ICE planning to ramp up arrests in major U.S. cities after Trump takes office

Table of Contents

Starting next week, after President-elect Donald Trump becomes President, federal immigration officials will step up their actions across major American cities, focusing on "sanctuary" areas that restrict cooperation with federal immigration authorities.

Locations expected to be targeted by deportation teams from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement include areas with significant immigrant populations, such as the Chicago area, according to one source.

He stated, "There's going to be a huge operation nationwide."

Promise to initiate a comprehensive crackdown on undocumented immigration shortly after taking office, promising to lead the largest deportation campaign in U.S. history.

The incoming administration is expected to quickly roll back the Biden administration's rules that restrict which individuals ICE agents should prioritize for arrest and deportation, making most people in the US without proper immigration documents subject to detention and removal from the country. The Biden-era rules generally limited ICE enforcement to serious offenders, recent border-crossers and national security threats, essentially protecting long-term undocumented immigrants with clean records from deportation.

To restart large-scale immigration arrests at worksites that employ workers who are in the country without permission, a practice that was stopped by the Biden administration.

Although Homan mentioned that the incoming administration will still prioritize arresting unauthorized immigrants with a criminal record, he emphasized that no one who is in the country illegally will be completely exempt from immigration enforcement. Homan stated that if ICE agents encounter unauthorized immigrants who are not criminals while conducting operations, they may still be arrested in what are known as "collateral arrests."