The US immigration and customs enforcement (ICE) will carry out large-scale arrests of undocumented immigrants nationwide starting Tuesday, according to Tom Homan, a top border official in the incoming administration of US President-elect Donald Trump. The move aligns with Trump‘s campaign promise to deport millions of undocumented immigrants from the United States.
Homan, who previously served as the acting director of ICE and oversaw a policy that separated migrant parents and children at the border during the first Trump administration, told Fox News, “There’s going to be a big raid across the country. Chicago is just one of many places.”
“On Tuesday, ICE is finally going to go out and do their job. We’re going to take the handcuffs off ICE and let them go arrest criminal aliens,” he added.
Homan stressed that while the focus will initially be on “public safety threats,” no one is exempt from deportation if they are in the country illegally.
“What we’re telling ICE, you’re going to enforce the immigration law without apology. You’re going to concentrate on the worst first, public safety threats first, but no one is off the table. If they’re in the country illegally, they got a problem,” he said.
Reports from the Wall Street Journal and other US outlets suggest that the “large-scale immigration raid” in Chicago is expected to commence on Tuesday, a day after Trump’s inauguration, and “last all week,” involving 100 to 200 ICE officers.
Don Terry, a Chicago police spokesman, told the New York Times that the department will not “intervene or interfere with any other government agencies performing their duties.” However, he clarified that the department “does not document immigration status” and “will not share information with federal immigration authorities.”
Chicago is one of several Democrat-led US cities that have declared themselves “sanctuaries” for migrants, meaning individuals will not be arrested solely for lacking legal immigrant status.
