(TNND) — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced 969 arrests and 869 detainers in the latest of a series of daily enforcement updates since President Donald Trump took office last week.
Over the six days reported so far, ICE and its partner agencies have made over 4,500 arrests and lodged over 3,500 detainers on immigrants they say are in the country illegally.
Trump campaigned on mass deportations and stricter border controls.
Trump’s “border czar” Tom Homan said they’re prioritizing criminals in the early going, but he said anyone who entered the U.S. without authorization could be taken into custody and sent out of the country.
Homan told ABC News that there have already been “collateral arrests” in sanctuary cities during operations focused on rounding up criminals.
Homan told Fox News that they’ve had a great start, and he called their first week of deportation efforts “unprecedented.”
But Homan said they’re not satisfied with the pace of deportations.
“It’s great. It’s good. But we’re not finished. And we need more deportations, a lot more deportations,” Homan said on Fox News.
ICE has announced arrests of alleged criminals in cities around the country, including Houston, Chicago and Atlanta.
A 19-year-old Salvadoran national and member of the MS-13 foreign terrorist organization was nabbed in Baltimore on weapons charges.
A Bolivian illegal national convicted of driving while intoxicated was arrested in Washington, D.C.
A Honduran illegal immigrant charged with sex crimes, assault and battery, and armed robbery was taken in by ICE agents in Boston.
“Mr. Rodezno will have his day in court, but he stands accused of some horrific crimes,” an ICE official said in a news release about the Boston arrest. “Not only did he repeatedly break U.S. immigration laws, but he apparently presents a substantial threat to the residents of Massachusetts. ICE ERO Boston cannot tolerate illegal criminal threats to our neighborhoods. We will continue our mission to prioritize public safety by arresting and removing the illegal criminal elements from our New England communities.”
ICE is on pace for its highest number of daily arrests on record.
There was an average of 310 daily arrests during the last fiscal year of the Biden administration and 467 the year prior.
There was only one year when daily arrests averaged over 400 during Trump’s first term in office, which came in 2018.
Sheriff Kieran Donahue, the president of the National Sheriffs’ Association, said Monday that he’s “profoundly appreciative that they’re addressing this criminal element” through the ICE arrests.
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Donahue and his fellow sheriffs sounded the alarm in the fall over the dangers they saw stemming from a lack of immigration enforcement.
Trump has signed numerous executive orders dealing with illegal immigration and the border in the week since taking office, declaring a national emergency at the border and reassigning federal law enforcement agents from other tasks to help carry out immigration investigations and operations.
Oklahoma State University politics professor Seth McKee said immigration is the top issue for Trump.
“That is like Priority 1 and 1-A, is the immigration issue,” McKee said last week. “And then how are you going to deport these people?”
McKee said mass deportations present a host of really big challenges, including logistics, resources, costs, and impact on the economy.
“We don’t have the resources and capacity and infrastructure to fulfill that promise. … You’d have to basically bust the piggy bank to make that a reality,” McKee said. “And that’s completely separable from the opinion backlash that would come with mass deportation. So, how close does he try to get to actually following through on such an incredible promise?”
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TNND National Online Writer Austin Denean contributed to this report.
