A nationwide immigration crackdown on Sunday resulted in the arrest of 956 people, the most since Donald Trump returned to power, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Several federal agencies with newly expanded detention powers were involved in the raids in many cities including Chicago, Newark and Miami.
Trump came to power after making mass deportations of undocumented immigrants a central campaign promise.
His predecessor Joe Biden carried out an average of 311 immigration deportations daily, according to ICE, mostly individuals who had committed crimes.
Since taking office, Trump has carried out 21 executive actions to overhaul the US immigration system.
Tom Homan, Trump’s border czar, was in Chicago to oversee the operation there but his federal crackdown has made Democratic leaders unhappy.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson acknowledged the ICE enforcement activity, saying Chicago police were not involved and reminding residents to know their rights.
In Miami on Sunday, federal law enforcement agencies conducted several “immigration enforcement actions,” the city’s Homeland Security Investigation said on social media.
This included ICE’s local office in Miami detaining undocumented migrants on various offences.
An unnamed man told CBS News, the BBC’s US news partner, that ICE took his wife during the Miami raids this weekend.
“It’s despicable what they’re doing right now,” he told CBS. “It’s very embarrassing.”
He said his wife was in the process of getting citizenship when ICE arrived: “They just came and they snatched her.”
Last week, Newark Mayor Ras Barka said undocumented residents and citizens – including one military veteran – were detained without a warrant during an ICE raid of a local business.
“Newark will not stand by idly while people are being unlawfully terrorised,” Baraka said.
Immigration advocates have warned that during ICE raids other people, including citizens, could get caught in the crossfire.
Meanwhile, Homan has repeatedly said that undocumented people caught up in raids of criminals who are without documentation will be deported too.
On Sunday, in an interview with ABC News, Homan said he expected arrest and deportation numbers to “steadily increase,” and said the focus right now was “public safety threats, national security threats”.
The 956 reported arrests on Sunday follow 286 arrests on Saturday, 593 arrests on Friday and 538 arrests on Thursday.
During Joe Biden’s four years in office, he carried out 1.5 million deportations, according to figures by the Migration Policy Institute. Those numbers mirror the deportation numbers in Trump’s first term.
Source : BBC
