Trump’s immigration crackdown expands to New York City...WaPo
Molly Molloy
Trump’s immigration crackdown expands to New York City
In a show of force aimed at quickly increasing arrests and generating publicity, the administration targeted the nation’s largest city, where sanctuary policies limit official cooperation with ICE.
NEW YORK — President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown and effort to deport massive numbers of people hit the nation’s largest city early Tuesday, as immigration officers and federal agents fanned out across a city where 1 in 3 residents were born in another country.
Twenty teams of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers — along with newly detailed FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration agents and U.S. Marshals — began knocking on doors and making arrests in a city where “sanctuary” policies limit official cooperation with ICE. The New York field office typically has five teams available for street-level operations, officials said.
Newly confirmed Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem joined one of the teams and documented an arrest they made in a social media post. Usually such operations are not publicized by ICE officials until they conclude out of concern for officer safety.
“Just now. Enforcement operation in NYC. Criminal alien with kidnapping, assault & burglary charges now in custody,” she wrote on X, including a video. “Dirtbags like this will continue to be removed from our streets.”
The NYPD did not participate in what ICE characterized as an expansion of its “targeted enforcement” campaign with the help of multiple federal agencies. ICE officials said they plan to target migrants with criminal records, but they could also arrest immigrants they encounter along the way who do not have proof of legal status. Similar operations started over the weekend in Chicago, according to ICE.
On Tuesday morning, ICE officials said their teams had already arrested one woman and 19 men across New York, including a Yemeni suspect who they say appeared on the FBI’s list of suspected terrorists. Those arrested also included a suspected human rights violator from Myanmar and a Dominican man wanted by Interpol for a homicide outside of the United States. Of the 20 arrested, eight do not have violent criminal records.
ICE invited The Washington Post and other media organizations to observe the New York arrests on the condition that they could not disclose the operation ahead of time.
During President Joe Biden’s term, a record number of migrants crossed the U.S. southern border, and hundreds of thousands headed for New York City, the largest influx since the Ellis Island era. The city provided hotel rooms, dormitories, counseling and other assistance, an approach that made sure families didn’t sleep on the streets but left New York Mayor Eric Adams (D) warning of fiscal crisis.
The city has spent more than $5 billion since 2023 on the migrant influx, according to the most recent estimates from the New York State Comptroller.
Street crimes committed by groups of young migrants became a particular concern, particularly after several teens were filmed punching police officers during a January 2024 melee. Many alleged offenders are from Venezuela, whose government’s strained relations with Washington have severely limited ICE’s ability to deport criminal offenders there.
On Saturday, the Trump administration told senior ICE officials to operate more aggressively, setting a target of 75 arrests per day for each of the agency’s 25 field offices. On Sunday, the following day, ICE made 1,179 arrests, up from 286 on Saturday, according to totals published by the agency.
Such quotas increase the potential that officers face pressure to meet numeric targets and cast a wider net that snags immigrants who do not have criminal records. Tom Homan, the former acting ICE director who Trump has designated White House “border czar,” has said immigrants with criminal records are the administration’s priority.
The administration has cast these efforts as part of Trump’s mass deportation campaign, although officials will not say how many of those arrested since he took office more than a week ago have actually been deported.
The White House and Department of Homeland Security have circulated photos showing military planes transporting deportees. Those flights have primarily carried recent border crossers, rather than immigrants detained in U.S. cities by ICE.
DHS said more than 7,300 deportees have been returned or removed since Trump took office nationwide, “including hundreds of convicted criminals.” The totals include people sent back across the border by U.S. Customs and Border Protection as well as deportees loaded onto ICE flights.
“We have fulfilled President Trump’s promise to the American people,” DHS said.
Patrick “PJ” Lechleitner, who retired as ICE acting director earlier this month, said the nationwide operations launched under Trump are the first time in his career he’s seen so many agents and officers from the Department of Justice assigned to help ICE. Seeing FBI agents tasked with civil immigration enforcement duties is “unprecedented,” he said.
“There is a cost to that, because they’re not pursuing criminal investigations,” Lechleitner added.
Lechleitner and other former ICE officials say the Trump administration’s arrests are potentially going to outpace ICE detention capacity. The agency has funding to pay for about 40,000 detainees per day, and is already nearing that limit.
Bed space is especially tight in the Northeast and the New York metro area, where critics of ICE have campaigned to close detention facilities.
ICE uses jails in the Newark area and in Orange County, New York, and it has about 1,200 beds available several hours away at a facility in central Pennsylvania. Those facilities are nearly full, according to ICE officials.
“They’re going to have to fly or bus them to places with more capacity,” Lechleitner said.
In Chicago, where ICE launched targeted raids Sunday, schools, businesses and community services in heavily immigrant neighborhoods on the city’s South and West sides have seen a drop in attendance, according to local officials.
At the Pilsen Family Health Center, a clinic serving a predominantly Latino population on the city’s South Side, Medical Director Luis Rivera said there were more no-shows than normal, with patients canceling or skipping appointments they had waited weeks to schedule.
“Between myself and the other doctors scheduled, about a third of the patients didn’t show up or called to reschedule,” he said. Friday afternoon, the clinic saw roughly half of the patients who were scheduled for appointments.
Those who called to reschedule offered vague excuses. Rivera factored in the bitterly cold weather from last week, but said even when it’s raining hard or snowing, cancellations are never so high.
Alderman Brian Hopkins (D), whose 2nd Ward includes parts of downtown, was in the minority of city council members who wanted to reform Chicago’s sanctuary city ordinance to allow Chicago police to work with federal immigration authorities in certain cases.
Any hope of compromise, however, was dashed Sunday when multiple federal agencies, including the DEA, showed up without giving notice to the Chicago Police Department. They brought along TV host Phil McGraw, or “Dr. Phil,” and his crew. Hopkins decried it as a “circus.”
“When the federal government talks about doing some targeted enforcement on people who have been part of organized criminal activity, or who have committed violent crimes, that sounds good,” Hopkins said. “On Sunday, that’s not what they did.”
Hopkins said the scene was confusing, unprofessional and felt like a stunt with the Dr. Phil team in the mix — something that will only antagonize Trump critics in the city and weaken the administration’s credibility with those who are willing to find a way to work together.
“It couldn’t be more counterproductive if they tried. It makes it harder for Democrats who want to address this from a public safety perspective,” Hopkins said. “And I’m afraid that it’s going to get worse.”
Bellware reported from Chicago.