Immigration raids federal agents told to be camera ready as thousands arrested
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detain a suspect in Lyons, Illinois, on Sunday during a multi-agency enforcement operation. President Trump has vowed to ultimately deport all undocumented migrants living in the country. Christopher Dilts/Bloomberg/Getty ImagesCNN —
The immigration sweeps by the Trump administration, which netted over 2,000 arrests in two days and have chilled many immigrant communities, were followed by another blitz: A barrage of video and photos from the federal government showing agents in tactical gear and vests emblazoned with “Police ICE” and “Homeland Security” taking cuffed suspects away.
The made-for-TV look of the arrests is not a coincidence.
At least two of the agencies assisting US immigration officials in the sweeps ordered by the fledgling Republican White House have told personnel to wear clothing clearly depicting their respective agency in case they are filmed by journalists, according to sources familiar with the operations.
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While it is common for agents making arrests to display insignias identifying themselves as law enforcement, sources said even agents who stand on the periphery of operations conducted from coast to coast have been instructed by their leadership to wear raid jackets in view of media attention.
On Sunday, federal agencies published numerous photos on social media of agents in tactical gear making purported immigration arrests.
TV talk show host Dr. Phil McGraw announced on social media he was “embedded” with an Immigration and Customs Enforcement team in Chicago as operations began. McGraw released video showing him interviewing the Trump administration’s new “border czar,” Tom Homan, at what was described as an ICE command center.
Inviting a celebrity guest to the Chicago operations frustrated Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, a Democrat, who told CNN’s Jim Acosta his office has not received any notice about the arrests despite working with federal law enforcement in the past.
“I think it’s done for the show, and I think it’s done to upset community and to score political points with those who want to divide,” said Raoul.
Democratic US Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois said his offices would help anyone who was improperly arrested. “We can all agree we that must remove dangerous individuals who are here illegally,” Durbin wrote in a post on X. “But the actions being taken by the Trump admin go beyond those goals.”
Aside from Chicago, Immigration and Customs Enforcement immigration actions were reported in California, Texas, Georgia, Colorado, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands, according to Homeland Security and the Drug Enforcement Administration.
“We’re prioritizing criminal aliens,” Homan told CNN Sunday, but added, “There’s going to be a point where we have to open the aperture to fugitives.”
Arrests reported at homes and a church
Arrests of undocumented immigrants, both those with no criminal record, have been reported across the country.
Jennifer Jimenez said her cousin, detained by federal agents last week in Newark, New Jersey, was not in the country “to create any harm”- he just wanted to provide for his family.
Federal agents took multiple into custody on Thursday, according to what ICE called “a targeted enforcement operation.” Jimenez described the agents’ coming into the business where her cousin worked, asking for his identification, before they whisked him away to a detention center.
The agents “raided” the local business and detained “undocumented residents as well as citizens, without producing a warrant,” Newark Mayor Ras Baraka said in a statement at the time.
Jimenez said her cousin came to the United States to take care of his family and pay medical bills. His younger sister died of cancer and left behind a young daughter whom he was raising, Jimenez said.
Federal agents “don’t know the reason that they’re coming here,” Jimenez said of immigrants. “It’s not for them to create any harm. It’s for them to prosper, to keep their family alive.”
The enforcement action was a response to a tip reporting unauthorized workers at a place of business, a law enforcement source briefed on the investigation in Newark told CNN.
A suburban Chicago woman said her father — a native of Mexico — had been living in the Unites States for nearly 30 years when he was arrested Sunday after agents knocked on his door.
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Luis Ortiz was mid-sermon when he witnessed the man being escorted out by other congregants. He was told ICE agents did not enter the building but asked for the man by name.
“When you go to a home where you’ve identified one of your primary target lives, oftentimes you find they’re not the only undocumented immigrant living in the home. They might have family members that are undocumented,” Sandweg said.
“In the Biden administration or Obama administration, you don’t take those people into custody unless they also pose a threat to public safety,” Sandweg said. “Under the Trump administration, they’ve been very open about arresting everybody in the house. That does drive up the number of arrests.”
In the Atlanta area, the DeKalb County School District sent a note to school families assuring them the district will not voluntarily grant immigration agents access to their schools.
“As with any unauthorized visitor, entrance beyond the main office and access to students or their information is prohibited without a court order or exigent circumstances,” wrote Superintendent Devon Horton.
A coalition of Quaker groups filed a lawsuit in Maryland on Monday to block the Department of Homeland Security from implementing its new policy of allowing immigration enforcement near places of worship.
The lawsuit asks the court to declare unconstitutional the newly devised policy by the Trump administration of conducting immigration enforcement near or at houses of worship, at the “common sense” of an individual agent. Religious exercise is characterized as an essential service; hindering congregants from attending services creates “a substantial burden on plaintiff’s own rights.”.
Nationwide, 1,179 people were arrested Monday and 853 immigration detainers were lodged, ICE said in a post on X. That follows 956 people being arrested and 554 detainers lodged Sunday, ICE said in a post on X, the highest numbers since the agency started reporting them on the platform.
ICE will continue “enhanced operations” across the Southeast about two to three times a week, according to a source with knowledge of the operations. They will involve the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, with the agencies given authority to apprehend immigrants.
ICE is casting a wide net but its principal target is Tren de Aragua, a transnational criminal gang founded in a Venezuelan prison, said the source.
Not all communities with large immigrant communities appear to be concerned by the sweeps.
“Most of my constituents are fine. My constituents are here legally,” said US Rep. Carlos Giménez, a Republican who represents a portion of Miami-Dade County, Florida. Trump defeated Kamala Harris in that county, with its large Cuban population, by more than 125,000 votes in 2024.
“That’s what President Trump ran on, and he is complying with his promises,” Giménez told CNN’s Pamela Brown.
Investigation against ‘sanctuary’ cities
Chicago and several other so-called “sanctuary cities” are also the subject of a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee investigation announced Monday.
House Committee Chairman James Comer, a Republican from Kentucky, sent letters to the mayors of Boston, Chicago, Denver and New York and requested documents and information related to those cities’ policies. Sanctuary jurisdiction is a term broadly applied to cities that have policies to limit cooperation with or involvement in federal immigration enforcement actions.
A spokesperson for the city of Boston had this to say in response to the investigation: “We are proud that Boston is the safest major city in the United States. We have received the letter and are reviewing it.”
The most helpful thing Congressional Republicans could do right now is to fix our broken immigration system. While they work on that, we’ll focus on running the cities managing the consequences of their failure to act,” said Denver Mayor Mike Johnston in a statement.
And a spokesperson for New York Mayor Eric Adams told CNN he “has made clear that New York City is committed to working with our federal partners to fix our broken immigration system and focus on the small number of people who are entering our localities and committing violent crimes. We will review the letter and respond accordingly.”
CNN has reached out to the office of Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson.
ICE agents are “actually very good” at identifying people when they are booked into jail and putting a detainer on them, Sanweg explained.
But sometimes people get out,” he said. “And then, to be fair – with some of the administration’s rhetoric in a sanctuary city – they are less likely to give ICE agents access to the jails. So that increases the number of targets out on the street … that’s the primary tactic for the targeting piece of this.
It adds that several city police departments have denounced their policies of not participating in federal immigration raids since the Trump administration launched its immigration crackdown.
The Chicago Police Department said in a statement to CNN it does not document immigration status, and in accordance with its “Welcoming City Ordinance,” “does not share information with federal immigration authorities.”
In San Jose, California, “we do not have our local police officers engaged in the enforcement actions that are primarily related to somebody’s status or enforcing an immigration law,” Mayor Matt Mahan told CNN’s Erin Burnett on Monday.
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And in Sunnyside, a city in central Washington where city manager Mike Gonzalez said the vast majority of residents are Latino, local police and authorities will not participate in federal immigration efforts, he said after several arrests were reported there.
But in Nassau County- a New York suburb on Long Island that has become home to many migrants-local law enforcement have said they’re ready and willing to help federal immigration efforts.
“Nassau County Police and Sheriff Departments are fully cooperating with ICE and other federal agencies to round up illegal migrants starting with the worst first,” Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, a Republican, told CNN in a statement Monday.
ICE leaders determined to increase arrests
Teams around the country have been given different quotas for the number of so-called “high-profile” immigration sweeps they should conduct each month, according to one source, with the goal of besting the number of administrative arrests that Immigration and Customs Enforcement made last year.
ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations made 113,431 administrative arrests in the fiscal year that ended October 2024, the agency reports. That’s about 310 arrests a day.
Homan denied he had imposed an arrest quota on ICE officers.
“My goal is to arrest as many public safety and national security threats as possible and move on to the other priorities,” told CNN.
Whether there is a firm arrest quota or not, Sandweg said he’s concerned the pressure to rack up large arrest numbers could result in heavy-handed tactics.
“What I’m very interested to see is in the next few weeks as these target lists get exhausted — as they just run out of the easy pickings of the people connected to the criminal justice system — what operational tactics are they going to utilize that feed the machinery that the Trump administration has built?” he said.
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and other federal officers attend a pre-enforcement meeting in Chicago on Sunday. The operation represents the fulfillment of President Donald Trump’s promise of doing the biggest deportation in US history. Christopher Dilts/Bloomberg/Getty ImagesAbout 11 million undocumented immigrants live in the United States, the Pew Research Center’s latest estimates indicate.
Federal law enforcement agencies have been instructed to prioritize deporting a wide swath of criminal suspects under investigation who may be “out of status,” a law enforcement source familiar with the latest operations tells CNN. Someone who is out of status may have entered the United States legally but has violated the terms of their visa or other immigration requirements.
If a suspect being investigated by agencies such as the FBI, ATF or DEA is in the country unlawfully, and an indictment for non-immigration criminal offenses investigated by those agencies is not likely in the near term, the source said, investigators have been told to consider “just getting them out.”
The new posture is notable because crimes investigated by federal law enforcement agencies can take weeks or even several months to prove and prosecute. However, under the new guidance from Trump administration officials, agencies have been told to opt for deportation of undocumented suspects if a criminal indictment does not appear on the horizon.
Before Trump took office, his transition officials were querying law enforcement about how many of their investigations involved non-US citizens, the source said.
