NBC exclusively reported on the 4th that the latest wave of large-scale sweeps by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) highlights that the Trump administration’s federal law enforcement operations have shifted to focus on immigration. Other agencies have sent personnel to support the ICE, and the Department of Justice has also become a team that targets immigrants. Immigration-related cases have become a priority for the federal government. Immigration status is now the first consideration for federal prosecutors to prosecute.
Sources revealed that White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller was dissatisfied with the low number of arrests and deportations of undocumented immigrants in mid-May. During a meeting, he threatened to fire senior ICE officials if the number of arrests per day did not reach 3,000. Miller said that if the number of arrests per month in local ICE branches ranks in the bottom 10% of the national statistical rankings, the responsible officials will also be fired.
The report pointed out that a few weeks after Miller’s outburst, the ICE launched the largest immigration sweep operation so far under the Trump administration. Operation At Large is a nationwide operation led by ICE to expand the arrest of undocumented immigrants. 5,000 personnel from various federal agencies and 21,000 National Guardsmen are involved in the mission.
Law enforcement officials and military chiefs said that the large number of manpower dispatched from other law enforcement agencies to support immigration sweeps has caused resource shortages in cooperating agencies and squeezed out the core task of maintaining national security.
The report pointed out that this is another example of President Trump’s implementation of a large-scale deportation plan to reposition federal law enforcement agencies. Officials have turned various resources to immigration-related cases, including non-violent violations, and the time and attention used to investigate other crimes have been reduced.
Operation At Large has 3,000 ICE agents involved in the mission, of which 1,800 were originally responsible for transnational crime cases of the Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) of the Department of Homeland Security. Their daily work does not include arresting undocumented immigrants who commit non-violent crimes.
2,000 Justice Department personnel participated in the “full-scale operation”, including those from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the US Marshals Service, and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). 500 people from the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) joined the operation.
250 agents from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) also participated in the “full-scale operation”, including using immigrant tax return information for investigation.
The Department of Homeland Security requested 21,000 National Guard support, but sources said that the Department of Defense and the governors of the relevant states have not confirmed the number of National Guard support.
A senior FBI official and current and former federal prosecutors pointed out that cases not related to immigration are now being slowed down or stopped. A federal assistant prosecutor said that immigration status is now the first consideration for prosecutors to decide whether to prosecute, and the key points include whether the person is a legal immigrant or an illegal immigrant, whether he has US citizenship, and whether he can be sent for deportation.
