As of Tuesday night, most of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids that were supposed to target significant sanctuary communities right after President Donald Trump’s inauguration had not happened.
However, the administration started laying the foundation for additional immigration measures when Trump issued a number of executive orders pertaining to border security on his first day in office.
The Department of Homeland Security announced on Tuesday that it was discontinuing a regulation that limited the authority of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to make unauthorized arrests at or close to “sensitive locations,” such as hospitals, schools, and places of worship.
NBC News reported in December that the Trump administration will remove the limitation, which has been in effect since the Obama era. This step comes after then. The Biden administration extended it to cover topics including disaster relief shelters and domestic abuse, and it was carried on into the first Trump administration. In the sake of public safety, the restriction prohibited immigration actions from these locations without supervisory authority.
America’s churches and schools will no longer be places for criminals to hide in order to evade capture. The DHS statement announcing the decision on Tuesday stated that the Trump Administration trusts our courageous law officers to exercise common sense and will not tie their hands.
It remains to be seen if and how that will manifest itself in large sanctuary cities such as Chicago.
According to Rev. Beth Brown of Chicago’s Lincoln Park Presbyterian Church, there is a lot of rhetoric intended to frighten and intimidate people, particularly immigrants. They still cannot enter church buildings or religious community structures without a certified judicial warrant because they are all houses of worship, not just churches.
The Remain in Mexico policy, also known as the Migrant Protection Protocols, which required asylum seekers to remain in Mexico until their scheduled appearance before an immigration judge in the United States, was formally revived by the Department of Homeland Security.
According to Mexican Foreign Minister Juan Ramón de la Fuente, the United States unilaterally decided to revive Remain in Mexico and did so outside of a bilateral agreement.
On Tuesday, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum informed reporters that Mexico has its own immigration laws and will continue to discuss them with U.S. officials.
Will there be ICE raids?
Trump’s border czarOn Tuesday, Tom Homan told Fox that targeted enforcement action would be taken, akin to what ICE currently does every day across the nation. Homan was asked by NBC News how these operations might vary.
Homan stated, “We have more people assigned to the mission.” He refused to disclose the number of individuals allocated.
Where could they be?
Although the Trump administration has not disclosed the location of the initial raids, officials with knowledge of potential targets have stated that they will initially detain migrants in large cities. The D.C. area, Denver, Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York are a few of the places that are being considered.
What s next for Trump s promises of mass deportation?
To carry out his pledges to carry out mass deportations, Trump will probably need to obtain additional financing from Congress. In his inaugural speech, he promised to send millions of immigrants back to their countries of origin. However, ICE currently lacks $230 million to support the present volume of deportations, which last year resulted in the removal of nearly 230,000 migrants.
In his first executive orders, Trump proclaimed a national emergency and directed the military to assist in transferring migrants and expanding jail capacity so that Department of Defense funds could be used for deportations.