According to three people involved with the talks, the new Trump administration is thinking of launching a high-profile operation in its early days that would target unauthorized immigrants. According to the persons, the raid may target illegal immigrants at a workplace in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan region.
The three people, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the media about transition discussions, said that the Trump transition team has frequently asked about the resources and logistics that are immediately available to carry out workplace raids in meetings with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials.
A large business is usually the focus of such an operation, which shocks employees during the workday by sending ICE officers in and conducting arrests of those suspected of being in the United States and working without permission, setting them up for potential deportation.
Businesses in the construction, hotel, health care, and agriculture sectors are among the possible workplaces the new administration could target, according to those acquainted with the talks.
They anticipated that the operation would occur in the first few days of Trump’s presidency, possibly as early as Inauguration Day, but they did not think a final decision had been reached on the exact location or timing.
According to the transition officials’ talks regarding workplace raids, the incoming administration is making a lot of arrests and deportations, even if the migrants have done nothing wrong other than enter or work in the country illegally. This suggests that the administration is not just targeting immigrants with criminal records.
A request for comment was not immediately answered by the Trump transition team.
The incoming government has been trying to fulfill one of Trump’s most important campaign pledges, and targeting the D.C. metropolitan area near his inauguration may have the kind of shock and awe effect. Trump promised to conduct the biggest deportation campaign in American history.
However, according to current and former Homeland Security officials, workplace raids can be expensive and logistically challenging. According to a former ICE official who is unfamiliar with planning for the raids the transition team is considering, raiding a workplace requires a large number of personnel and a thorough investigation prior to the raid to ascertain whether there are, in fact, a significant number of people working there illegally.
Following a pattern established by the former President George W. Bush’s administration, the Trump administration conducted workplace raids during his first term. However, rather than executing mass arrests of workers, the administrations of former President Barack Obama and President Joe Biden focused on employers that were breaking labor rules.
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