter for the children, many of whom came with their mothers. In August, a federal judge ordered the administration to stop housing those children and families in detention-style facilities.

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The White House sent Vice President Biden and other officials to Central America to warn about the dangers of the journey and the likelihood that those who made the trip would be deported.

In December, Congress approved $750 million in aid for Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador to address the causes of the immigrant tide. Though less than the $1 billion Obama requested, the White House said the money was a start to help those countries reduce violence and improve their economies.

Despite those efforts, the number of Central Americans rushing to the USA is back on the rise. During October and November, 10,588 unaccompanied children reached the southwestern border, more than double the number that came during those months in 2014, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.