In an interview with CBS’s “Face the Nation” broadcast on the 20th, Todd Lyons, acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), said that immigration agents will arrest anyone who is illegally in the United States, even if they have no criminal record. Lyons said that ICE is now targeting companies and businesses that employ undocumented workers to conduct investigations.
Lyons said that due to limited resources, ICE currently prioritizes arresting and deporting “the worst of the worst” undocumented immigrants, such as those who entered the United States illegally and have a felony record, but illegal residents in the United States without a criminal record will also be detained in the sweep.
Exposing the reasons for the increase in collateral arrests
He said that some states and cities do not cooperate with ICE based on sanctuary policies, and immigration agents are forced to go directly into communities that are unwilling to hand over non-immigrant criminals to arrest people.
Lyons said that if local law enforcement agencies can arrest targets that pose a threat to public safety, ICE can use limited resources to detain undocumented immigrants who have already been arrested, “which is discouraging to me.”
He said that because local law enforcement agencies are unwilling to cooperate, “we have to go out into the community to make arrests ourselves, which is why we see more collateral arrests.”
Collateral arrests refer to people who were not originally targeted by the arrest operation, but were arrested at the same time because of illegal residence during the sweep. Former President Biden stipulated that ICE could not make collateral arrests during his tenure, and President Trump abolished the Biden administration’s prohibition on collateral arrests after he returned to power in January this year.
Expected to deport 1 million people a year
Lyons said that after ICE receives more funding, it is possible to reach the Trump administration’s goal of deporting 1 million undocumented immigrants a year.
Congress just provided ICE with 45 billion yuan to strengthen detention facilities and allocated 30 billion yuan to expand deportation operations. Lyons said that due to the loss of manpower in the past four years, the funds will mainly be used to expand the establishment of front-line personnel, and it is expected to hire 10,000 more people.
Nearly 150,000 deportations in the first half of the year
The report pointed out that according to internal government data, during the first six months of Trump’s presidency, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency completed nearly 150,000 deportation cases; between January 1 and June 24, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency deported about 70,000 undocumented immigrants with criminal records, but many of them violated immigration laws or traffic violations.
Lyons said in an interview that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency will continue to carry out immigration sweeps at workplaces. He said that agents will search employers who employ undocumented workers with criminal warrants. He said that such investigations usually catch forced labor or child trafficking.
