ICE Sets Target Of Raiding Three Cities A Week And Detaining Up to 1,500 Migrants a Day

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been reportedly directed to increase immigration arrests, targeting three cities per week and aiming to detain between 1,200 and 1,500 individuals a day.

So far this week, operations have focused arrests in Chicago, in an operation that began Sunday, and New York City, where arrests began Tuesday. The efforts were set to continue Thursday in Aurora, a Colorado city that made headlines during the campaign trail when Donald Trump said the city had been "infected by Venezuela," but the operation was cancelled after details of the operation made the news.

The initiative reflects President Donald Trump's push to accelerate the pace of the deportation operation, with ICE field offices nationwide instructed to increase arrests, according to NBC News. One source told the outlet that the1,200-1,500 detainee quota is meant as motivation, while another said that agents may be penalized for not meeting it. An ICE official speaking anonymously to The Washington Post said the agency's existing list of criminal suspects was long enough to prioritize public safety threats while meeting quotas.

Tom Homan, Trump's White House "border czar," has repeatedly denied that ICE is conducting mass roundups, emphasizing that efforts are focused on criminals and gang members.

"It seems ICE is concerned with publishing quantity and not quality as they have been detaining people who already have a hearing scheduled in the near future without any criminal history and have not shown that they will not appear for their hearings," said immigration lawyer and professor of Practice at the University of Houston Law Center Rehan Alimohammad to The Latin Times. "This will probably continue to overload the detention and Immigration judges who handle detention hearings until there is a breaking point."

Since ICE has about 5,500 officers nationwide working on immigration enforcement, a staffing level that has remained roughly flat for the past decade, the administration has reassigned personnel from the FBI, U.S. Marshals, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

"Sudden increases in ICE enforcement without coordination stretch our resources further, making it harder to keep communities safe and ensure due process for those affected," warned Janelle Kellman, former Mayor of Sausalito and candidate for California Lieutenant Governor in an interview with The Latin Times.