Federal law enforcement, along with two top Trump administration officials in Chicago, launched a “targeted” immigration blitz Sunday, according to a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The agency did not say how many arrests have been made so far.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, along with federal partners including the FBI, ATF, DEA, CBP and the U.S. Marshals Service, met in Chicago today to enforce U.S. immigration law and preserve public safety and national security. Began to conduct targeted targeted operations. (Criminals) out of our communities,” Ice spokesman Jeff Carter said in a statement to the Tribune.
The Drug Enforcement Administration’s Chicago Field Office confirmed the operation, posting a photo of Acting Deputy Attorneys General Emil Bove and Tom Homan, Donald Trump’s “Border Czar,” meeting with federal agents this morning.
Homan has repeatedly declared Chicago ground zero for mass deportations. Bowe, one of President Donald Trump’s former criminal defense attorneys, has argued for prosecuting state and local officials who do not cooperate with immigration enforcement activities.
In the photo posted on social media, Homan, wearing a camouflage baseball cap, stands in the snow as he speaks with DEA agents.
According to ICE, federal authorities made more than 1,400 arrests since Thursday as part of the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration. The agency did not answer questions about how many of those arrests occurred in Chicago, though it touted the arrest of an alleged immigrant with two DUIs on its social media accounts.
According to the spokesperson, in keeping with city law, the Chicago Police Department did not participate in the operation.
Also on Sunday, Gov. JB Pritzker appeared on CNN’s “State of the Union” program and reiterated that he agrees violent criminals who are undocumented should be deported.
“Now, what they’re also doing, though, and this is quite disturbing, is they’re going after people who are law-abiding who are holding down jobs, who have families here, who are a They may be here for decades, and they are often our neighbors and our friends. And why are we going after them? These are not the people who are creating problems in our country,” he said.
During the show Pritzker also dismissed concerns raised by reports earlier this week that Justice Department officials would try to prosecute state and local officials who do not cooperate with immigration enforcement activities. The memo, written by Bove, directs the Justice Department’s civil division to work with a new sanctuary cities enforcement working group to potentially challenge state and local laws and policies that impede the Trump administration’s immigration efforts. Threaten to do so.
“Of course, we all know they are just putting it out because they want to threaten everyone. They want people to kick back and let them do whatever they want. “So we’re going to do, you know, what we need to do, but we also have a law on the books in Illinois that says our local law enforcement can arrest those law-abiding undocumented people in our state. So we’re doing the right thing, and we’re not going to help federal officers pull them over just because somebody pointed at them and said, ‘Oh, that guy’s not from here. It is investigated – Investigate. Maybe they’re undecided,” he said.
Pritzker reiterated that local law enforcement “will not coordinate with federal authorities on arrests of people when they do not have a judicial warrant.
“Our local officials are not just going to say, ‘Okay, that person looks like they’re undocumented, so we’re going to turn them over to you, and you can figure it out,'” he said.