Trump increases ICE arrests, alarming cities and immigrant communities

The Trump administration on Friday distributed photos showing U.S. soldiers loading shackled prisoners onto a military transport plane as the White House announced the launch of the president’s announced mass deportation campaign.

The White House said immigration agents arrested 538 undocumented immigrants with criminal records and deported “hundreds” more. These numbers, if right, would be relatively modest amid a surge in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations — which could indicate that the Trump administration’s show of force has so far exceeded the government’s ability to meet the president’s lofty goals.

But on Thursday night, Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, cited a larger number than the White House on NewsNation, claiming that officials had arrested more than 3,000 people with criminal records in the administration’s first few days in office. ICE, which detains and deports immigrants, did not respond to requests for clarification on the numbers.

Trump and his officials have provided few details about these arrests or evidence of their criminal records. Trump has long characterized immigrants as criminals, even though research shows Native Americans commit a higher rate of violent crimes.

“It’s going very well. We’re taking out bad, tough criminals,” Trump told reporters during a trip to North Carolina to watch flood recovery from last year’s Hurricane Helene.

Having no evidence, he said: “These are murderers. These are people who were as bad as you. As bad as anyone you’ve ever seen. We’ll eliminate them first.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt released information about 538 arrests late Thursday night and early Friday, highlighting several serious offenders. She wrote that four of those arrested during the operation were members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. Others committed sex crimes against children, Leavitt said.

“Deportation flights have started. “President Trump is sending a strong and clear message to the world: If you enter the United States of America illegally, you will face serious consequences,” Leavitt wrote in X. “The largest mass deportation operation in history is already underway.”

Immigration officials did not say exactly how many immigrants were deported in this week’s nationwide operation, or how many were criminals, but officials say their main targets are serious criminals.

The number of arrests publicized by the White House was lower than the 675 detained in similar raids after Trump took office in 2017, threatening to deport “millions” of people, although he never came close to that number.

Then as now, officials said criminals were their top priority. But weeks later, congressional aides found that half of those arrested had no criminal record or had committed traffic violations as the most serious crimes, which ICE said were mostly related to driving under the influence.

This week, the military flew two C-17 cargo planes, each carrying about 80 people, into Guatemala after illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, according to a Department of Homeland Security official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the operation.

Officials said the planes took off from Texas and Arizona. Officials say ICE Air continues to operate deportation flights alongside military aircraft.

Tom Cartwright, who tracks ICE deportations for the immigrant advocacy group Witness at the Border, called the military operation “theater of the absurd” in a post on X. “The only modern thing in this case is putting people on cargo planes,” Cartwright wrote. He noted that in fiscal year 2024, ICE operated 508 deportation flights to Guatemala on aircraft carrying an average of 125 passengers.

The immigration drive began immediately after Trump took office in cities and states across the country, targeting areas where Democrats were defending immigrants and calling on Congress to allow them to become U.S. citizens. Trump called for their mass expulsion, and on Inauguration Day he directed the departments of Homeland Security, Justice and Defense to prioritize immigration enforcement.

Homan, a former acting director of ICE and a Fox News analyst, said on Fox News Thursday that agents are arresting people in sanctuary cities where local officials do not allow agents to arrest immigrants in jails after police arrest them for alleged crimes. .

Many local officials say they cannot keep a civil immigration violator in jail if a judge has ordered the person released on bail in a criminal case. Some have expressed frustration that ICE is targeting low-level criminals, making the broader community afraid to report crimes to police.

Trump officials have called for the withdrawal of federal funding for these cities and threatened to prosecute any official who impedes the work of immigration officers.

“Sanctuary cities make it less efficient and more dangerous, but it won’t stop us,” Homan said. “We are hitting every sanctuary city right now.”

Newark Mayor Ras A. Baraka said Thursday that ICE raided a local business, detaining undocumented residents and U.S. citizens “without producing a warrant.”

“One of those detained is a US Army veteran who suffered the humiliation of having his military documentation questioned,” the mayor said in a statement. He said federal agents violated veterans’ rights. “Newark will not stand idly by while people are unlawfully terrorized,” Baraka added.

ICE declined to provide detailed answers about the allegations, saying the investigation is ongoing.

But spokesman Jeff Carter said in an email that agents “may encounter U.S. citizens while conducting field work and may request identification in order to determine an individual’s identity,” which occurred in Newark.

ICE has arrested immigrants, especially criminals, across administrations, and the Biden administration has bragged about aggressively pursuing serious criminals. Just days before President Joe Biden left office, ICE announced that it had arrested 33 criminal foreign nationals in December as part of a week-long operation, also in Newark.

As of July 21, ICE was tracking nearly 650,000 undocumented immigrants with criminal records who had been released into the United States, although only 425,000 had criminal convictions. The others were awaiting trial.

Many of them are serving criminal sentences in state prisons or jails, while others are petty criminals who have been spared expulsion under the Biden administration. Trump said any of the estimated 11 million immigrants in the United States illegally could be deported.

The enormous psychological effect of this week’s ICE operation appears to have created the fervor Trump was looking for. In Boston, a Fox News crew broadcast live as ICE officers knocked on doors, and in cities where several arrests resulted from the operation, immigrant advocacy groups and Democratic officials condemned the “raids.”

Raids across the United States have had a chilling effect on immigrant communities in Boston, Maryland and New Jersey, disturbing people at schools, shopping malls and food banks.

In the D.C. area, the volunteer group Migrant Solidarity Mutual Aid Network launched a hotline on Monday for residents to call if they believe they see ICE officers in public places. The group has not confirmed any large-scale raids or enforcement actions this week, but the phones are still ringing, said Amy Fischer, one of the group’s organizers.

“It’s really clear that people are just terrified,” Fischer said. “It seems like people are calling every time there is an unmarked police car or what appears to be a police car.[…]It describes the general moment or atmosphere in which we live.”

Authorities in Montgomery County, Maryland, said ICE agents arrested an immigrant in Gaithersburg on Thursday for a crime. ICE did not immediately respond to a request for information about the arrest, but it raised fears of a broader immigration crackdown at a local mall and high school. Similar rumors have been circulating throughout the county since Trump took office.

Earl Stoddard, deputy chief administrative officer for Montgomery County, said some residents have confused local law enforcement with ICE agents, reflecting residents’ concerns that their neighborhood could be the agency’s next target.

“It’s happened every day this week,” Stoddard said Thursday. “People are calling worried about ICE. That was the first time it was real.”

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