Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s stepped-up arrests continued Tuesday, with newly sworn-in Homeland Security Sec. Kristi Noem personally taking part in an operation targeting New York City.
The New York operation Tuesday morning was part of a broader pattern of highly publicized ICE arrests starting last week targeting “sanctuary cities” that have passed local policies limiting cooperation with federal deportation efforts. White House border czar Tom Homan has repeatedly said that Donald Trump’s administration will counter sanctuary policies with more aggressive at-large arrests.
“Here in New York City this morning we are getting the dirtbags off these streets,” Noem said while wearing a vest reading “Police” and “ICE,” in a video posted to X.
Tuesday’s arrests in New York included Anderson Zambrano-Pacheco, a purported member of the gang Tren de Aragua who is wanted on kidnapping, burglary and other charges in Colorado, according to The New York Post.
Trump thrust the Venezuelan-born prison gang into the national spotlight during the presidential campaign, describing Aurora, Colo. as a town besieged by criminal gangs composed of unauthorized immigrants. (City officials, including Aurora’s Republican mayor, disputed Trump’s portrayal of the Denver suburb.)
The nationwide enforcement operations that launched last week have targeted other major cities, including Chicago, Los Angles, Miami, the Austin-San Antonio area and Atlanta. ICE has partnered with other law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, to carry out the arrests.
Homan has said that the current round of arrests will target national security threats and people with serious criminal convictions or outstanding charges.
But shortly after taking office, Trump also did away with prosecutorial discretion guidelines that had shielded otherwise law-abiding migrants with ties to the country from deportation under the Biden administration. Homan has repeatedly said that ICE will also arrest any unauthorized immigrants encountered during operations.
The Department of Justice has also made it far harder for migrants in detention to seek legal help. Deportations are enforced by administrative judges in civil proceedings. Unlike in criminal courts, immigrants facing deportation do not have the right to be defended by a lawyer.
Legal aid groups have for decades conducted orientations in detention centers to inform migrants of their rights, with the support of the Justice Department. But last week, DOJ informed legal aid groups that it would no longer fund that work.
Attorneys for the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights, a Washington-based legal nonprofit, entered a detention facility last week to conduct orientations at the organization’s own expense. But they were told the service was no longer allowed, Amica’s executive director, Michael Lukens, said Monday on a call with reporters.
“You’re essentially setting up black sites,” Lukens said. “There is no transparency, no rule of law.”
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Immigration arrests have surged nationwide at a breakneck pace since Trump took office last week, hovering around 1,000 for the last three days in a row, according to tallies posted daily by ICE to its X account.