WASHINGTON — When Donald Trump promised the campaign trail to unleash the biggest deportation campaign in US history, he said his second administration will begin with chasing people with criminal history.
But now, disappointed by the pace of arrests, the Trump administration is throwing a wider net by targeting deportable people.
The California raid took place in court at scheduled check-in with immigration authorities, clothing factories, home depots, car washes, farms and outside churches. But authorities say the state is barely selected. Tom Homan, President Trump’s chief advisor on border policy, said attacks have also come in the jurisdictions of other sanctuaries.
“This operation won’t be over,” he told The Times.
Nationwide, US immigration and customs enforcement agencies are demolishing precedents to strengthen new strategies and meet the White House requirements. Homan acknowledges that the pace of deportation does not meet expectations, and the administration still prioritizes eliminating people who threaten public safety and national security, but it’s an illegally fair game for everyone in the country.
“I’m not happy with the numbers,” he said. “We need to find these people.”
The arrests have been made in places previously thought to be off limits, and earlier this year the administration rescinded a policy banning enforcement measures at hospitals, schools or places of worship. Agents, which usually focus on drugs and human trafficking, see their obligations shifting towards immigration enforcement.
The government is also appealing to the public to help find and deport people from within the country without approval. ICE’s parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, released a social media poster this week. This depicts Uncle Sam urging them to call a hotline to “report all foreign invaders.”
And in Los Angeles, the National Guard and the US Marines were mobilized without the consent of state and local leaders. This is a tactic that Trump administration officials said could repeat elsewhere. Trump insisted the deployment was effective — “Los Angeles will be the crime scene we’ve never seen in years,” Trump said Thursday, but local leaders said protests against the ice attack were out of control and Trump’s actions only inflamed.
As protests reached day 7 in Los Angeles, incidents of isolated violence reduced, but some tension remained. Still, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller wrote on X on Wednesday that “America has voted for a massive deportation. The violent rebels and politicians who enable them are trying to overthrow the election results.”
California Democrats say the enforcement action on policies protecting immigrant residents is an attempt to divert people from attempts to pass the president’s tax and spending bill, adding more than $150 billion to immigration and border enforcement. They say that the president is testing the boundaries of his authority and wants to protest the Spiral, so he is making further crackdowns by calling the Rebellion Act to establish martial law.
Calling the Riot Act allows the military to arrest civilians.
“This is what if it bleeds, that’s what you’re going to lead,” said Rep. Sydney Kamlager Dove (D-Los Angeles). “So he created violence and allowed shows to be held on television. But others – people with disabilities, young people, bleeding when people are kicked out of their homes when Medicaid is cut.”
While public attention is focused on employee arrests, the administration says it is also looking at employers who illegally hire domestic workers.
“It’s not just about arresting illegal aliens, it’s about holding employers liable, but it’s a burden of evidence,” Homan said. “If we can prove that, we’ll take action.”
One former homeland security official in the Biden administration said immigration laws could be enacted without escalating public tensions. “Why aren’t they doing it? [more] Not just I-9 audits? “Deborah Flyshaker, a former employee of the form used to verify employee identity and eligibility to work in the US, said, “There’s less of this, there’s a way to do this, and there’s a way to do this in a gentle way. They’re choosing a more aggressive way.”
In many ways, the current immigration crackdown reflects exactly what Trump said during the presidential election, where he declared millions of people would be deported.
The new, vast approach appears to be in response to the late May meeting, first reported by Washington examiners. Miller slammed dozens of senior ICE staff members and said, “Why aren’t they at Home Depot?
“Well, now they’re all of a sudden at Home Depot,” Flyshaker said.
Homan said the agency recently arrested about 2,000 people a day, from the average daily arrests of 657 arrests reported by the agency during Trump’s first 100-day inauguration. According to TRAC, a non-partisan data research agency, the increase is reflected in the rise in detention numbers, exceeding 50,000 for the first time since Trump’s first presidency.
Asked about complaints about overcrowding and substandard circumstances at detention facilities, Homan admitted that some facilities were overcrowded during the ingestion. Some of the immigrants who were detained in California since Friday have been moved to other states, he said.
“California is pretty strict and we want to close immigrant detention,” he said. “It doesn’t mean we’re releasing these people. The less detention space we have in California, the more action we’ll take to prevent us from helping us in detention beds.
The work of an immigration agent – sometimes several hours of surveillance for one person – can be slow. Jason Hauser, Ice Chief of Staff under the Biden administration, said that when law enforcement is assigned, he always finds the easiest way to meet them.
Miller said by the end of the year, Ice “doesn’t have enough resources or staff to lead them to a million removals.”
Hauser said that was where the troops came in. Homeland Security authorities said military personnel already have the authority to temporarily detain anyone attacking immigration agents until law enforcement can arrest them. Houser predicted that soldiers could soon begin handling arrests.
Critics of the administration’s tactics, including former homeland security officials, said the White House strategy would be summarised to make immigrants scared to leave themselves. Detaining immigrants costs several hundred dollars a day. Deportation costs thousands, and some countries are silent to accept citizens’ return.
“They arrest one and scare 10 people,” said a former senior ICE official. “It’s a victory.”
Previous officials asked not to name them to speak freely, but said that was on the side of the Biden administration, during which the agents answered precedents with lawyers.
“Everything was examined and examined… in some way the agency caused damage,” the former official said. “But to see them doing whatever they want when they want, it’s a bit surprising and look at everything we can do if we have that attitude. But they don’t seem to respect much of the outcome, the lawsuit, the media, and public opinion — they have no restrictions.”
Homan said the protests in Los Angeles made enforcement measures even more dangerous, but did not prevent agents from making as many arrests as planned.
“If the protesters think we’re going to stop us from doing our work, that’s not true,” he said. “We are probably going to increase operations in sanctuary cities.
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